The United States presidential election happens every four years and it gives the prime most position in the world to the “lucky” presidential winner and this winner would render a four-year term starting at midday on Inauguration Day, a year after the election. The election is conducted in various states, no through the federal government.

The trend since the beginning is the transfer of power between two political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. Each election, both parties would nominate candidates within the organization and these feasible candidates would battle each in other in the polls as the party’s leading candidate for the Presidential elections, therefore, there would only be two Presidential Candidates each time. One Democrat and one Republican. Continue Reading »

Policies develop from a process centered mostly on politics. The policy analysts take different approaches in formulating policies that consider the social welfare, economic, political and cultural factors that influence them. The interpretation of these policies however, is political in nature. (Radin, 2000) In policy analysis this approach is called policy process. Mostly, it determines the processes as well as the means employed to explain and influence the role played by all the stakeholders involved in the policy process. This applies more in the public policies. The process is diverse qualitatively and quantitatively especially in case studies, statistical analysis and survey research. (Nagel, 1999) Unfortunately careful analysis on the part of politicians is not there. Continue Reading »

In the post-Cold War era, the game of international politics has shifted from the one-upmanship tangles of the two Blocs to the unilateralist hegemony of the US, brought to clear light by the global events unfolding in the wake of 9/11.

In this scenario, it would be foolhardy to postulate that a developing nation can have an equal relationship with a superpower (read US). At best, the former can tweak the terms of engagement a bit to allow itself the space to hold negotiations on a more level footing.

Consider US President George Bush’s upcoming India visit. The one aspect that will determine its success or failure is the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. The UPA government’s handling of this issue is a fine hook on which to hang my argument. Continue Reading »

In the year 1979, after the declining of the dictatorship of Franco, constitution introduced a new political framework for Spain according to which people of Spain had the right to organize their lives. The non-democratic system of rule followed by Franco was totally taken out and a new ‘Autonomous Communitiesa System’ was introduced. The most prominent issue that the new regime had to face was the question of Catalonian and Basque nationalities. The fight for centralization, federalism and various other issues gave rise to the emerging of Catalan identity. The Basques are the pre-Aryan race in Europe who rules themselves on the basis of certain local statutes and charters. Both Catalonia and Basque are culturally and historically distinct unlike other states that do not have a territorial identity. Catalonia and Basque were privileged to exercise a full autonomy while others could enjoy only a restricted autonomy. Asymmetrical decentralization followed by Spain was favored by both these nationalities (Ross 1999). Continue Reading »

The way leading to Arab-Israeli tension was very complicated. It was the outcome of the’ old ‘empires’ decline and the promotion of others. Trying to rephrase the idea of Bruce Robelett Konilholm in his work “The origins of the Cold War in the Near East”, I could say that the struggle for power in the Arab World as an important forefront in the region, was a contributing factor to the development of the Cold War, since the region’s components are bound to each other by physical and abstract realities. I argue that the spiral of conflicting policies between the great powers towards countries of the Northern Tier (1) and Baghdad Pacts (2), as well to others such as Egypt, contributed to the formation of fundamentally confrontational rapport between the United States and the Soviet Union, a rapport outlined in the terms “Cold War”.

Examining it from the post-war great powers’ point of views, Bruce Kunilholm further shows that this very rapport put an end to the historical rivalries between Britain and Russia over the region and opened the way to new kind of conflicts, their actors are an ideological foundation called the Soviet Union versus the insatiable United States. Continue Reading »

In his extensive analysis of the history of China (spanning the twelfth century to the mid twentieth), China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience, Chinese historian Roy Bin Wong thoughtfully crafts a non-Eurocentric framework for analyzing developments in the country. This is in stark contrast with the majority of historians who still attempt to place the Industrial Revolution in a European context from which the progress (or lack of expected progress) of all other countries must be judged. In fact, Wong proposes that what occurred in China cannot be described as a revolution but was merely the continuity of pre-industrial change. Whereas most historians try to define Chinese history by a comparison of it with European history, Wong takes the opposite side and attempts to show what European historians can learn from an objective study of Chinese history. Wong’s work could accurately be described as a hermeneutic story rather than a simple narrative. Continue Reading »

Introduction:
A “War on Terror” is a difficult thing to define, due partly to its vagueness and its unsparing use as a rhetorical device to justify any military action perpetrated by the U.S post-9/11. If it had to be defined in the way it seems to have been intended, it could be as a set of actions aimed – or purported to be aimed – at eliminating or reducing terrorism in the world. The word ‘terrorism’ is generally defined as “the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or its threat.”

