Simón Bolívar

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
New Granada ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Simon Bolivar ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Regional Leaders

Simón Bolívar was born in 1783 in Caracas, the capital city of the Captaincy-General of Venezuela (roughly corresponding to the present-day country of the same name), which was one of three territorial sub-units of the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada, the others being New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama) and Quito (present-day Ecuador). The Bolívars were wealthy and prominent members of the city’s Creole—European-descended and American-born—upper class. Upon his parents’ death, Bolívar inherited significant agricultural and mining assets as well as a large number of slaves. After an excellent private education and two European tours, Bolívar devoted himself to the cause of Spanish American independence. Throughout the crisis provoked by Napoleon I’s 1808 intervention in Spain, Bolívar led a radical faction advocating within Caracas for the end of imperial rule. In 1811, Venezuela became the first Spanish American nation to formally declare independence. During the prolonged and brutal war that ensued, despite some devastating setbacks, Bolívar gained unrivaled influence over the patriots’ military, political, and diplomatic efforts throughout Andean South America. In 1816, Bolívar exchanged a promise to abolish slavery for material and logistical support from the president of the Southern Republic of Haiti, Alexandre Pétion. Bolívar landed a small force at Puerto Cabello, built a base in the Venezuelan plains, and then led a spectacular assault on Spanish forces across the Andean highlands, taking the Viceregal capital at Santa Fe de Bogotá in 1819. Convinced that only an expansive state could guard its independence against Spanish reconquest, Bolívar designed a constitution for what historians now refer to as “Gran Colombia,” a federal union encompassing the entire former Viceroyalty of New Granada. He then pressed his attack southward, liberating the sometimes-reluctant populations of the Andean highland regions of Quito, Peru, and Upper Peru, which was renamed Bolivia in Bolívar’s honor. Even as Bolívar designed new constitutions and began planning a larger Federation of the Andes, regional leaders within Gran Colombia’s constituent states began agitating for greater autonomy. Bolívar employed increasingly dictatorial means in his efforts to suppress his domestic opponents, while at the same time issuing invitations to the governments of the other independent states of Spanish America—and, after some urging from his vice president, to the United States of America—to send representatives to a diplomatic congress in Panama, where he hoped they might forge a still-broader alliance against both internal and external threats to American independence. The Panama Congress met in 1826, and the delegates negotiated some important bilateral treaties, but the Congress did not fulfill Bolívar’s aspiration to create a permanent forum for arbitrating disputes and coordinating the foreign policies of the new American republics. Domestic politics in Gran Colombia spun out of control in this period as well, as first Venezuela and then Ecuador seceded from the union. Bolívar spent the final months of his life disillusioned and incapacitated by tuberculosis. He died in 1830 at the age of 47.

Precarious Time, Morality, and the Republic

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-109
Author(s):  
Francisco A. Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Social Instability ◽  
New Granada ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Simon Bolivar ◽  
The Republic

Spanish American countries exhibited during the nineteenth century many of the features Koselleck associated with the Sattelzeit, the transitioning period into our contemporaneity. However, the region’s history was marked by social instability and political upheaval, and contemporaries referred to such experiences of time as precarious. In this article I explore the connection between this precarious time and the emergence of the sociopolitical concept of morality in New Granada (present-day Colombia) during the first thirty- five years of the republic (1818–1853). I focus on two conceptual moments as exemplified ed by the reflections put forth by Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), military and political leader of the independence period, and José Eusebio Caro (1817–1853), publicist, poet, and political ideologue of the Conservative Party.

No War Without Dictatorship, No Peace Without Democracy: Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics

1985 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-191
Author(s):  
Aaron Wildavsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structural Basis ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Government

I wish to consider the possibility that a good part of the opposition to the main lines of American foreign policy is based on deep-seated objections to the political and economic systems of the United States. This is not to say that existing policy is necessarily wise or that there may not be good and sufficient reasons for wishing to change it. Indeed, at any time and place, the United States might well be overestimating the threat from the Soviet Union or using too much force. What I wish to suggest is that across-the-board criticism of American policy as inherently aggressive and repressive, regardless of circumstance – a litany of criticism so constant that it does not alert us to the need for explanation – has a structural basis in the rise of a political culture that is opposed to existing authority.To the extent that this criticism is structural, that is, inherent in domestic politics, the problem of fashioning foreign policies that can obtain widespread support is much more difficult than it is commonly perceived to be. For if the objection is to American ways of life and, therefore, “to the government for which it stands,” only a transformation of power relationships at home, together with a vast redistribution of economic resources, would satisfy these critics. If the objection is not only to what we do but, more fundamentally, to who we are, looking to changes in foreign policy to shore up domestic support is radically to confuse the causal connections and, therefore, the order of priorities.

