Cuban Studies 39 includes essays on: the recent transformation of the Cuban film animation industry; the influence of the liberal agenda of Justo Rufino Barrios on Jose Mart; a profile of the music of the Special Period and its social commentary; an in-depth examination of the contents, important themes, and enormous research potential of the Miscelnea de Expedientes collection at the Cuban National Archive; and a realistic assessment on the political future of Cuba.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The U.S. recognized the independence of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia when the former Soviet Union broke up at the end of 1991. Contents of this report: (1) Recent Developments; (2) Background; (3) Overview of U.S. Policy Concerns: Operations in Iraq; After the Aug. 2008 Russia-Georgia Conflict; (4) The South Caucasus¿s External Security Context: Russian Involvement in the Region: Caspian Energy Resources; Roles of Turkey, Iran, and Others; (5) Obstacles to Peace and Independence: Nagorno Karabakh Conflict; Civil and Ethnic Conflict in Georgia; (6) U.S. Aid Overview; (7) U.S. Security Assistance; (8) U.S. Trade and Invest.: Building the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus Pipelines; EU Concerns; Regional Energy Cooperation with Iran.

This book analyzes the role of human rights in the foreign policy of the George W. Bush Administrations. References to human rights, freedom and democracy became prominent explanations for post-9/11 foreign policy, yet human rights have been neither impartially nor universally integrated into decision-making. Jan Hancock addresses this apparent paradox by considering three distinct explanations. The first position holds that human rights form a constitutive foreign policy goal, the second that evident double standards refute the first perspective. This book seeks to progress beyond this familiar discussion by employing a Foucaultian method of discourse analysis to suggest a third explanation. Through this analysis, the author examines how a discourse of human rights has been artificially produced and implemented in the presentation of US foreign policy. This illuminating study builds on a wealth of primary source evidence from human rights organizations to document the contradictions between the claims and practice of human rights made by the Bush Administrations, as well as the political significance of denying this disjuncture. Human Rights and US Foreign Policy will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of US foreign policy, human rights, international relations and security studies.

2020 Choice​ Outstanding Academic Title Featured in the 2020 Association of University Presses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Why do we allow our governments to get away with “bystanding” to genocide? How can we, when alerted to the mass slaughter of innocents, still not take a stand? Reluctant Interveners provides the most comprehensive answers yet to these confronting questions, focusing on the complex relationships between the citizenry, the media, the political elites, and institutions in the most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America. Eyal Mayroz offers a sobering account of the interactions between the governing and the governed, and the dynamics which transformed moral concerns for the lives of faraway “others” into cold political calculations. Exposed are the processes that turned the promise of “never again” to a recurring reality of ever again, the role of the office of the presidency in their advancement, and the resultant image of America as seen by the rest of the world. In a time of ubiquitous social media and populist revival, a greater role for the U.S. citizenry in decision-making on responses to genocide may be in the cards. The question is, in which directions will these trends take American foreign policy?

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: A, University of Otago (New Zealand - University of Otago), 16 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The traumatic experience of World War II led to an international consensus on the need of a universal framework protecting the rights of each individual and the integrity of communities. The United States having been largely isolationist before the War entered the World stage and took a substantial part in the formulation of human rights. Against the background of the Cold War the institutionalization of a common framework was everything but easy. In retrospect it seems that the American commitment to human rights is ambivalent. On the one hand American rhetoric constantly uses human rights as a legitimating moral claim, on the other hand it stays in its exceptionalist tradition and sees itself not to be in need of any international supervision. To understand the gap between ideal and reality, the concept of American exceptionalism needs to be examined. How does this conception affect the political culture in the USA and how can we explain this sense of superiority? Another question will be the legitimacy of this belief and the rationale that drives policy makers to perpetuate this notion. To evaluate the commitment to human rights in foreign policy, it will be necessary to have a look at the different administrations and their attitude toward human rights. They all face institutional constraints in policy decision making so that even if there is a "real" commitment to human rights, it is not enough that the president himself endorses such a framework. Similarly, there are other national interests that can trump moral considerations which was especially evident during the Cold War. Special events and public opinions as well as ideological beliefs of the main actors strongly influence the place of human rights in the hierarchy of preferences. Even thou