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‘Christianity in North America’, published in July 2023, forms ‘a deep dive’ into different Christian communities in the US and Canada. Eminent historian of American Christianity, Mark A. Noll, reviews the book and its use of the ‘world Christianity’ approach in North America. Christianity in North America, edited by Kenneth R. Ross, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, … Continued

Jens Jungblut Several people have argued in recent years that higher education has become a more important policy sector in most if not all countries around the world (see e.g. Busemeyer, Garritzmann, & Neimanns, 2020; Garritzmann, 2016; Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014). An increasing percentage of the global population pursues or attains a tertiary education degree, […]
The post Comparative Higher Education Politics. Policymaking in North America and Western Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Jens Jungblut Several people have argued in recent years that higher education has become a more important policy sector in most if not all countries around the world (see e.g. Busemeyer, Garritzmann, & Neimanns, 2020; Garritzmann, 2016; Gornitzka & Maassen, 2014). An increasing percentage of the global population pursues or attains a tertiary education degree, […]
The post Comparative Higher Education Politics. Policymaking in North America and Western Europe appeared first on Europe of Knowledge.

The pro-North Korea movement in the US has gained strength from joining cause with other radical or anti-American groups with no Korea focus: pro-PLO and -Iran activists; old fashioned Israel- and Jew-haters like Code Pink; CCP influencers too.
The post The Pro-North Korea Movement in America Today appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

Liberty to engage in voluntary transactions and keep our wealth varies across North America.

Planet A A new report has concluded that the record-high temperatures currently affecting North America and parts of Europe would not have occurred without climate change. The analysis by World Weather Attribution found that Europe's heatwave ...

Population trends have shifted the Anglican Communion's centre of gravity decisively toward the Global South, with approximately three out of four Anglicans globally living outside of Europe and North America. This shift has led to a bitter inter-Communion rift in which the Global South has challenged the Global West's "liberal" moral outlook, with debate particularly … Continued

By Francesco Lissoni (University of Bordeaux) and Ernest Miguelez (University of Bordeaux) The authors find that innovation hotspots are more successful when they host a larger proportion of migrant inventors. Their role compares to organization-based pipelines, but this success is overwhelmingly seen in northern America and Europe, and in the largest clusters. The golden age of globalization has … Continued

