The United States

Free Traders ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Malcolm Fairbrother

Once Canada and Mexico each agreed to negotiate free trade, the United States began pressing its demands for content in the agreements that was consistent with what US business leaders wanted. In the end, private sector representatives were very pleased with the results of the negotiations. When NAFTA turned into a highly contentious issue, in 1992 and 1993, major American business associations and even individual firms campaigned hard for the agreement's ratification by Congress. That ratification was still not a sure thing, however, and Democratic president Bill Clinton needed to make NAFTA possible by advocating its ratification and supplementing it with side-agreements on labor and the environment. Clinton’s compromise position and the advocacy of business helped win over just enough critics to get NAFTA through, including in the face of substantial public skepticism.

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Kaatz ◽  
John C. Morris

Compensation of public employees is a contentious issue for politicians and the general public in the United States. However, there is little empirical evidence in the literature to address claims that public servants are over-paid compared to their private sector counterparts. This research compares salaries of private sector, state, and municipal workers in Mississippi. A central hypothesis in this study is that municipal pay levels will be more competitive in core governmental functions. A second is that large municipalities will have more core functions and therefore be competitive across a broader range of job categories. This research indicates that municipal and state workers are indeed underpaid in certain occupations, but salaries are competitive in some occupational fields. However, only large cities appear to be more competitive with wages in their core functions.


2004 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Justin Malbon

This article argues that the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) selectively recognises and affirms international conventions and agreements that promote the narrow economic self-interests of powerful groups. It does this whilst disregarding those international instruments — including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity — that seek to recognise and promote the cultural and intellectual property rights of Indigenous people. Although AUSFTA does make some concessions for Indigenous interests by providing negative exemptions from the chapters dealing with trade in services, government procurement and investment, these concessions are relatively weak in the face of the Agreement's pursuit of free trade. Using the model of Chapter 19, which imposes positive obligations on the United States and Australia to promote environmental interests, it is proposed that future Australian FTAs should enunciate positive obligations for Australia's Indigenous people.


The Border ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Martin A. Schain

This chapter explores the question of where the border has been controlled in Europe and the United States. The border is not a uniform area of control, but an area that is controlled at different points in different ways. Some points of control may indeed be somewhere on the lines of the map, while others may be deep within the territory of the state. Others, moreover, are far from the state itself, in the territory of other states. Border control varies and defines different aspects of the frontier. This chapter also explores variations in the regulation of people and trade. How is it possible to regulate movement of people across the border, in the face of economic forces that push for greater openness, while security concerns and powerful political forces push toward greater closure? The chapter examines whether the hardening of border control for people necessarily obstructs the growth of free trade.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. e57624
Author(s):  
Angelo Raphael Mattos

A partir das competências constitucionais do Congresso dos Estados Unidos em política externa, das plataformas dos partidos Democrata e Republicano de 1992, bem como dos argumentos a favor e contra a implementação do North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), o artigo objetiva compreender e discutir as razões da dificuldade enfrentada por Bill Clinton para aprovar o NAFTA no Congresso dos EUA em 1993. Os resultados das análises dos diferentes grupos domésticos, incluindo os atores Executivo e Legislativo, indicam que posições ideológicas, sobretudo presentes no Partido Democrata, como questões trabalhistas e ambientais, representaram o principal fator de resistência ao NAFTA no Capitólio.Palavras-chave: Congresso; Estados Unidos; NAFTA.ABSTRACTBased on the constitutional powers of the United States Congress in foreign policy, the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties of 1992, as well as the arguments for and against the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the article aimed to understand and discuss the reasons for Bill Clinton's difficulty in passing NAFTA to the US Congress in 1993. The results of the analyzes of different domestic groups, including the Executive and Legislative actors, indicate that ideological positions, especially present in the Democratic Party, as labor and environmental issues, represented the main factor of resistance to NAFTA in the Capitol. Keywords: Congress; United States; NAFTA. Recebido em: 08 fev. 2021 | Aceito em: 20 set. 2021.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.


Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.


Author(s):  
Fred H. Cate ◽  
Beth E. Cate

This chapter covers the US Supreme Court’s position on access to private-sector data in the United States. Indeed, the Supreme Court has written a great deal about “privacy” in a wide variety of contexts. These include what constitutes a “reasonable expectation of privacy” under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution; privacy rights implicit in, and also in tension with, the First Amendment and freedom of expression; privacy rights the Court has found implied in the Constitution that protect the rights of adults to make decisions about activities such as reproduction, contraception, and the education of their children; and the application of the two privacy exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).


Author(s):  
Richard Gowan

During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure, the Security Council was shaken by P5 divisions over Kosovo, Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Yet it also continued to mandate and sustain large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa, placing major burdens on the UN Secretariat. The chapter will argue that Ban initially took a cautious approach to controversies with the Council, and earned a reputation for excessive passivity in the face of crisis and deference to the United States. The second half of the chapter suggests that Ban shifted to a more activist pressure as his tenure went on, pressing the Council to act in cases including Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Syria. The chapter will argue that Ban had only a marginal impact on Council decision-making, even though he made a creditable effort to speak truth to power over cases such as the Central African Republic (CAR), challenging Council members to live up to their responsibilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.


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