From Soldiers to Students: The Tests of General Educational Development (GED) as Diplomatic Measurement

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan L. Hutt ◽  
Mitchell L. Stevens

The GI Bill's college-attendance provisions posed an evaluation problem. How would returning veterans, most of whom were without high school diplomas, be judged fit for college? Drawing from a variety of primary source material from the years surrounding the close of World War II, we show how leaders in government, the military, and academia cooperated to produce a measure of college fitness that would deem virtually all veterans fit for college entry. We use this historical moment to develop a novel theoretical insight. Measurement is diplomatic when it facilitates transactions across institutional distinctions while recognizing and honoring those distinctions. This insight has broad utility for students of American political development.

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Coleman

The shifting salience of political parties is a central issue in American political development. From the debates over colonial “parties” to debates over the relevance of realignment theory in the 1980s and 1990s, scholars have attempted to assess the impact of political parties on political development. One topic that has provoked particularly extensive debate is the status of parties since World War II. Scholars point to confidence gaps, realignment, and institutional displacement, among other factors, to explain the postwar decline of political parties. But there are problems: Analytical frameworks explaining decline cannot account for recent signs of party resurgence; frameworks explaining resurgence typically account for little of the decline. Those focused on one aspect of the party system (e.g., parties in Congress) rarely offer insights on other aspects (e.g., parties in the electorate). What is needed is an approach that places parties within their structural settings. If these settings change, parties may change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-88
Author(s):  
I. E. Ibragimov

The article analyzes the role of the Egyptian military-political elite on the eve of the Revolution of 1952, when the military came to power, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. The study of the history and activities of the organization «Free Officers» is hardly possible without considering the evolution of the national-patriotic and political movements in the Egyptian army. During the second quarter of the 20 th century the Egyptian society experienced fairly turbulent and eventful political process that influenced the further development of the country. At present the study of role of army in liberation movement in the Middle East is extremely urgent since military structures have become the base of the state system of many Arabic countries. The army has sufficiently influenced to the political development of the states. In connection with the recent transformations in the Middle East, that witnessed crises of political systems and statehood, the consideration of military elites, their coming to power and impact on a political system is important for the study of the general issues of the Middle East.The author considers the factors which influenced the evolutionary transformation of the Egyptian military before and after the World War II, as well as the social origins of the officer corps. Moreover, the object of the study includes the entire period of the national liberation movement of the Egyptian people, when almost all segments of Egyptian society were involved in this struggle. An important aspect of this trend is that, in the run-up to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the officers and the military elite became a more prepared and organized than other groups and was able to quickly and almost bloodlessly take power into their own hands.The article notes that it is impossible to solve urgent social problems and overcome economic backwardness without centralized strong leadership. While forming the Egyptian statehood and the Kingdom of Egypt, there were three centers of power – Wafd party led by Saad Zaghloul, the king and his supporters, as well as Great Britain, which retained control over Egypt. Given the absence of one center of power in the country, as well as the weakness and dependence of the existing ones, opposition movements with different views on the development of Egypt were created. The society of «Muslim Brotherhood» was one of them, eventually discrediting itself during its further development. «Free Officers» were able to establish themselves as a secret society, which ideologically did not belong to any political camp. Coherence, hierarchy and army solidarity became effective advantages in their struggle for power.


1996 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 410-414
Author(s):  
Kenneth Finegold

Alan Brinkley's The End of Reform deserves praise as a book that is well written and has something to say. There are some books about which only one of these is true and many about which neither is true.I agree with Brinkley's conclusion and disagree with the path by which he arrives at it. Brinkley's conclusion is that the years from the recession of 1937–38 to the end of World War II in 1945 should be seen as a critical period in the development of American liberalism and, therefore, in American political development. It is during this period, Brinkley argues, that rights-based liberalism became dominant over other variants of liberal ideology. Brinkley's focus on the period from 1937 to 1945 represents a departure in New Deal historiography, which has traditionally focused either on the Hundred Days of 1933, which produced the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), among other “alphabet soup” agencies, or on the “Second New Deal” of 1935–36, during which the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) were passed.


Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cooper ◽  
R. K. Blashfield

The DSM-I is currently viewed as a psychoanalytic classification, and therefore unimportant. There are four reasons to challenge the belief that DSM-I was a psychoanalytic system. First, psychoanalysts were a minority on the committee that created DSM-I. Second, psychoanalysts of the time did not use DSM-I. Third, DSM-I was as infused with Kraepelinian concepts as it was with psychoanalytic concepts. Fourth, contemporary writers who commented on DSM-I did not perceive it as psychoanalytic. The first edition of the DSM arose from a blending of concepts from the Statistical Manual for the Use of Hospitals of Mental Diseases, the military psychiatric classifications developed during World War II, and the International Classification of Diseases (6th edition). As a consensual, clinically oriented classification, DSM-I was popular, leading to 20 printings and international recognition. From the perspective inherent in this paper, the continuities between classifications from the first half of the 20th century and the systems developed in the second half (e.g. DSM-III to DSM-5) become more visible.