With opinion polls showing Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in the 2024 race, Washington policymakers are contemplating the possibility of another Trump administration.No doubt there would be dramatic changes in U.S. foreign policy. Including, it appears, in Washington's approach to North Korea.As Politico reported: "Donald Trump is considering a plan to let the Democratic People's Republic of Korea keep its nuclear weapons and offer its regime financial incentives to stop making new bombs, according to three people briefed on his thinking." This would overturn decades of international insistence that the North eschew nuclear weapons, commonly called CVID: complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement/denuclearization. Until now, questioning this policy triggered wild wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments among Korea-watchers.The conventional wisdom is that Washington must stand firm — until the end of time, or beyond, if necessary — despite the growing North Korean nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang has enough fissile material to make at least 45-55 weapons, and perhaps twice that number, though estimates vary widely. Moreover, the DPRK continues to add nukes. One controversial study warned that the North could amass as many as 242 weapons in the next few years, which would place it ahead of Israel, Pakistan, India, and the United Kingdom.Virtually no one believes that Pyongyang will denuclearize. Only South Africa, with just six weapons (and another being constructed), has eliminated an existing arsenal. Almost certainly disarming the DPRK would require either defeat or collapse of the Kim dynasty. Regarding North Korea, fantasy has seemingly become policy.However, it appears that Trump is prepared to overturn conventional wisdom when it comes to Pyongyang — again. After threatening war in 2017, he turned to summitry with Kim Jong-un, a switch widely denounced in Washington. Distrust of Trump as a negotiator was pervasive, with the greatest fear that he would succeed and agree to something other than CVID. After the 2019 Hanoi summit collapsed without a deal, Kim appears to have decided that Trump was unwilling to agree to sanctions relief without a commitment to full denuclearization. The former then ended his dialogue with the US (and South Korea).Biden continues to insist on CVID, instructing the DPRK not to conduct another nuclear test. Despite his proposals for contact, which at times came perilously close to begging, Kim has refused to talk. Rather, the latter is expanding North Korea's nuclear capability, testing ballistic missiles, launching satellites, developing submarine-launched and tactical weapons, and threatening first use of nukes. These efforts may now be aided by Russia, which is relying on the North to provide artillery shells and perhaps more for the Ukraine war.The future looks no better. Last year after the Supreme People's Assembly enshrined the North's nuclear status in law, Kim declared that "As long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth, and imperialism and the anti-North Korean maneuvers of the US and its followers remain, our road to strengthening our nuclear force will never end." This policy, he added, is "irreversible." He is likely strengthening his nuclear deterrent to prepare for talks with Washington — presumably offering to trade nuclear limits for sanctions relief.Policymakers almost uniformly reject this course since arms control won't deliver denuclearization, Washington's preferred outcome. However, the result still would be better, likely far better, than Pyongyang continuing to augment its stockpile and replacing Pakistan as a global Nukes 'R Us. However, that doesn't matter to critics.Some simply insist that the North cannot have nuclear weapons. Of course, it shouldn't have them, but successive U.S. presidents repeating that point have left North Korea as an undisputed nuclear state. Another argument is that dropping CVID would undermine the nonproliferation regime. However, the DPRK's possession of nuclear weapons, not America's recognition of that reality, poses the real nonproliferation challenge. Another claim is that the Republic of Korea and Japan would doubt Washington's commitment to denuclearization of the North. But Washington's attitude matters little if North Korea rejects that objective. Alliance cooperation does not require blinkered dogmatic futility.For some analysts the greatest fear is that acknowledging the North's nuclear status would fuel ROK support for an independent nuclear deterrent. Again, pretending that the DPRK does not possess nuclear weapons does not make them disappear. Washington's hapless CVID policy will not comfort South Koreans worried about nuclear threats from the North and Washington's willingness to respond militarily.Indeed, the latter poses the biggest problem for today's Ostrich policy. Since everyone knows Pyongyang is expanding its arsenal and means of delivery, the critical question is what to do in response. South Koreans might accept the pretense that CVID is a serious objective so long as Washington is willing to risk the American homeland and potentially millions of American lives to defend the South in the event of war.Alas, the "Washington Declaration," which grew out of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to the US, engaged in magical thinking. Announced the two governments: "The ROK has full confidence in U.S. extended deterrence commitments and recognizes the importance, necessity, and benefit of its enduring reliance on the U.S. nuclear deterrent." Wonderful rhetoric, and hardly surprising, given how well the two presidents got along. However, the more and more sophisticated North Korea's armaments, the less credible this policy becomes.The DPRK is not going to launch a first strike on America. Indeed, absent U.S. security guarantees to and troops in the South, Pyongyang would pay little more attention to Washington than to Brussels or, frankly, to New Delhi or Sydney. However, the U.S. is prepared to strike the North, and in the event of war almost certainly would attempt to overthrow the Kim dynasty. Hence, Pyongyang's desire for an expansive deterrent — a mix of tactical and strategic weapons, with the latter distributed among submarine- and land-based missiles, the latter sporting multiple warheads. What American president then would be so reckless and irrational to put South Korea before the U.S.? Defending the ROK, a country well able to protect itself, is not worth risking millions of Americans' lives.In short, no amount of presidential karaoke is likely to preserve confidence in extended deterrence once Pyongyang credibly threatens the U.S. homeland. The best way to at least moderate the North Korean nuclear threat would be to abandon the CVID campaign and instead promote arms control, meaningful and verifiable limits on the DPRK's program in exchange for sanctions relief. And to do so sooner rather than later. At least, setting realistic objectives would be more likely to yield success. And if diplomacy restrained the North, Washington could resurrect CVID in future negotiations. Perhaps North Korean policy, leadership, or regime will eventually change. Donald Trump's foreign policy mistakes were many, but on the North's nuclear challenge he has been farsighted compared to most foreign policy analysts. That continues with his reported willingness to deal with the DPRK as it is, not how everyone wishes it were. North Korea is a nuclear state. It is time to confront that reality.

