On March 4th, Russians will go to the polls to “elect” their next president. As with most elections in the former Soviet Union, other than the Baltic countries, the most interesting questions are not concerned with who will win. It is all but certain that Russia’s current prime minister and erstwhile president, Vladimir Putin will win that election. The more compelling question raised by the Russian presidential election is what will happen after the votes are cast. Fraud in the December 2011 parliamentary election led to major demonstrations in Moscow representing the first cracks in the carefully constructed facade of invincibility which Putin had so arduously worked to create during the last decade.
{"title":"The Russian and U.S. Presidential Elections","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8BV7RT8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8BV7RT8","url":null,"abstract":"On March 4th, Russians will go to the polls to “elect” their next president. As with most elections in the former Soviet Union, other than the Baltic countries, the most interesting questions are not concerned with who will win. It is all but certain that Russia’s current prime minister and erstwhile president, Vladimir Putin will win that election. The more compelling question raised by the Russian presidential election is what will happen after the votes are cast. Fraud in the December 2011 parliamentary election led to major demonstrations in Moscow representing the first cracks in the carefully constructed facade of invincibility which Putin had so arduously worked to create during the last decade.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114785044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent statement in Hanoi that the U.S. is concerned about human rights violations in Vietnam is precisely the kind of rhetoric for which human rights and democracy activists have been calling. Demonstrations of U.S. concern about these issues made by high level officials is an integral part of efforts to improve human rights in countries like Vietnam. Clinton’s remarks also signify, if not a shift, than certainly a break from comments she made in 2009 in China where she seemed to indicate that China’s human rights violations were not all that important to the U.S. suggesting that for the U.S. and China “it might be better to agree to disagree” on those issues. Clearly, China plays a different global role than Vietnam and the U.S., as Clinton pointed out on that trip, has a number of other very important issues on which it needs to work with China, but the change in the tone of her remarks is striking.
{"title":"Staying Relevant on Human Rights","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D85X2KB5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D85X2KB5","url":null,"abstract":"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent statement in Hanoi that the U.S. is concerned about human rights violations in Vietnam is precisely the kind of rhetoric for which human rights and democracy activists have been calling. Demonstrations of U.S. concern about these issues made by high level officials is an integral part of efforts to improve human rights in countries like Vietnam. Clinton’s remarks also signify, if not a shift, than certainly a break from comments she made in 2009 in China where she seemed to indicate that China’s human rights violations were not all that important to the U.S. suggesting that for the U.S. and China “it might be better to agree to disagree” on those issues. Clearly, China plays a different global role than Vietnam and the U.S., as Clinton pointed out on that trip, has a number of other very important issues on which it needs to work with China, but the change in the tone of her remarks is striking.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"124 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116247385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For many years the notion that partisan politics ended at America’s shores contained a smattering of accuracy with a healthy overlay of propaganda. There have been too many exceptions over history for that phrase to contain more than a kernel of truth. Partisan disputes about entrance into World War II, Cold War strategy and the Vietnam War were just some of the times that the American political leadership was divided on key foreign policy questions during the time when this framework was allegedly at its strongest. Since the Vietnam War era, disputes over foreign policy from Central America to the Middle East have been a constant presence in our political life.
{"title":"The START Treaty and Partisan Politics","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8KW5RDN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8KW5RDN","url":null,"abstract":"For many years the notion that partisan politics ended at America’s shores contained a smattering of accuracy with a healthy overlay of propaganda. There have been too many exceptions over history for that phrase to contain more than a kernel of truth. Partisan disputes about entrance into World War II, Cold War strategy and the Vietnam War were just some of the times that the American political leadership was divided on key foreign policy questions during the time when this framework was allegedly at its strongest. Since the Vietnam War era, disputes over foreign policy from Central America to the Middle East have been a constant presence in our political life.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116249365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Democracy works best when people in society disagree on a range of issues. If one issue, an obvious example of this would be ethnicity, dominates in a country, than election outcomes will be the same each time and the government will either be paralyzed or permanent winners and permanent losers will emerge. When this happens, democracy falters because, in the former case, the state is immobilized, and in the latter case, the permanent losers see no democratic way out of their condition. Iraq, Bosnia and Lebanon are all examples of countries where ethnic identity has held sway as the major issue which determines how people vote.
{"title":"Seinfeld Elections: Why Democracy Needs Conflict","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D812632F","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D812632F","url":null,"abstract":"Democracy works best when people in society disagree on a range of issues. If one issue, an obvious example of this would be ethnicity, dominates in a country, than election outcomes will be the same each time and the government will either be paralyzed or permanent winners and permanent losers will emerge. When this happens, democracy falters because, in the former case, the state is immobilized, and in the latter case, the permanent losers see no democratic way out of their condition. Iraq, Bosnia and Lebanon are all examples of countries where ethnic identity has held sway as the major issue which determines how people vote.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122863559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The U.S. is now planning to remove all its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. This might mean that one of the most expensive, ill-conceived and destructive chapters in American foreign policy is now coming to a close. The decision to get out of Iraq could not have been an easy one. Fears of a growing Iranian influence in the region or the collapse of the young Iraqi state are legitimate. They are no longer, however, compelling reasons for the U.S. to remain in Iraq. If there was any guarantee, or even strong likelihood, that two, three or even five more years of U.S. involvement in Iraq would ensure that Iran’s influence would not grow in Iraq or that the Iraqi government would be stable and well-functioning, there would be a strong argument for staying in Iraq. The reality, that there is no way to know how much longer, or at what cost, the U.S. would need to stay in Iraq to achieve these goals, means that it is time to get out. More accurately, it means that it has been time to get out for a while.