Moscow's influence will lag West's in Balkans

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Balkan States ◽  
Foreign Ministers

Subject The vicissitudes of Russian influence in the Balkans. Significance Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused NATO members Albania and Bulgaria of conspiring to partition neighbouring Macedonia. His statement in the Russian parliament on May 20 caused a stir in relations with Sofia and Tirana, with respective Foreign Ministers Daniel Mitov and Ditmir Bushati each calling it "irresponsible" and "unacceptable". This follows setbacks for Moscow such as Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's visit to the United States, meeting Vice President Joe Biden; and Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's acceptance of the European Commission as mediator in the political crisis. Impacts If pushed harder, Balkan states will choose the West over Russia, as the recalibration in Serbian and Macedonian foreign policies suggests. However, this does not mean that Moscow will lose all leverage. All things being equal, local elites will continue to look to the Kremlin for business and diplomatic opportunities.

Class Conflict and Diplomacy: Haitian Isolation in the 19th-Century World System

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur L. Stinchcombe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Symbolic System ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article argues that Haiti's diplomatic isolation after its revolution and independence was due to two different processes, its place in the symbolic system of domestic politics in the United States, and its place in the lives and experience of people intensely concerned with Haiti in France, Britain, and Spain. The result was that the diplomatic isolation was ended first in the 1830s by Europe, by the countries materially damaged by the Hatian Revolution. It was ended later by the United States and its Spanish-American client states, who were only symbolically damaged by Haiti as an antislavery black power symbol after the Emancipation Proclamation in the 1860s. A theory of the politics of diplomacy with two parts, the role of a foreign country as a symbol in the domestic politics of other countries, and the role of people with extensive contact and interest in particular parts of another country in the diplomatic milieux of other countries, is developed to explain this case.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Emigrant Psychoanalysts in the USA and the FBI Archives

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goggin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Nation

Interest in the fate of the German psychoanalysts who had to flee Hitler's Germany and find refuge in a new nation, such as the United States, has increased. The ‘émigré research’ shows that several themes recur: (1) the theme of ‘loss’ of one's culture, homeland, language, and family; and (2) the ambiva-lent welcome these émigrés received in their new country. We describe the political-social-cultural context that existed in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Documentary evidence found in the FBI files of three émigré psychoanalysts, Clara Happel, Martin Grotjahn, and Otto Fenichel, are then presented in combination with other source material. This provides a provisional impression of how each of these three individuals experienced their emigration. As such, it gives us elements of a history. The FBI documents suggest that the American atmosphere of political insecurity and fear-based ethnocentric nationalism may have reinforced their old fears of National Socialism, and contributed to their inclination to inhibit or seal off parts of them-selves and their personal histories in order to adapt to their new home and become Americanized. They abandoned the rich social, cultural, political tradition that was part of European psychoanalysis. Finally, we look at these elements of a history in order to ask a larger question about the appropriate balance between a liberal democratic government's right to protect itself from internal and external threats on the one hand, or crossover into the blatant invasion of civil rights and due process on the other.