In his recent address concerning the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and U.S. involvement in both, President Biden quoted the famous line by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, that America is "the indispensable nation." This is indeed the belief by which the U.S. foreign and security establishment lives and works. As Biden's speech reflected, it is one way in which the establishment justifies to American citizens the sacrifices that they are called on to make for the sake of U.S. primacy. It is also how members of the Blob pardon themselves for participation in U.S. crimes and errors. For however ghastly their activities and mistakes may be, they can be excused if they take place as part of America's "indispensable" mission to lead the world towards "freedom" and "democracy."It is therefore necessary to ask: Indispensable for what? Empty claims about the "Rules-Based Order" cannot answer this question. In the Greater Middle East, the answer should be obvious. I suppose that a different hegemon might have made an even bigger mess of the region at even greater cost to itself than the United States has succeeded in doing over the past 30 years, but it would have had to put some really serious effort into the task. Nor is it clear that the absence of a superpower hegemon could have made things any worse.In this time, not one beneficial U.S. effort at peace in the region has succeeded; few were even seriously attempted. And more than this, the U.S. has not even fulfilled the core positive role of any hegemon, that of providing stability. Instead, it has all too often acted a force of disorder: by invading Iraq and thereby enabling an explosion of Sunni Islamist extremism that went on to play a dreadful role in Syria as well; by pursuing through 20 years a megalomaniac strategy of externally-driven state-building in Afghanistan, in defiance of every lesson of Afghan history; by destroying the Libyan state, and thereby plunging the country into unending civil war, destabilizing much of northern Africa, and enabling a flood of migrants to Europe; by repeatedly wrecking or abandoning possibilities of a reasonable deal with Iran; and most gravely of all, by refusing to take an even remotely equitable approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and failing through the greater part of the past thirty years to make any serious effort to promote a settlement.Over the past generation, successive U.S. administrations turned a blind eye, not merely while the Likud governments slowly killed the "two-state solution" and stoked Palestinian and Arab rage through its settlement policy, but while Prime Minister Netanyahu deliberately helped build up Hamas as a force against the Palestine Liberation Organization, so as not to have to negotiate seriously with the latter. This strategy has now proved catastrophic for Israel itself. It was also carried out with no regard whatsoever to the interests of the United States or its European allies in the face of Islamist terrorism.And what have the American people themselves gained from this? Nothing at all, is the answer; while the losses can be precisely calculated: More than 15,000 soldiers and contractors killed in Afghanistan and Iraq; more than 50,000 wounded, and often disabled for life; more than 30,000 veteran suicides; 2,996 civilian dead on 9/11, an attack claimed by al-Qaida as a reprisal for U.S. Middle East policy; some $8 trillion subsequently expended in the "Global War on Terror."Elsewhere in the world, the U.S. record has not been so disastrous, but nor has it remotely justified claims to the necessity of U.S. primacy. The only area where this has been broadly true is in Europe. In World War II and the Cold War, the United States liberated western Europe and defended democracy there; while in the rest of the world, all too often it stepped into the shoes of European colonialism. After the Cold War, populations in eastern Europe genuinely welcomed U.S. protection — though Biden's claim that if not stopped in Ukraine, Putin will invade Poland is baseless. Russia has neither the will nor the capacity to do so; and in any case, if NATO membership is not a sufficient deterrent, what was the point of offering NATO membership to Ukraine?Outside Europe, the only region where the United States can truly be said to have played a largely positive role to date is East Asia (the Vietnam War obviously excepted), and for the same reason: that Japan and South Korea welcome alliance with the United States. And while other states, like the Philippines, wish to balance between America and China, they do not wish America to leave. This role however requires U.S. presence, not U.S. primacy. Since China cannot invade Japan and South Korea — let alone Australia — the United States can perfectly well stand on the defensive behind its existing alliance systems, while sharing influence elsewhere with Beijing.As to Africa, countries there do not have conflicts with each other that America has to control or mediate. Africa's problems are internal, and the U.S. has done very little since 9/11 and the Global War on Terror to help. The recent increase of U.S. interest in Africa is mainly a reaction to Russia's and China's growing commercial stake there.Strangest and most striking of all is the U.S. role in its own backyard, in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, whose problems really do affect the population of the United States. As in Africa, the United States does not need to suppress local conflicts between states, for these have long since ceased. Once again, the threats are internal, but are also driven to a very great extent by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States. One result of the internal decay of these countries is the huge flow of migrants to the United States, which is causing blowback and political discord in America itself.Faced with this threat, and concerned with the interests of U.S. citizens, it might be assumed that the regional hegemon would prioritize this region and devote serious resources to its development. This would also be in tune with the "foreign policy for the middle class" that Biden promised in his election campaign.In fact, the comparative figures for U.S. aid are positively grotesque. Total U.S. development aid to Mexico and all of Central America since 2001 comes to $12.21 billion. This compares to $64.8 billion to Israel and $32.8 billion to Egypt. Even Georgia has received almost twice as much aid as Mexico ($3.9 billion to $2.1 billion) — and Georgia is 6,000 miles from the shores of the United States with a population less than one thirtieth that of Mexico. Faced with problems from Mexico spilling over into the United States, some leading Republican politicians are now calling not for more assistance, but for the U.S. military to be deployed in Mexico to fight drug traffickers — an insane idea that reveals the moral and practical bankruptcy of U.S. primacy on its own continent.The neglect of America's neighbors to the south reveals something else about U.S. primacy: that whatever a region's problems, the U.S. only becomes engaged if it sees a real or alleged danger that a rival power is taking an interest. This could be called the approach of the dog in a manger elevated to a basic strategic principle. It is well summed up in an article by Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution about the previous — and disastrous — attempt of the Biden administration partially to pull back from the Middle East without solving the basic problems there:"The White House devised a creative exit strategy, attempting to broker a new balance of power in the Middle East that would allow Washington to downsize its presence and attention while also ensuring that Beijing did not fill the void."If the U.S. really wants to pull back from the Middle East, it should welcome other states trying to play a positive role — as China has done by promoting détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia.The pursuit of global primacy is also intellectually and morally corrupting for Americans themselves. To justify its costs and sacrifices to ordinary Americans requires on the one hand vastly overblown claims to the promotion of democracy, on the other a colossal exaggeration of both the threat and the evil of other states. The result is a public discourse that all too often resembles baby food spiked with cyanide — the pap being the language of America spreading freedom, and the poison being that of mistrust for other countries and their peoples. Even if a successful — if not "indispensable" — U.S. global primacy were possible, it could not be based on a foundation as corruptive as this.

