scholarly journals Ideological Clichés and Myths as an Instrument of the U.S. Foreign Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
V I Yakunin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The article deals with the analysis of the myths and ideological clichés as the fundamental elements of U.S. foreign policy. The author emphasizes the necessity to study the discourses formed by political elites around the main problems and directions of the state’s foreign policy. At the same time, in the article an attempt is made to integrate the achievements of Western and Russian political science related to ideological clichés and myths. Particular attention is paid to the role of myths and ideological clichés in the legitimization of the government’s foreign policy actions in the eyes of the electorate. The author shows the history of the formation of the basic myths and clichés of the U.S. foreign policy, their implementation during and after the Cold War. The article contains a detailed analysis of the concept of American exclusivity as well as the foreign policy guidelines that follow from it. In conclusion, the author shows how the world has adopted to such an approach for conducting foreign policy by the hegemonic state and what methods it uses to counteract it.

scholarly journals Globalization, values, interests

2003 ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Radojicic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The nature of the international politics, after the Cold War directed by the U.S. as the only current super-power, are considered in the text. The author?s intention is to stress the main points of divergence between moralistic-valuable rhetoric and the foreign policy practice of the U.S. In that sense, the examples of the American stand, i.e. the active treatment of the Yugoslav crisis, on the one hand, and the crisis in the Persian Gulf, on the other hand, is considered. The author?s conclusion is that the foreign policy of the only current super-power is still directed by interests rather then by values. In the concluding part, the author presents an anthropologic argument in favor of reestablishing "balance of power" as the only guarantee for peace and stability of the world.

scholarly journals Teaching the History of Human Rights and "Humanitarian" Interventions

2015 ◽  
Vol 103 ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Mary Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article explores how I teach about human rights and so-called humanitarian interventions to MA and Ph.D. students.  The course has three main themes or foci.  First, what are human rights and why have the social and economic human rights laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights been so neglected or rejected, especially by the U.S.  Second, how has American foreign policy used and abused human rights.  Third, why have liberal or humanitarian interventions of a militarized sort become so prevalent since the end of the Cold War and why are they so damaging.  The goal is to get students to look critically at the meaning and uses of human rights, about which many display a naive enthusiasm.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-184
Author(s):  
Sarah Birch
Keyword(s):  
Violence Prevention ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

This concluding chapter summarizes the main findings of the book and draws out their implications for political science as well as for policies on institutional design, electoral administration, electoral assistance, and diplomacy. It considers the circumstances under which different strategies of electoral-violence prevention are likely to be successful and it provides a series of empirically grounded recommendations for the policy and practitioner communities. Though the previous chapters have sought to shed more systematic comparative light on electoral violence than has been available in previous work, the study of conflictual elections remains a relatively new area of research. Much exciting work will undoubtedly be carried out on this topic in the years to come. This emerging field may prove particularly relevant in the era of democratic backsliding that the world appears to be entering, and the role of violence in electoral processes throughout the modern history of democratic voting practices is a subject whose detailed analysis is long overdue.

Ethical Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World

2018 ◽  
pp. 494-507
Author(s):  
Tim Dunne
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cold War

For much of the history of academic International Relations, foreign policy has understated the role of ethics in the theory and practice of statecraft. As discussed in the first part of the chapter, it was not until the critical and normative turn of the 1980s and 1990s that ethics assumed a significant role in the study of foreign policy. Ethics also rose to prominence in the language and commitments of a number of modernizing centre-left governments claiming to be agents of the common good. The second part of the chapter treats humanitarianism as a case study because it illustrates how ethics and foreign policy are configured in practice. While it is true that human rights significantly contributed to the end of the Cold War, it is also the case that erosion of the liberal international order poses stark questions for the resilience of humanitarianism in a deeply divided world.

Hegemonic Disarray—American Internationalisms and World Disorder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Order ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
At Home

The end of the Cold War left the USA as uncontested hegemon and shaper of the globalization and international order. Yet the international order has been unintentionally but repeatedly shaken by American interventionism and affronts to both allies and rivals. This is particularly the case in the Middle East as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the nuclear negotiations with Iran show. Therefore, the once unquestioned authority and power of the USA have been challenged at home as well as abroad. By bringing disorder rather than order to the world, US behavior in these conflicts has also caused domestic exhaustion and division. This, in turn, has led to a more restrained and as of late isolationist foreign policy from the USA, leaving the role as shaper of the international order increasingly to others.

