The Detraditionalization of Intimacy Reconsidered

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Gross

This essay challenges those strains of contemporary social theory that regard romantic/ sexual intimacy as a premier site of detraditionalization in the late modern era. Striking changes have occurred in intimacy and family life over the last half-century, but the notion of detraditionalization as currently formulated does not capture them very well. With the goal of achieving a more refined understanding, the article proposes a distinction between “regulative” and “meaning-constitutive” traditions. The former involve threats of exclusion from various moral communities; the latter involve linguistic and cultural frameworks within which sense is made of the world. Focusing on the U.S. case and marshaling various kinds of empirical evidence, the article argues that while the regulative tradition of what it terms lifelong, internally stratified marriage has declined in strength in recent years, the image of the form of couplehood inscribed in this regulative tradition continues to function as a hegemonic ideal in many American intimate relationships. Intimacy in the United States also remains beholden to the tradition of romantic love. That these meaning-constitutive traditions continue to play a central role in structuring contemporary intimacy suggests that detraditionalization involves the relative decline only of certain regulative traditions, a point that calls into question some of the normative assessments that often accompany the detraditionalization thesis.

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. A. LEE

This study represents part of a long-term research program to investigate the influence of U.K. accountants on the development of professional accountancy in other parts of the world. It examines the impact of a small group of Scottish chartered accountants who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Set against a general theory of emigration, the study's main results reveal the significant involvement of this group in the founding and development of U.S. accountancy. The influence is predominantly with respect to public accountancy and its main institutional organizations. Several of the individuals achieved considerable eminence in U.S. public accountancy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-429
Author(s):  
Robert N. McCauley

Abstract Since the late 1950s, the rest of the world has come to use the dollar to an extent that justifies speaking of the dollar’s global domain. The rest of the world denominates much debt in U.S. dollars, extending U.S. monetary policy’s sway. In addition, in outstanding foreign exchange deals, the rest of the world has undertaken to pay still more in U.S. dollars: off-balance-sheet dollar debts buried in footnotes. Consistent with the scale of dollar debt, most of the world economic activity takes place in countries with currencies tied to or relatively stable against the dollar, forming a dollar zone much larger than the euro zone. Even though the dollar assets of the world (minus the United States) exceed dollar liabilities, corporate sector dollar debts seem to make dollar appreciation akin to a global tightening of credit. Since the 1960s, claims that the dollar’s global role suffers from instability and confers great benefits on the U.S. economy have attracted much support. However, evidence that demand for dollars from official reserve managers forces unsustainable U.S. current account or fiscal deficits is not strong. The so-called exorbitant privilege is small or shared. In 2008 and again in 2020, the Federal Reserve demonstrated a willingness and capacity to backstop the global domain of the dollar. Politics could constrain the Fed’s ability to backstop the growing share of the domain of the dollar accounted for by countries that are not on such friendly terms with the U.S.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Stocker

Nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs) were an important development in the history of nuclear nonproliferation efforts. From 1957 through 1968, when the Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed, the United States struggled to develop a policy toward NWFZs in response to efforts around the world to create these zones, including in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many within the U.S. government initially rejected the idea of NWFZs, viewing them as a threat to U.S. nuclear strategy. However, over time, a preponderance of officials came to see the zones as advantageous, at least in certain areas of the world, particularly Latin America. Still, U.S. policy pertaining to this issue remained conservative and reactive, reflecting the generally higher priority given to security policy than to nuclear nonproliferation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-255
Author(s):  
Hryhorii M. Kalachyhin ◽  

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the leading institutions involved in global economic regulation. Its purposes are to ensure multilateral cooperation on the liberalization of international trade, harmonize existing standards and requirements, and peacefully resolve trade disputes between countries. Since 11 December 2019, dispute resolution has been handicapped due to the consistent blocking of the appointment of members to the WTO Appellate Body (AB) by the United States. This has reduced the multilateral trading system’s (MTS) predictability and threatens its final decay. In this article, the fundamental and formal causes of the collapse are described, and its circumvention mechanisms and effectiveness are discussed. At the same time, an assessment is given of the possibility to overcome the collapse in 2021, considering the change of the U.S. president and other events. Special attention is paid to Russia’s position and its current and potential losses. Finally, the issue of dispute resolution through regional trade agreements is proposed for discussion. The fundamental reasons for the collapse were the shifting balance of power in the world order and the WTO’s inflexibility in adjusting the rulebook and its procedures. The main reasons for the U.S.’ dissatisfaction are objective but based on formalities; the blockage of the AB is an overreaction. Moreover, the U.S.’ position on this issue has not changed with the new president. As a result, there is abuse of the current situation as WTO members file appeals “into the void.” Existing tools to circumvent the collapse are partial and not yet popular among WTO members. Russia needs to resume the AB’s work to complete previously started high-profile disputes and to defend its interests in the future.


