Corruption as a Political Issue in Modern Societies: France, Great Britain and the United States in the Long 19th Century

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Ivo Engels
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Bureaucratic State

The so-called “long 19th century”, from the French Revolution to the First World War, ranks as the crucial phase in the genesis of the modern world. In the Western countries this period was characterized by the differentiation of the public and the private spheres, the birth of the modern bureaucratic state and the delegitimation of early modern practices such as clientelism and patronage. All these fundamental changes are, among other things, usually considered important preconditions for the modern perception of corruption.This paper will concentrate on this crucial phase by means of a comparative analysis of debates in France, Great Britain and the United States, with the aim to elucidate the motives for major anti-corruption movements. The questions are: who fights against corruption and what are the reasons for doing so? I will argue that these concerns were often very different and sometimes accidental. Furthermore, an analysis of political corruption may reveal differences between the political cultures in the countries in question. Thus, the history of corruption serves as a sensor which enables a specific perspective on politics. By taking this question as a starting point the focus is narrowed to political corruption and the debates about corruption, while petty bribery on the part of minor civilservants, as well as the actual practice in the case of extensive political corruption, is left aside.

The Organization, The Goals, and Some Activities of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

1973 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 476-480
Author(s):  
H. Vernon Price
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Council ◽  
The World ◽  
The French Revolution

The great watchword of the French Revolution was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Although a great oversimplification, it has been said that France exemplifies liberty, Great Britain equality, and the United States fraternity. Without attempting to apportion these virtues among the nations of the world, I should like to dwell for a few moments on fraternity as it applies in the United States to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, I believe it is in this domain that we have developed into the largest mathematical organization in the world and—we should like to think—one of the most influential.

Subcultural Adaptations to Incarceration

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Crewe ◽  
Ben Laws
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Descriptive Account ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Way

This essay discusses the evolution of the understanding of inmate subcultures in US prisons. It provides a selective description of historically and geographically specific “models” of inmate subcultures, both to highlight the range of social and subcultural arrangements in prisons and to explain why such variation exists and what questions should be asked of any descriptive account of the prisoner social world. Emphasis is placed on the heterogeneity of institutional forms and the subcultures that exist within them. How subcultures are shaped by broader institutional aims, conditions, and practices is discussed with comparisons of prisons in Great Britain and the United States. An alternative framework through which to think about inmate subcultures is needed, whose starting point is the way that any institution deals with the issues of power, order, and governance that are essential to all prisons and set the conditions for prisoners‘ adaptations and social practices.

Constitutional Order, Revolutionary Violence, and Modern Power

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Glorious Revolution ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Hundredth Anniversary ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
The Glorious Revolution ◽  
Centennial Celebrations

In 1988 and 1989, centenary celebrations were held in the United States, Great Britain, and France that linked together constitutions and revolutions. Americans observed the two hundredth anniversary of the ratification of their constitution; Britons the tercentenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and of the constitutional settlement that followed; and for the French the bicentennial of their revolution of 1789. This chapter asks, is it an accident of centennial celebrations, themselves an accident of calendars, that found 1988–1989 a moment for celebrating the anniversaries of two conceptual opposites, the ratification of the American Constitution and the outbreak of the French Revolution? It suggests that unless revolutions produce “genuine” constitutions there is no reason to celebrate them and perhaps good reasons not to.

America: Democracy Native and Imported

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indigenous Movements ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter first discusses the impact of the French Revolution on the United States. The development was twofold. On the one hand, there was an acceleration of indigenous movements. On the other, there was an influence that was unquestionably foreign. The latter presented itself especially with the war that began in Europe in 1792, and with the clash of armed ideologies that the war brought with it. The warring powers in Europe, which for Americans meant the governments of France and Great Britain, attempted to make use of the United States for their own advantage. Different groups of Americans, for their own domestic purposes, were likewise eager to exploit the power and prestige of either England or France. The chapter then turns to the impact of the Revolution on the “other” Americas.

scholarly journals The United States-Rumanian Claims Settlement Agreement of March 30, 1960

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon A. Christenson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
En Bloc ◽  
Lump Sum ◽  
Settlement Agreement ◽  
Damage Claims ◽  
The 19Th Century

On March 30, 1960, the United States and Eumania settled by agreement certain claims of American nationals against Rumania. The agreement provides for the payment by Rumania of a lump sum in discharge of those claims.In recent years the device of the en bloc or lump-sum settlement of international claims has to some extent replaced the use of the mixed claims commission. Lump-sum settlements between nations are not unique to the 20th century, however, and as early as 1802, the United States paid Great Britain a lump sum of £600,000 ($2,664,000) to settle certain debt claims. In the 19th century also, the United States obtained lump-sum settlements from Prance, Spain, Great Britain, Denmark, Peru, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil and China. Early in the present century mixed claims commissions were used in deciding claims between the United States and Great Britain, war damage claims against Germany, Austria and Hungary, claims between the United States and Mexico, and claims between Panama and the United States. When the work of the United States-Mexican General Claims Commission remained uncompleted after two successive conventions which extended the existence of the Commission, and when practical difficulties beset the United States-Mexican Special Claims Commission, an en-bloc settlement of all claims was the only solution. That settlement signaled disillusionment with mixed claims commissions. Thereafter, the major international claims settlements involving the United States were on a lump-sum basis. The very next settlement was one concluded on October 25, 1934, with Turkey. It provided for the payment of a lump sum of $1,300,000 to settle certain outstanding claims of American citizens against Turkey.

