Imagineering empire: how Hollywood and the US national security state ‘operationalize narrative’

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-413
Author(s):  
Sylvia J Martin
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Security State ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Favorable Light

While the Pentagon has long enlisted Hollywood to make films that show the United States in a favorable light for the public, this article examines how and why US military agencies hire entertainment professionals for national security purposes such as imagining defense strategy against possible threats. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in Los Angeles, I argue that the application of entertainment media and creative expertise for internal military purposes articulates the totalizing resourcefulness of a national security state which after 9/11 increasingly identifies the capacity to imagine as its greatest weapon. I suggest that ‘Imagineering’, the Disney method for storytelling and developing scenarios that has become emblematic of the US entertainment industry, is a fitting concept with which to understand the state’s harnessing of creative labor for its project of empire. Tracing the relationship between Hollywood narrative and national security illuminates the imaginings of US empire at its domestic source.

Survival Governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 196-224
Author(s):  
Peter Drahos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regulatory Mechanisms ◽  
Export Controls ◽  
Technology Markets ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Face ◽  
National Security State

The success of the project of survival governance, which requires states to focus on the repair of ecosystems, depends on the success of China’s experimental cities and whether China can manage to develop core technologies in the face of opposition from the US national security state. The technologies that are central to the construction of the bio-digital energy paradigm are also the ones that matter to US military power. The United States is using regulatory mechanisms such as intellectual property and export controls to block or slow China’s acquisition of core technologies. The United States has already created a technological fork in global technology markets, making it more or less impossible for companies like Google to deal with Chinese companies like Huawei. Less clear is whether multinational capital will support this fork. It may choose to support the new circuits of accumulation that emerge as states embrace survival governance.

scholarly journals Is COVID-19 the end of US hegemony? Public bads, leadership failures and monetary hegemony

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 1281-1303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Norrlöf
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Public Bads ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract COVID-19 is the most invasive global crisis in the postwar era, jeopardizing all dimensions of human activity. By theorizing COVID-19 as a public bad, I shed light on one of the great debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries regarding the relationship between the United States and liberal international order (LIO). Conceptualizing the pandemic as a public bad, I analyze its consequences for US hegemony. Unlike other international public bads and many of the most important public goods that make up the LIO, the COVID-19 public bad not only has some degree of rivalry but can be made partially excludable, transforming it into more of a club good. Domestically, I demonstrate how the failure to effectively manage the COVID-19 public bad has compromised America's ability to secure the health of its citizens and the domestic economy, the very foundations for its international leadership. These failures jeopardize US provision of other global public goods. Internationally, I show how the US has already used the crisis strategically to reinforce its opposition to free international movement while abandoning the primary international institution tasked with fighting the public bad, the World Health Organization (WHO). While the only area where the United States has exercised leadership is in the monetary sphere, I argue this feat is more consequential for maintaining hegemony. However, even monetary hegemony could be at risk if the pandemic continues to be mismanaged.

scholarly journals The Biopolitics of Immigration: A Genealogy of the “Hispanic Paradox”

Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Jordan Liz
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Hispanic Paradox ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
The Us ◽  
White Majority ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The “Hispanic Paradox” refers to the epidemiological finding that, despite a lower socioeconomic status, Hispanics tend to have health outcomes (especially regarding mortality rates and life expectancy) that are similar to, if not better than, US non-Hispanic Whites. Within the public health literature, a number of explanations have been proposed focusing on reproductive and fertility rates, biological differences, cultural and lifestyle advantages, the impact of selective migration to the US, among others. Despite the abundant literature on this topic since the late 1980s, little work has been done on the paradox from a philosophical perspective. In this paper, I seek to address this gap by offering a genealogy of the “Hispanic Paradox.” The bulk of this paper, then, focuses on exposing how the development of the Hispanic Paradox is epistemically tied to the prevailing anti-immigration discourse of the 1980s and 1990s. By highlighting the relationship between these two phenomena, this paper proposes a new direction for research into the biopolitics of immigration. More specifically, this paper suggests that the discourses of the “browning of America” and the Hispanic Paradox reveal a specifically biopolitical concern over the longevity of the United States as a White-majority country.

