Rawls’S Political Liberalism,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Rawls’S Political Liberalism, Matthew Jones
International Dialogue
The contribution that John Rawls has made to political philosophy, and liberal political philosophy more specifically, should not be underestimated. His two key texts, A Theory of Justice (1971), and Political Liberalism (1993), not only reinvigorated social contract theory, but set the foundation for much of the contemporary debate surrounding the nature of the liberal democratic state given the fact of reasonable pluralism. If the European philosophical tradition, as noted by Alfred North Whitehead, should be seen as a series of footnotes to Plato, then contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy, especially if it intersects with aspects of liberal political philosophy, could …
The Great Depression In Latin America,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
The Great Depression In Latin America, N. Clark Capshaw
International Dialogue
This book is an edited collection of essays on the effect of the Great Depression on various Latin American countries. Though not all Latin American countries are addressed, there is sufficient coverage to enable some generalizations, comparisons, and contrasts for the region, and to infer some general lessons about the enduring effect of the depression on the region. The countries addressed include Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba.
Lawrence Of Arabia’S War: The Arabs, The British And The Remaking Of The Middle East In Wwi,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Lawrence Of Arabia’S War: The Arabs, The British And The Remaking Of The Middle East In Wwi, Bruce M. Garver
International Dialogue
Seldom does a newly published book both enlarge our understanding of its subject and enhance our appreciation of its principal primary sources. In Lawrence of Arabia’s War, Neil Faulkner admirably achieves both objectives. In the first instance, he thoroughly and critically discusses British foreign policy and military operations in the Middle East and North Africa from 1914 through 1922, with emphasis upon British relations with the Arabs, primarily the desert-dwelling Hashemite sherifs as opposed to the landlords and officials who dominated millions of Arab small farmers and city dwellers. Whenever appropriate, he carefully examines relations between the British and their …
How We Fight: Ethics In War,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
How We Fight: Ethics In War, Roger Bergman
International Dialogue
As indicated by the editors, the ten essays in this volume “arose from a conference on just war theory held at the University of Sheffield [United Kingdom] in August 2010” (vii). The authors are all academics and all but two are philosophers; the outliers are professors of law and of politics. The emphasis is indeed on just war theory, not investigation of the development of the just war tradition over many centuries in theological, philosophical, or legal contexts, or of its application to historical cases from the remote or recent past. One should not look here for scholarly illumination, say, …
Music And International History In The Twentieth Century,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Music And International History In The Twentieth Century, Frédéric Ramel
International Dialogue
For several decades, musicologists have dealt with the role of music in international relations using their own tools. They have focused on musical change in the context of modernity, especially how traditional music and folk music interact with music from other localities. Paradoxically, musicologists have contributed more to the field of international relations than historians or political scientists. Fortunately, those in history and political science have initiated an acoustic turn which aims to fill the gap. Jessica Gienow-Hecht is one historian who has promoted this movement thanks to her well-known monography dedicated to cultural American-German relations in early twentieth century …
What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought, Terrence L. Johnson
International Dialogue
Frantz Fanon’s imprint on twentieth century political philosophy and strikingly poignant role in shaping black radical traditions throughout the African Diaspora in the 1960s and 1970s is undeniable. Black activists and intellectuals found refuge in his writings, where blackness was made visible, embodied and cultivated into an epistemic resource for mapping revolutionary responses to antiblack racism, colonialism and gender and sexuality. Stokely Carmichael, the chief architect of the Black Power movement in the U.S., routinely referred to Fanon’s writing in his public speeches on Black Power, and for many others in the U.S. and throughout the African Diaspora Fanon’s writings …
Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots Of Global Justice,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots Of Global Justice, David Reidy
International Dialogue
In this book, Carol Gould tries to envision a future for democracy that is both faithful to what she takes to be its philosophical and normative ground and well-matched to the political challenges of advancing global justice. These challenges arise because the social and institutional world is increasingly complex, with the relevance of state boundaries diminishing significantly in recent decades when it comes to identifying and evaluating agents, acts and effects on the global stage. I begin by reconstructing and summarizing what I take to be her central line of argument.
Repeating Žižek,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Repeating Žižek, J. Jesse Ramírez
International Dialogue
It has become a genre protocol for reviews of Slavoj Žižek’s books to comment critically—and, too often, dismissively—on his tremendous output. His newest books, of which there seem to be several each year, not only echo previous ones, but also reproduce whole passages verbatim. Terry Eagleton has called Žižek “one of the great self-plagiarisers of our time, constantly thieving stuff from his own publications” (Eagleton 2014). While I have contributed to this genre protocol in a past review, I have come to regard Žižek’s furious publishing pace as, in part, a strategy to make a living as a radical intellectual …
Welcome To The Desert Of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Welcome To The Desert Of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia, Joseph L. Derdzinski
International Dialogue
True to its title, or at least its secondary title, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia minces few words in its radical assessment of the past twenty years’ impact on the societies, politics and economies of the post-Yugoslav Balkans. With an eye toward the pitfalls of a forced political and economic liberalization, the contributors’ unalloyed assessments that liberalization’s disruptions and malaise have made life all the worse reinforces an important perspective and critique into the West’s unshakable belief in the twinned powers of democracy and the market.
The Soul Of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine And Military Culture In The Us And Uk,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
The Soul Of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine And Military Culture In The Us And Uk, Aaron Edwards
International Dialogue
The Soul of Armies by Austin Long is a much-needed counter-balancing analysis to the steady flow of hagiographies that have appeared over the past decade on the counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the United States and United Kingdom around the world. Long challenges many of the prevailing assumptions underpinning the increasingly malleable doctrine of counter-insurgency.
