Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Conference: The Cold War and Latin America, 19-20 November, 2016 Shanghai University


THE COLD WAR and Latin America
19-20 NovembER, 2016
Shanghai

DAte        19-20 NoVEMBER, 2016
VENUE:        New lehu hotel, Shanghai University
ORGANIZERs:  cENTER FOR gLOBAL sTUDIES, sHU
                CONICET, aRGENTINA
                La Universidad Republica de Uruguay           
CO-SPONSER:  ShangHai International CULTURE ASSOCIATION

Conference Program


DAY 118 NOV., FRIDAY
 10:00-20:00  Pre-conference registration
 Venue: New LeHu Hotel, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai University, Shanghai


DAY 219 NOV., SATURDAY
Chair:  Guo Changgang
8:30 – 9:30 am     OPENING REMARKS Second Floor, Conservatory of Music
               Luo Hongjie, Secretary of Party Committee of Shanghai University
Antonio Martín Rivolta, Consul of Consulate of Argentina
Ceremony of the Appointment of Prof. Jiang Shixue
Fortunato Mallimaci, Guillermo Neiman, CONICET
Ceremony of Donation of Books

9:30 – 9:50 am   PHOTO & COFFEE BREAK


SESSION I   Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
Chair:  Jiang Shixue
9:50- 10:10 am        Evolution of the USA and Soviet Union’s Strategy of Battlement for Latin America
Xu Shicheng, Researcher of ILAS-CASS(Instituto de America Latina Academia China de Sciencia Social), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Honorary members, Beijing, China
10:10 – 10:30 am   Cold War and “New Cold War”—The Revelation of History to Reality
Yu Weimin, Vice-director of Centre for Cold War International History Studies, Professor of College of History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
10:3010:50 am   Geography of Armed Struggle: Left and Revolution in South America during the Cold War (1964-1976).
Aldo Marchesi, Director of Centre of Development, University of Republic of Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay
10:50 – 11:10 am   The Influence of Cold War on the Agrarian Reform of Latin America
               Gao Bo, Researcher of ILAS-CASS, Beijing, China
11:10 – 11:30 am   The Argentine Syndicalism in the Context of Cold War: Dynamics and Trends in a World of Transformation
                    Nicolás Damin, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina
11:30 – 11:50 pm   Q & A
12:00 – 13:00 pm   LUNCH

SESSION II    Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
Chair:    Julio Pintos
14:00– 14:20 pm  The US Strategy of Carrot-Stick towards Latin America in the Cold War: What Are the Issues
Jiang Shixue, Director of Centre of Studies of Latin America, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
14:2014:40 pm  The Economic Vision of Colombian Entrepreneurs before Latin American Growth
Rick Fernandez, Postdoc. Center for Global Studies, Shanghai University, Shanghai,China
14:4015:00 pm Latin America in the Global Sixties: A Research Agenda
Eric Zolov, Director of Centre of Latin American Studies, Stony Brook University , The New York State, USA
15:0015:20 pm  The DINCOTE Museum in Lima and Its close
                  Maria Eugenia, Professor of PUCP University, Lima, Peru
15:20 – 15:40 pm   Q & A
15:40 – 16:00 pm   COFFEE BREAK

SESSION III    Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
Chair: Xu Shicheng   
16:00 – 16:20 pm  The Chilean Left during the Cold War: Five Inflections
Julio Pintos, Professor of University of Santiago of Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile
16:2016:40 pm  Before the revolution. The Anti-communism of Right and the Cold War
               Veronica Valdivia, Professor of Diego Portales University,
Santiago de Chile, Chile
16:40 – 17:00 pm  From Lieutenant Guevara to Wandering Che: the Cold Subjugation of a Warring Messenger from Latin America               
Xie Xiaoxiao, Phd Student of University of Adelaide, Australia
17:00 – 17:20 pm  The Diffusion and the Change of Christian Democracy in Chile – a Brief Discussion on the Reform of President Eduardo Frei
He Xi, Associate Professor of Department of History, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
17:20 – 17:40 pm   Q & A
18:00 – 20:00 pm   WELCOME DINNER