{"title":"U.S. Leaving Iraq with All Deliberate Speed","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8D50X5W","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8D50X5W","url":null,"abstract":"The U.S. is now planning to remove all its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. This might mean that one of the most expensive, ill-conceived and destructive chapters in American foreign policy is now coming to a close. The decision to get out of Iraq could not have been an easy one. Fears of a growing Iranian influence in the region or the collapse of the young Iraqi state are legitimate. They are no longer, however, compelling reasons for the U.S. to remain in Iraq. If there was any guarantee, or even strong likelihood, that two, three or even five more years of U.S. involvement in Iraq would ensure that Iran’s influence would not grow in Iraq or that the Iraqi government would be stable and well-functioning, there would be a strong argument for staying in Iraq. The reality, that there is no way to know how much longer, or at what cost, the U.S. would need to stay in Iraq to achieve these goals, means that it is time to get out. More accurately, it means that it has been time to get out for a while.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"70 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129408502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The recent midterm elections were characterized by a striking absence of any discussion of foreign policy. This was particularly notable given that the U.S. remains mired in two wars, declarations of the end of combat in Iraq notwithstanding, neither of which can be said to be going particularly well. Perhaps this is because both parties, the Republicans who have sought to present themselves as the party of hawks and national security, and the Democrats because the war in Afghanistan has been escalated by President Obama, had few incentives to bring foreign policy into the campaign. It is more likely that foreign policy was rarely discussed during the campaign because, like most elections, the dominant issues in this campaign, and the most important to voters were jobs and the economy.
{"title":"Will the Election Change Obama's Foreign Policy","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8H421VF","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8H421VF","url":null,"abstract":"The recent midterm elections were characterized by a striking absence of any discussion of foreign policy. This was particularly notable given that the U.S. remains mired in two wars, declarations of the end of combat in Iraq notwithstanding, neither of which can be said to be going particularly well. Perhaps this is because both parties, the Republicans who have sought to present themselves as the party of hawks and national security, and the Democrats because the war in Afghanistan has been escalated by President Obama, had few incentives to bring foreign policy into the campaign. It is more likely that foreign policy was rarely discussed during the campaign because, like most elections, the dominant issues in this campaign, and the most important to voters were jobs and the economy.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"118 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116163420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
One of the major advantages of being the world’s only superpower, as the U.S. was for much of the last twenty years, is that the U.S. was the only country strong enough to be able to have influence across the globe. A major disadvantage which confronts the U.S. is that because of its power, it has to be concerned about what happens more or less everywhere across the globe. Over the last decades, the U.S. has maneuvered itself into a position where virtually every country is important and every region is strategically vital. There are some exceptions to this, notably in Africa, but that too is changing. This began with the global struggle of the Cold War, but has continued well beyond that conflict.
{"title":"We Have to Be There Because We Have to Be There - The Future of U.S. Engagement","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8445WWZ","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8445WWZ","url":null,"abstract":"One of the major advantages of being the world’s only superpower, as the U.S. was for much of the last twenty years, is that the U.S. was the only country strong enough to be able to have influence across the globe. A major disadvantage which confronts the U.S. is that because of its power, it has to be concerned about what happens more or less everywhere across the globe. Over the last decades, the U.S. has maneuvered itself into a position where virtually every country is important and every region is strategically vital. There are some exceptions to this, notably in Africa, but that too is changing. This began with the global struggle of the Cold War, but has continued well beyond that conflict.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126935626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Like many Americans, I know and care very little about soccer and the World Cup. I understand intellectually that it is a great sport with tens of millions of devoted fans, but not having grown up around it, I do not have an appreciation for its nuances and beauty. I suspect this is how many from non-baseball playing countries feel about baseball, a sport in which I have some interest and knowledge.
{"title":"Why Is the World Cup Coverage So Full of Stereotypes","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D822345C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D822345C","url":null,"abstract":"Like many Americans, I know and care very little about soccer and the World Cup. I understand intellectually that it is a great sport with tens of millions of devoted fans, but not having grown up around it, I do not have an appreciation for its nuances and beauty. I suspect this is how many from non-baseball playing countries feel about baseball, a sport in which I have some interest and knowledge.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123062482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The term revolution has been used by many people to describe the ongoing demonstrations in Egypt. Additionally, part of the narrative about these events is that the revolution will lead to democracy as most revolutions do. This narrative, however, should be viewed, at this time, as aspirational. It is obviously possible that we will see a revolution in Egypt from which democracy will grow, but it is very far from certain that this is what will happen there.
{"title":"Revolution and Democracy in Egypt","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8WH30CB","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8WH30CB","url":null,"abstract":"The term revolution has been used by many people to describe the ongoing demonstrations in Egypt. Additionally, part of the narrative about these events is that the revolution will lead to democracy as most revolutions do. This narrative, however, should be viewed, at this time, as aspirational. It is obviously possible that we will see a revolution in Egypt from which democracy will grow, but it is very far from certain that this is what will happen there.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114140305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is only a few days after the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and demonstrations have already spread to much of the Middle East with several governments including those in Libya and Bahrain appearing to be on the verge of collapsing. It is possible that the regimes in Libya and Bahrain will right themselves and find a way to stay in power, but it seems more likely that at least one of these countries, and perhaps others in the region, will, like Egypt and Tunisia, see a resignation or abdication soon.
{"title":"Egypt and Post Affluent America","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D88P68X3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D88P68X3","url":null,"abstract":"It is only a few days after the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and demonstrations have already spread to much of the Middle East with several governments including those in Libya and Bahrain appearing to be on the verge of collapsing. It is possible that the regimes in Libya and Bahrain will right themselves and find a way to stay in power, but it seems more likely that at least one of these countries, and perhaps others in the region, will, like Egypt and Tunisia, see a resignation or abdication soon.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133733490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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