HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
November 2009
The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order
Book
By David Ekbladh, Research Fellow, International Security Program
The Great American Mission traces how America's global modernization efforts during the twentieth century were a means to remake the world in its own image. David Ekbladh shows that the emerging concept of modernization combined existing development ideas from the Depression. He describes how ambitious New Deal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority became symbols of American liberalism's ability to marshal the social sciences, state planning, civil society, and technology to produce extensive social and economic change. For proponents, it became a valuable weapon to check the influence of menacing ideologies such as Fascism and Communism.
November 16, 2009
"The Year the World Really Changed"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Newsweek
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"...1989 was less of a watershed year than 1979. The reverberations of the fall of the Berlin Wall turned out to be much smaller than we had expected at the time. In essence, what happened was that we belatedly saw through the gigantic fraud of Soviet superpower. But the real trends of our time—the rise of China, the radicalization of Islam, and the rise and fall of market fundamentalism—had already been launched a decade earlier."
AP Photo
November 9, 2009
"Who Caused the End of the Cold War?"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"Ultimately the deepest causes of Soviet collapse were the decline of communist ideology and the failure of the Soviet economy. This would have happened even without Gorbachev. In the early Cold War, communism and the Soviet Union had a good deal of soft power. Many communists had led the resistance against fascism in Europe, and many people believed that communism was the wave of the future....Although in theory communism aimed to instill a system of class justice, Lenin's heirs maintained domestic power through a brutal state security system involving lethal purges, gulags, broad censorship, and the use of informants. The net effect of these repressive measures was a general loss of faith in the system."
Belfer Center
September 25, 2009
Ernest May: Bridging the Chasm Between History and Policy
Highlight
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
On September 24, 2009, the Belfer Center hosted a seminar to discuss Ernest May's unique ability to serve as a bridge between history and policy. A member of the Belfer Center's board of directors until his death in June 2009, Ernest May was a world renowned historian of international relations and foreign policy and a member of the Harvard faculty for over 50 years. During the seminar, "Reflections on Ernest May: A Rare Bridge Between History and Policy," a number of May's colleagues, students, friends, and family members reflected on Ernest (Ernie) May, the man, and on his "extraordinary" contributions.
AP Photo
June 29, 2009
"Do not count on the Tories winning just yet"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Most commentators assume that whenever the election happens it will be won by the Conservatives. The Labour party had its worst performance in the recent elections since 1910. As in the 1990s, the electorate is sick of the incumbent party. Just as the Labour party had young, telegenic Tony Blair in 1997, so the Tories today have young, telegenic David Cameron.
Yet this is to overstate the strength of the Conservative position."
Spring 2009
"Who Are These Belligerent Democratizers? Reassessing the Impact of Democratization on War"
Journal Article, International Organization, issue 2, volume 63
By Vipin Narang, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom and Rebecca M. Nelson
In a key finding in the democratic peace literature, Mansfield and Snyder argue that states with weak institutions undergoing incomplete transitions to democracy are more likely to initiate an external war than other types of states. We show that the empirical data do not support this claim. We find a dearth of observations where incomplete democratizers with weak institutions participated in war. Additionally, we find that the statistical relationship between incomplete democratization and war is entirely dependent on the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire prior to World War I. We also find that the case selection in Mansfield and Snyder rarely involved incomplete democratizers with weak institutions. We therefore conclude that the finding that incomplete democratizers with weak institutions are more likely to initiate or participate in war is not supported by the empirical data.
AP Photo
Spring 2009
"How Smart and Tough Are Democracies? Reassessing Theories of Democratic Victory in War"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 33
By Alexander B. Downes, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
New evidence challenges the near-conventional argument that democracies are more likely than nondemocracies to win wars they start. A reanalysis of original data on war outcomes and an in-depth case study of the Johnson administration's decisions regarding Vietnam in 1965 demonstrate that democracies of all types are not significantly more likely to win wars. Furthermore, they are constrained by domestic politics and are often pressured into unwinnable wars.
AP Photo
April 22, 2009
"A Useful Guide to Islamism's Essence"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
A new book cuts through much of the ideological venom, post-9/11 vengefulness, neo-Orientalist stereotyping -- or the mere simpletonian nonsense -- that characterize much of what is said and written about Islamist movements.
Photo by Michael Casey
April 8, 2009
"Frazer offers lessons on transformative U.S.-Africa policy"
News
By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer gave a public address," Solutions: A Transformative U.S.-Africa Policy," at Harvard Kennedy School's John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on April 7, 2009. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison moderated the event.
AP Photo
April 6, 2009
"Colonial Values Rule Again in Palestine"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Colonialism is all about one law for white men, and a different, harsher set of rules for the native darker people. Such is the negotiating reality for Palestinians with Israel and the West.