The author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America says colorblindness should remain our North Star during a live conversation with Nick Gillespie.

"Over the past four decades, we've lost over 400,000 farms in America (and) over 140 million acres of farmland. And that's an area roughly equal to the size of Minnesota, North and South Dakota combined."

David Bailey

Our guest for this episode is David Bailey, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and International Studies, at University of Birmingham. David is joining us to talk about his forthcoming book with Rowman & Littlefield, Protest Movements and Parties of the Left.

As we've been arguing on this show for the last few weeks, there is no doubt at this stage that the left is 'back'. Arriving admittedly a decade or two later than Latin America's "Pink Tide", the left has made electoral gains recently, both in Europe, and in the US. Yet it is also clear that the left is not used to having this kind of potential. To the contrary, suffering through its long period of post-Cold War defeat, it has been content to engage in a lot of internal squabbling, and become comfortable avoiding the tough question of how it might engage ordinary people with its ideas. David Bailey's book is a very interesting intervention, in this sense. Without necessarily taking a side in the debates he examines (to what extent should the left embrace the state? Should we pursue reform, or revolution?), he surveys the history of some of the more prominent moments and modes of leftist protest and struggle. What is interesting, however, is he choses to do this in an optimistic way. Refusing the left's traditional mournful stance on its history, and deliberately trying to focus on the things the movements got right, Bailey is out to capture the spark of revolutionary disruption in each of his case studies, where the impossible was somehow, suddenly, made possible.