Longing for Home: The Impact of COVID-19 on Cambodian Evangelical Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Briana Wong
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Leadership ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Phnom Penh ◽  
Mass Displacement ◽  
Interpersonal Connectedness ◽  
Indigenous Religions ◽  
The Impact

In Cambodia, the government's response to the COVID-19 crisis intersected with religious practice this year, as April played host both to the Christian Holy Week and the Cambodian New Year holiday, rooted in Cambodian Buddhism and indigenous religions. Typically, the Cambodian New Year celebration involves the near-complete shutting down of Phnom Penh, allowing for residents of the capital city to spend the New Year with their families in the countryside. Many Christians stay with their parents or other relatives, who remain primarily Theravada Buddhist, in the rural provinces throughout Holy Week, missing Easter Sunday services to participate in New Year's festivities at their ancestral homes. In light of the government's precautionary cancellation of the all-encompassing festivities surrounding the Cambodian New Year this spring, Christians who have previously spent Easter Sunday addressing controversial questions of interreligious interaction notably focused this year, through online broadcasting, on the resurrection of Jesus. In the United States, the near elimination of in-person gatherings has blurred the boundaries between the ministry roles of recognised church leaders and lay Christians, often women, who have long been leading unofficial services and devotionals over the phone and internet. In this article, I argue that the COVID-19 crisis, with its concomitant mass displacement of church communities from the physical to the technological realm, has impacted transnational Cambodian evangelicalism by establishing greater liturgical alignment between churches in Cambodia and in the diaspora, democratising spiritual leadership and increasing opportunities for interpersonal connectedness within the Cambodian evangelical community worldwide.

Off to a bad start: John Adams’s tussle over titles

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C Alexander
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
John Adams ◽  
The Press ◽  
First Session

From the first days, of the first session, of the first Congress of the United States, the Senate was consumed by an issue that would do immense and lasting political harm to the sitting vice president, John Adams. The issue was a seemingly unimportant one: titles. Adams had strong opinions on what constituted a proper title for important officers of government and, either because he was unconcerned or unaware of the damage it would cause, placed himself in the middle of the brewing dispute. Adams hoped the president would be referred to as, “His highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” The suggestion enraged many, amused some, and was supported by few. He lost the fight over titles and made fast enemies with several of the Senators he was constitutionally obligated to preside over. Adams was savaged in the press, derided in the Senate and denounced by one of his oldest and closest friends. Not simply an isolated incident of political tone-deafness, this event set the stage for the campaign against Adams as a monarchist and provided further proof of his being woefully out of touch.

Why Adjudicate?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Steel Industry ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Wto Dispute Settlement ◽  
Chinese Intellectual ◽  
Trade War

The World Trade Organization (WTO) oversees the negotiation and enforcement of formal rules governing international trade. Why do countries choose to adjudicate their trade disputes in the WTO rather than settling their differences on their own? This book investigates the domestic politics behind the filing of WTO complaints and reveals why formal dispute settlement creates better outcomes for governments and their citizens. It demonstrates that industry lobbying, legislative demands, and international politics influence which countries and cases appear before the WTO. Democratic checks and balances bias the trade policy process toward public lawsuits and away from informal settlements. Trade officials use legal complaints to manage domestic politics and defend trade interests. WTO dispute settlement enables states and domestic groups to signal resolve more effectively, thereby enhancing the information available to policymakers and reducing the risk of a trade war. The book establishes this argument with data on trade disputes and landmark cases, including the Boeing-Airbus controversy over aircraft subsidies, disagreement over Chinese intellectual property rights, and Japan's repeated challenges of U.S. steel industry protection. The book explains why the United States gains better outcomes for cases taken to formal dispute settlement than for those negotiated. Case studies of Peru and Vietnam show that legal action can also benefit developing countries.

China's Western Horizon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
National Wealth ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Infrastructure Investments

This book explains how China’s new foreign policies like the vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative are being shaped by local and regional politics outside China and assesses the political implications of these developments for Eurasia and the United States. It depicts the ways that President Xi Jinping’s China is zealously transforming its national wealth and economic power into tools of global political influence and details these developments in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews, travels, and historical research, it describes how perceptions of China vary widely within states like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Eurasia’s powerful and privileged groups often expect to profit from their connections to China, while others fear commercial and political losses. Similarly, statesmen across Eurasia are scrambling to harness China’s energy purchases, arms sales, and infrastructure investments as a means to outdo their strategic competitors, like India and Saudi Arabia, while negotiating relations with Russia and America. The book finds that, on balance, China’s deepening involvement will play to the advantage of regional strongmen and exacerbate the political tensions within and among Eurasian states. To make the most of America’s limited influence along China’s western horizon (and elsewhere), it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy to serve America’s aims in Eurasia and to better compete with China over the long run.

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