Soft power as the new norm: How the Chinese-Russian strategic partnership (soft) balances American hegemony in an era of unipolarity

This study explores how great powers not allied with the United States formulate their grand strategies in a unipolar international system. Specifically, it analyzes the strategies China and Russia have developed to deal with U.S. hegemony by examining how Moscow and Beijing have responded to American intervention in Central Asia. The study argues that China and Russia have adopted a soft balancing strategy of to indirectly balance the United States at the regional level. This strategy uses normative capabilities such as soft power, alternative institutions and regionalization to offset the overwhelming material hardware of the hegemon. The theoretical and methodological approach of this dissertation is neoclassical realism. Chinese and Russian balancing efforts against the United States are based on their domestic dynamics as well as systemic constraints. Neoclassical realism provides a bridge between the internal characteristics of states and the environment which those states are situated. Because China and Russia do not have the hardware (military or economic power) to directly challenge the United States, they must resort to their software (soft power and norms) to indirectly counter American preferences and set the agenda to obtain their own interests. Neoclassical realism maintains that soft power is an extension of hard power and a reflection of the internal makeup of states. The dissertation uses the heuristic case study method to demonstrate the efficacy of soft balancing. Such case studies help to facilitate theory construction and are not necessarily the demonstrable final say on how states behave under given contexts. Nevertheless, it finds that China and Russia have increased their soft power to counterbalance the United States in certain regions of the world, Central Asia in particular. The conclusion explains how soft balancing can be integrated into the overall balance-of-power framework to explain Chinese and Russian responses to U.S. hegemony. It also suggests that an analysis of norms and soft power should be integrated into the study of grand strategy, including both foreign policy and military doctrine.

A Study of Intercultural Adjustment Regarding Time Orientation of Russian Students in the U.S. Academic Environment

The study investigates intercultural adjustment (IA) of Russian students to the U.S. academic environment. IA is examined through the lens of the Time orientation (T orientation) of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s (1961) theory of value orientations. The study reveals students’ T orientation and degrees, perceived difficulties, and strategies of adjustment.

Guantánamo and Cuban Nationalism, Lecture by Michael E. Parmly

This flyer promotes the event "Guantánamo and Cuban Nationalism, Lecture by Michael E. Parmly", cosponsored by the FlU Latin American and Caribbean Center.

Immigration and nationalism in Greece

A source of emigration until the early 1970s, Greece has become home to a rising tide of immigrants since 1991, and its foreign-born population rose from below one to over 11 percent. Equally important is the fact that the Greek state has historically premised national belonging on ethnicity, and striven to exclude people who did not exhibit Greek ethnic traits. My study examines how immigration has challenged this nationalist model of ethnically homogeneous belonging. Further, it uses the Greek case to problematize the hegemonic assumption that the nationalist model of social organization is a human universal. Data consist of reactions to a 2010 landmark law that constituted the first jus soli bill in the nation's history, and include a plurality of voices found in parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, a government-sponsored online forum and Facebook discussions. Voices examined correspond to three main conceptual camps: people who premise belonging on ethnicity and hegemonic definitions of what it means to be Greek, people who mitigate nationalist norms enough to include immigrants, but reproduce a nationalist worldview, and people who seek to divorce political belonging from ethnicity altogether.

Does U.S counter-drug policy affect nationalism in the Anglophone Caribbean? A comparative study on the impact of counter-drug policy on nationalism in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago

This dissertation examined the effect of United States counter-drug policy on nationalism in small states, focusing on Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The states were selected for their roles and geostrategic importance in the illegal drug trade; Jamaica being the largest drug producing country in the Anglophone Caribbean and having strong links to the trade of Colombian cocaine, and Trinidad being a mere seven miles from the South American coast. Since U.S. counterdrug policies have frequently been viewed in the region as imperialistic, this dovetails into ideas on the perceptions of smallness and powerlessness of Caribbean nations. Hence, U.S. drug policies affect every vulnerability faced by the Caribbean, individually and collectively. Thus, U.S. drug policy was deemed the most appropriate independent variable, with nationalism as the dependent variable. In both countries four Focus Groups and one Delphi Study were conducted resulting in a total of 60 participants. Focus Group participants, recruited from the general population, were asked about their perception of the illegal drug trade in the country and the policies their government had created. They were also asked their perception on how deeply involved the U.S. was in the creation of these policies and their opinions on whether this involvement was positive or negative. The Delphi Study participants were experts in the field of local drug policies and also gave their interpretations of the role the U.S. played in local policy creation. Coupled with this data, content analysis was conducted on various newspaper articles, press releases, and speeches made regarding the topic. In comparing both countries, it was found that there is a disconnect between government actions and the knowledge and perceptions of the general public. In Trinidad and Tobago this disconnect was more apparent given the lack of awareness of local drug policies and the utter lack of faith in government solutions. The emerging conclusion was that the impact of U.S. drug policy on nationalism was more visible in Trinidad and Tobago where there was a weaker civil society-government relationship, while the impact on nationalism was more obscure in Jamaica, which had a stronger civil-society government relationship.

Racist Aspects of Modern Turkish Nationalism

Peer reviewed

Exiled Russian Feminist Tatyana Mamonova

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Tatyana Mamonova, exiled Russian Feminist

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Jewish women demonstrate at the U.N. in support of Jewish women in Russian prisons

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Jewish women demonstrate at Russian Mission

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Tatyana Mamonova holding her underground unpublished book on Russian Women and feminism

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Bella Abzug attends press conference at NY City Hall celebrating dedication of Russian writer and poet Tatyana Mamonova

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

JDL-arrests and demonstrations at Russian Mission

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The emergence of borders: moral questions mapped out

In this paper, we examine the extent to which the concept of emergence can be applied to questions about the nature and moral justification of territorial borders. Although the term is used with many different senses in philosophy, the concept of “weak emergence” - advocated by, for example, Sawyer (2002, 2005) and Bedau (1997 ) - is especially applicable, since it forces a distinction between prediction and explanation that connects with several issues in the discussion of territory. In particular, we argue, weak emergentism about borders allows us to distinguish between (a) using a theory of territory to say where a border should be drawn, and (b) looking at an existing border and saying whether or not it is justified (Miller, 2012; Nine, 2012; Stilz, 2011). Many authors conflate these two factors, or identify them by claiming that having one without the other is in some sense incoherent. But on our account - given the concept of emergence - one might unproblematically be able to have (b) without (a); at the very least, the distinction between these two issues is much more significant than has often been recognised, and more importantly gives us some reason to prefer “statist” as opposed to “cultural” theories of territorial borders. We conclude with some further reflections on related matters concerning, firstly, the apparent causal powers of borders, and secondly, the different ways in which borders are physically implemented (e.g., land vs. water).