DAY 320 Nov., SUNDAY
SESSION IV   Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
Chair:  Veronica Valdivia
8:30 – 8:50 am   Artists and Intellectuals during the Cold War: Jorge Amado and His Latin
American Comrades
Marcelo Ridenti, Director of Department of Religion Studies, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil
8:50 – 9:10 am  The History and Effects of Public Diplomacy of US to Latin America during the Cold War
              Song Xiaoli, Assistant Professor of IAS-CASS(Institution of American Studies), Beijing, China
9:10 – 9:30 am  The New Left and the Armed Left in Argentina (1960-1980)
Vera Carnovale, Researcher of CONICET, Argentina
9:30 -9:50 am  The Transformation of US Foreign Policies towards Latin America in the
Early Cold War Era
Du Juan, Assistant Researcher of CASS, Beijing, China
9:50 – 10:10 am   Q & A
10:10 – 10:30 am   COFFEE BREAK

SESSION V  
Chair: Eric Zolov  Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
10:30 – 10:50 am  Approach to the Studies of Venezuelan GuerrillaTruth, Lies and Fantasies about the Armed Conflict in Venezuela
                Neruska Rojas , Master Student, Shanghai University, Shanghai ,China
10:50 – 11:10 am  Evolution on Relations between China and Latin America in Cold War Period
                Wan Yu, Director, Centre for Mexican StudiesSchool of European and  Latin American StudiesSISU
11:10 – 11:30 am   Vincente Rovetta and Nativa Libros---the Diffusion of Chinese Books in Uruguay and Latin America during the Cold War           
   Zhang Kun, Postdoc of College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
11:30 – 11:50 am   The Defence of Latin Americanized Marxism-Review of <Transformaciones de Marxismo>
                   Ye Jianhui, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Zhejiang
Foreign Language University, Hangzhou, China
11:50 – 12:10 am   Q & A
12:10- 13:00 pm     LUNCH

SESSION VI   Da Xue Conference RoomNew Lehu Hotel
Chair: Iris Borowy  
14:0014:20 pm  Argentina Journalist, Writers and Scholars in China after 1949
Salvador Marinaro, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina
14:20 – 14:40 pm  The Betancourt Doctrine and the Diplomacy of Venezuela during the Cold War
Jesus Camejo, Master student of Collage of Liberal Arts, University of Shanghai, Shanghai, China
14:40– 15:00 pm  The Shift of Chinese Foreign Policy toward Latin America in the 1970s: A Chilean case study
Li Jiameng , Master of University of Cambridge & Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai ,China
15:00 – 15:20 pm  Relations Cuban-Mexico during the Cold War
Ricardo Heredia, Master Student of College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University
15:20 – 15:40 pm  Argentina during the 1960s
Gonzalo Ghiggino, Phd Student of College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University
15:40- 16:00 pm    Q & A

Lecture
16:00 –17:00 pm  The Rise and Fall and the Internal Logic of Sino-Soviet Alliance during the Cold War
Shen Zhihua, Director of Centre for Cold War International History Studies, Professor of College of History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China ; Researcher of Wilson International Center for Scholars

17:00 – 17:30 pm   CONCLUSION

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The End of the End of History By Robert Kagan

New Republic - April 23, 2008

In the early 1990s, optimism was understandable. The collapse of the communist empire and the apparent embrace of democracy by Russia seemed to augur a new era of global convergence. The great adversaries of the Cold War suddenly shared many common goals, including a desire for economic and political integration. Even after the political crackdown that began in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the disturbing signs of instability that appeared in Russia after 1993, most Americans and Europeans believed that China and Russia were on a path toward liberalism. Boris Yeltsin's Russia seemed committed to the liberal model of political economy and closer integration with the West. The Chinese government's commitment to economic opening, it was hoped, would inevitably produce a political opening, whether Chinese leaders wanted it or not.

READ MORE....

Saudi Films

Is Sumyati Going To Hell? 

Wasati

A Photographic Memory 

The Bliss of Being No One

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Donald Trump Speeches and Biography : Donald Trump (Documentary)

Donald Trump Speeches

Biography : Donald Trump (Documentary)

How Powerful is Donald Trump - Full Documentary 2016

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Call for Applications: Visiting Fellowships 2017/18 Shanghai University

The Center for the History of Global Development, Shanghai University, invites applications for fellowships for visiting scholars working on projects related to the history of policies, concepts, practices or debates related to socio-economic development on local, national, regional or global levels.

