The History and Historiography of American Diplomacy: Principles, Traditions and Values

The Council on Foreign Relations in New York is known throughout the world both as a leading centre for the study of international affairs and as having an influential voice in current debates on the future global role of the United States. Since the First World War the Council has promoted these goals through organizing working groups, sponsoring specialized monographs, and publishing a number of journals and yearbooks. The Council has now sponsored the publication of a multivolume encyclopaedic dictionary of American foreign relations. Michael Dunne's review of these four volumes concentrates on the broad themes which run through the many hundreds of essays, and asks whether the study of the American diplomatic past can help us to understand the special features of the course and conduct of US foreign relations.     

宏大叙事的缺失与复归--当代美国史学的曲折反映

史学“碎化”是美国史学重建中面临的一大难题。史学“综合”是大多数美国史学家的心愿,但也有史学家提出,关键并不在于史学“综合”,而在于重建史学的宏大叙事。关于宏大叙事的各种解读有助于我们理解史学中的“宏大叙事”。美国史学中的宏大叙事在不同的历史阶段有着不同的曲折反映。由于各种因素的影响,二战后的美国史学出现疏离宏大叙事的趋势。史学家们惊叹宏大叙事的缺失,呼吁和设计宏大叙事的重建与复归。当代美国史学宏大叙事的重建面临种种难题。这些难题从理论上讲是由于宏观社会理论的缺失与后现代理论的瓦解作用造成的,这是当代西方史学乃至整个世界史学需要直面的问题。而宏观社会理论的缺失、后现代理论的产生与宏大叙事的缺失一样都可以追溯到更深层的社会历史根源。关于美国历史的宏大叙事的前景如何,只有将来的美国史学家能够回答。     

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Balancing Values and Interests

The rapid and unpredictable changes in the Middle East collectively known as the “Arab Spring” are posing tremendous challenges to U.S. policy formation and action. This article will explore and evaluate evolving U.S. policy in the Middle East and its potential implications. There has always been a tension in American foreign policy between pursuing American “values” (foreign policy idealism) and protecting American “interests” (foreign policy realism). For decades, the United States has sought to “make the world safe for democracy,” while at the same time often supporting repressive, nondemocratic regimes because of national security or economic self‐interest. The tension between these two fundamentally distinct policy orientations has become even more pronounced as the United States tries to respond to the Arab Spring uprisings. Why did the United States actively support the rebels in Libya but not the protestors in Syria or Bahrain? Is there an emerging, coherent “Obama Doctrine” on intervention in Arab countries, or was Libya just a “one‐off” event? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer.     

Echoes in the Grand Canyon: Public Catastrophes and Technologies of Control in American Aviation

A series of dramatic mid‐air collisions during the late 1950s caused the United States to embark on a reconstruction of its air traffic control system. In pursuit of the concept of ‘positive control’ over all aircraft, the Federal Aviation Agency modified and deployed military technologies under orders to eliminate these highly public catastrophes. In the process, it curtailed one of flight's great dreams, freedom of the skies, imposing technological and procedural requirements on fliers wanting access to urban airspace. Resistance from private fliers produced modification of some of the agency's plans, causing it to adapt its planned airspace structures to permit private fliers limited access without having to submit to the control system.     

Negotiation of Social Values in the World Heritage Listing Process: A Case Study on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal,China

This paper examines the World Heritage listing process for the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to understand the sociopolitical meanings of heritage in contemporary China. Over the past four decades, the efforts of the Chinese government have been clearly geared towards improving governance over heritage sites by designating them as state properties, which requires the selection and evaluation of cultural heritage sites on the specific political meaning based on historical, aesthetic, or scientific value. In the process of World Heritage listing of Chinese heritage sties, the model of ‘state properties’ had to be compatible with UNESCO’s understanding of ‘heritage’, as well as economic benefits of heritage. Drawing on the data collected from the process of World Heritage listing of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, this paper explores the integration of the social meanings of heritage into the ‘authorized’ values criteria, facilitating multiple uses of ‘heritage’ through collaboration among UNESCO, Chinese heritage officials, and local communities. It argues that practices of heritage that consider social meanings will integrate local communities’ understandings into political meanings of heritage on basis of central government’s interests. This paper shows how the social meanings of heritage create a dialectical relationship to enable a ‘living’ cultural process in the preservation of ‘state properties’. In addition, the social meanings of heritage allow all potential stakeholder groups to negotiate with the heritage bureaucracy, as well as strengthening the role of local interests in heritage policy.     

Final Strategy: The Post-War Grand Strategic Designs of Henry L. Stimson

Few men arguably shaped the trajectory of American foreign policy in the twentieth century as durably and profoundly as Henry L. Stimson. After all, Stimson was not only directly involved in many consequential decisions dealing with highly important matters of war and peace, but was also a major influence in the United States’ more proactive involvement in extra-territorial affairs. For Stimson, it was simply wishful thinking to presume that the United States could forever disengage itself from far-reaching occurrences in other parts of the globe. Accordingly, he thought it just as critical to anticipate international problems as it was to successfully resolve them afterwards, with the result that he became an ardent and early proponent of a much more sophisticated global strategy after the Second World War. In that context, however, most historians have primarily focused on Stimson's role in the development and use of the atomic bomb against Imperial Japan, though arguably less on his more sweeping grand strategic designs. Consequently, the present article will attempt to offer a more comprehensive analysis of Stimson's grand strategic designs, particularly as they related to his vision and reflections on the necessary ingredients of a more peaceful, stable and secure interstate system.     

美国东亚遏制战略与日本对东南亚经济外交

本试图将日本经济外交的缘起置于战后初期东亚的整体政治格局中加以考察。认为随着中国成为美国在东亚的主要对手,美国东亚遏制战略在朝鲜战争爆发后最终形成。阻止中国和日本之间的传统贸易往来,同时促使日本经济与东南亚经济进行整合,成为美国东亚遏制政策的核心环节之一。美国东亚政策的这一转型影响了日本战后的经济发展及贸易模式,并推动了日本对东南亚国家的经济外交。     

美国经济遏制战略与高新技术转让限制

50— 60年代 ,美国经济遏制战略是以禁运战略物资为主 ,从 70年代开始 ,转向以限制高新技术转让为主 ;1 979年《出口管制法》标志着这种转变的完成。在“缓和时代” ,美国经济遏制战略追求的目标是 ,以有限发展东西方贸易换取苏联的政治让步。在“新冷战”时期 ,美国经济遏制战略将打击对象从中国重新转向苏联 ,更重要的是将高新技术转让限制作为迫使苏联“改变国内政治”的重要手段     

Nuclear Energy: Beliefs,Values and Acceptability

Abstract

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in public concern about nuclear energy. As a consequence, it has become recognised that the future of nuclear energy will not only depend on technical and economic factors, but that public acceptability of this technology will play a crucial role in the long-term future of nuclear energy. Research has shown a considerable divergence in public and expert assessment of the risks associated with nuclear energy. Qualitative aspects of risks play a dominant role in the public's perception of risks, and it seems necessary for experts to recognise this in order to improve relations with the general public. It is also clear, however, that differences in the perception of risks do not embrace all the relevant aspects of the public's assessment of nuclear energy. Public reaction is also related to more general beliefs and values, and the issue of nuclear energy is embedded in a much wider moral and political domain.