The United States,Great Britain,and the Creation of the Iranian Oil Consortium, 1953–1954

This article examines the attitudes of US, British, and Soviet policy-makers as they planned for the forthcoming peace during the Second World War. It charts how they moved from planning a ‘peace by dictation’ of the great powers, to planning one which would be based on a model of collective security involving all members of the United Nations alliance. The latter plan would reflect both the great powers’ special responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security and the stake which lesser powers had in such a venture. In addressing these historical developments the article employs two concepts familiar to International Relations scholarship, namely concert and hierarchy. It shows how the understandings which the principal post-war planners had of these concepts – and crucially of their inter-relationship - changed over time and the consequences of these changes. The article makes two core claims: firstly, that as post-war planning progressed, the attitudes of the Big Three towards the acceptable nature of the great power–lesser power hierarchy changed radically; and secondly, that the structure and nature of today's United Nations Organisation is in significant part a consequence of these changes.     

Good Iranian,Bad Iranian: Representations of Iran and Iranians in Time and Newsweek (1998–2009)

This article analyzes the ways in which Iran and Iranians are represented in Western news media sources. Through detailed textual analysis of articles in Time and Newsweek between 1998 and 2009, it demonstrates that journalistic representations of Iran and Iranians are not simply efforts aimed at describing the real Iran, but rather form the basis of what Said refers to as a powerful “community of interpretation” that often reflects and reproduces certain xenophobic stereotypes of non-Western foreign subjects. While some shifts in Western media representations of Iranians have occurred in the thirty years since the revolution, the underlying ontological assumptions of these representations have remained remarkably durable. That is to say, the dominant representational discourse found in these newsmagazines depicts the political behavior of Iranians on the basis of essentialized notions of Persian and/or Islamic civilization, while very often emphasizing the taken for granted superiority of the West. Earlier Orientalist discourses focus on the difference of non-Western foreign subjects by denigrating them as fundamentally anti-modern and incapable of political, cultural and economic development without Western intervention. This article presents an unmistakable discursive pattern in American journalism whereby certain Iranians are incorporated into Western civilization by virtue of their embrace of a Western modernity.     

The Cold War,the developing world,and the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1953–1957

This article argues that the creation of the IAEA (1953–1957) was shaped by the overlapping dynamics of superpower relations, decolonisation, and the growing influence of the ‘global South’ in the United Nations. During the four years of multilateral and international negotiations, many of the developing countries argued that the new organisation should not exacerbate global inequalities, practice discrimination, or institutionalise ‘atomic colonialism’. While American-Soviet understanding during these negotiations was at times strikingly good, the uranium-producing states and the future recipients of IAEA technical assistance often faced each other as rival blocs. The article is based on multi-archival research at the IAEA and the UN, as well as at the National Archives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.     

Land,Labor, and Indigenous Response: Huaquechula (Mexico), 1521–1633

During New Spain's early colonial period, the Crown pursued a seemingly contradictory policy of exploiting and protecting its indigenous subjects. On a continuum of possible responses, many indigenous peoples chose to appeal to the Crown to defend their interests against arbitrary abuse by Spanish settlers. Based on early colonial-period documents, this article focuses on the case of Huaquechula, a town with deep prehispanic roots in the fertile Valley of Altixco, to describe its attempts to fend off land encroachment and excessive demands for labor. It is suggested that, by using rhetorical strategies that resonated with the Crown, in conjunction with a combination of characteristics specific to it, Huaquechula's attempts were relatively successful.     

John Foster Dulles,Illness, Masculinity and US Foreign Relations, 1953–1961

In the last two decades, scholars have increasingly looked to understand the way that socially constructed norms and values have influenced the course of international diplomacy. Yet while much work has been produced on areas such as gender, far less has been written on the way that perceptions of illness affected the way that leading policymakers saw themselves, their allies, and their respective roles in the world. This article, by focusing on former US secretary of state John Foster Dulles, looks at the influence that perceptions of illness had on US foreign relations during the 1950s. First, it argues that US perceptions of British and French weakness – as typified by the ill-health being suffered by those nations’ respective leaders – shaped American responses to the diplomatic crisis that erupted over the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Second, it highlights the substantial changes that took place in US policy when first President Eisenhower, and then subsequently Secretary Dulles, were stricken down by severe illness. In doing so it demonstrates how a better understanding of the relationship between illness, emotions and masculinity can help historians to better understand the course of Cold War foreign relations.     

Poppy Politics: American Agents,Iranian Addicts and Afghan Opium, 1945–80

This paper surveys the history of American support for Iranian counter-narcotics policy between 1945 and 1989. In particular, it explores the general failings of Tehran's attempt to ban the domestic production and consumption of opium. The significance of this period is two-fold. First, this essay argues that American-backed efforts to combat the opium trade in Iran highlighted the detrimental effects narcotics had upon both state and society in Iran. Second, it suggests that the Iranian ban upon narcotics helped to stimulate a rise in Afghan opium production before the Soviet invasion of 1979.