The Center for the History of Global Development is a new research focus established at the College of Liberal Arts at Shanghai University. Through conferences, workshops, publications and discussion panels, the Center seeks to contribute to interdisciplinary scholarly debates on the repercussions of “development” as a phenomenon which has shaped much of recent global history while remaining conceptually vague or contradictory.

“Development,” in its most basic form, is understood as the idea that socio-economic conditions would and should improve and that specific policies should be employed to bring about such improvements. Beyond this core, development has been a highly contested concept, whose constructed character has repeatedly been emphasized. Critics point to international structures created in the name of development which have often reflected power inequalities and have served the interests of those that put them in place while doing little to improve living conditions of those at whom they were allegedly addressed. Other scholars identify perceived successes of development, measured in social indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, gender equality or literacy, which contradict a simplistic notion of continued failure. Different evaluations of the outcome of development tie into different interpretations of what exactly the concept does – or should – mean. Over time, Western modernization theories have been complemented by alternative concepts such as the basic needs approach, Amartya Sen’s view of “development as freedom” or Herman Daly’s insistence on “development” as a strictly qualitative notion, to be distinguished from economic growth. In addition, the idea of “sustainable development”, and, more recently, Southern concepts such as “Buen Vivir” or “Ubuntu,” have also gained traction, each with its own package of contested meanings.

Despite this lack of precision, “development” continues to be widely used, including in categories such as “developed” or “least developed” countries, and for many people, particularly in low-income countries, “development” remains a powerful and seemingly self-evident goal. Apparently, the idea of some form of socio-economic improvement as a goal of public or private actions has resonated with societies in many parts of the world, though not necessarily with identical meanings. Meanwhile, definitions of what constituted “successes” or “failures” are similarly far from clear, and perspectives vary along with changing attitudes in public and in academia as well as with evolving evidence regarding the long-term repercussions of various forms of development.

The Center of the History of Global Development welcome applications from researchers who are taking innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to any aspects of this topic, ideally looking at ways in which the histories of different times and different places intersected. As pivotal sectors in which developmental practices have become effective, projects addressing economic, health and/or environmental aspects and their interactions are particularly welcome.

Fellows can benefit from an international academic environment and from a stimulating setting in one of the most rapidly “developing” cities of the world.

Fellows are expected to share their questions and the results of their work through lectures, both about their specific research project and about topics in their field of expertise (approximately one lecture per month). They are also expected to generally participate in the academic life of the College of Liberal Arts at Shanghai University and to cite Shanghai University in all publications to which their fellowship stay has contributed. Fellowships are open to post-doctoral and senior scholars. Preference is given to projects at an advanced state, whose outcome and publication potential is already becoming clear.

Fellowship applications can be for periods of three or six months, taken between 1 March 2017 and 28 February 2018.

The fellowship includes:

Free accommodation, subsidized meals
A monthly stipend of 7,000 RMB for post-docs and 12,000 for senior scholars.
Office space and secretariat assistance
Applications should include:

A project proposal of no more than 3,000 – 4,000 words, explaining the research question, relevance, work program, and expected outcome of the project
A cv
A list of proposed lectures
The deadline is 1 December 2016. For further information, contact Prof. Iris Borowy at borowyiris (at) i.shu.edu.cn or Prof. Yong-an Zhang at zhangyongan (at) shu.edu.cn

Contact Info:
Prof. Iris Borowy
College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University
99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444
China
Contact Email:
borowyiris (at) i.shu.edu.cn

Monday, November 7, 2016

These 10 companies control everything you buy

Oxfam created a mind-boggling infographic that shows how interconnected consumer brands really are    

Kate Taylor, Business Insider   

The Independent - Sunday 6 November 2016

Only 10 companies control almost every large food and beverage brand in the world.
These companies — Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg's, Mars, Associated British Foods, and Mondelez — each employ thousands and make billions of dollars in revenue every year.
In an effort to push these companies to make positive changes — and for customers to realize who controls the brands they're buying — Oxfam created a mind-boggling infographic that shows how interconnected consumer brands really are



READ MORE....