The Clinton Administration and Africa: Role of Congress and the Africa Subcommittees

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Volman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Predominant Role ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Foreign Operations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

Studies of U.S. government relations with Africa have generally focused on the role of the executive branch, specifically by examining and analyzing the views and activities of administration officials and the members of executive branch bureaucracies. This is only natural, given the predominant role that the executive branch has historically played in the development and implementation of U.S. policy toward the continent. However, the U.S. Congress has always played an important role in determining U.S. policy toward Africa due to its constitutional authority over the appropriation and authorization of funding for all foreign operations conducted by the executive branch. Furthermore, Congress enacted legislation on several occasions during the Cold War period that directly affected U.S. policy. For example, Congress approved the Clark Amendment prohibiting U.S. intervention in Angola (although it later voted to repeal the amendment) and also passed the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed sanctions on South Africa over the veto of the Reagan administration.

Eduardo Frei, the U.S. Embassy, and the Election of Salvador Allende

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-188
Author(s):  
Sebastián Hurtado-Torres
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
Salvador Allende ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter describes the efforts by the United States and Eduardo Frei to prevent Salvador Allende from attaining the presidency. The Nixon administration, after choosing not to involve itself in the 1970 presidential race to the extent the Johnson administration had in the 1964 election, reacted with great alacrity to Allende's victory in the popular election. Richard Nixon himself instructed CIA director Richard Helms to conduct covert operations in Chile, behind Ambassador Korry's back. In addition, Chilean politicians, particularly Christian Democrats of the Frei line, tried or at least explored ways of averting an Allende victory and sought for that purpose the support of the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Though many of the documents that tell this part of the story have been available to researchers since at least the early 2000s, only one scholarly work has treated these attempts by Chilean politicians, especially Eduardo Frei, in depth. The tendency of scholars of U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War to assume rather uncritically that the only decisions that mattered were taken in Washington has narrowed the perspectives from which the history of Cold War Chilean politics has been studied and interpreted.

Chilean Copper and U.S. Companies

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-117
Author(s):  
Sebastián Hurtado-Torres
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Chilean Copper ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter focuses on the role of copper policies in the relations between the United States and Chile during the Frei administration, especially as they relate to the developmental efforts of the Christian Democratic project. During the Frei administration, the political debate on copper policies reached a climax. Since U.S. capitals were among the most significant actors in the story, the discussions around the issue of copper converged with the ideological visions of the United States and the Cold War held by the different Chilean political parties. As the Frei administration tried to introduce the most comprehensive and consistent reform around the structure of the property of the Gran Minería del Cobre, the forces in competition in the arena of Chilean politics stood by their ideological convictions, regarding both copper and the United States, in their opposition or grudging support for the policies proposed by the Christian Democratic government. Moreover, the U.S. government became deeply involved in the matter of copper in Chile, first by pressuring the Chilean government into rolling back a price increase in 1965 and then, mostly through the personal efforts of Ambassador Edward Korry, by mediating in the negotiation between the Frei administration and Anaconda on the nationalization of the U.S. company's largest mine, Chuquicamata, in 1969.

scholarly journals Private Enterprise, International Development, and the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 113-145
Author(s):  
Ethan B. Kapstein
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Development ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Private Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article sheds light on the role of foreign direct investment as an instrument for economic development and, in turn, for the advancement of U.S. foreign policy goals during the Cold War. From the earliest days of the Cold War, and especially after the U.S.-Soviet competition for influence in the developing world began in the 1950s, the United States sought to promote private enterprise on behalf of U.S. goals. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, U.S. officials believed that foreign investment would suffice to fuel international development, obviating the need for official development assistance. These hopes, however, were largely disappointed. On the one hand, U.S.-based multinational companies preferred to invest in the industrial world; on the other hand, some Third World governments were uninterested in promoting private enterprise rather than state-led development. In part because foreign investment did not meet expectations, the U.S. government ended up elaborating an official foreign aid program instead.

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