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Strobe Talbott
President, The Brookings Institution- U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (1994-2001)
Occasional Paper Number 23, February 2005; Center for the Advanced Study of India
(…)Strobe Talbott was President Clinton’s “point man” in the intensive talks between India and Pakistan in the two and a half years that followed the nuclear tests you will all recall, in May 1998. The immediate results of those tests, coming on top of decades of estrangement, was what has been charitably described as an acrimonious standoff between India and the United States. Efforts to dig out from that deep and dangerous hole led to the most intensive diplomatic engagement ever between the U.S. and India. Deputy Secretary Talbott and Minister of External Affairs, Jaswant Singh, met no less than 14 times, in seven countries and on three continents. Their efforts, and the mutual trust they were able to develop, were major contributors to the reduction of tensions between India and Pakistan, tensions which many feared at the time could lead to nuclear holocaust (…) Continue reading From Estrangement to Engagement: U.S. – India Relations since May 1998
Summer 2010  The EU’s enthusiasm for reshaping global governance has dwindled, and now looks more like indifference. Pedro Solbes and Richard Youngs warn that the EU not only risks the debate being shaped elsewhere but may even find itself left out of the discussion altogether.
The reform of global economic governance is still firmly on policymakers’ radar screens, but there is little evidence that since London’s G20 Summit in April last year the EU has developed a forward-looking or coherent approach to the new forms of global governance that G20 leaders had committed to. Continue reading Europe is failing to shape the global governance debate
By Richard Youngs*
FRIDE
Democracy assistance needs to be re-energised. The author lays out the main concerns of civil society organisations in states on the receiving end of democracy support and offers recommendations on how to improve donor strategies and design more demand-led policies. Continue reading How to revitalise democracy assistance: Recipients’views
Some New Cross-National Evidence
Arno Tausch*
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2010
Abstract
The current paper investigates the cross-national relevance of dependency theory and world systems theory for eight dimensions of development. The main emphasis is on indicators of sustainable development, and our essay comprises in all 36 main dependent variables. They are part of the dimensions of democracy, gender justice, high quality tertiary education, economic growth during the outgone economic cycle until 2008 and projected economic growth after 2009, the environment, human development, employment, and social cohesion on a global scale by a new. Our 175 nation analysis, using 20 main predictors of development tries to confront the very basic pro-globalist assumptions of the “Lisbon process”, the policy target of the European leaders since the EU’s Lisbon Council meeting in March 2000 to make Europe the leading knowledge-based economy in the world with a “globalization critical perspective”. A realistic and politically useful analysis of the “Lisbon process” has to be a “Schumpeterian” approach. We analyze the “Lisbon performance” of the world economy by multivariate, quantitative means, looking into the possible contradictions that might exists between the dependent insertion into the global economy and other goals of the “Lisbon process”. Continue reading Passive Globalization and the Failure of the European Union’s Lisbon Strategy, 2000-2010:
America’s dangerous devotion to executive power 
Gene Healy.
From the introduction:
On the morning of January 28, 2007, Mike Huckabee went on NBC’s Meet the Press to announce that he was running for president of the United States. It was a bold move for an undistinguished former governor of Arkansas, best known for losing 110 pounds in office and writing about it in a book called Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork. Bolder still was Huckabee’s rationale for seeking the nation’s highest office. He had decided to run, he told host Tim Russert, because ‘‘America needs positive, optimistic leadership to kind of turn this country around, to see a revival of our national soul.’’ Russert didn’t make the most of his opportunity for follow-up questions, but the candidate’s remark might have suggested several. First, was the ‘‘national soul’’ really in such a desperate state that its last, best hope was . . . Mike Huckabee? Second, and more importantly, what sort of office did Huckabee imagine he was running for? Is reviving the national soul in the job description? And if reviving the national soul is part of the president’s job, what isn’t?
The Bipartisan Romance with the Imperial Presidency Huckabee wasn’t the only candidate to wax messianic about the president’s role. His fellow contestants in campaign 2008 also seemed to think they were applying for the job of national savior. Senator John McCain invoked Teddy Roosevelt as a role model, noting that TR ‘‘liberally interpreted the constitutional authority of the office,’’ and ‘‘nourished the soul of a great nation.’’ Senator Barack Obama ran on ‘‘the audacity of hope,’’ a phrase connoting the eternal promise of redemption through presidential politics (is ‘‘audacity’’ the right word for that kind of hope?). For her part, Hillary Clinton seemed to see the president as the lone figure who could restore a sense of purpose to American life: as she put it in May 2007, ‘‘When I ask people, ‘What do you think the goals of America are today?’ people don’t have any idea. We don’t know what we’re trying to achieve. And I think that in a life or in a country you’ve got to have some goals.’’ (…) Continue reading The Cult of The Presidency
Fernando Estrada
Universidad Externado de Colombia – Facultad de Finanzas, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales
Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN)
Abstract:
In their recent work Thomas S. Schelling, reiterating original arguments about game theory and its applications to social sciences. In particular, game theory helps to explore situations in which agents make decisions interdependent (strategic communication). Schelling’s originality is to extend economic theory to social sciences. When a player can anticipate the options and influence the decisions of others. The strategy, indirect communication plays a crucial role. To illustrate, we investigate how to perform the payoff matrix in cases of bribery and threat.
