...Adeola Adegbite March 21st 2013 African International Politics Professor Throup Failure of Organizations Throughout modern history, Western powers such as the United States and Europe have always assisted weaker nations in order for those countries to maintain internal stability and external relations with other nations. Most often, Western powers to aid states with failing democratic systems or nations that are strategic allies in certain regions of the world. For Western powers, it is important to promote the ideals of Democracy, and assist other nations deemed as crucial to Democracy’s development. Democracies and its expansion are vital for several reasons Democratic nations foster peace and stability. Following World War II, the United States believed it was imperative to sustain and support Western Europe. At the time Western Europe was facing the encroachment of the Soviet Union and its communist ideologies. The United States saw its support for Western Europe as essential in order to preserve their alliance, and most importantly to continue strengthening and expanding democratic ideals. However, as of the past twenty years, when it comes sub-Saharan Africa, Western nations are not nearly as concerned about a states internal or external stability. For example, countries such as Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and many other sub-Saharan countries are in utter turmoil, but the West has turned a blind eye. The burden now falls on organizations like the United Nations, Organization...
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...Terri Samuels Current Events and US Diplomacy Strayer University December 8, 2012 Abstract In the history of diplomacy and political thought in general, nothing can influence objectives of the states more dynamically than changes in the international relations and progress of the process of globalisation. In this context, American diplomacy is not an exception. In the previous paper, Eisenhower’s Doctrine was analyzed by its essence and objectives in the framework of the requirements of the international relations and possible threat for the national security. The main aim of the present paper is to view American diplomacy in its evolution from Eisenhower’s approach to the modern diplomatic doctrine. Key words: global responsibility, supremacy, US diplomacy, the Cold War, Poland. Current Events and US Diplomacy In the history of diplomacy and political thought in general, nothing can influence objectives of the states more dynamically than changes in the international relations and progress of the process of globalisation. In this context, American diplomacy is not an exception. In the previous paper, Eisenhower’s Doctrine was analyzed by its essence and objectives in the framework of the requirements of the international relations and possible threat for the national security. The main aim of the present paper is to view American diplomacy in its...
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...Political Studies (1998), XLVI, 572±588 Parties, Party Systems, and Satisfaction with Democratic Performance in The New Europe CHRISTOPHER J. ANDERSON1 Introduction Political parties and the party systems they form constitute the major channels of interest aggregation and citizen input in contemporary democracies. They are the vehicles through which political elites supply policy alternatives, and they constitute the major route for citizens to organize the demand for such alternatives.2 Parties also play a crucial role in the nature of democratic governance because they help legitimize the state. After all, free and fair elections in which parties compete for oce are a prime criterion for whether a system should be considered a democracy in the ®rst place. Outside of elections, political parties also have long been the most important mediating institutions between citizens and the state, in particular as parties have taken on the roles as simultaneous agents both of the state and its citizens.3 While virtually all democracies have political parties that compete for oce, political systems dier in a number of important ways with regard to how they go about channeling inputs or providing policy alternatives, and with regard to the roles they assign parties in this process. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the ways in which political institutions condition the formation, functioning, and development of political parties and party systems varies as ...
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...1. How was Poland able to avoid the worst effects of the economic crisis that gripped most of Europe during 2008-2009? After becoming a Democratic country, Poland has privatized many state-owned businesses, deregulated its economy, and received foreign direct investment. Entering the EU eased Poland to improve its exportations to the markets of Western Europe and transform into a major exporter. A combination of tight monetary policy and restrained government spending put Poland in a strong position to weather the financial crisis that swept around the globe in 2008–2009. 2. What lessons can be derived from the Polish experience during 2008-2009? A tight monetary policy may help avoid the worst part of an economic crisis and having good commercial partners is also a great way to weather it. 3. From the perspective of international business, what is attractive about the Polish economy? What are the weaknesses and risks associated with doing business there? Poland can be attractive to invest because it is a fast growing economy and its there is a 11 per cent unemployment so the labour force available to work is huge. However, tax laws are quite complex, tax rates very high and too much bureaucratic hurdles that makes difficult doing business there. It is also true that the government is in process of simplifying tax laws, reducing tax rates and removing bureaucratic hurdles to attract investors and rocket its economy. For example we can mention the Entrepreneurship...
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...Union was established after World War II in the late 1940s in an effort to unite the countries of Europe and end the period of wars between neighboring countries. These nations began to officially unite in 1949 with the Council of Europe. In 1950 the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community expanded the cooperation. The six nations involved in this initial treaty were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Today these countries are referred to as the "founding members." During the 1950s, the Cold War, protests, and divisions between Eastern and Western Europe showed the need for further European unification. In order to do this, the Treaty of Rome was signed on March 25, 1957, thus creating the European Economic Community and allowing people and products to move throughout Europe. Throughout the decades additional countries joined the community. In order to further unify Europe, the Single European Act was signed in 1987 with the aim of eventually creating a "single market" for trade. Europe was further unified in 1989 with the elimination of the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe - the Berlin Wall. Throughout the 1990s, the "single market" idea allowed easier trade, more citizen interaction on issues such as the environment and security, and easier travel through the different countries. Even though the countries of Europe had various treaties in place prior to the early 1990s, this time is generally recognized as the...
