More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the militarised approach to counterterrorism initia... more More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the militarised approach to counterterrorism initiated by the George W. Bush Administration remains firmly in place. Growing frustration with these actions has prompted debates on ‘forever war’. This article traces the origins of ‘forever war’ to the interplay of neoconservatism and conservative nationalism in the George W. Bush Administration, which aimed at preserving American primacy through the cultivation of overwhelming military power. The Administration’s support for the revolution in military affairs contributed to the development of a more remote counterterrorism approach, which helps explain the continuities in US counterterrorism policies across the latter Bush administration as well as the Obama and Trump presidencies. By helping embed a ‘common sense’ understanding that further 9/11-style attacks could only be prevented by enduring and aggressive military action against transnational terrorist organisations, neoconservatism ...
Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, Alfredo Prieto, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, eds., The Cuba Reader: Hi... more Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, Alfredo Prieto, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, eds., The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. 2nd ed., revised and updated. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Figures, notes, index, 744 pp.; hardcover $129.95, paperback $32.95, ebook $32.95. Sujatha Fernandes, The Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. Figures, notes, 184 pp.; hardcover $94.95, paperback $24.95, ebook $23.70. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, ed., Voices of Change in Cuba from the Non-State Sector. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Abbreviations, appendixes, figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 178 pp.; paperback $29.95, ebook $28.76. Scott Morgenstern, Jorge Pérez-López, and Jerome Branche, eds., Paths for Cuba: Reforming Communism in Comparative Perspective. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Tables, figures, bibliography, index, 408 pp.; paperback $37.95, ebook $29.57. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Rice in the Time of Suga...
Conducted on behalf of District 5 Planning Council. Supported by Neighborhood Planning for Commun... more Conducted on behalf of District 5 Planning Council. Supported by Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota
Following the end of the Cold War, the hegemony of the United States in Latin America was intimat... more Following the end of the Cold War, the hegemony of the United States in Latin America was intimately related to the globalization of the hemispheric political economy. Free-trade agreements (FTAs) were crucial to this process, helping to extend and entrench the neoliberal model. As a result of the region’s political turn to the left during the 2000s, however, the Washington Consensus became increasingly untenable. As U.S. trade policy subsequently moved in the direction of a “post-Washington Consensus,” the “Pink Tide” fostered the creation of Latin American-led approaches to integration independent of the United States. In this context, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was designed to catalyse a new wave of (neo)liberalization among its 12 participating countries, including the United States, Canada, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. The TPP codified an updated and comprehensive set of rules on an array of trade and investment disciplines not covered in existing agreements. Strategically...
ABSTRACTThis article examines change and continuity in the United States' recent foreign poli... more ABSTRACTThis article examines change and continuity in the United States' recent foreign policy toward Cuba. In the context of the posthegemonic regionalism of the Pink Tide and regional disputes over Cuba's position in the interamerican system, the Obama administration's rapprochement was driven to protect the institutional power and consensual features of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. The Trump administration reversed aspects of Obama's normalization policy, adopting a more coercive approach to Cuba and to Latin America more broadly. Against the emerging scholarly proposition that the international relations of the Americas have crossed a posthegemonic threshold, this analysis utilizes a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that the oscillations in U.S. Cuba policy represent strategic shifts in a broader process of hegemonic reconstitution. The article thus situates U.S. policy toward Cuba in regional structures, institutions, and dynamics.
An original account of contemporary US-Latin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian... more An original account of contemporary US-Latin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian and historical materialist approaches to build a novel conceptual framework for analysing US hegemony, extending critical theory in new and exciting directions. It disaggregates US power into distinct forms (structural, coercive, institutional and ideological) to convincingly argue that the United States is remaking its hegemony in the Western hemisphere. The first decade of the new century saw the ascendancy of leftist and centre-left forces in Latin America. The emergence and consolidation of the ‘New Latin Left’ signalled a profound challenge to the long-standing hegemony of the United States in the region. This book details the ways in which US foreign policy responded: defining hegemony as a dialectical relationship patterned by multiple and overlapping forms of power, it situates US policy in the context of the Post-Washington Consensus. Making considerable use of confidential diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, it examines the interplay of different facets of US hegemony, which are inextricably bound up in the neoliberalisation of the region’s political economy. This book brings clarity to what remains an open and contested process of hegemonic reconstitution, and promises to be of interest to scholars working in a number of overlapping subject areas, including International Relations (IR), US foreign policy and Latin American studies.
The nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement puts the United States at the center ... more The nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement puts the United States at the center of an expanding liberalization regime connecting the Americas to the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. power is bound up with the globalization of Latin America’s political economy, and the TPP is indicative of U.S. efforts to renew its hegemony in the region. It reinforces the importance of “free trade” on the post–Washington Consensus agenda, undercutting existing Latin American–led approaches to integration while responding to China’s growing influence in the hemisphere. As the free-trade consensus is reconstructed through the TPP process, U.S. hegemony in the Americas is potentially extended even as it continues to face challenges in the structural, institutional, and ideological dimensions of intrahemispheric affairs.El naciente Acuerdo Transpacífico de Cooperación Económica (TPP) coloca a Estados Unidos al centro de un régimen de liberalización en expansión que conecta a las Américas con l...
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump very nearly won in Minnesota, only missing out by... more In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump very nearly won in Minnesota, only missing out by 45,000 votes in the state. Rubrick Biegon takes a close look at whether Minnesota should now be considered to be a swing state. He writes that despite Trump’s recent appeals there, the North Star State’s progressive history and present may make a victory for him very difficult this fall.
This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare’s constitutive “remoteness.” It proposes a... more This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare’s constitutive “remoteness.” It proposes a novel definition of remoteness as the degree of the American public’s socio-psychological detachment from the realities of political violence fought at a physical distance from the continental United States, as mediated through spectatorship of the use of military force. The remoteness of remote warfare has physical, psychological, and social properties. We argue that it exists on a continuum subject to change over time and should not be approached as a fixed condition measured solely by the physical distance separating combatants involved in armed fighting or as the use of various weapons technologies. The numerous dynamics associated with the remoteness of remote warfare are illustrated through an examination of American military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency. From the height of the 2011 NATO intervention in the country onwards, US military operations in Libya became more “remote” for the American public. Whilst other contextual factors contributed toward this outcome, we argue that the diminished spectacle surrounding the 2016 Operation Odyssey Lightning helps explain the American public’s increasing remoteness from military intervention in Libya
More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the militarised approach to counterterrorism initia... more More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the militarised approach to counterterrorism initiated by the George W. Bush Administration remains firmly in place. Growing frustration with these actions has prompted debates on ‘forever war’. This article traces the origins of ‘forever war’ to the interplay of neoconservatism and conservative nationalism in the George W. Bush Administration, which aimed at preserving American primacy through the cultivation of overwhelming military power. The Administration’s support for the revolution in military affairs contributed to the development of a more remote counterterrorism approach, which helps explain the continuities in US counterterrorism policies across the latter Bush administration as well as the Obama and Trump presidencies. By helping embed a ‘common sense’ understanding that further 9/11-style attacks could only be prevented by enduring and aggressive military action against transnational terrorist organisations, neoconservatism ...
Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, Alfredo Prieto, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, eds., The Cuba Reader: Hi... more Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, Alfredo Prieto, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, eds., The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. 2nd ed., revised and updated. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Figures, notes, index, 744 pp.; hardcover $129.95, paperback $32.95, ebook $32.95. Sujatha Fernandes, The Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. Figures, notes, 184 pp.; hardcover $94.95, paperback $24.95, ebook $23.70. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, ed., Voices of Change in Cuba from the Non-State Sector. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Abbreviations, appendixes, figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 178 pp.; paperback $29.95, ebook $28.76. Scott Morgenstern, Jorge Pérez-López, and Jerome Branche, eds., Paths for Cuba: Reforming Communism in Comparative Perspective. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Tables, figures, bibliography, index, 408 pp.; paperback $37.95, ebook $29.57. Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Rice in the Time of Suga...
Conducted on behalf of District 5 Planning Council. Supported by Neighborhood Planning for Commun... more Conducted on behalf of District 5 Planning Council. Supported by Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota
Following the end of the Cold War, the hegemony of the United States in Latin America was intimat... more Following the end of the Cold War, the hegemony of the United States in Latin America was intimately related to the globalization of the hemispheric political economy. Free-trade agreements (FTAs) were crucial to this process, helping to extend and entrench the neoliberal model. As a result of the region’s political turn to the left during the 2000s, however, the Washington Consensus became increasingly untenable. As U.S. trade policy subsequently moved in the direction of a “post-Washington Consensus,” the “Pink Tide” fostered the creation of Latin American-led approaches to integration independent of the United States. In this context, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was designed to catalyse a new wave of (neo)liberalization among its 12 participating countries, including the United States, Canada, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. The TPP codified an updated and comprehensive set of rules on an array of trade and investment disciplines not covered in existing agreements. Strategically...
