Suchergebnisse

Written in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the American Economic Review, this paper recounts the history of the journal. The recounting has an analytic core that sees the American Economic Association as an organization supplying goods and services to its members, one of which is the Review. Early in its history the Review was a multipurpose publication with highly disparate content. Over time the economics profession expanded and more economics research was produced, primarily in the form of journal articles. Editors accommodated this shift by allocating more resources to the refereeing and editing process and more space to research papers. (JEL A14, B19, B29)

This essay examines Texas representative Ron Paul's foreign policy discourse during the 2008 presidential campaign. The author argues that Paul encased his opposition to America's foreign policy within a secular jeremiad. Although Paul failed to win any of the Republican primaries, his opposition to America's involvement with Iraq and other parts of the globe is a microcosm of a larger debate occurring among U.S. foreign policy elites on the extent of America's role within the world and about the very nature of its exceptional status. This analysis informs a theoretical understanding of American exceptionalism and interrogates a larger debate in U.S. foreign policy.

Drawing from well-known theories of democracy and democratic transition, this essay considers the transition to local democracy in Latin America. It raises a central question: Given the landmark decentralization of the past three decades, what constitutes local democracy in the region today and in which countries can we say it exists? Core considerations in comparing local democracy and national democracy are discussed. The author presents the concept of "minimum decentralization" and, using this framework, posits six procedural and institutional conditions for defining local democracy. Eighteen systems are evaluated against these conditions at the municipal and intermediate levels of government. Despite the real transfer of authority in many countries, and though several Latin American countries have established or nearly established local democracies, only a few of the local systems can be considered democratic. Though the conclusion is somewhat counter-intuitive, explanations for the slow development of decentralization and local democracy are considered. (GIGA)

Baumgartner, Jody C., and Naoko Kada (eds.) (2003), Checking Executive Power: Presidential Impeachment in Comparative Perspective, Westport: Praeger. - ILAS: 34.003 + Llanos, Mariana, and Leiv Marsteintredet (eds.) (2010), Presidential Breakdowns in Latin America: Causes and Outcomes of Executive Instability in Developing Democracies, Basingstoke: Palgrave. - ILAS: AAL-H/168 + Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal (2007), Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - ILAS: AAL-H/16

AbstractAuthoritative statements have long credited the elusive American immigrant entrepreneur Benjamin Brodsky (1877-1960) with founding film production companies in Shanghai and Hong Kong as early as 1909 and initiating filmmaking collaborations with local Chinese. Yet those histories prove on close examination to consist mostly of sketchy assertions offered without clear evidence. This essay draws on original archival research and recent work of scholars in Hong Kong, Europe, and Japan to reframe the historical narrative, dating most developments a few years later while revealing fresh aspects of Brodsky's trans-Pacific operations and high-level Chinese involvement. The new findings have intriguing implications for our understanding of early twentieth-century trans-Pacific cultural associations as well as Chinese cinema. Part One of this article reconstructs Brodsky's early career and reveals new evidence of his interactions with Chinese returned students and government officials, with a focus on the production in China of Brodsky's feature-length travel documentary A Trip Thru China (1916).

AbstractWhen famine overwhelmed ?ve North China provinces in 1920, one of the ways that funds were raised to combat the disaster was through the sale of "cinderella" stamps, stamps that could not be used as legal postage but rather could be pasted onto envelopes or packages as decorations. There were two such efforts during the 1920s and both mainly sold their stamps in the United States. The first fundraising drive was organized by the American Committee for the China Famine Relief Fund which sold a 3-cent stamp, the announced cost of feeding one Chinese person for one day. This effort raised nearly $4.4 million and ceased operations in early June 1921 after only about three months of activity. The second campaign, organized by the China International Famine Relief Commission (CIFRC), was considerably less successful in raising money. It issued a wider variety of stamps, probably between 1923 and 1929 and in 1924, the CIFRC even established a special department to coordinate the sale of stamps in China and the United States, mostly during the Christmas and New Year's season. Sales were uneven and always low; even in years where there were profits, they were trivial. The sale of these stamps ceased at the end of the decade.

AbstractThe Editor's Introduction to Part One of this two-part theme issue described the articles and offered thoughts on ways of looking at film in American-East Asian relations. This essay, the Introduction to Part Two, weighs the rewards and problems of using fiction film to represent history and other cultures. The dilemma inherent in fiction is that if we portray the past and foreign cultures as being "just like us," we gain immediacy and connection, but at the cost of ignoring cultural difference and historical change. On the other hand, if we respect the "strangeness of the past," we gain authenticity, analytic truth, and responsibility but invite sterility, academic solipsism, and isolation from the public. The essay concludes with a list of questions on how to learn about art, politics, and business when we compare film cultures and national projects across the Pacific.