Equilibrium ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Czarny ◽  
Paweł Folfas

We analyse potential consequences of the forthcoming Trade and Investment Partnership between the European Union and the United States (TTIP) for trade orientation of both partners. We do it so with along with the short analysis of the characteristics of the third wave of regionalism and the TTIP position in this process as well as the dominant role of the EU and the U.S. in the world economy – especially – in the world trade. Next, we study trade orientation of the hypothetical region created in result of TTIP. We use regional trade introversion index (RTII) to analyze trade between the EU and the U.S. that has taken place until now to get familiar with the potential changes caused by liberalization of trade between both partners. We analyze RTII for mutual trade of the EU and the U.S. Then, we apply disaggregated data to analyze and compare selected partial RTII (e.g. for trade in final and intermediate goods as well as goods produced in the main sectors of economy like agriculture or manufacturing). The analysis of the TTIP region’s orientation of trade based on the historical data from the period 1999-2012 revealed several conclusions. Nowadays, the trade between the EU and the U.S. is constrained by the protection applied by both partners. Trade liberalization constituting one necessary part of TTIP will surely help to intensify this trade. The factor of special concern is trade of agricultural products which is most constrained and will hardly be fully liberalized even within a framework of TTIP. Simultaneously, both parties are even now trading relatively intensively with intermediaries, which are often less protected than the average of the economy for the sake of development of final goods’ production. The manufactured goods are traded relatively often as well, mainly in consequence of their poor protection after many successful liberalization steps in the framework of GATT/WTO. Consequently, we point out that in many respects the TTIP will be important not only for its participants, but for the whole world economy as well. TTIP appears to be an economic and political project with serious consequences for the world economy and politics.


Author(s):  
S. A. Zolina ◽  
I. A. Kopytin ◽  
O. B. Reznikova

In 2018 the United States surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the largest world oil producer. The article focuses on the mechanisms through which the American shale revolution increasingly impacts functioning of the world oil market. The authors show that this impact is translated to the world oil market mainly through the trade and price channels. Lifting the ban on crude oil exports in December 2015 allowed the United States to increase rapidly supply of crude oil to the world oil market, the country’s share in the world crude oil exports reached 4,4% in 2018 and continues to rise. The U.S. share in the world petroleum products exports, on which the American oil sector places the main stake, reached 18%. In parallel with increasing oil production the U.S. considerably shrank crude oil import that forced many oil exporters to reorient to other markets. Due to high elasticity of tight oil production to the oil price increases oil from the U.S. has started to constrain the world oil price from above. According to the majority of authoritative forecasts, oil production in the U.S. will continue to increase at least until 2025. Since 2017 the tendency to the increasing expansion of supermajors into American unconventional oil sector has become noticeable, what will contribute to further strengthening of the U.S. position in the world oil market and accelerate its restructuring.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-238
Author(s):  
TODD SHEPARD

The footprint of Dagmar Herzog's scholarship has moved from Germany to the United States, then back again, before expanding outwards across Europe as well as to spaces drawn into Europe's orbit by conquest. Historically specific intersections between gender, religion, and politics are her specialty, with sexuality and sex as crucial sightlines in the constantly shifting landscapes that these always-moving parts compose. No historian currently writing in English on the late modern period, arguably, more acutely captures the intensity and conflicts that absorb individuals as well as larger groups as they live in and through these distinct topographies. This she does, in part, through the depth and the breadth of her research, which allow Herzog to reveal connections and disjunctures in ways that grab the reader's attention as well as explain the stakes. Her writings reveal an ability to listen to sources and care about what they intimate that is more often seen in certain scholars of the medieval or other exotic histories that rely on scarce or sketchy sources. For historians of the modern era, between the birth of ideology and ready access to endless and dense types of documentation, what Herzog continues to do is a revelation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sawsan Abutabenjeh ◽  
Stephen B. Gordon ◽  
Berhanu Mengistu

By implementing various forms of preference policies, countries around the world intervene in their economies for their own political and economic purposes. Likewise, twenty-five states in the U.S. have implemented in-state preference policies (NASPO, 2012) to protect and support their own vendors from out-of-state competition to achieve similar purposes. The purpose of this paper is to show the connection between protectionist public policy instruments noted in the international trade literature and the in-state preference policies within the United States. This paper argues that the reasons and the rationales for adopting these preference policies in international trade and the states' contexts are similar. Given the similarity in policy outcomes, the paper further argues that the international trade literature provides an overarching explanation to help understand what states could expect in applying in-state preference policies.


1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-41
Author(s):  
Cornelius Moore

There are probably a billion videocassettes in the United States. Yet few, probably under a thousand, are African films. I want to ask why this is and describe a strategy to change it.How can one of the least known and most under-funded cinemas in the world, African cinema, find a place in the most lavishly promoted and capitalized media marketplaces on earth, the U.S. feature film market?


Author(s):  
Simon Reich ◽  
Richard Ned Lebow

This chapter draws on a conceptual and empirical analysis to rethink America's posthegemonic role in the world. While guided by self-interest, the chapter contends that the United States should pursue a strategy that helps to implement policies that are widely supported and are often mooted or initiated by others. It should generally refrain from attempting to set the agenda and lead in a traditional realist or liberal sense. Drawing on Simon Reich's work on global norms, the chapter looks at the success Washington has had in sponsoring—that is, in backing—initiatives originating elsewhere. It examines the successful provision of military assistance to NATO's campaign in Libya, which offers a stark contrast to the U.S. approach to Iraq. The chapter then offers counterfactual cases of U.S. drug policy in Mexico and efforts to keep North Korea from going nuclear.


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