ABSTRACTThis article examines change and continuity in the United States' recent foreign poli... more ABSTRACTThis article examines change and continuity in the United States' recent foreign policy toward Cuba. In the context of the posthegemonic regionalism of the Pink Tide and regional disputes over Cuba's position in the interamerican system, the Obama administration's rapprochement was driven to protect the institutional power and consensual features of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. The Trump administration reversed aspects of Obama's normalization policy, adopting a more coercive approach to Cuba and to Latin America more broadly. Against the emerging scholarly proposition that the international relations of the Americas have crossed a posthegemonic threshold, this analysis utilizes a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that the oscillations in U.S. Cuba policy represent strategic shifts in a broader process of hegemonic reconstitution. The article thus situates U.S. policy toward Cuba in regional structures, institutions, and dynamics.
An original account of contemporary US-Latin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian... more An original account of contemporary US-Latin American relations, this book utilises neo-Gramscian and historical materialist approaches to build a novel conceptual framework for analysing US hegemony, extending critical theory in new and exciting directions. It disaggregates US power into distinct forms (structural, coercive, institutional and ideological) to convincingly argue that the United States is remaking its hegemony in the Western hemisphere. The first decade of the new century saw the ascendancy of leftist and centre-left forces in Latin America. The emergence and consolidation of the ‘New Latin Left’ signalled a profound challenge to the long-standing hegemony of the United States in the region. This book details the ways in which US foreign policy responded: defining hegemony as a dialectical relationship patterned by multiple and overlapping forms of power, it situates US policy in the context of the Post-Washington Consensus. Making considerable use of confidential diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, it examines the interplay of different facets of US hegemony, which are inextricably bound up in the neoliberalisation of the region’s political economy. This book brings clarity to what remains an open and contested process of hegemonic reconstitution, and promises to be of interest to scholars working in a number of overlapping subject areas, including International Relations (IR), US foreign policy and Latin American studies.
The nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement puts the United States at the center ... more The nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement puts the United States at the center of an expanding liberalization regime connecting the Americas to the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. power is bound up with the globalization of Latin America’s political economy, and the TPP is indicative of U.S. efforts to renew its hegemony in the region. It reinforces the importance of “free trade” on the post–Washington Consensus agenda, undercutting existing Latin American–led approaches to integration while responding to China’s growing influence in the hemisphere. As the free-trade consensus is reconstructed through the TPP process, U.S. hegemony in the Americas is potentially extended even as it continues to face challenges in the structural, institutional, and ideological dimensions of intrahemispheric affairs.El naciente Acuerdo Transpacífico de Cooperación Económica (TPP) coloca a Estados Unidos al centro de un régimen de liberalización en expansión que conecta a las Américas con l...
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump very nearly won in Minnesota, only missing out by... more In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump very nearly won in Minnesota, only missing out by 45,000 votes in the state. Rubrick Biegon takes a close look at whether Minnesota should now be considered to be a swing state. He writes that despite Trump’s recent appeals there, the North Star State’s progressive history and present may make a victory for him very difficult this fall.
This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare’s constitutive “remoteness.” It proposes a... more This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare’s constitutive “remoteness.” It proposes a novel definition of remoteness as the degree of the American public’s socio-psychological detachment from the realities of political violence fought at a physical distance from the continental United States, as mediated through spectatorship of the use of military force. The remoteness of remote warfare has physical, psychological, and social properties. We argue that it exists on a continuum subject to change over time and should not be approached as a fixed condition measured solely by the physical distance separating combatants involved in armed fighting or as the use of various weapons technologies. The numerous dynamics associated with the remoteness of remote warfare are illustrated through an examination of American military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency. From the height of the 2011 NATO intervention in the country onwards, US military operations in Libya became more “remote” for the American public. Whilst other contextual factors contributed toward this outcome, we argue that the diminished spectacle surrounding the 2016 Operation Odyssey Lightning helps explain the American public’s increasing remoteness from military intervention in Libya
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