Race and World Politics: Germany in the Age of Imperialism, 1878–1914

Author(s):  
Andrew Zimmerman

This article analyses the question of race in world politics in the backdrop of imperialistic Germany. Racism and concepts of race emerged from an unequal, regionally varying, and international division of labor inside Europe and the United States and in those regions around the world over which Europe and the United States came to exercise formal and informal imperial power. Germany developed a unique Central-European politics of race in the contested Polish provinces of the Prussian East, and they annexed in the eighteenth-century partitions of Poland. Many Germans regarded Poles as deficient in Kultur, a concept signifying everything from diligent work habits to a secular rationality supposedly absent among Catholic Poles. Early German racism was thus cultural rather than biological and was promoted by the progressive bourgeois. As a principle of social ordering, race functioned as a colonial kinship system, and thus depended ultimately on the control of sexuality. A comparative analysis between international racism and German racism concludes this article.

Author(s):  
A Subotin

Abstract. The demise of the bipolar system of international politics has revived interest in such closely related and contested terms as "superpower", "hegemon", "empire" and "imperialism". This article represents an attempt to define the most probable trend in the future evolution of the international system with regard to the role of the United States of America as the most prominent state power of today's world. This article seeks to analyse the US power posture in today's world politics by comparing its core capabilities to those of the classical empire of the previous century - the British Empire - with analytical emphasis on both the "hard power" and the "soft power" dimensions. The author maintains that the notion of US hegemony or even American Empire is still relevant despite a clear historic tendency of hegemonic decline seen throughout the second part of the 20th century. The United States still ranks high on the scale of most traditional power factors and, what is by far more important, they continue to be able to shape and control the scale and the volume of international exposure of all other major players within the framework of contemporary global international system. The relative decline of US influence upon world politics at the beginning of the new millennia has been effectively off-set by the profound change in the nature of American power which is now assuming the form of a structural dominance. The author's personal view is that US hegemony is not doomed to wane, given the enormous impact the United States have already made economically, politically and intellectually upon the post World War II international relations. The continuance of the US playing the pivotal role in the international politics of the 21st century will be dependent on the ability of the US political class to adapt to and to harness the social power of numerous non-state international actors that are due take over the leading role in the future world's politics.


Book Review: The Politics of East-West Migration, Migration and the New Europe, Citizens without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management, Explaining Northern Ireland, War and Peace in Ireland: Britain and the IRA in the New World Order, Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, Policy and Public Opinion in the Gulf War, behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics, The Idea of a Liberal Theory: A Critique and Reconstruction, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, Reinventing the Left, North Carolina Government and Politics, Alaska Politics and Government, Kentucky Politics and Government: Do We Stand United?, Argentina since Independence, The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina: Protest, Change, and Democratization, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976, Selected Political Writings, between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513–1515, Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba, Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro, Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution, The Fifty Years War: The United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics, 1941–1991, New French Thought: Political Philosophy, The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

1996 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-374
Author(s):  
Martin Baldwin-Edwards ◽  
Patrick Riley ◽  
Keith Graham ◽  
Chris Gilligan ◽  
Theo Farrell ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Andrei P. Tsygankov

The conclusion summarizes the argument and assesses potential for future cultural conflicts in world politics. Cultural and political divides come from different sources, but in times of acute interstate competition culture and politics tend to reinforce each other, exacerbating international tensions. Future competition for values is not likely to take the form of a new Cold War yet the intense rivalry for power and rules means a continuous culture wars in world politics. Russia is not doomed to be the United States’ Dark Double. US-Russia relations may gradually become less dependent on presenting each other as potential ideological threats if the two nations learn to reframe bilateral relations in value-free terms.


Author(s):  
Robert R. Bianchi

The rise of the New Silk Road is generating fierce debates over the emergence of new megaregions and their role in reshaping world politics. Chinese writers are avid consumers of and contributors to these discussions both at home and internationally. China’s growing interest in megaregional integration accompanied a sharp turn in foreign policy—from a defensive posture that feared provoking war with the United States toward a bold campaign to assert global leadership, economically and diplomatically. Gradually, Chinese leaders are beginning to realize that all of the emerging megaregions are developing lives of their own that cannot be directed by a hierarchical network centered in Beijing. This realization is forcing China’s policymakers to reconsider their traditional assumption that sovereignty belongs only to formal governments and the elites that control them rather than to the all of the citizens who comprise the national communities.


Author(s):  
Jodi Rios

This chapter traces the ways by which culture is used to produce, police, study, and represent blackness specifically in conjunction with racialized metropolitan space in the United States—the cultural politics of race and space. Cultural politics is the scaffold for modes of informal disciplining, and it establishes the conditions of possibility for formal policing. The chapter then outlines some of the contours of the cultural politics of race and space that are important for understanding the practices and phenomena in North St. Louis County. Because scholarship produces powerful discourses that reveal, obscure, and sanction violence in and through space, it also considers the ways in which culture, race, and space have been historically conflated in different spaces of scholarship. Ultimately, North County stands as a prime example of how blackness-as-risk has been deployed at a local level through cultural politics in order to differentiate and police bodies and space for profit through racist and “race-neutral” policies and practices.


1975 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-88
Author(s):  
Andrew Ezergailis

The word nationalism, as it is generally used in the United States by scholars and journalists, is a pejorative term. If by using the term the writer himself does not mean to evoke unfavorable associations, then by necessity he fails because the educated public in America understands the word to be derogatory. The question therefore is seriously to be considered whether the word continues to be serviceable for impartial analyses of world politics and modern history. Many journalists and unfortunately, also many historians and political scientists use the word as nothing other than an elegant expletive to disparage statesmen and countries–foreign and their own. One may suspect that diplomats and men of affairs have already learned to consider the word useless for day-to-day decisions. Unless scholars begin to use the word with more precision and discrimination, they will be forced to follow the example of practical men of affairs.


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