International Relations Commons^™

After Polarity: World Political Systems, Polar Structural Transitions, And Nonpolarity, Nerses Kopalyan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The research project poses the question: what are the polar structurations of a system after unipolar transitions, and should a system transition into a nonpolar structure, how can this phenomenon be explained? In the study of polarity, two deficiencies are diagnosed that can potentially not only fill a serious gap, but also strengthen the theoretical, conceptual, and systemic tools utilized within the field. The first gap is the absence of any developed treatments of nonpolarity. Categorical taxonomy primarily revolves around uni-, bi-, tri-, or multi- polar structures. The field lacks a coherent conceptualization of nonpolarity, thus limiting the development of …

Global Climate Change: The Political Impact Of Global Warming On Developing Countries. The Case Studies Of Egypt And Oman, Eugene Thomas O'Neal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The discourse of climate change has become important in the field of political science, as well as in the policy-making community. Climate change has become a political phenomenon that has and will greatly impact political stability regionally and globally. Using the ecological security theory as a framework, I explored the relationship between climate change and political stability in developing countries.

This study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate the relationship between climate change and its effects on political volatility in developing countries. Using regression models, the author examined all non-OECD countries (140 countries) and their relationship to political …

The Effects Of Disbursement Of Foreign Aid To African Countries: A Case Study Of Ghana And Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire), Jemilat Kike Thompson-Odoom

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The African continent has received aid from developed countries for decades. This thesis seeks to examine the impact of foreign aid to developing countries using Ghana and Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire) as case studies. The study will contribute to the existing body of knowledge by examining the effectiveness of foreign aid. The study is based on data gathered primarily from development partners and donor countries. Indicators such as mortality rate, tuberculosis and access to sanitation facilities were used to test the failure or success of foreign aid in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Corruption perceptions from both countries were also analyzed …

U.S. State Department International Law Internship And Employment Presentation And Discussion, Michael E. Thurston Famu Diplomat-In Residence

Environmental and Animal Law

The Center for International Law & Justice presents a discussion and presentation by Michael E. Thurston, a Senior Foreign Service officer, who is currently serving as Diplomat-in-Residence based at Florida A & M University in Tallahassee. Mr. Thurston has served in Afghanistan, Burma, various locations in Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, and Mexico.

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces for Volume 4.

Žižek’S Hegel: Less Than Nothing: Hegel And The Shadow Of Dialectical Materialism, Gavin Hyman

International Dialogue

Followers of Slavoj Žižek’s work had long been awaiting his “big book on Hegel.” In interviews and other appearances, he made no secret of the fact that this work was in progress and, furthermore, that he considered it to be a labour of love, his magnum opus, and, in a sense, a culmination. Big the book certainly is—1010 pages of text to be precise. If such a book were to be written by any other author, readers would doubtless have waited considerably longer to receive it. But so prolific is this author that the waiting has been minimal, and many …

Martin Heidegger And The First World War, David A. White

International Dialogue

The subtitle of this work is “Being and Time as Funeral Oration.” This addition helps a reader to appreciate that the book functions on various levels: scholarly, to the extent that it offers a reading of selected details in Heidegger’s first major work; historical, in that Altman asserts with great vigor that Being and Time should be seen as a “funeral oration” for those who died in World War One; biographical, in that we read much about Heidegger’s personal actions in political and academic contexts leading to and during both WWI and a decade after the conclusion of the “Great …

A World Of Becoming, Stanimir Panayotov

International Dialogue

It is difficult to respond in a genre other than philosophical prose when writing about one. Philosophical prose is a very demanding and small club: it is almost like the poetry club of philosophy recognized in and by itself. Few are the specimens of the genre and plenty are those raising hands from within. This is largely because genre-determined writing such as this one is both about style and Zeitgeist. And to rise up to the standards of styling the spirit(s) of time is an ordeal of both the heart and the mind even trained thinkers fail to do. With …

Democracy, Islam, And Secularism In Turkey, Renat Shaykhutdinov

International Dialogue

This book edited by Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan provides an important contribution to the understanding of the nexus between democracy and democratization, religion and secularism in the context of Turkey, arguably the most stable Muslim-majority democracy in the greater Middle East. The volume features a select group of scholars and policy makers and is a product of two conferences held at Columbia University with the subsequent meetings and a thorough review and revision process. Among the contributors to the volume is Ergun Özbudun, the head of the academic commission for the new constitutional draft, whose chapters problematize the conflict …

Leviathans At The Gold Mine: Creating Indigenous And Corporate Actors In Papua New Guinea, Jerry K. Jacka

International Dialogue

Social analysis in anthropology today “oscillates uneasily” between a concern with Foucauldian global regimes of governance on the one hand and Deleuzian assemblages of agentive actors on the other. In Leviathans at the Gold Mine: Creating Indigenous and Corporate Actors in Papua New Guinea, Alex Golub asks if there is “a better way to do justice to a contemporary scene characterized by both spontaneity and regime” (2). Golub’s book seeks to find this middle road through the analysis of the development of a world-class gold mine on the homelands of a group of indigenous people—the Ipili— living in the highlands …