Continue reading Game Theory: An Approach from Thomas S. Schelling
Roger Pielke Jr.1 and Roberta Klein1
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Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, 1333 Grandview Ave., UCB 488, Boulder, CO 80309-0488, USA |
Abstract The president’s science advisor was formerly established in the days following the Soviet launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, creating an impression of scientists at the center of presidential power. However, since that time the role of the science advisor has been far more prosaic, with a role that might be more aptly described as a coordinator of budgets and programs, and thus more closely related to the functions of the Office of Management and Budget than the development of presidential policy. This role dramatically enhances the position of the scientific community to argue for its share of federal expenditures. At the same time, scientific and technological expertise permeates every function of government policy and politics, and the science advisor is only rarely involved in wider White House decision making. The actual role of the science advisor as compared to its heady initial days, in the context of an overall rise of governmental expertise, provides ample reason to reconsider the role of the presidential science advisor, and to set our expectations for that role accordingly. Keywords Science advice - Presidential science advisor - Science and government - Science and decision making
Minerva, A Review of Science, Learning and Policy
Continue reading The Rise and Fall of the Science Advisor to the President of the United States
Duncan Snidal and Alexander Wendt (2009). Why there is International Theory now. International Theory, 1 , pp 1-14
doi:10.1017/S1752971909000062
| Duncan Snidala1 c1 and Alexander Wendta2 c2
a1 Department of Political Science and Harris Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
a2 Mershon Center and Political Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
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Continue reading Why there is International Theory now
Mariano Barbato and Friedrich Kratochwil (2009). Towards a post-secular political order?. European Political Science Review, 1, pp 317-340
doi:10.1017/S1755773909990166
| Mariano Barbatoa1 c1 and Friedrich Kratochwila2 c1
a1 Faculty of Philosophy, University of Passau, Passau, Germany
a2 Department of Political Science, European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, San Domeico di Fiesole, Florence, Italy
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Abstract
The ‘return of religion’ as a social phenomenon has aroused at least three different debates, with the first being the ‘clash of civilizations’, the second criticizing ‘modernity’, and the third focusing on the public/private distinction. This article uses Habermas’ idea of a post-secular society as a prism through which we examine the return of religion and impact on secularization. In doing so, we attempt to understand the new role of religion as a challenger of the liberal projects following the decline of communism. Against this background, section four focuses on Habermas’s central arguments in his proposal for a post-secular society. We claim that the problematique in Habermas’s analysis must be placed within the wider framework of an emerging global public sphere. In this context we examine the problem of religion’s place in political process and the two readings of Habermas as suggested by Simone Chambers.
Keywordsinternational relations; globalization; religion; Jürgen Habermas; secularism; post-secular society Continue reading Towards a post-secular political order?
DANA R. VILLA
Introduction: the development of Arendt’s political thought
Widely recognized as one of the most original and influential political thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt remains an elusive figure. She never wrote a systematic political philosophy in the mode of Thomas Hobbes or John Rawls, and the books she did write are extremely diverse in topic, covering totalitarianism, the place of political action in human life, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the meaning of the modern revolutionary tradition, the nature of political freedom and authority, and the faculties which make up “the life of the mind.” These works are not constructed upon a single argument, diligently unfolded, or upon a linear narrative. Rather, they are grounded upon a series of striking conceptual distinctions – between tyranny and totalitarianism; action, labor, and work; political revolution and struggles for liberation; thinking, willing, and judging – which Arendt elaborates and weaves into complex thematic strands. The interconnections between the strands are sometimes left to the reader. Thus, it is no surprise that newcomers to her work are often baffled by how the pieces fit together (not only from book to book, but often within a single volume). They cannot help wondering whether there is, in fact, a consistent Continue reading The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt
Gabriel A. Almond
Miss Cooper : La solitude est une chose terrible vous ne trouvez pas ?
Anne : Oui vraiment. Une chose terrible…
Miss Meecham : Elle n’est pas du genre «solitaire».
Miss Cooper : Y a-t-il quelqu’un qui soit du genre «solitaire»… ?
Terence Rattigan, Separate Tables, 1955
DANS Separate Tables, le succès de la saison théâtrale new-yorkaise de 1955, un auteur irlandais, Terence Rattigan, utilisait la métaphore des dîners solitaires dans un hôtel résidentiel de second rang de Cornwell pour faire comprendre la solitude de la condition humaine. Cela peut paraître quelque peu tiré par les cheveux que d’utiliser cette métaphore pour décrire la condition de la science politique dans les années 1980. Mais, en un sens, les différentes écoles et sectes de la science politique sont maintenant assises à des tables séparées, chacune avec sa propre conception de la science politique mais chacune protégeant sa part secrète de vulnérabilité. Continue reading «Les tables séparées». Écoles et sectes dans la science politique américaine
Christian Bouquet
1En reprenant le thème de « l’Etat en Afrique », ce numéro de L’Espace Politique n’entend pas revenir sur les travaux des politistes car ceux-ci ont déjà largement défriché ce sujet et proposé des pistes de réflexion pertinentes. En effet, on s’accorde généralement – mais cette certitude peut être ébranlée – pour considérer que la construction coloniale et postcoloniale de l’Etat en Afrique relève d’un processus de greffe qui a mal pris, produisant des avatars qualifiés par les politologues anglo-saxons de failed States, Etats défaillants. Effectivement accolés à des exemples africains (Somalie, Liberia, Rwanda, RD Congo, …), les adjectifs n’ont pas manqué pour pointer les Etats mous (soft States de Gunnar Myrdal, 1971), les Etats-rhizomes (Jean-François Bayart, 1989) ou les Etats faillis (collapsed States de William Zartman, 1995). Continue reading L’Etat en Afrique. Géographie politique de la maîtrise des territoires
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