The US Congress and Rogue States

Foreign policy has become one of the most polarizing issues in American politics. This paper investigates the extent to which this division extends to arguably one of the most bipartisan foreign policy issues: policies toward rogue states. Our examination of congressional voting and sponsorship data related to rogue states since 1991 finds that, while there is a high degree of bipartisanship on the issue, there are nuanced but significant partisan differences. First, we find that Democrats are significantly more likely to support a rogue state bill dealing with human rights concerns, whereas Republicans are significantly less likely to support a conciliatory bill. We also find that members of Congress are less likely to propose and support a rogue state bill in the presence of a co-partisan president. We thus conclude that, despite the overall high degree of bipartisanship on rogue state issues, partisanship plays an important role in influencing legislative behavior.

modern state as mortal god.

Prisoners are confined in the name of the state as the holder of the monopoly of coercion and violence. To delegitimize religion as a political factor, the modern European state has often been upgraded to a divine authority, endowed with sovereign, that is: unlimited power. For Hobbes, this state was an answer to the “state of nature”, a state of permanent threatening violence, where everyone has a “right to everything”. His sovereign state even has the right to punish and kill innocent citizens if he thinks it is necessary. However, as a citizen I do not have to obey when the sovereign wants my death. Both Hobbes and Hegel defend the state, inclusive its roguish behaviour. Is “rogue state” perhaps a tautology? Remarkable, also twentieth-century scholars like Schmitt and Kahn defend this state: in a dangerous world, we have to be prepared for the exceptional situation. Kafka points to the societal and psychological roots of our roguish behaviour – the gap between our self-caressing (collective) self-image and our treating of others, especially strangers and people in prison. It is very tempting and pleasant to get judgmental and to encourage the mortal god (the state) to judge people.

Biological warfare: the history of microbial pathogens, biotoxins and emerging threats

Bioterrorism is the deliberate misuse of a pathogen (virus, bacterium or other disease-causing microorganisms) or biotoxin (poisonous substance produced by an organism) to cause illness and death amongst the population. Bioterrorism and biological warfare (biowarfare) are terms often used interchangeably. However, bioterrorism is typically attributed to the politically motivated use of biological weapons by a rogue state, terrorist organisation or rogue individual whereas biological warfare refers to a country’s use of bioweapons. Although rare, bioterrorism is a rapidly evolving threat to global security due to significant advancements in biotechnology in recent years and the severity of agents that could be exploited. The pursuit of publicity plays a vital role in bioterrorism. The success of a biological attack is often calculated by the extent of terror resulting from the event, psychological disruption of society and political breakdown, rather than the lethal effects of the agent used.

Disgusting Affects from the Antinomian Controversy to the Antiabortion Movement

Focusing on disgust opens up critical paths that involve more expansive scopes of space and time than are possible with strictly historicist approaches to Puritan studies. This essay investigates the remarkably similar tactics for inducing disgust in narratives from the 1640s of the antinomians’ monstrous births and in the US Senate floor debate of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act just before the Iraq War in 2003. In both instances, rhetoric comparing familiar bodies to unfamiliar corporeal forms conjures powerful feelings of disgust that legitimize intervention. These powerful affective tactics help identify “rogues” to be eradicated—either colonial rogues, a “rogue procedure,” or a “rogue state”—hardening the border-focused feelings of disgust into hegemonic control. The essay concludes by taking a cue from the Puritans about embracing the inevitability of encountering disgusting feelings alongside wondrous ones, as well as inspiration from testimonies of abortion providers in the years immediately following Roe v. Wade, and arguing that critical attention to disgust enables the possibility of imagining a multiplicity of responses to different forms of embodiment.

The Consequences of the Iraq War – Lesson Learned?

In his first address to the United Nations in September 2017, the American President Donald Trump blamed North Korea and Iran for developing missiles and nuclear weapons program, suppressing human rights and sponsoring terrorism. He also called Iran a “rogue state” what relived the memories from 2003, when President Bush used similar term of “axis of evil” to describe the regime of Saddam Hussein. Soon after, the US intervened to Iraq to launch a war against terrorism and the Hussein´s undemocratic regime. This article seeks to analyse what impact had the Iraq war on the stability and security of the country and its region. The war in Iraq also teaches us a lesson of how dangerous and counterproductive it can be, when a world superpower labels other country a “rogue state” and decides to fight alleged threats by using military power. If the US President fulfils his promise of “destroying North Korea” if under threat and launching action against its government, it could result in a very similar situation as in Iraq. A creation of another failed state would not only bring more instability but also open new military threats for the US as well as the world economy.