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The paper focuses on recent changes in the organisation of Anglo-American occupational pension schemes, analysing these changes in relation to the structural power of finance. It offers a constitutive reading of the structural power of finance that stresses the discursive, decentred, calculative and productive features of power relations. The discourse and institutions of asset management are identified as key to the power relations at work in the investment practices of Anglo-American pension funds. Under asset management, occupational pension saving becomes a form of largely speculative investment that is only indirectly and marginally concerned with plant or production. The paper also explores the current crisis of ‘final salary’ pension schemes. It argues that the tactics of state managers and the corporate sponsors of schemes in the course of the crisis are framed by commitments to actuarialism and ‘shareholder value’ respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recasts the debate taking place in five major American newspapers and magazines over the meaning and the extent of ‘sacrifice’ called upon the United States by the War in Iraq in a historical perspective. It argues that the underlying tensions informing the debate can best be understood as a crisis of the "American imperial society". I argue that the United States may also qualify as an ‘empire’ before we even begin to look at its ‘foreign relations’ or its global politics . This is especially true of the place occupied by three founding minorities of the Republic: Blacks, Native Americans and Hispanics. The "imperial society model" also offers an explanation as to why race has seemed to play almost no part in the present journalistic contest over military sacrifice in the War in Iraq by alluding to the political technologies set in place in response to the crisis of the Vietnam era. Rather than suggesting that past imperial dynamics no longer adequately describe tensions in American society, this paper concludes by showing how affirmative action policies on minority sacrifice in the US army point to the persistance of imperial social relations. It also sketches out how the War in Iraq has exacerbated many of the contradictions inherent in the all-volunteer army. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the influence of ideas in the Spanish management of the 1964 Cuban Crisis. The analysis of Spanish and US primary sources (diplomatic documents and the press) seems to suggest that Madrid?s attempt to advance its position vis à vis Washington and the Spanish policy-makers? pragmatism were the elements in the realm of ideas that mostly influenced Spain?s management of this crisis. Furthermore, cultural and historical factors and the media coverage of these events are also to be taken into account to grasp these policy makers? mindset throughout the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a perception gap between the Bush and Clinton administrations about the true nature of the North Korean regime and the best ways to deal with the regime, and this perception gap has produced divergent policies between the two administrations. Drawing on recent developments in realist literature, however, I argue that another important variable to explain U.S. policy is the international situation around the Korean peninsula - offensive or defensive - that each administration perceives. The second nuclear crisis has been strongly influenced by the offensive strategy of the U.S. after the terrorist attacks of 2001. Such an offensive movement has dramatically worsened North Korea?s security fears and led to the current nuclear deadlock. Thus, the U.S. needs to resolve the North Korean security dilemma by taking conciliatory measures, and North Korea also needs to engage in cooperative behavior with the U. S. simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizing US neglect of Latin America has become a popular exercise in US journals and newspapers. Indeed, when reviewing the recent political crises throughout the region as well as the ‘turn to the left’ that has taken place at least in South America, US actions and reactions may seem erratic or entirely ignorant. By analyzing the US role during recent political turbulences in South America, the paper takes issue with this attempt to explain US behavior by simply pointing towards some general stance of neglect. In contrast, it is argued that the complex processes of crisis, continuity and change in South America imply contradictory incentives and limits to a US government that frames its activities as guided by the democratic ideal and yet cannot renounce its specific national preferences in the name of democracy’s intrinsic value. The frame constituted by democratic rhetoric appears as, at the same time, constraining and enabling US policies towards South America: While the dual goal ‘democracy promotion and protection’ clearly constrains the range of justifiable (re-) actions, its normative indecisiveness opens important margins for the pursuit of particularistic prefer-ences. When taking into account the concrete settings in the different ‘target’ countries, US actions, reactions and inactions can be explained quite well without assuming some general inattention that proves overly simplifying. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can international crises help to push long-term rivals toward peace? If so, how and under what circumstances are such crises likely to promote rivalry de-escalation or termination? In an effort to address these questions, I examine an understudied but highly volatile Cold War crisis. Precipitated by an ambitious NATO military exercise, the Able Archer 83 crisis, like the Cuban Missile Crisis 21 years earlier, appears to have pushed the superpowers to the brink of nuclear warfare. Information revealed by Soviet defectors about Moscow's anxiety and possible nuclear response jarred U.S. President Ronald Reagan, altering his understanding of Soviet threat perceptions and pushing him toward negotiation, arms control, and peacemaking with what he had dubbed the "evil empire." By revealing information, the Able Archer 83 crisis had a profound impact on a key individual, cracking mirror images and triggering a reevaluation of attitudes and policy orientation toward the Soviets that may have constituted the very first step toward a thaw in Soviet-American relations. The case illustrates how volatile, sudden events can act as catalysts of rapprochement between rivals, helping to address the question of timing of initial moves toward peacemaking. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether policy makers learn from past experience is both a central and a vexing to students of foreign policy analysis. As Levy (1994) has noted, it is the latter because it is fraught with conceptual and methodological problems, but it is central because establishing the presence of learning would legitimate the idea that leadersÂ’ beliefs, cognitions and attitudes mattered when predicting the behavior of states in the international system. While some attempts have been made to systematically assess the impact of prior success or failure on foreign policy choices, most of these have focused on behavioral indicators of learning (i.e. change in strategy over time) rather than systematically assessing changes in the mental states of the decision makers. This analysis of the belief systems of US Presidents in response to crisis outcomes attempts to fill this void. The International Crisis Behavior project dataset provides a subset of crises for which we examine US behavior, target behavior and crisis outcomes. We use using the Verbs in Context system of content analysis to generate operational code indicators for the relevant US President before and after the crisis in order to establish whether congruence or disparity between each PresidentsÂ’ subjective representation of the situation and his anticipated behavior of the opponent interacts with outcome quality to reinforce or change his belief structures. We then determine whether Presidents exhibiting belief change are more likely to demonstrate learning by acting differently in the next crisis. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]