Empire by denial: the strange case of the United States

The issue of empire has once again become a major political question in American foreign policy discourse. But whereas in the 1960s the discussion was one that mainly concerned the radical left, over the past few years the debate has largely been conducted within neo-conservative circles. The discussion is one that should be taken seriously-in part because of its intrinsically interesting character and in part because of what it tells us about the Bush grand strategy. In the end, though, the issue of whether or not there is-or is not- an American empire, is perhaps of less importance than the fact that most Americans deny that such an empire exists. This has consequences both for the conduct of American foreign policy and for its successful execution.     

Undergraduate geography internships in the United States: national survey and case study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey of internships offered in undergraduate geography programmes in the United States and discusses a required internship for undergraduate geography majors at Illinois State University. Our survey reveals internships to be widespread in the United States, and the Illinois State internship programme is one of the few in the country that is a requirement for the major. The programme appears to be quite successful.     

Trade and culture: the United States

ABSTRACT

The US government has long held that cultural goods and services represent an economic sector like any other and should be liberalized. The American cultural and digital industries enjoy a strong competitive advantage and constitute a leading export sector. This US stance has antagonized many countries pursuing cultural policies. This has led the US government to soften its trade strategy and accept financial measures, as well as a broader array of ‘traditional’ cultural regulatory instruments. At the same time, the United States insists on the absence of restrictions in digital networks, through which cultural contents are to be increasingly distributed and accessed. Under the negative-list negotiating approach, whereby everything is liberalized save for specific exceptions, states parties to US trade agreements have secured a varying array of measures. However, only a handful, essentially industrial countries, have secured digital exceptions, the latter coupled with conditions raising questions concerning their applicability.     

Australia's diplomatic asylum initiative at the United Nations: comparing international law rhetoric with foreign policy practice

In 1974, Australia took the initiative to have an item on diplomatic asylum inscribed on the UN General Assembly's agenda for that year. Its original ambition was to procure an international treaty on the subject. This article traces the history of that initiative from its inception to the acknowledgement seven years later that it had come to nothing. It also investigates the impact that Australia's initiative at the UN had on its foreign policy practice in relation to diplomatic asylum through two administrations: the Whitlam government (5 December 1972–11 November 1975) and the Fraser government (11 November 1975–11 March 1983). It demonstrates that, while the initiative generated a great deal of bureaucratic work, it wrought no real change in Australia's practice on the ground.     

Regional Exchange Rate Indexes for the United States

In this paper we construct exchange rate indexes for the nine U.S. Bureau of the Census regions. The results indicate there are nontrivial differences between them and an identically created overall U.S. exchange rate index. The national index is cointegrated with only two of these regional indexes, and in a Granger sense, it is causing one regional index. In addition, our results indicate that two of the regional exchange rate indexes are interchangeable with the national index. These results show that researchers investigating how exchange rate changes affect regional exports or regional economic growth should be cautious in making inferences based upon a national exchange rate index.     

Atlas of the United States

In an attempt to distinguish between regional physical geography and the Soviet school of landscape science, the author defines the study objects of the two disciplines and provides a useful review of the present state of landscape science in the Soviet Union. Physical geography is said to be concerned with study of the entire geographical shell of the earth, ranging from the troposphere to the bottom of the layer of sedimentary rocks in the earth's crust. Landscape science focuses on the so-called landscape sphere, which is defined as the portion of the geographical shell that lies at or near the surface of the earth and is imbued with present-day life. Although some Soviet geographers treat the term “landscape” as a broad conceptual term (similar to climate), most investigators tend to give the term a classificatory or typological connotation, regarding landscape as the basic unit in a classification of natural geocomplexes. One landscape school focuses on the morphological structure of landscape, the other on model-building of the landscape mechanism.     

Africa and the United States

Peter J. Schraeder. United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.     

A case of squamosal craniosynostosis from the 16th century southeastern United States

This paper describes a case of plagiocephaly stemming from a unilateral synostosis of the left squamosal and coronal sutures in a 16^th century calvaria from Georgia. Although cases of squamosal involvement in syndromic, multisuture synostotic cases have been found in the archaeological record, isolated squamosal involvement is quite rare. Our literature review found only 15 such cases reported, and this is the first case to be reported from the southeastern United States. Despite the fact that the bevelled nature of the squamosal suture is unique in the human body and that the cause for squamosal involvement remains unclear, to our knowledge there have been no reviews of the nosology and aetiology of synostosis with particular reference to the squamosal suture in the anthropological or clinical literature. Isolated squamosal craniosynostosis may be frequently unreported in clinical settings, and thus case studies on the condition in archaeological contexts may prove valuable for future attempts to identify the frequency and causes of squamosal involvement. This case study also highlights both the potential and challenges of using rare pathological conditions as a tool for positive identification of human remains in historical forensic cases. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The challenge facing migration research: a case for greater awareness

The author critically examines an article by Keith Halfacree and Paul Boyle, in which the authors made a case for a biographical approach to migration research. "My point of contention--incredulous disbelief might be more accurate--stems from their conclusion that the biographical approach should be the ?new' methodological base for an improved paradigm in migration studies."