AbstractThis article asks why the disciplines of American Studies and U.S. history are so markedly underdeveloped in South Korea (Republic of Korea) and what this underdevelopment implies about U.S.-South Korean relations. Under Japanese colonial rule, the study of English in Korea was important for studying abroad, but few students studied America itself. Under American occupation and the following military rule in South Korea, American studies were not attractive to nationalist youth even though the English language remained useful. American cultural diplomacy fostered a small group of Americanists, but university enrollments were small. In the 1980s, Americans were blamed for their support of authoritarian rule. Japanese-trained historians saw American history as too short to be significant, and Japanese institutional legacies were an obstacle. Americans have also been too constricted in imagining who Koreans were, where Korean ambitions lay, and how Korean society worked. In a sense, the very differences between the two nations hindered them from realizing what those differences were.

Over the past two decades, the countries of Central America have confronted soaring crime rates. Justice systems of dubious quality provide thin shields against this crime crisis, despite substantial international and domestic investment in justice reform. Indeed, there is growing concern that crime will undermine justice reform efforts. Scholars and practitioners have pointed out that public frustration with crime, coupled with dissatisfaction with justice institutions, can lead citizens to reject reform efforts. Still, the micro-level relationships between crime and public support of the justice system have been understudied. Using public opinion data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), this study aims to add to the literature by examining the effects of victimization and fear of crime on public trust in the justice system. The results indicate that crime can erode public support for the justice system, but the mechanics of this relationship vary according to national context. Adapted from the source document.

Delayed marriage and childbearing, more births outside marriage, the increase in women's labor force participation, and the aging of the population have altered family life and created new challenges for those with caregiving demands. U.S. mothers have shed hours of housework but not the hours they devote to childrearing. Fathers have increased the time they spend on childcare. Intensive childrearing practices combine with more dual-earning and single parenting to increase the time demands on parents. Mothers continue to scale back paid work to meet childrearing demands. They also give up leisure time and report that they "are always rushed" and are "multitasking most of the time." Time-stretched working couples reduce the time they spend with each other. A large percentage of both husbands and wives also report they have "too little time" for themselves. Delayed childbearing and the aging population also increase the likelihood that both (adult) children and elderly parents need support and care from workers later in life.

Over the past decade, there has been a surge of "new Left" governments in Latin America, yet polling data shows no comparable shift to the left among the general Latin American population. If electorates have not followed their political leaders to the left, then it is likely that new right-wing political actors will emerge to compensate for the leftward shift in Latin American politics. The author proposes a research agenda for studying right-wing politics in light of the current wave of left-leaning governments in the region. He argues that we should focus on four main areas of right-wing politics: the political agenda of right-wing groups; their political organization; their power capability; and the institutional environment in which they operate. This agenda requires that we move beyond the traditional focus on right-wing political parties and focus on right-wing organizations at all levels of formal politics, as well as groups that operate outside the formal political arena. (GIGA)

Many Latin American countries democratized between 1975 and 2000, and research has confirmed that contemporary Latin Americans hold democratic political attitudes. Using AmericasBarometer surveys of 18 countries from 2008, the authors examine the commitment of Latin Americans to three democratic attitudes - preference for democracy over other forms of government, support for general participation rights, and tolerance for participation by system critics. We also explore the impact of personal resources, crime and corruption, evaluation of system performance, social capital, and the sociopolitical context on democratic attitudes. A preference for democracy and support for citizens' participation rights are strong, but tolerance is lower than the other attitudes. Evidence is found for acculturation - that Latin Americans acquire democratic attitudes by living in democratic regimes and through education. (GIGA)

This paper focuses on the process of coalition formation in presidential systems. It shows that party positions and institutions influence the formation of government coalitions. The authors argue that presidents will tend to include parties positioned close to their policy positions in their cabinets, and will be more inclined to do it when relative institutional authority is more advantageous to congress. They corroborate their arguments with data from 13 presidential countries in the Americas. (GIGA)

The recent Association Agreement signed between the European Union and Central American countries contains important intellectual property provisions. Some of these provisions have been inserted in the treaty to meet Central American states' needs, especially with reference to technology transfer issues, the protection of public health and the protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.