journal article
LitStream Collection
Home
doi: 10.1177/002234338502200102pmid: N/A
In 1981-82, as a graduate student of history, Stein Tønnesson was lucky enough to be admitted to the Indochina files of the French archives, where secret cables and reports had been conserved since the outbreak of the first Indochinese war in late 1946. In the first part of this article he presents a new version of the process that led to the Franco-Vietnamese war, based on this previously unpublished material. New light is thrown on French actions and motives and also on the Indochina policy of the United States at that time. The French sources show how the high commissioner in Saigon, with backing from the French premier and foreign minister Georges Bidault, deliberately provoked war. This was done at the same time as Bidault's government was replaced by a Socialist government under the veteran Léon Blum. Once taking office, Blum sent a peace proposal to Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh and ordered the French troops to negotiate a cease-fire. His order was ignored by the French army, however, and in the face of vigorous nationalist sentiments in France, Blum had to give in. In the second part of the article Stein Tønnesson compares the first and second Indochinese wars and finds notable parallels in the ways they escalated and in the reasons why they lasted so long.
doi: 10.1177/002234338502200103pmid: N/A
In the revised version of the garrison state hypothesis, Lasswell argued that the modern garrison state would retain many of the external forms of democracy, while effective power was increasingly concentrated in an elite composed of military officers and militarized civilians. Here we attempt to assess the relevance of the garrison state construct for contemporary American politics through an analysis of trends in expectations of violence, on the assumption that high expectations of violence and a clear enemy are necessary, though not sufficient, conditions for the emergence of a garrison state. Based on a content analysis of presidential State of the Union messages since 1946 and survey data on trends in public opinion, we conclude that since 1977 the U.S. has been engaged in a new 'cold war' characterized by a strong sense of threat, frequent references to aggression, conflict, and violence, and heavy emphasis on the Soviet Union as the enemy. Given the post- Vietnam lack of consensus on foreign policy and security issues, the new cold war poses more serious problems in civil-military relations than the earlier cold war era and possibly greater danger of an attempt to institute some form of garrison state.
doi: 10.1177/002234338502200104pmid: N/A
National capability can contribute to an explanation of foreign policy behavior if research is sensitive to the role of political context and the systems of which nations are a part. A nation's capability constrains and induces its policy and high-capability states are likely to be the dominant members of a system. Propositions related to both 'rank' and 'social field theory' are useful for understanding the level of interaction among states. The nature of that interaction, though, is largely a product of a political context promoted and reinforced by the behavior of states. These ideas can be applied to the Middle East where the gap between the regional rich and the poor has grown and the former have assumed a regional role commensurate with their capability. As the role of pan-Arabism has changed, capabilities have become important explanations for how regional states behave. A model composed of seven variable blocs is tested across 91 dyads for two five-year periods: 1957-1961 and 1968-1972. While designed to test the role of power capabilities, the model incorporates a variety of 'contextual' variables often emphasized in the literature on the Middle East region: ideology, regional linkage with the global system, regional bipolarity, domestic politics and economic exchange, and examines two dyadic dimensions of conflict and cooperation. The results indicate at least partial support for this study's hypotheses and approach, and the related assessments of Middle East politics.
doi: 10.1177/002234338502200105pmid: N/A
There is a structural correspondence between the military and the civilian part of society. The purpose here is to identify models of development that breed peace as well as development. Discussing the virtues and drawbacks of 'Mainstream' and 'Another Development' models, the article suggests an incompatibility between the peace/security and the welfare dimension of development. While a vision of positive peace is supported, the assertion is that this goal must be partially sacrificed for the achievement of other goals of development.
doi: 10.1177/002234338502200106pmid: N/A
The following were some of the most striking economic developments during the postwar period: Japan and West Germany catching up with the US, the Sunbelt taking the place of the north-eastern Frostbelt as the dynamic centre of US economic development, and the experience of stagflation and austerity policies in most western nations. In The Rise and Decline of Nations, Mancur Olson tries to tackle such con temporary problems of unequal development. His basic argument is that during periods of stability and peace, modern nations accumulate a large number of special interest groups, which increasingly block economic growth. His approach is inter-disciplinary and comparative, with a focus on institutional forces. Such institutionalism seems to be just the right cure to help contemporary mainstream economics out of its postwar blind alley of rigid abstractionism. This review, however, argues that Olson goes only half-way. His particular kind of institutionalism — which is in line with recent neo-classical 'public choice' traditions — retains too much of conventional economic thinking to be able to exploit fully the potentials of an inter- disciplinary and comparative approach.
Showing 1 to 7 of 7 Articles