Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Willmetts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Architectural Feature ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us ◽  
Office Of Strategic Services ◽  
The Sacrifice

If official secrecy had a devastating impact on American history, its impact on Americans’ understanding of that history was a collateral disaster.1 Richard Gid Powers, introduction to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience 13 Rue Madeleine, a 1947 semi-documentary that commemorates the sacrifice and courage of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), opens with a shot of the US National Archives Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The building’s location, at the heart of the nation’s capital on the Washington Mall, amidst so many iconic monuments to American democracy, is no accident. Like the Washington or Lincoln Memorial, it is a depository of historical experience that binds up the nation. In its inner-sanctum, as audiences then and now would know, the United States of America’s founding documents, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, are housed. After the establishing shot the camera slowly tilts from top to bottom, surveying the archive’s columnar neo-classical facade – a common architectural feature of America’s monuments that evokes a sense of both history and authority. Finally, it comes to rest on a statue in the forecourt of the archive called Future. On Future’s plinth, the inscription reads: ‘What is Past is Prologue’. At this point we hear the booming voice of an omniscient narrator – an oratory style borrowed from the newsreels of the time that was also a defining feature of the semi-documentary format:...

scholarly journals Politics of Anti-Americanism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monti Narayan Datta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
News Media ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Inquiry ◽  
Foreign Governments

Academic, popular, and political inquiry into the nature, origins, and consequences of anti-Americanism rose after the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001. Prior to 9/11, anti-Americanism had received attention from scholars and policymakers, but not consistently, and not in a manner readily available to the public. The US State Department, for instance, had commissioned polls and published reports on foreign attitudes toward the United States beginning in the 1950s, but many of these documents remain hard to access outside the US National Archives. Following 9/11, however, a flood of polls was widely disseminated for free by several organizations, including the Pew Research Center. News media also generated significant coverage on anti-Americanism, and it became a topic of discussion among world leaders, particularly surrounding the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003. Critical investigation of anti-Americanism therefore surged after 2001, with a crest in scholarship at the close of the decade, and something of a resurgence after the election of US president Donald J. Trump. Central to this scholarship are five questions: How is anti-Americanism defined and measured? Does anti-Americanism originate from what the United States is, from its values and culture? Or does it originate from what the United States does, from its policies and actions abroad? What effect, if any, does anti-Americanism have for the United States and other actors? Lastly, what is the nature and origin of anti-Americanism within the United States, looking at home-grown movements and ideologies? These questions have been explored using increasingly complex social science research methods and data from polling organizations, such as Pew. Because these polling organizations have hisorically focused predominately on European and Middle Eastern publics, however, there has been comparatively little on other parts of the globe. At the same time, most polls focus predominately on attitudes toward the United States among foreign publics, not foreign elites. Yet scholars and policymakers require a better sense of what foreign elites think and feel to understand more clearly how foreign governments interact with the United States. Moreover, given that the study of anti-Americanism tends to be episodic (e.g., it soared after 9/11, subsided under Barack Obama, and then increased following the election of Donald Trump), longitudinal studies are needed to interpret complexities over time. Additionally, although survey data are relatively abundant on foreign perceptions of the United States, another step forward in this research agenda would be to include a systematic comparative analysis of global attitudes not just toward America, but also other great powers, like China, India, Brazil, and Russia. This would herald a larger field of study that explores not only anti-American sentiment, but also “anti–great power” sentiment.

Lifting Every Voice Throughout the Nation

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy E. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
American History ◽  
African American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Library Services ◽  
National Museum ◽  
New Professionals ◽  
Grant Programs ◽  
American Experience

The National Museum of African American History and Culture Act authorized the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to establish grant programs for museums of African American history and culture. Through its Museum Grants for African American History and Culture program, IMLS helps these museums improve operations, enhance stewardship of collections, engage in professional development, and attract new professionals to the field. The Act has fostered a national ecosystem that leverages the collective resources of the National Museum and African American museums throughout the United States to preserve and share the strength and breadth of the African American experience.

scholarly journals Mining and development lessons from the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundars Rudzitis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Mining Communities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Do So

American history, and particularly that of the West where, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, mining for gold and silver flourished, and periodically continues to do so, is based on a frontier mentality. Indeed, we in the United States of America are still not far removed from that mentality, and have our roots in exploitation based on the idea, historically, of unlimited resources. We have created a variety of myths. Myths need not be bad, but ours have not served us well. We have started to learn slowly from our mistakes and to accept, in however belated a fashion, that we should avoid repeating them. Here I try briefly to sketch some of the outcomes from our history as it relates to mining, in the hope that New Zealand will not suffer some of the same consequences as mining communities and regions have in the US.

Trans-Pacific Japanese American Studies

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
English Language ◽  
American Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Investments

Begun as a conversation among scholars of Japanese American studies in Japan and the United States, Transpacific Japanese American Studies is conceived of as an engagement across national archives, literatures, and subject positions to excavate personal investments, epistemologies, and social contexts. Is it possible to achieve a truly equal exchange in a field that defines itself as “Japanese American” studies and in a conversation conducted mainly in the English language? All of the contributors to this volume were asked to consider those foundational questions, and most discussed their subjectivities and work over the course of several years in meetings held in Japan and the US. The outcome, Transpacific Japanese American Studies, is a candid, self-conscious appraisal of scholars and their subject positions and personal and political investments.

