Science and Politics in the Hawaiian Kingdom: The Progress of the Honolulu Social Science Association, 1882–87

The growth in studies of Indigenous responses to the gradual foreign control and American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands has provided an important corrective to dominant trends in earlier Hawaiian historiography, but there has been comparatively little recent work on the attitudes and values of those identified as colonizers. In particular, how Western ideas were understood and appropriated within the context of Hawaiian politics is not well known. This article extends scholarship demonstrating how in colonizing contexts, ideas about science could be mobilized as a moral resource and scientific societies could become distinct social formations. Specifically, the article shows how, during the pre-annexation period, the predominantly White and Hawaiian-born members of the Honolulu Social Science Association gathered in the performance of scientific modernity, with an implicit yet overarching political aim.     

The Origins of American Expansion in Hawaii and Samoa, 1865–1900

From Nixon to Reagan, official US perceptions of West German trade with the Soviet Union (Osthandel) underwent a remarkable evolution. Despite initial skepticism, the Nixon and Ford administrations placed no major obstacles to West German–Soviet economic relations. Carter, however, changed the situation. His stance on human rights and economic sanctions against the Soviets for various developments - along with his belief that West Germany should follow the United States' lead - led Carter to ask Schmidt to curtail Osthandel, an action that contributed to Schmidt's notoriously poor relationship with the US President. Despite coming from a different political party, Reagan initially continued Carter's outlook on Osthandel. Yet rather than emphasize human rights, he publicly stressed Poland's self-determination as the reason to implement his aggressive policy to curb trade with the USSR, even though his advisers feared the strategic implications of greater German dependence on Soviet energy. Carter's and Reagan's early approaches were ineffective. Their actions, especially the latter's, strained US relations with Germany, the United States' most important ally in central Europe. Equally important, both Carter's and Reagan's policies undermined détente with Moscow. Because Nixon and Ford's approach to Osthandel harmed neither US–German relations nor US–Soviet relations, these presidents' responses had conspicuous advantages over succeeding administrations.     

Canadian and American Treatment of the Nikkei, 1890–1949: A Comparison

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic.     

Science as propaganda: Swedish scientists and the co-production of American hegemony in Sweden during the cold war, 1953–68

This article takes a close look at how the United States used the funding of scientific research in Sweden as a hegemonic and propaganda tool in the 1950s and 1960s. It shows that non-aligned Sweden functioned just as much as a node in the international science network set up by the Americans after the Second World War as did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. These funds were awarded mainly to an elite network of prominent Swedish scientists. The article sheds interesting light on the controversies of such funding in Sweden during the cold war and adds important knowledge about Swedish–American relations during the cold war. The article argues that this Swedish scientific elite co-produced US hegemony in Sweden by actively seeking out American military funding and by making use of it. It also argues that US funding was intended to portray the United States as an altruistic patron of science in the world and thus serve American propagandistic purposes as well.