Pluralism, Populism, and the Impossibility of Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 672-689
Author(s):  
Ronald R. Krebs
Keyword(s):  
Grand Strategy ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Charismatic Leader ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Internal Division

The impediments to designing a coherent grand strategy and pursuing it consistently have always been considerable. But developments in recent decades—the rise of multiculturalism from the 1970s, and the populist backlash that reached its apparent apex 40 years later—have conspired to make those obstacles all but insurmountable. Multiculturalism and populism have both made formulating and executing a consistent and durable grand strategy much more difficult, if not impossible. The essay reaches this conclusion through the lens of narrative and legitimation. Multiculturalism does not impede the articulation of grand strategy, but it does—by undercutting a shared national narrative—complicate the mobilization of societal resources, render the implementation of a consistent strategy, across policy domains, more difficult, and make grand strategy less sustainable over time. Populist politics has similar effects, accentuating and hardening lines of internal division and concentrating authority in the charismatic leader. After chronicling grand strategy’s demise, the essay concludes with a call for burying it, not grieving its passing.

scholarly journals The Making of the Luxembourger. Histories of Schooling and National Identity in the Grand Duchy

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Anne Rohstock ◽  
Thomas Lenz
Keyword(s):  
School System ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Regional Culture ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
State School ◽  
Modern School ◽  
School History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Grand Duchy ◽  
Over Time

Since the nineteenth century the modern school not only has become an important arena for the politicians and their different national agendas but also a somewhat distorted mirror of a specific national and regional culture. As the history of the school system is deeply intertwined with the history of the nation state, school histories tend to be written within the framework of a greater national narrative. One possibility to find out what “being Luxembourgish” means is therefore to look at how school history has been written in the Grand Duchy. The authors identified one narrative which altered over time and gives a vivid impression of the changes Luxembourg underwent during its “struggle for identity” in the last 200 years.

Iran

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-216
Author(s):  
Thierry Balzacq ◽  
Wendy Ramadan-Alban
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Normal State ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Strategic Imperative ◽  
Policy Elites ◽  
Over Time

This chapter argues that Iran’s grand strategy has and is torn between three tensions: the prioritization of an Islamic identity versus attaining economic prosperity the use of an offensive or defensive military strategy and its self-conception as a revolutionary or “normal” state. Historically Iran has striven to reconcile these inherently ambivalent goals through the “principle of equilibrium” (tavãzon). This chapter demonstrates how tavãzon shapes Iran’s grand strategy. While these countervailing forces do account for some continuity in Iran’s strategy over time they can conversely result in abrupt changes in response to systemic shifts. Iran’s current strategic imperative is thus driven by three factors: the jostling internal power struggle between factions the economic imperatives chastened by sanctions and most proximately its hostile relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel. In this context Iranian policy elites have consolidated around a military strategy of asymmetric deterrence.

scholarly journals Collective memory and cultural identity

Ethnologies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgia Foscarini
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Fourth Generation ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
The Third ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Preliminary Account ◽  
Integrated Or ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
Over Time

The main aim of this article is to provide a preliminary account of the results of my fieldwork research on the identities and memories of the third and fourth generation of Israelis of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi descent, in particular of Polish and Tunisian origin. The issues I will focus on are: “how have third- and fourth-generation Israeli identities been built over time and space?”, and: “how does the current generation of young Israelis relate to their Polish and Tunisian cultural heritage, if at all, in the attempt at understanding and building their present identity?”. The influence of Israel’s historical past and of its migrant memories will be analyzed in relation to the identity-building process of both groups, and to how these memories were integrated, or not, in the Israeli national narrative.

scholarly journals A Mix of Motives

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-70
Author(s):  
Sam Rosenfeld ◽  
Nancy Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
State Party ◽  
Party Change ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Party Development ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Internal Division

Scholarly debates over the nature of political parties and the identity of their principal actors have been hampered by relative inattention to the historical processes of internal party change. This study, drawing on archival sources, interviews, and one of the co-author’s personal experiences, analyzes the Georgia delegate challenge to the 1968 Democratic Convention as a case of internal party conflict generating lasting institutional reform, with implications for existing theories of party development, nominating politics, and democratic representation. In a convention marked by an unusually large number of challenges to state party delegations, the Georgia delegate challenge was unique. There, a conflict between the segregationist regulars and the moderate and liberal Democrats was complicated by an internal division in the latter camp between Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy supporters. The McCarthy forces’ success in garnering a dominant position within the challenge delegation alienated many of the Georgia movement’s organizers and leaders. The McCarthy campaign's takeover also linked this southern challenge both to the antiwar politics coloring the national nomination fight and to a particular conception of representation that would influence subsequent party reform efforts. In tracing the origins, dynamics, and aftermath of Georgia’s delegate challenge, we show both that group- and candidate-driven efforts together shape party development over time, and that normative ideas concerning representation can play causal roles in party development.

Grand Strategy and Foreign Economic Policy: British Grand Strategy in the 1930s

1998 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 582-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars S. Skålnes
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Domestic Support ◽  
Over Time

Variation in the need for military and political support from military allies affects the degree to which foreign economic policies will discriminate in favor of military allies and against adversaries and other countries. Powers in need of such support will pursue discriminatory foreign economic policies in order to change the configuration of domestic interests to favor not only closer economic relations but also closer political relations. By strengthening domestic support for an alliance, policymakers make it more difficult for their allies to renege on alliance commitments. Stronger political relations in turn reinforce the deterrent effect of the alliance. Because the net strategic benefits from closer relations in their case are lower, powers that can go it alone without support from allies will refrain from discriminatory policies. Shifts in strategic need make it possible to explain variation in the links between security considerations and foreign economic policies within alliances over time and also across alliances. British grand strategy in the 1930s illustrates how shifts in strategic need influence the degree to which foreign economic policies discriminate in favor of potential military allies.

Grand Strategy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Ganguly ◽  
William R. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Stable Set ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Future Plans

This chapter discusses changes in India's grand strategy over time and weaknesses associated with its future plans. India has long had a grand strategy and a largely stable set of goals. One of its most consistent features has been the quest for great power status. It initially sought to achieve this through the pursuit of an ideational foreign policy. Ideational foreign policies stress leadership in promoting ideas such as nonalignment or third-world solidarity. Subsequently, India's grand strategy adopted a mix of ideational and material approaches in pursuit of those ends. In the wake of the Cold War, it has tilted quite significantly toward acquiring the requisite material capabilities to pursue that goal. Nevertheless, a segment of its policy-making apparatus seems unable and indeed unwilling to completely shed its attachment to some ideational concerns, however atavistic and very possibly counterproductive to its goal of achieving great power status.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

Articulatory Generalization in Two Word-Medial, Ambisyllabic Contexts

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia I. Wolfe ◽  
Suzanne D. Blocker ◽  
Norma J. Prater
Keyword(s):  
Common View ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
The Common ◽  
Unitary Concept ◽  
Over Time

Articulatory generalization of velar cognates /k/, /g/ in two phonologically disordered children was studied over time as a function of sequential word-morpheme position training. Although patterns of contextual acquisition differed, correct responses to the word-medial, inflected context (e.g., "picking," "hugging") occurred earlier and exceeded those to the word-medial, noninflected context (e.g., "bacon," "wagon"). This finding indicates that the common view of the word-medial position as a unitary concept is an oversimplification. Possible explanations for superior generalization to the word-medial, inflected position are discussed in terms of coarticulation, perceptual salience, and the representational integrity of the word.

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