On the Importance of Getting Things Done

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Mansbridge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
The West ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The Us ◽  
External Causes

Trend plus inaction equals drift. When a trend has external causes and no one can act to intervene, that inaction leads to drift—the unimpeded trajectory of change. Drift in the United States produces the domination of American democracy by business interests. Drift in international decisions produces global warming. Specific institutional designs for government, such as the US separation of powers, can cause the inaction that facilitates drift. More fundamentally, ingrained patterns of thinking can cause inaction. Here I argue that the long and multifacetedresistance traditionin the West contributes to inaction by focusing on stopping, rather than using, coercion.

scholarly journals U.S. plans to internationalize the containment of the USSR in the Balkans in the first half of the 1950s

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 53-76
Author(s):  
A. A. Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S

The article examines the actions of the US diplomacy aimed at strengthening the US military and political presence in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the first half of the 1950s. The United States began creating mechanisms for mobilizing its allies to contain possible Soviet aggression in the event of a new local conflict on the Balkan Peninsula. This policy led to the need to develop plans for internationalization of alleged conflict. The author uses materials from the US National Archives, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the electronic archives of the Central Intelligence Agency, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US National Security Council, as well as published sources. Special attention is paid to the position of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff on military strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean. The outbreak of the Korean War became an important milestone in American politics not only for the Far East, but also for other regions of the world. In the Balkans, the Americans were mostly afraid of the aggression of Soviet “satellites” against Greece and Yugoslavia. In response, in the early 1950s the United States formed a new security model in the Balkans, which based on a differentiated approach: Greece became a member of NATO, while Yugoslavia entered the anti-Soviet Balkan Pact affiliated with NATO. Yugoslavia became a bridge between the NATO countries – Italy and Greece. Documents held in the US National Archives show that American military leaders spoke out in favor of Yugoslavia’s membership in NATO and insisted on coordinating the military plans of Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. The author concludes that the rapprochement of Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey was situational. The improvement of the situation in the Balkans after the death of Joseph Stalin led to the collapse of the Balkan Pact. The analysis of American policy in the Balkans made it possible to contribute to the study of the means and methods used by the United States to internationalize military conflicts in various regions of the world in the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

scholarly journals CICERO AND THE US POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE 18TH–19TH CENTURIES

2018 ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
A. Protsiuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Marcus Tullius Cicero ◽  
General Importance ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Impact

This article covers the role of Ancient Roman statesman and intellectual Marcus Tullius Cicero in the culture of the United States of America during the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly his influence on the formation of democracy in the US. While the recent decades have witnessed the increasing scholarly attention to the impact of Cicero on the early political culture of the US, the body of historical research, especially the Ukrainian one, lacks general analyses of Cicero’s role in the American political system during the emergence of the American state and its existence on the early stages of its history. After a general overview of the historical context of Cicero’s biography and legacy, this article pays a particular attention to his impact on the creation of United States democracy. A significant number of Cicero’s ideas, more or less, had been reflected in the concepts which defined the newly created American democracy. The most important concepts in this regard are the ideas of a republic government, private property, just laws, and forms of state structure. Apart from the general importance of Cicero’s ideas for the early American democracy, Marcus Tullius Cicero himself was a notable example for some Founding Fathers of the US, especially for the 2nd President John Adams. During the 19th century, Cicero continued to play a significant role in the American society, specially in the fields of education and public speaking.

The Dark Double

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei P. Tsygankov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Media Presentation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Interstate Conflicts ◽  
Media Narratives

This book studies the role of US media in presenting American values as principally different from and superior to those of Russia. The analysis focuses on the media’s narratives, frames, and nature of criticism of the Russian side and is based on texts of editorials of selected mainstream newspapers in the United States and other media sources. The book identifies five media narratives of Russia—“transition to democracy” (1991–1995), “chaos” (1995–2005), “neo-Soviet autocracy” (2005–2013), “foreign enemy” (since 2014), and “collusion” (since 2016)—each emerging in a particular context and supported by distinct frames. The increasingly negative presentation of Russia in the US media is explained by the countries’ cultural differences, interstate competition, and polarizing domestic politics. Interstate conflicts served to consolidate the media’s presentation of Russia as “autocratic,” adversarial, and involved in “collusion” with Donald Trump to undermine American democracy. Russia’s centralization of power and anti-American attitudes also contributed to the US media presentation of Russia as a hostile Other. These internal developments did not initially challenge US values and interests and were secondary in their impact on the formation of Russia image in America. The United States’ domestic partisan divide further exacerbated perception of Russia as a threat to American democracy. Russia’s interference in the US elections deepened the existing divide, with Russia becoming a convenient target for media attacks. Future value conflicts in world politics are likely to develop in the areas where states lack internal confidence and where their preferences over the international system conflict.

scholarly journals Missing the Popular Vote: Pitfalls in US Democracy and Reform Proposals

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 237-242
Author(s):  
Friedrich L. Sell ◽  
Jürgen Stiefl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
The Us ◽  
Election System ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Established Democracies

AbstractOnly a few years ago, it was a widespread belief that globalisation would trigger processes of democratisation worldwide. However, even old and established democracies such as the United States have recently revealed serious weaknesses. This article shows that the US election system is heavily distorted and recommends profound and transparent Electoral College reforms in the election of US presidents. Furthermore, the article highlights the implications the challenges facing American democracy have for Europe.

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.

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