Civics Beyond Critics: Character Education In A Liberal Democracy,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Civics Beyond Critics: Character Education In A Liberal Democracy, Eric R. Boot
International Dialogue
It is quite common to make the argument that a stable liberal democracy requires high levels of compliance with the law. Scholars disagree, however, how such reliable and widespread compliance can be achieved. Roughly, liberals have traditionally emphasized the importance of arriving at compliance by way of autonomous and critical reasoning, whereas others (communitarians and republicans chiefly) argue that autonomous motives are notoriously weak and can, therefore, not by themselves bring about a high enough rate of compliance. The exclusionary importance accorded to autonomy by (many) liberals bars the state from cultivating the habits, sentiments and civic virtue upon which …
Divergent Paths: The Academy And The Judiciary,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Divergent Paths: The Academy And The Judiciary, Paul E. Mcgreal
International Dialogue
In Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary, Judge Richard Posner proposes a partnership between the federal judiciary and law schools.1 He provides a sweeping critique of the federal judiciary and suggests ways in which law schools can address these failings. His critiques fall under the headings of structural deformations (e.g., method of appointment, lifetime tenure), process deficiencies, (e.g., legal formalism in judicial opinion writing, lack of curiosity), and management deficiencies (e.g., poor staff management, lack of collegiality). The corresponding solutions include law schools providing continuing education for federal judges and changing their curricula to include new knowledge and skills. …
Voices Of The Undocumented,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Voices Of The Undocumented, Ramón Guerra
International Dialogue
In the foreword to Val Rosenfeld’s Voices of the Undocumented, she illustrates the background for the collection of oral histories from immigrants. The immigrants in the collection are primarily from Latin American countries and have arrived in the San Francisco, California area without any documents to provide either residency or other legal status. The precarious nature of their existence in the United States underscores the very essence of this compilation and provides a running theme that connects the narratives of these individuals as told and recorded through oral history. While Rosenfeld refers to a preliminary personal draw to learning about …
Politics Of Religious Freedom,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Politics Of Religious Freedom, Amanda Ryan
International Dialogue
When tackling the topic of “religious freedom” what are policy-makers and academics trying to define? Is religious freedom a universally defined set of liberal human rights from a secular state, or is religious freedom also seen in religious states? The Politics of Religious Freedom goes into the depths of complexity that is “religious freedom.” The book explores what religious freedom is in a variety of settings: South Asia, North Africa, Middle East, Europe, the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil.
Whistleblowers, Leaks, And The Media: The First Amendment And National Security,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Whistleblowers, Leaks, And The Media: The First Amendment And National Security, Heidi Kitrosser
International Dialogue
In 2000, President Bill Clinton vetoed a bill that would have criminalized all unauthorized leaks of classified information.1 In his veto message, Clinton agreed that “unauthorized disclosures can be extraordinarily harmful to United States national security interests and that far too many disclosures occur.” But the bill failed, in his view, to balance national security interests with “the rights of citizens to receive the information necessary for democracy to work.” The bill threatened to chill even “appropriate public discussion [or] press briefings” by Government officials. Similarly, it could have “restrain[ed] the ability of former government officials to teach, write, or …
Political Leadership In The Digital Age,
2016
Singapore Management University
Political Leadership In The Digital Age, Singapore Management University
Perspectives@SMU
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister: Leaders need to factor in technology’s effects on national policies
Notes From The Editor,
2016
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces
International Dialogue
Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces for Volume 6.
’A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian Associations, Social Capital And Strategic Identification In A New Era Of China Indonesia Relations,
2016
Singapore Management University
’A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian Associations, Social Capital And Strategic Identification In A New Era Of China Indonesia Relations, Charlotte Setijadi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In Indonesia, Chinese voluntary associations took on a new level of importance after the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998 that ushered in a revival of Chinese identity politics. At the same time, Sino-Indonesian relations are blossoming, and the rise of China as a global power means that Indonesia can only benefit from stronger ties with China in the future. In this new atmosphere of cooperation, I argue that Chinese Indonesian individuals and voluntary organizations play a crucial function as trade and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on both empirical and qualitative fieldwork data, in this paper, I examine how …
What Do Chinese Really Think About Democracy And India?,
2016
Singapore Management University
What Do Chinese Really Think About Democracy And India?, Devin K. Joshi, Yizhe Xu
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
There has been much speculation about whether China will democratize and avoid conflict with India in the twenty-first century. Yet, few studies have investigated how contemporary Chinese view India and its democracy. Addressing this gap in the literature, the authors examined Chinese media coverage of India’s two-month long April–May 2014 parliamentary election, the largest election in world history, through systematic analysis of over 500 articles from ten major mass media outlets and over 27,000 messages transmitted on Sina Weibo social media. As might be expected, Chinese mass media generally portrayed India and its elections in a condescending fashion while avoiding …
The Case Of Affirmative Action In Undergraduate Admissions: United States And Brazil,
2016
Winthrop University
The Case Of Affirmative Action In Undergraduate Admissions: United States And Brazil, Taylor Toves, Adolphus Belk Ph.D.
The Winthrop McNair Research Bulletin
In the realm of higher education, Affirmative Action has been a matter of dispute amongst college administrations, state legislatures, and even the Supreme Court of the United States. Affirmative Action was created in order to help ensure that underrepresented groups have a fair chance at obtaining a college education. This has not only affected colleges and universities in the United States but also Brazil. This research did a cross-country comparative analysis of two nation states that posses a similar history when it comes to race relations and how that has affected the condition of equity in higher education. Though both …
