Soft balancing in the Americas: Latin American opposition to U.S. intervention, 1898–1936

In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, scholars of international relations debated how to best characterize the rising tide of global opposition. The concept of “soft balancing” emerged as an influential, though contested, explanation of a new phenomenon in a unipolar world: states seeking to constrain the ability of the United States to deploy military force by using multinational organizations, international law, and coalition building. Soft balancing can also be observed in regional unipolar systems. Multinational archival research reveals how Argentina, Mexico, and other Latin American countries responded to expanding U.S. power and military assertiveness in the early twentieth century through coordinated diplomatic maneuvering that provides a strong example of soft balancing. Examination of this earlier case makes an empirical contribution to the emerging soft-balancing literature and suggests that soft balancing need not lead to hard balancing or open conflict.

Linking energy and maintenance management for sustainability through three American case studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings and lessons learned from three case studies conducted for facilities located in California, North America. The findings aim to focus on energy and maintenance management practices and the interdependent link between energy and maintenance. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a positivist epistemological philosophical approach informed by action research. The research cycle was completed for each case study. A case study report was provided to each facility management team to foster collaboration with the researcher and to document case study process and results. Findings – Composite findings of the case studies include: there is an interdependent link between energy and maintenance management; reactive maintenance and energy management methods are commonly used; and more proactively operated and managed buildings require the interdependent link between energy maintenance management to be better understood. Research limitations/implications – The three case studies were located in California. Although the case study results can be generalized, determination of how to generalize and apply the results to commercial buildings outside of the USA is beyond the scope of this paper. Practical implications – Detailed discussion of the needs of the three facility management teams are discussed by identifying a current challenge, developing a solution and documenting lessons learned using the research cycle. Originality/value – The paper seeks to demonstrate the interdependencies of energy and maintenance management, two topics which are often researched interdependently. Additionally, the paper provides insight about maintenance management, a topic often cited as being under researched.

Pensamos que somos historia porque sabemos que somos historia: context, self and self-construction in women's testimonial writing from revolutionary Cuba

This article presents a group of women-authored testimonial texts published between 1959–1989 in revolutionary Cuba. Despite the recent scholarly debates within Latin American Cultural Studies regarding Latin American testimonio, these texts have received little or no critical or theoretical attention within or outside Cuba. The article therefore starts by situating them within the specific context of revolutionary culture, especially with reference to questions of gender, genre and publication. Having established that the texts as a whole privilege the collective revolutionary context and revolutionary experience over gendered or generic aspects, the seven texts are then grouped under a more specific contextual category, as narratives of voluntary work (participation and observation), in order to provide a clearer structure for their description and analysis. Each of the texts is then described within its sub-group, and the article ends by indicating how such texts challenge testimonio paradigms by positing a relational notion of subjectivity.