To understand whether the War on Terror is deterrence or compellence or neither there has to be a stipulated definition of deterrence and compellence. Deterrence is the threat of force made by an actor with the aim of preventing an adversary from engaging in a particular course of action; whereas compellence is the threat of force made by an actor with the aim of compelling an adversary to undo something already done or begin a particular course of action .

Is the War on Terror Deterrence or Compellence?
The War on Terror has some characteristics that resemble deterrence. One of them is the adversary’s desire to engage in an undesirable (to those who wish to deter) action. However, since both sides present a very different picture of reality, of their own intrinsic goodness and the other’s intrinsic badness, it is almost impossible to determine with certainty whether the adversary does in fact intend to do what copious propaganda efforts attempt to convince people that they do; making it epistemically safer to judge whether one side perceives the other as being about to engage in the feared action, rather than whether they are ‘objectively’ about to engage in that action. An important adversary in this case is al Qaeda, and the U.S has shown its belief in al Qaeda’s intent to execute the undesirable actions (terrorism), and has done much to emphasize this intent:
“… we’re engaged in a global war against an enemy that threatens all civilized nations.” “Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination.”

“Through this strategy, al Qaeda and its allies intend to create numerous, decentralized operating bases across the world, from which they can plan new attacks, and advance their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free world.” “The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans…” (emphases mine) Continue Reading »

Current essay deals with important and at the same time very problematic issue of ancient Athenian politics and its effect on the stability of Ancient Greek Civilization. There is no denying the importance of the fact that Ancient society produced the dominant patterns of modern politics and democratic rule in the first place. Athenian democracy was one of the main factors that created the patterns of polity, politics, law and society in Ancient World and strongly influenced political traditions of Ancient Greece. Athenian democracy was a historical formation which developed in close link with other existing forms of governance such as tyranny, oligopoly etc. prevailing in Sparta and other Greek city-states (Hasebroek).

Besides this as this essay will try to show Athenian democracy and political mechanism existed in difficult conditions of permanent assault of tyranny waves as in the case of ’30′ tyranny’ and Pissistratus’ rule. Furthermore, one should remember that external threats to Athenian society and its intrinsically aristocratic nature were those factors which significantly hindered the development of genuine democracy and made it unstable and non-inclusive.

Athens was a leading city-state which formed larger Ancient Greek civilization and engaged in external political relations with other states such as Persia, Sparta, Egypt etc. Hence, deep difference between Athenian internal and external politics were in place and it makes necessary to examine these controversies in detail. Athenian politics are to be analyzed historically by integrating culture, traditions, and main events in the wider fabric of analysis. As a result we hope to produce genuine research addressing the role of Athenian politics and Athenian democracy in shaping the contours of Ancient Greek Civilization and affecting political stability in this particular region.

Ancient Greece and the formation of Athenian politics
The formation of Athenian political system and the mechanism of internal and external politics were deeply affected by two opposite trends which were characteristic of Ancient Greece civilization: the opposition between democracy and tyranny (Stanton). The social structure of Athenian society was very complex and differentiated which created significant instability affecting Athenian and other city-states’ politics. Therefore the problems of stability/instability should be discussed through the prism of Athens state formation, its political ties with other city-states and civilizations. But before analyzing these issues it is necessary to outline the basic developments in Athenian political and social realms which resulted in the creation of classic Athenian society. Continue Reading »

Election is the process by which members in a given community or nation choose there leaders in democratic society, therefore such kind of an election should be free and fair to ensure that the leaders era acceptable to all members of the society therefore an election should give basic freedom to citizens in order to have full participation in the elector process example people should be around to join a political party of there choice without fear of intimidation, they should have access to political and elector information through civic education they should also have the right to vote secretly without coition or vote buying.

Therefore fair elections must have a process which is impartial and satisfies the basic in the national standards. However, it within the process of free and fair elections that citizen express there will through the elected representatives, hence such leaders are expected to elected in a free and fair elections and can only to removed from the office through the same process, therefore a person who intimidates, corrupt and threatens the citizens before or after election becomes an enemy of democracy. Continue Reading »

Defining the new media and their role in American politics is an important, albeit somewhat challenging, task. In this book, we argue that the new media are quantitatively and qualitatively different from the mainstream press. They do not simply represent a variation of the established news media.

The new media have significant potential to educate, facilitate public discourse, and enhance citizen participation. They provide mass audiences with a seemingly boundless array of sources that transcend the time and space constraints of traditional media. In addition, new media technologies easily bypass national and international boundaries, bringing American citizens into contact with diverse cultures and distant happenings to an extent previously unimaginable. As such, new media have the potential to enhance the public’s understanding and tolerance of different societies. Continue Reading »