I got to see an advance copy of the book recently, and more than anything I was kind of pleasantly surprised by his open-minded stance on left strategy, finding those sparks of disruption everywhere, from the early days of 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, to the anarchist movements of the Spanish Civil War, and even in post-war parliamentary reformism. The civil rights movements get a look in here, and there are chapters on the New Left, the history of feminism, and the rise of environmentalism. And those interested in more recent history will find the last chapters quite interesting I think, looking at the Occupy movement and, more interestingly, the influence of 'Left Populist' struggles Latin America on the rise of what Bailey calls 'left pragmatism' in Europe and North America, embodied of course in parties like Syriza and Podemos, but even more recently in figures like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

As the Supreme Court debates whether to end affirmative action, concerns about the power of implicit racial bias to shape who gets ahead in America are as salient as ever. But what do we know about the extent and power of this racism to drive voting decisions? Is there a scientific way to measure it?

In a new paper "Disfavor or Favor? Assessing the Valence of White Americans' Racial Attitudes" political scientist Tim Ryan provides a new framework for how perceived racial attitudes line up with voting. It takes on the faults of our existing racial bias literature and provides striking evidence about how to characterize white American's racial attitudes.

Ryan is a professor at The University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill. You can find the paper at this link: https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/QJPS-21119

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that "Israeli officials are quietly working with the Biden administration on a polarizing proposal to set up a U.S.-run uranium-enrichment operation in Saudi Arabia as part of a complex three-way deal to establish official diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern countries," according to U.S. and Israeli officials. The article, authored by Dion Nissenbaum and Dov Lieber, largely showcases Israeli opposition to the deal. Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a group whose mission includes providing "education to enhance Israel's image in North America…" was quoted opposing a uranium enrichment program on Saudi soil. He warned that "we're one bullet away from a disaster in Saudi Arabia," adding, "What happens if, God forbid, a radical Islamist leader takes control?"Israeli sources speaking to the WSJ acknowledged concerns about nonproliferation safeguards and the potential for a regional nuclear-arms race. But the one expert who was reported as thinking "the idea is worth exploring," is an executive at an organization that depends heavily on Saudi funding, a potential financial conflict of interest that wasn't disclosed by the WSJ to its readers.The WSJ quoted Brian Katulis, described as "vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington," supporting the controversial idea.Nissenbaum and Lieber reported:"The concerns of a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East are very serious and real, indeed," [Katulis] said. "The question is whether the U.S. sitting on the sidelines, crossing its arms and scolding countries in the region for pursuing civilian nuclear energy is a more effective strategy than starting a discussion that aims to build trust and confidence among key actors in the region like Israel and Saudi Arabia."Katulis said, "The risk of some hostile leader getting these capacities is one we've seen and managed in a number of places around the world, including Pakistan.""It's not an ideal situation in those instances," he said, "but the risks can be managed."The WSJ didn't provide readers with the context about MEI that is provided on MEI's very own website: the organization's biggest funders are linked to the Saudi government, a government which, in this case, is pushing for the very nuclear deal that the WSJ was reporting on.MEI's website discloses that in the first seven months of 2023, its single largest contribution was $833,456 from Saudi Research and Media Group, a publishing group with close ties to the Saudi ministry of information. MEI also collected $200,000 from Aramco, the Saudi largely-state-owned oil company and $25,000 from the Saudi embassy in Washington.To its credit, MEI has been transparent about its funding and makes the information readily available on its website. The WSJ, on the other hand, did not inform readers that its only pro-Saudi-nuclear-deal source's work is partially funded by Saudi sources, a potential conflict of interest that may be of interest to readers seeking to better understand the benefits and pitfalls of the Saudi-Israeli normalization framework.The WSJ did not respond to a request for comment.