Author(s):  
Dr Rose Fazli ◽  
Dr Anahita Seifi

The present article is an attempt to offer the concept of political development from a novel perspective and perceive the Afghan Women image in accordance with the aforementioned viewpoint. To do so, first many efforts have been made to elucidate the author’s outlook as it contrasts with the classic stance of the concept of power and political development by reviewing the literature in development and particularly political development during the previous decades. For example Post-World War II approaches to political development which consider political development, from the Hobbesian perspective toward power, as one of the functions of government. However in a different view of power, political development found another place when it has been understood via postmodern approaches, it means power in a network of relationships, not limited to the one-way relationship between ruler and obedient. Therefore newer concept and forces find their way on political development likewise “image” as a considerable social, political and cultural concept and women as the new force. Then, the meaning of “image” as a symbolic one portraying the common universal aspect is explained. The Afghan woman image emphasizing the historic period of 2001 till now is scrutinized both formally and informally and finally the relationship between this reproduced image of Afghan women and Afghanistan political development from a novel perspective of understanding is represented.


Author(s):  
Robert F. Jefferson

The history of the African American military experience in World War II tends to revolve around two central questions: How did World War II and American racism shape the black experience in the American military? And how did black GIs reshape the parameters of their wartime experiences? From the mid-1920s through the Great Depression years of the 1930s, military planners evaluated the performance of black soldiers in World War I while trying to ascertain their presence in future wars. However, quite often their discussions about African American servicemen in the military establishment were deeply moored in the traditions, customs, and practices of American racism, racist stereotypes, and innuendo. Simultaneously, African American leaders and their allies waged a relentless battle to secure the future presence of the uniformed men and women who would serve in the nation’s military. Through their exercise of voting rights, threats of protest demonstration, litigation, and White House lobbying from 1939 through 1942, civil rights advocates and their affiliates managed to obtain some minor concessions from the military establishment. But the military’s stubborn adherence to a policy barring black and white soldiers from serving in the same units continued through the rest of the war. Between 1943 and 1945, black GIs faced white officer hostility, civilian antagonism, and military police brutality while undergoing military training throughout the country. Similarly, African American servicewomen faced systemic racism and sexism in the military during the period. Throughout various stages of the American war effort, black civil rights groups, the press, and their allies mounted the opening salvoes in the battle to protect and defend the wellbeing of black soldiers in uniform. While serving on the battlefields of World War II, fighting African American GIs became foot soldiers in the wider struggles against tyranny abroad. After returning home in 1945, black World War II-era activists such as Daisy Lampkin and Ruby Hurley, and ex-servicemen and women, laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.


1963 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-172
Author(s):  
Lea E. Williams

Einstein once refused to speculate on the types of weapons to be used in a hypothetical third world war; but he was succinct and specific in naming those of an ensuing fourth global contest – “rocks”. Just as nuclear arms have very possibly made World War II the penultimate great conflict, the super bombs have created a climate in which international rivalries contend through cold war confrontation, police actions and limited warfare. The total terror of our nuclear age has thus far served to confine military clashes to the battlefields of Korea, Vietnam and the Near East, all restricted arenas in comparison to those of 1914–18 and 1939–45. Fear of thermonuclear retaliation has prevented attacks on, to use MacArthur's term, the “privileged sanctuaries” of our era's prime combatants.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Boris Valentinovich Petelin ◽  
Vladilena Vadimovna Vorobeva

In the political circles of European countries attempts to reformat the history of World War II has been continuing. Poland is particularly active; there at the official level, as well as in the articles and in the speeches of politicians, political scientists and historians crude attacks against Russia for its commitment to objective assessments of the military past are allowed. Though, as the authors of this article mention, Russian politicians have not always been consistent in evaluation of Soviet-Polish relationships, hoping to reach a certain compromise. If there were any objections, they were mostly unconvincing. Obviously, as the article points, some statements and speeches are not without emotional colouring that is characteristic, when expressing mutual claims. However, the deliberate falsification of historical facts and evidence, from whatever side it occurs, does not meet the interests of the Polish and Russian peoples, in whose memory the heroes of the Red Army and the Polish Resistance have lived and will live. The authors point in the conclusions that it is hard to achieve mutual respect to key problems of World War II because of the overlay of the 18th – 19th centuries, connected with the “partitions of Poland”, the existence of the “Kingdom of Poland” as part of the Russian Empire, Soviet-Polish War of 1920. There can be only one way out, as many Russian and Polish scientists believe – to understand the complex twists and turns of Russo-Polish history, relying on the documents. Otherwise, the number of pseudoscientific, dishonest interpretations will grow.


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