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...Have Western liberal democracies effectively responded to challenges to their power? In your answer, refer to at least one internal and one external challenge. Introduction In 1989 political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history.”[1] Despite his language, Fukuyama was not an apocalyptic religious fundamentalist awaiting the rapture, but rather, he saw with the collapse of the Soviet Union the ultimate and final triumph of liberal democracy. Fukuyama draws on Marxist and Hegelian interpretations of the narrative of history as one of progress, in this case with its apex at the liberal democracy best represented by the United States of America. The triumphalism of this context may seem naïve in a post-9/11 world, but it should be seen in its original context of the decades long cold war between the US (and its allies) and the Soviet Union. These two sides came to represent an ideological conflict rather than a purely physical one, between liberal capitalist democracy and authoritarian communism, between free enterprise and central planning. Liberal democracy emerged victorious economically, politically and, Fukuyama would argue, philosophically. However, Fukuyama would be hard pressed to defend his near-eschatological optimism today, and Marxist critic Terry Eagleton has said that “the End of History is at an end.”[2] Rather than the comparatively monolithic opposition it experienced in the 20th Century, today the political dominance of liberal democracy is...
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...Electoral System in Slovenia Analysis paper 04.14.2011 Electoral System in Slovenia An electoral system has a significant influence on the structuring of the party system within a country. In 1991, for a newly established democratic republic, Slovenia, the question of selecting the right electoral system was on top of the political agenda. Slovenia, that just had socialist period of the past, when there was “voting without elections”, looked for ways to obtain a stable political system and chose the model, used by the developed countries of Western Europe. The choice to use proportional system has lead to multi-party system and effective governance. According to the reports by Freedom of House, the country is placed very highly with respect to its overall level of democracy, while the level of competition is above the global average. This proves us once again the validity of Lijphart’s theory, that claims that proportional electoral systems lead towards greater long-term democratic stability in deeply-divided plural societies. To begin with, the electoral system concerns multiple aspects of electoral law and its most basic characteristics, defined clearly in Patterns of Democracy, are the ballot structure, determining how voters can express their choices, the electoral threshold, or the minimum votes needed by a party to secure representation, the electoral formula, determining how votes are counted to allocate...
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...Truman passionately detested communism and felt with the purpose of that it was the US obligation to obstruct the development of those principles. Throughout the Cold War, the US established harmony and detained back the Soviet development in addition to build financial and political solidity in the course of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This Cold War started for the reason that Stalin started to shatter the agreements among partners that were established at the 1945 meeting at Yalta. The single most important agreement prepared all through the meeting, was that free or democratic elections were to obtain a position in East Europe. As an alternative, however, Communist regimes with the intention of being compliant to Moscow were put into position and also have numerous troops in Eastern Europe. It was the same as Churchill confirmed in Fulton. The Soviets brought down an Iron Curtain on...
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...of the rule of Adolf Hitler came about when the Nazi Germany was defeated by the allied British in the year 1945[1]. Although Adolf Hitler was sparked World War II in Europe his defeat came in with destruction of property and loss of German lives because of his obstinacy, tough headedness and selfishness. Hitler’s poise that restricted him from accepting to surrender led to the destruction of infrastructure that he had already built. This paper aims to address the history of the Germans after World War II, the German economy and their living standards. The defeat of the Nazi Germany led to the split of Germany in a period known as the split of Germany after World War II. The country lost its war gains and territories in the East to the Soviet Union and Poland. The German population underwent much torture and suffering, about seven million of the German citizenry left Germany and died during their emigration because of starvation and hard labour. The most affected people were the prisoners serving their time in the prisons. Over ten million refugees who knew the German language well arrived in the country from other parts of the continent such as countries in Eastern and Central Europe[2]. Many of the German POWs were subjected to forced labour with industrial equipment...
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...Future of Democracy in Africa With the aid of the book, State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa, I will try to come up with some type of conclusion to the future democracy in Africa. These Africanists that I will mention in my paper have assessed that contemporary Africa has struggled to deal with false starts, unsatisfactory attempts to reconfigure power and varies political reforms. The first theoretical essay is written by Crawford Young on the Third Wave of Democratization in Africa. Young is a Political Scientist, who received a PhD from Harvard and he specializes in development and politics in developing countries, particularly Africa. His works are “The Politics of Cultural Pluralism” , “Ideology and Development in Africa” , and “The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State”. In his essay, Young offers insight on Africa's experimentation on political liberalization. Young starts off by talking about the “third wave” of democratization which hit Africa in 1989 which was seen as a global dynamic. Factors such as modernization, diffusion and power politics helped shaped this transition. In Africa there were deeper structural factors which started first with the economical field. “In dramatic contrast to the aggressive assertion of economic nationalism in the 1970s, a decade peppered with sweeping indigenization programs and widespread nationalism, the 1980 Organization of African Unity Lagos Plan of Action, and the blistering critique of African development performance...