France-US Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn C. Statler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Security ◽  
World War ◽  
The North

U.S.-French relations are long-standing, complex, and primarily cooperative in nature. Various crises have punctuated long periods of stability in the alliance, but after each conflict the Franco-American friendship emerged stronger than ever. Official U.S.-French relations began during the early stages of the American Revolution, when Louis XVI’s regime came to America’s aid by providing money, arms, and military advisers. French assistance, best symbolized by the Marquis de Lafayette, was essential in the revolution’s success. The subsequent French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power also benefitted the United States when Napoleon’s woes in Europe and the Caribbean forced him to sell the entire Louisiana territory to the United States, in 1803. Franco-American economic and cultural contacts increased throughout the 19th century, as trade between the two countries prospered and as Americans flocked to France to study art, architecture, music, and medicine. The French gift of the Statue of Liberty in the late 19th century solidified Franco-American bonds, which became even more secure during World War I. Indeed, during the war, the United States provided France with trade, loans, military assistance, and millions of soldiers, viewing such aid as repayment for French help during the American Revolution. World War II once again saw the United States fighting in France to liberate the country from Nazi control. The Cold War complicated the Franco-American relationship in new ways as American power waxed and French power waned. Washington and Paris clashed over military conflict in Vietnam, the Suez Crisis, and European security (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, in particular) during the 1950s and 1960s. Ultimately, after French President Charles de Gaulle’s retirement, the Franco-American alliance stabilized by the mid-1970s and has flourished ever since, despite brief moments of crisis, such as the 2003 Second Gulf War in Iraq.

War and Peace between Mexico and the United States in the 18th and 19th Centuries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josefina Zoraida Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Heavy Burden ◽  
Independence Movements

The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) formed the background for independence movements in the Americas. Great Britain increased its colonial land and was forced to make reforms in order to govern its territory, as was Spain, in order to modernize. Their subjects felt the consequences. Because of their experience in politics, those from the Thirteen Colonies resisted and eventually declared independence in 1776. France had been weakened by its losses and recognized the Confederation in 1778, before drawing Spain into the short fight. Because they were less important than their territory in the West Indies, Great Britain recognized their independence in 1783, ceding them the territory up to the Mississippi. The French Revolution allowed them to strengthen their government, trade as a neutral country, and purchase Louisiana in 1803. New Spain was unfortunate in that it was a valuable viceroyalty of Spain, and, as it did not have allies, its long and bloody fight broke apart the administration. Upon achieving independence in 1821, it found itself in a deplorable situation. Impoverished and without political experience, it aroused the ambition of new trade countries and of the United States, the uninhabited territory to its north. To populate it, Mexico offered facilities and attracted American settlers, who violated the conditions that had been set and declared independence in Texas, joining the United States in 1845. Mexico’s political inexperience, coupled with the siege coming from Spain, France, and the United States, prevented the country from consolidating a system of government and reviving its economy. By 1840, it exhibited a substantial contrast with the United States, which had a stable government, a connected and productive territory, and a growing population. In 1845, after annexing Texas, population reached nearly 20 million, while Mexico scarcely had 7 million. By the time the United States initiated the attack, the result was foreseeable. Various armies were invading, and their fleets seized the ports in February 1847. New Mexico and California had been invaded and annexed, and the occupation was a heavy burden, as President Polk forced Mexico to pay. The bitter peace treaty was signed in 1848, and the United States’ newly annexed territory stretched to the Pacific.

Russia-US Foreign Relations, 1917–1991

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
The 19Th Century

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America that there were “two great nations in the world.” They had started from different historical points but seemed to be heading in the same direction. As expanding empires, they faced the challenges of defeating nature and constructing a civilization for the modern era. Although they adhered to different governmental systems, “each of them,” de Tocqueville declared, “seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” De Tocqueville’s words were prophetic. In the 19th century, Russian and American intellectuals and diplomats struggled to understand the roles that their countries should play in the new era of globalization and industrialization. Despite their differing understandings of how development should happen, both sides believed in their nation’s vital role in guiding the rest of the world. American adherents of liberal developmentalism often argued that a free flow of enterprise, trade, investment, information, and culture was the key to future growth. They held that the primary obligation of American foreign policy was to defend that freedom by pursuing an “open door” policy and free access to markets. They believed that the American model would work for everyone and that the United States had an obligation to share its system with the old and underdeveloped nations around it. A similar sense of mission developed in Russia. Russian diplomats had for centuries struggled to establish defensive buffers around the periphery of their empire. They had linked economic development to national security, and they had argued that their geographic expansion represented a “unification” of peoples as opposed to a conquering of them. In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the failed Decembrist Revolution, tsarist policymakers fought to defend autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationalism from domestic and international critics. As in the United States, Imperial and later Soviet leaders envisioned themselves as the emissaries of the Enlightenment to the backward East and as protectors of tradition and order for the chaotic and revolutionary West. These visions of order clashed in the 20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States became superpowers. Conflicts began early, with the American intervention in the 1918–1921 Russian civil war. Tensions that had previously been based on differing geographic and strategic interests then assumed an ideological valence, as the fight between East and West became a struggle between the political economies of communism and capitalism. Foreign relations between the two countries experienced boom and bust cycles that took the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust and yet maintained a strategic balance that precluded the outbreak of global war for fifty years. This article will examine how that relationship evolved and how it shaped the modern world.

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