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US Policy (us + policy)
Selected AbstractsShifts in Global Security Policies: Why They Matter for the SouthIDS BULLETIN, Issue 2 2009Susan L. Woodward The global security order has been evolving since 1989, led initially by the USA to expand its post-1945 order in Europe to the rest of the world but propelled as well by competition and debates within that post-Second World War alliance, as collective victors in the Cold War, about how to define a new international order. This article identifies three US policies that began this restructuring; their parallel redefinitions of security, and the tensions provoked by this agenda and its consequences, both within the ,North', replacing the ,West', between North and ,South', replacing the,East'and the resulting multiple opportunities for alternative political coalitions, North against South, between North and South, and within the South, that have yet to play themselves out fully. The resulting fluidity has not yet stabilised into a new international security order. [source] Corn ethanol growth in the USA without adverse foreign land-use change: defining limits and devising policiesBIOFUELS, BIOPRODUCTS AND BIOREFINING, Issue 3 2010Paul W. Gallagher Abstract This study addresses the question: ,How does a 15 billion gallon per year renewable fuel standard (RFS) compare to the capacity of the US corn market to generate necessary input supplies for the ethanol industry?' The analysis accounts for adjustments in world corn and soybean markets, including corn technology improvements (yield increases) that allow substantial production growth on the existing corn area, and byproduct (DDG) replacement of displaced corn-feed demand. Our midpoint estimate suggests that increased production on foreign lands only accounts for a small fraction (6%) of the RFS demand expansion. Further, corn yield response to moderate price increases would likely offset much of the foreign production increase. US policies that could sever any remaining link between US ethanol expansion and environmentally sensitive regions of the world feed economy are discussed. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [source] The Limits of ,Securitization': Power, Politics and Process in US Foreign Economic PolicyGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2007Nicola Phillips The concept of ,securitization' has become particularly influential in the post-9/11 world. This paper aims to scrutinize and, ultimately, reject an emerging set of claims about political economy which draw upon this framework. The contention that US foreign economic policy is increasingly subject to a process of securitization misrepresents the substance of contemporary US foreign policy, the political environment in which it is articulated and the process by which it is made. Pursuing this argument, the paper sets out a framework within which to understand the evolution of contemporary US policy, paying attention to distinctive forms of the economic,security nexus; the form of ,ad hoc reactivism' that has consistently characterized US foreign economic policy; the set of commercial and wider economic goals to which policy responds; and the dynamics of competition for leadership in key regions. [source] Compensating for wetland losses in the United StatesIBIS, Issue 2004Joy B. Zedler Impacts of climate change on US wetlands will add to those of historical impacts due to other causes. In the US, wetland losses and degradation result from drainage for agriculture, filling for urbanization and road construction. States that rely heavily on agriculture (California, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana) have lost over 80% of their historical area of wetlands, and large cities, such as Los Angeles and New York City, have retained only tiny remnants of wetlands, all of which are highly disturbed. The cumulative effects of historical and future degradation will be difficult to abate. A recent review of mitigation efforts in the US shows a net loss of wetland area and function, even though ,no net loss' is the national policy and compensatory measures are mandatory. US policy does not include mitigation of losses due to climate change. Extrapolating from the regulatory experience, one can expect additional losses in wetland areas and in highly valued functions. Coastal wetlands will be hardest hit due to sea-level rise. As wetlands are increasingly inundated, both quantity and quality will decline. Recognition of historical, current and future losses of wetland invokes the precautionary principal: avoid all deliberate loss of coastal wetland area in order to reduce overall net loss. Failing that, our ability to restore and sustain wetlands must be improved substantially. [source] George W. Bush, IdealistINTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2003Michael J. Mazarr There is much anger and confused grumbling these days outside the United States,and in Europe in particular,about the character of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Perceived American unilateralism is raising hackles and questions. This article contends that current trends in US foreign policy can be better understood by realizing that many senior Bush administration officials are not ,realists', at least as that philosophy of world politics is classically understood. Many of the resulting views,that, for example, threats to security often originate in ideology rather than material strength,are demonstrably correct and even hopeful in their faith in long-term historical trends. But there may be no getting around the essential contradictions required of US foreign policy in an age when America is the leading power, when a new global community of trading democracies is emerging, and yet when a number of distinctly old-style threats to the peace remain very much in evidence. Washington could do more to smooth the edges of those contradictions in order to point up the idealism and hopefulness of US policy. [source] Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros CrisisINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 4 2002Kelly M. Greenhill This paper presents a case study of the August 1994 Cuban balseros crisis, during which more than 35,000 fled the island and headed toward Florida in the span of a few weeks. It argues that Castro launched the crisis in an attempt to manipulate US fears of another Mariel, and in order to compel a shift in US policy, both on immigration and on a wider variety of issues. The paper further contends that from Castro's perspective, this exercise in coercion proved a qualified success , his third such successful use of the Cuban people as an asymmetric political weapon against the US. In addition, the paper argues that Castro's success was predicated on his ability to internationalize his own domestic crisis and transform it into an American domestic political and foreign policy crisis. Finally, it offers a novel explanation of how, why, and under what conditions, states and/or non,state actors may attempt to use refugees as coercive political weapons. Although dwarfed in size by the larger 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1994 crisis is important for several reasons. First, despite its brevity, it had far reaching consequences for US,Cuban relations. Without warning or preamble, it catalyzed a shift in US policy vis,à,vis Cuban immigration that represented a radical departure from what it had been for the previous three decades. Second, it influenced US domestic politics on the national level, by expanding the scope and salience of the issue, and mobilizing not only Floridians, but also the larger public concerned about illegal immigration. Third, the crisis illustrated the potential potency of engineered migration as an asymmetric weapon of the weak. Finally, the brief, but significant, interactions of international and domestic actors in this case warrant examination because, although the 1994 crisis was limited, in its dynamics it resembles myriad other international refugee crises, large and small. Thus the case offers valuable lessons that may aid in dealing with future (real or threatened) crises. [source] Input Suppliers, Differential Pricing, and Information Sharing AgreementsJOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2008Anthony Creane It is common for firms to systematically share information with their input suppliers. Although such agreements with horizontal rivals have been analyzed, there has been little work examining vertical sharing, and that analysis has focused on suppliers that set uniform prices. However, there has been a systematic change in the US policy toward vertical relationships in the past decades: both FTC inaction and courts rulings have curtailed the effect of Robinson-Patman, a law meant to prevent differential pricing. Furthermore, it is not clear if differential pricing reflects the suppliers' or the buyers' power. The interaction of these effects is examined. [source] Dangerous Holes in Global Environmental Governance: The Roles of Neoliberal Discourse, Science, and California Agriculture in the Montreal ProtocolANTIPODE, Issue 1 2008Brian J. Gareau Abstract:, This paper explores how a relatively successful global environmental treaty, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, is currently undermined by US protectionism. At the "global scale" of environmental governance, powerful nation-states like the US prolong their domination of certain economic sectors with the assistance of neoliberal discourse. Using empirical data gathered while attending Montreal Protocol meetings from 2003 to 2006, I show how US policy undermines the Montreal Protocol's mandate to phase out methyl bromide (MeBr). At the global scale of environmental governance the US uses a discourse of technical and economic infeasibility because, in the current neoliberal milieu, it cannot make a simply protectionist argument. The discourse, in other words, is protectionism by another name. While much of the literature in critical geography on neoliberalism has focused on de-regulation versus re-regulation, this paper illustrates how science, protectionism, and neoliberalism can become articulated uneasily and in sometimes unexpected ways. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||