The Reagan administration and the promotion of human rights in Eastern Europe

2018 ◽  
pp. 159-186
Author(s):  
Sielke Beata Kelner
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Reagan Administration

Freedom Tide? Ideology, Politics, and the Origins of Democracy Promotion in U.S. Central America Policy, 1980–1984

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Dramatic Shift

The Reagan administration came to power in 1981 seeking to downplay Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Yet, by 1985 the administration had come to justify its policies towards Central America in the very same terms. This article examines the dramatic shift that occurred in policymaking toward Central America during Ronald Reagan's first term. Synthesizing existing accounts while drawing on new and recently declassified material, the article looks beyond rhetoric to the political, intellectual, and bureaucratic dynamics that conditioned the emergence of a Reaganite human rights policy. The article shows that events in El Salvador suggested to administration officials—and to Reagan himself—that support for free elections could serve as a means of shoring up legitimacy for embattled allies abroad, while defending the administration against vociferous human rights criticism at home. In the case of Nicaragua, democracy promotion helped to eschew hard decisions between foreign policy objectives. The history of the Reagan Doctrine's contentious roots provides a complex lens through which to evaluate subsequent U.S. attempts to foster democracy overseas.

Bulgarian Turkish Emigration and Return

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darina Vasileva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Lasting Effect ◽  
History Of

The history of the emigration of Bulgarian Muslim Turks to Turkey is more than a century old. The violation of the human rights of ethnic Turks by the totalitarian regime during the 1980s resulted in the most massive and unpredictable migration wave ever seen in that history. This article examines the complexity of factors and motivations of the 1989 emigration which included almost half of the ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria and constituting until that time 9 percent of the total population. The author considers the strong and long-lasting effect of this emigration—followed by the subsequent return of half of the emigrants after the fall of the regime—both on Bulgaria's economy and on the political life of the society. The article aims also at providing a better understanding of the character of ethnic conflicts in posttotalitarian Eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Comparative legal analysis of the anti-corruption policy in Ukraine and Poland

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (69) ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Zakharova ◽  
Olena Harasymiv ◽  
Olga Sosnina ◽  
Oleksandra Soroka ◽  
Inesa Zaiets
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
International Treaties

Effective counteraction to corruption remains relevant in some countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, given that manifestations of corruption are a real obstacle to the realization of human rights, social justice, economic development and jeopardizes the proper functioning of a market economy. However, if such countries of the region, such as Poland, succeeded in ensuring the implementation of an effective anti-corruption policy, a number of post-Soviet countries, in particular Ukraine, faced significant obstacles to overcoming corruption and effectively implementing national anti-corruption policies. Therefore, within this article, a comparative legal analysis of the anti-corruption legislation of these countries has been carried out. The state of implementation of national anti-corruption policies and the formulated conclusions, which provide answers to the questions of improving the implementation of national anti-corruption policy, in particular Ukraine, are considered. Thus, the existence of modern national anti-corruption legislation that best meets the requirements and recommendations on which the state relies on relevant international treaties can be the key to successful anti-corruption efforts.

The Human Rights of Foreign Labor

Worldview ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-9
Author(s):  
Steven Charnovitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Labor ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Press ◽  
Developed World ◽  
New Criteria

Little noticed by the press. United States trade policy is undergoing significant changes aimed at promoting the rights of workers in foreign countries—changes achieved through the use of both a carrot and a stick. The carrot, now being offered to the less-developed world, is dutyfree access to the U.S. market for qualifying products exported by countries that meet certain new criteria on bbor. The stick is a ban on imports made by forced labor— something the Reagan administration is under increasing pressure to invoke against the Soviet Union. While it is too early to gauge the success of such attempts at exercising economic leverage, they may yet become a milestone in the march of human rights.

scholarly journals Cuba now

1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Catherine A. Sunshine
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Grove Press ◽  
Imperial State

[First paragraph]The Cuba reader: the making of a revolutionary society. PHILIP BRENNER, WILLIAM M. LEOGRANDE, DONNA RICH, and DANIEL SIEGEL (eds.). New York: Grove Press, 1989. xxxv + 564 pp. (Paper US $14.95). Cuba: the test of time. JEAN STUBBS. London: Latin America Bureau, 1989. xvii + 142 pp. (Paper UK £3.95). Cuba: politics, economics and society. MAX AZICRI. London: Pinter Publishers Ltd., 1988. xxiii + 276 pp. (Cloth US $35.00, Paper US $12.50). Cuba libre: breaking the chains? PETER MARSHALL. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1987. viii + 300 pp. (Cloth US $18.95). The closest of enemies: a personal and diplomatic account of U.S.-Cuban relations since 1957. WAYNE S. SMITH. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987. 308 pp. (Paper US $8.95). Imperial state and revolution: the United States and Cuba, 1952-1986. MORRIS H. MORLEY. New Rochelle, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ix + 571 pp. (Paper US $16.95, Cloth US $59.50). From confrontation to negotiation: U.S. relations with Cuba. PHILIP BRENNER. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988. x + 118 pp. (Cloth US $30.00, Paper US $9.95).Nineteen eighty-eight marked the completion of the Cuban revolution's third decade. Several events that year suggested that Cubans might finally look forward to a lessening of the island's international isolation, if not its domestic economic woes. The revolution had survived eight years of hostility from the Reagan administration. Washington's attempts to secure international censure of Cuba on human rights grounds had culminated in the visit of a United Nations delegation, at Havana's invitation and with relatively little damage to Cuba's image. Fidel Castro's visits to Ecuador and Mexico to attend the inaugurations of two Latin American presidents underscored Cuba's reinsertion into the hemispheric community. Finally, Cuban military successes against South African troops in Angola and Cuba's role in the subsequent negotiations over Angola and Namibia were a source of pride.

Rediscovering Democracy in Latin America

Worldview ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Paul E. Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
American Policy

It is not unlikely that within the next two years nearly every country in Latin America will be governed by an elected civilian regime. This might surprise most Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking about the region in terms of coup-prone military governments and repressive oligarchies. We are surprised too at the recent embrace of democracy in Latin America by the Reagan administration. Some of its leading representatives went about touting the virtues of authoritarian government; but the administration has found that it is good politics to promote democracy and free elections in Central America and the Caribbean— and politically impossible to resume aid to regimes with bad human rights records. In fact, “Project Democracy” is the latest buzzword of Reagan's Latin American policy.

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