Interests and Values in Obama's foreign Policy: Leading from Behind?

Abstract This study will exam the relative importance of values and interests in Obama's foreign policy, focusing on crucial cases: the military actions related to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Non-Syria, Al-Qaeda and ISIL. We will argue that his "leading from behind" strategy is not very distant from the foreign and defense strategies of his post-Cold War predecessors, by which democracy is seen as an assurance to security. According to Obama's strategy, Americans will only provide support for the building of democracy in the target countries, while this task should be performed by the locals themselves. Americans will provide military training to the new governments as well so they can be responsible for their own security, including preventing regrouping of terrorists in their soil. If Obama opposes the imposing of democracy by the use of force, empirical data shows that his administration is "not prepared to accept" any option that threats US security or American liberal-democratic values, bringing in this way values and interests very close to each other.

Federalismo e endividamento subnacional: uma discussão sobre a sustentabilidade da dívida estadual

The subnational debt in Brazil was marked by successive bailouts by the federal government. The path of subnational debt induced some locals and state authorities to claim for further renegotiations. More specifically, some governors and mayors demanded a revision of the refinancing contracts. This article intends to present arguments sustained by simulations of the evolution of the path of the subnational debt, denying the necessity of changes in legal framework, which rules the state debt. The first section consists of a brief overview. The following section treats the institutional framework designed to safeguard the fiscal intertemporal balance. In the third section, the implications of new institutional framework on the subnational debt are approached; in the fourth, the possible causes that distorted the expected path of the debt are discussed. The fifth section analyses the future perspectives for the debt in general terms and focuses some specific cases, while the sixth section discusses the problem under a federal optics. Finally, the conclusion is presented.