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...Crimea and Ukraine crisis has grown. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian militia are engaged in a back and forth standoff in eastern Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that the conflict “essentially puts the nation on the brink of civil war.” The United States has been at the forefront of building international support for Ukraine, and the Obama administration continues to assemble Western support. However, efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement, or at least to reduce immediate tensions, are still in progress. As the Obama administration prepares its next steps in response to Russia in Ukraine, it can examine lessons from two other administrations in times of crisis. First, the Reagan administration’s reaction in 1983 to the Soviet downing of a civilian Korean airliner and its response to the terrorist attack against U.S. Marines on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Second, the Clinton administration’s initiative to proactively expand and deepen partnerships in Europe during the 1990s through its Partnership for Peace. President Ronald Reagan faced an exceptional provocation with the downing of the Korean airliner and a month later, with the terrorist attack against U.S. Marines in Lebanon, resulting in significant American and allied casualties. Keeping costly and possibly destabilizing military options as his last resort, President Reagan used vigorous but measured words to condemn these lawless actions and...
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...Miljanic November 3rd, 2013 The Soviet Union, now Russia, heavily influenced the second global economy. From the reconstruction of Germany to the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s actions affected the world second only to the United States. While the second global economy is loosely defined as the era between the years of 1971 and 1998, the seeds of this time period were planted shortly after the end of World War II in the European theatre. Following the fall of Nazi Germany, the United States devised the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economies of war-devastated countries. As a world power, the United States believed it was their duty to prevent another world war. The Soviet Union agreed with the sentiment, but not with the approach the western nations took. To prevent the rise of authoritarian governments, the United States promoted democracies, constitutional rule, and capitalism. The Soviet Union, an authoritarian government, advanced their communist ideas to counter the Truman Doctrine. The result of the opposing ideologies was a strained relationship between the two influencers of the modern world, and the initiation of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was focused on spreading their political ideology for one reason: Protection (Service 2). While most of the world considers the establishment of communist regimes as Soviet expansion, the Soviet Union created a buffer zone. In essence, the surrounding nations would provide more time for the Soviet Union to prepare while opposing...
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...Germany’s economy has always played a prominent role in its rich history. It has come along way to rebuild its shattered economy, losing two world wars and the carrying out of a horrific genocide. Today, Germany dominates Europe on many levels. Participating in two world wars caused havoc on Germany’s economy and for many years, their future seemed bleak. They rebuilt their economy with great success. While most of Europe entered recession in late 2008, Germany was going from strength to strength economically. These topics are very relevant to our personal lives, not a day goes by without the economic state or fiscal crises being mentioned in the various forms of media. These issues affect us directly. Germany as a whole has developed greatly in recent years, in it’s society, it’s economy and other important areas. In my speech I will address many points that discuss Germany’s evolvement into a European economic superpower. I will discuss most importantly the history of Germany in the European Union and how it’s connected to the role of the economy in German history, exploring how Germany has developed in areas such as foreign policy, Gross Domestic Product and Inflation figures, the great divide between East Germany and West Germany after World War II and then Reunification. I will explore and refer to journals, books and popular press sources in Germany throughout my speech. After the First World War, Germany was left in a vulnerable state. Germany was economically devastated...
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...victory in Europe and Japan? [Listen to Owen talk about choosing his topic] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The three great allies of the Second World War, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia together destroyed the Axis powers and shattered their imperial ambitions. Their "shotgun marriage" 1 was always unlikely, given the history of antagonism between them. The union was to be short lived, with the ideological and political differences leading to the collapse of the Grand Alliance within five years of the end of the war. Despite wartime hopes that the great allies may be able to continue in their relationship in peace and provide stability to the world community, the diplomatic and military relationship between the two dominant powers, the United States and Russia, quickly degenerated into the so-called 'Cold War' which was to dominate world politics for the next half a century. [Listen to Owen talk about presenting an argument] [Listen to Owen talk about writing intros] During the war the allied leaders were aware that victory in Europe and the Pacific meant much more than just the abolition of an intolerable political regime. Talking in 1944, Stalin said: "This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has power to do so. It cannot be otherwise." 2 Consequently, as the threat of Nazism in Europe was clearly...
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...French Values and the European Union The development of France as a nation and the French identity has been a complicated and gradual process. Though it is true that France is a country in Western Europe and its inhabitants speak French, there is much more to the definition of France as a nation, society, or culture. France began its development by becoming a civilization, something directly opposed to "barbarism" and, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, "the action or proves of civilizing or of being civilized; a developed or advanced state of human society." France then began to develop into a nation, or a modern political institution. Many of its national values are based on Enlightenment philosophers, who said that "governments should be reflections of the governed, of the people" (Lesson 1). Just as France does, every nation has a history, or "origin story," that describes how it originated and what type of being belongs in the French nation. After the Gauls, Roman Empire, and German invasion, the French Revolution finally brought about three values that define the French nation: liberté, fraternité, and égalité (liberty, brotherhood, and equality). The following two articles will show how these values and others, such as French exceptionalism and separatism, affect the French attitude towards the European Union. The first article summarizes France's response to a request from the European Commission for information about its recent Roma expulsions. According...
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