Diplomacy with Fundamentalists: The United States and the Taliban

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-234
Author(s):  
Juergen Kleiner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gas Pipeline ◽  
The Us ◽  
Osama Bin Laden ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractAfter the Taliban had become a permanent factor in Afghan politics at the beginning of 1995, the US administration started talking to them, mainly through the American Embassy in Islamabad. Declassified documents about the administration's dealings with the Taliban, which were obtained and published by the National Security Archive, give insight into the relationship between the two unlikely partners. The Americans discussed various issues with the Taliban, such as peace in Afghanistan, the fight against narcotics, human rights, the proposed Unocal gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, and terrorism. The Taliban demanded recognition as Afghanistan's legitimate government and wanted access to additional revenue. American talks with the Taliban survived the deterioration of the relationship from original friendliness to opposition to the promotion of sanctions and finally to threats. Since the end of summer 1998, a solution to the issue of Osama Bin Laden has been the US administration's top issue. The Americans asked the Taliban with urgency to take Bin Laden into custody or to expel him. The US administration, however, did not offer the Taliban anything in return. Persuasion was not enough to achieve the desired result and the administration's strategy was self-defeating.

scholarly journals The Economics-Security Nexus in the US-China Trade Conflict decoupling dilemmas

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Capie ◽  
Natasha Hamilton-Hart ◽  
Jason Young
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complex Interdependence ◽  
China Trade ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trade War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Transnational Trade ◽  
Trade And Investment

For more than two decades, China was enmeshed in transnational trade and investment networks. The complex interdependence that characterised the relationship between the United States and China is now threatened by policies that incentivise decoupling, including the partial unwinding of multinational supply chains. Since 2018 the ‘trade war’ between the US and China has taken on elements of a ‘tech war’, in which national security concerns replace economic logic. The area for win–win gains is reduced, as both countries pursue policies of greater technological autonomy. The bilateral rift creates challenges for companies and third parties who have no wish to take sides and complicates APEC’s goal to promote growth and accelerate regional economic integration.

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.

Interaction of Ukrainian Diaspora and the USA Government Regarding Celebration of Ukrainian Independence Day on January 22

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (47) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Halyna Shchyhelska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Usa

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. OnJanuary 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People’s Republic proclaimed its independence by adopting the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, although this significant event was «wiped out» from the public consciousness on the territory of Ukraine during the years of the Soviet totalitarian regime. At the same time, January 22 was a crucial event for the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. This article examines how American Ukrainians interacted with the USA Government institutions regarding the celebration and recognition of the Ukrainian Independence day on January 22. The attention is focused on the activities of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, directed at the organization of the special celebration of the Ukrainian Independence anniversaries in the US Congress and cities. Drawing from the diaspora press and Congressional Records, this article argues that many members of Congress participated in the observed celebration and expressed kind feelings to the Ukrainian people, recognised their fight for freedom, during the House of Representatives and Senate sessions. Several Congressmen submitted the resolutions in the US Congress urging the President of United States to designate January 22 as «Ukrainian lndependence Day». January 22 was proclaimed Ukrainian Day by the governors of fifteen States and mayors of many cities. Keywords: January 22, Ukrainian independence day, Ukrainian diaspora, USA, interaction, Congress

From Competition to Cooperation: A History of Canada–US National Park Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.

Refuge in the National Security State

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Cristina García
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Department Of Homeland Security ◽  
The World ◽  
National Security State

In response to the terrorist attacks of 1993 and 2001, the Clinton and Bush administrations restructured the immigration bureaucracy, placed it within the new Department of Homeland Security, and tried to convey to Americans a greater sense of safety. Refugees, especially those from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, suffered the consequences of the new national security state policies, and found it increasingly difficult to find refuge in the United States. In the post-9/11 era, refugee advocates became even more important to the admission of refugees, reminding Americans of their humanitarian obligations, especially to those refugees who came from areas of the world where US foreign policy had played a role in displacing populations.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Grare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
The Relationship

India’s relationship with the United States remains crucial to its own objectives, but is also ambiguous. The asymmetry of power between the two countries is such that the relationship, if potentially useful, is not necessary for the United States while potentially risky for India. Moreover, the shift of the political centre of gravity of Asia — resulting from the growing rivalry between China and the US — is eroding the foundations of India’s policy in Asia, while prospects for greater economic interaction is limited by India’s slow pace of reforms. The future of India-US relations lies in their capacity to evolve a new quid pro quo in which the US will formulate its expectations in more realistic terms while India would assume a larger share of the burden of Asia’ security.

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