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Nominally, the policy of the United States towards the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan is governed by the 'One China' Policy (OCP). However, the conditions under which OCP was originally formulated have long since given way to substantial growth in the economic and military power of the PRC and the democratisation of Taiwan. These changes raise several questions regarding the viability and applicability of OCP. Drawing on securitisation theory, this article examines discourses across three US presidential administrations to assess the trajectory of socio-political constructions of the PRC, Taiwan, and OCP. Three case studies suggest substantial challenges for OCP as a basis for maintaining desecuritised relations between the United States and the PRC. While discourses of 'engagement' prominent in the 1990s have lost ground, with presidential administrations increasingly but inconsistently drawing on OCP, in Congress OCP plays no role, while Taiwan is increasingly constructed as akin to the American self, serving as an identity proxy that highlights the otherness of the PRC. Polling supports the idea that OCP is not rooted in general American understandings of the region and consequently cannot serve to ground policy in a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased nationalism, greater protectionism and a gradual move away from a rules-based international order by some members of the international community do not bode well for vulnerable populations around the globe. Human security is threatened by a host of non-traditional security challenges catalysed by the growth of physical technologies and require multifaceted responses from a variety of actors. Many of those actors look to transnational networks built on globalized liberal order's social norms—what we call social technologies—for protection. The dwindling interconnectedness of deglobalization is likely to further empower corrupt governments at the expense of vulnerable citizens. This results from a decreased willingness by states and international institutions to defend human security. Whether one looks at the plight of persecuted citizens during Burma's military junta, human slaves in the fisheries off the coast of Indonesia, or farmers uprooted from their land by palm oil plantations, without social technologies to counterbalance the negative implications of physical technology the international community will lack the political capacity (sanctions, arms embargoes, travel restrictions, etc.), to aid those most in need. Ultimately, the effects of deglobalization on human security will depend largely on the trajectory of social technology developing alongside advances in physical technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2002. xxvii + 178 pp. In The Rhetoric of the Other: Lesbian and Gay Strategies of Resistance in French and Francophone Contexts, Martine [...]

The article focuses on pedagogies of race in nineteenth-century Louisiana and French education between Louisiana and France. It mentions a novel "L'habitation Saint-Ybars" by Alfred Mercier regarding French literature of Louisiana and contribution to American studies by challenging not only its Anglo-centrism but also the very nationalist narratives that construct Americanness as essentially Anglophone. It also mentions allegory of slavery.

Shapiro, Norman R., translator. Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of Nineteenth-Century Louisiana. u of Illinois P, 2004. Pp. 280. ISBN 0-2520-7149-2. Jarrod Hayes, University of Michigan Creole Echoes makes an [...]

The article discusses the constructivism in international relations (IR) in an authoritative source on theoretical trends in IR of teaching, research and international policy (TRIP) program.

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In 2008, the announcement of the Global Zero campaign—an international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons—coincided with the election of Barack Obama. The new president, avowedly pro-disarmament, made getting to zero nuclear weapons a centerpiece of his foreign policy. This article takes on the question of what impact global disarmament might have on international strategic stability. In a break with much of the literature and analysis on nuclear policy, it explicitly focuses on how publics understand the significance of nuclear weapons. In so doing, the article draws on recent international relations scholarship on the role of habit to argue that eliminating nuclear weapons can generate instability by creating widespread perceptions of insecurity and anxiety. If disarmament campaigners wish to achieve their goal without generating instability, they will need to work over the long-term to break habituated beliefs about nuclear weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]