Kindly Inquisitors, The New Attack On Free Thought, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz

International Dialogue

George F. Will’s forward to the 2013 edition of this book provides important focus to the problems arising when even one person is “offended” by free speech (xiii). From campus speech codes to legal and social theory aimed at balancing the First Amendment against other rights, Will flatly rejects the liberal movement toward “sensitivity,” “inclusiveness,” “multiculturalism” and other values that attempt to limit expression: What is needed is a book explaining why the usual, and intended, result of this practice is a finding that those objectives… are more worthy than the objective of maintaining a liberal regime of protected expression. …

What Is A Palestinian State Worth?, Paul Kriese

International Dialogue

Sari Nusseibeh begins his study of the “Palestinian problem” with the comment “this is not an academic study” (18). Maybe that is why this particular study is so good. When asked to write this review my first response was not very positive. Most studies of this region lack clarity or are so ideological as to not be very useful. Many of these studies often also claim to be “academic.” Nusseibeh’s study is, unlike many reviews, a masterful academic study. His study succinctly and accurately portrays the tangled and tortured history of the region from a view that is both sympathetic …

The Words And The Land: Israeli Intellectuals And The Nationalist Myth, Abdelwahab Hiba Hechiche

International Dialogue

Shlomo Sand opens this book with a significant sentence: “Every book is part autobiography” and, consequently, “autobiographical confession” (7). Although he was born in 1946, his early recollection has been marked by a certain residue of the consequences of the Shoa, because as a child he was an eyewitness of the living conditions of people “like his Polish parents moving from one “displaced persons camp to another” (8). But during that same period of his early childhood, his memory resonated with his father’s reminding him that “we had taken someone else’s home” (8).The reader begins to witness an existential ethical …

Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character And Spirit Of Chinese Zen, Owen G. Mordaunt

International Dialogue

This book embraces the essence of talks Guo Jun gave at a fourteen-day retreat at Chan Forest in the hills of Jakarta in 2010 as well as subsequent conversations the editor and his wife had with him. It is highly readable and accessible to the reader. It has poetic, spontaneous and witty qualities, providing deep insight into Chan (also spelled Cha’n) Buddhism. Chan is the Chinese form of Zen and is not well-known in the West as Zen is, but it derives from the traditions of India. It has flourished and continued to develop through many masters and its teachings …

Letters To Power: Public Advocacy Without Public Intellectuals, Russell Jacoby

International Dialogue

“Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.” So opens a recent New York Times column headlined, “Professors, We Need You!” (February 2014) Nicholas Kristof’s thoughts on the disappearance of the professoriate elicited heated responses, both irate and enthusiastic. The flap illustrates that the place of intellectuals in American life continues to generate controversy. Samuel McCormick, as assistant professor of communications at Purdue University, joins this on-going dispute with Letters to Power, a wide-ranging and historically informed study of intellectual dissent. …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 4

The Sports Gene: Inside The Science Of Extraordinary Athletic Performance, Dave Ogden

International Dialogue

David Epstein is another author chasing the elusive answer to one of the basic and ageless issues of social and natural sciences: Nature versus nurture. His discoveries and conclusions in The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance are not necessarily new, but he provides ample and interesting evidence that leans more heavily on the side of nature. In doing so, he takes on stock believers in Karl Anders Ericsson’s theoretical set called “deliberate practice.” Ericsson and his colleagues have studied elite “performers” in a variety of fields, including typing, chess playing, musicianship, and athletic skills. Ericsson found …

Human Rights & Gender Violence: Translating International Law Into Local Justice, Pattaka Sa-Ngimnet

International Dialogue

This book explains how international human rights laws are created by consensus through representatives of local and national governments and then become translated into content acceptable to local communities. In an introductory chapter the author presents the overall arguments of the entire work. She also gives examples that support the arguments and lays out the pattern of human rights legislation by using the specific example of gender violence. Emphasizing language, she explains how it is understood in diverse ways. The rest of the book is concerned with more specific examples. Chapter two deals with creating human rights law (36–71). Chapter …

Avatar And Nature Spirituality, Martin Schönfeld

International Dialogue

“To put it mildly, the world is a mess.” Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State, 27 July 2014 James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) was the first film to combine stereoscopic imagining and motion-capture animation for a flawless 3-D presentation. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and won three, for Cinematography, Art Direction, and Visual Effects. It was also the first box-office hit to gross more than $2 billion, and it remains the highest-grossing film to date. It made cinematic history. But it was more than an aesthetic triumph. Avatar is also a cultural …

Determining Extraterritoriality, Franklin A. Gevurtz

William & Mary Law Review

This Article addresses an underexplored but critical aspect of the presumption against extraterritoriality. The presumption against extraterritoriality—which the United States Supreme Court has increasingly invoked in recent years—calls for courts to presume that Congress does not intend U.S. statutes to govern events outside the United States. The most difficult issue presented by the presumption arises when relevant events occur both inside and outside the United States, as in the classic example, if a shooter on one side of the border kills a victim on the other, or if, as in the leading case, false statements originating inside the United States …