Sunday, November 6, 2016

WHITE LIBERALISM AND HILLARY CLINTON

Hillary Clinton and the Problem With Well-Meaning White Liberalism - July 15, 2016.
http://watercoolerconvos.com/2016/07/15/hillary-clinton-and-the-problem-with-well-meaning-white-liberalism/

Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of liberalism, not feminism - August 2, 2016 
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/08/02/hillary-clinton-embodiment-liberalism-not-feminism/

The Culture Of The Smug White Liberal | Huffington Post - Aug 28, 2016
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-johnsonhuston-esq/the-culture-of-the-smug-w_b_11537306.html

Ajamu Baraka, “Uncle Tom,” and the Pathology of White Liberal Racism - Counterpunch - August 24, 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/24/ajamu-baraka-uncle-tom-and-the-pathology-of-white-liberal-racism/

10 Ways White Liberals Perpetuate Racism | Huffington Post 09/01/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-sachs-psyd/10-ways-white-liberals-pe_b_8068136.html

BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS AND WHITE LIBERALS
http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/rejul72.8/rejul72.8.pdf

Bill Maher Thinks White Liberals' Self-Loathing Has Gone Too Far - ESQUIRE APRIL 23, 2016
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a44266/maher-white-guilt/

The Challenge for White Liberals - Washington Monthly July 21, 2015
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2015/07/21/the-challenge-for-white-liberals/

White Liberals Cannot Hide From Racism Any Longer / AlterNet December 20, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/white-liberals-cannot-hide-racism-any-longer

Monday, October 31, 2016

Call for Reviewers, Sociology of Islam Journal

From: Joshua Hendrick <jdhendrick(at)loyola.edu>
Date: Monday, October 31, 2016 at 10:36 PM
To: Sociology of Islam <sociology_of_islam-g@vt.edu>
Subject: Call for Reviewers, Sociology of Islam Journal

Dear Colleagues,

Please let me know if you are interested in reviewing any of the below titles for the Sociology of Islam journal.

SOCIOLOGY OF ISLAM JOURNAL

Please note that because of one too many problems/complications trying to coordinate reviews and reviewers overseas, we are only soliciting reviewers who are currently residing in the US and who can provide a US address for us to send out books for review.

If you are interested in reviewing one of the below titles, please respond directly (i.e., not the the list) to Joshua Hendrick, Book Review Editor, Sociology of Islam (jdhendrick@loyola.edu).  Please attach an updated CV and a brief rationale in the body of your email as to why you would like to review the title(s) you indicate.

All best,

Joshua Hendrick

Salmon, Noah 2016. For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State. Princeton. Princeton University Press.

Al-Anani, Khalil 2016. Inside the Muslim Brotherhood: Religion, Identity, and Politics. New York. Oxford University Press.

Winter, Stefan 2016. A History of the 'Alawis: From Medieval Aleppo to the Turkish Republic. Princeton. Princeton University Press.

Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed. 2016. Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney. New York. Palsgrave Macmillan.

Bowen, John R. 2016. On British Islam: Religion, Law, and Everyday Practice in Shari'a Councils. Princeton. Princeton University Press.
               
Joshua D. Hendrick, PhD
Department of Sociology
Beatty Hall 313
Loyola University of Maryland
4501 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21210
Office: 410-617-2043
Email: jdhendrick(at)loyola.edu

Friday, October 28, 2016

Why Standing Rock Matters

OCTOBER 24, 2016
Chief Leonard Crow Dog speaking at a reception prior to the forum "Why Standing Rock Matters: Can Oil and Water Mix?" held October 24, 2016 in the Crum Auditorium, Collins Center, Southern Methodist University.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

A gorgeous visualization of 200 years of immigration to the US

by Dara Lind

@DLind dara@vox.com Oct 3, 2015

It's easy now to assume that Mexico has always been among the main sources of immigration to America. But as this wonderful chart by Natalia Bronshtein shows, that's not even close to true.

Bronshtein pulled 200 years of government data to put together the visualization. There's an interactive version on her website: you can hover over any color, at any point, and see the exact number of immigrants who became residents from that country in that decade.
But taken as a whole, the chart tells a very clear story: there are two laws that totally transformed immigration to the United States.
The first, the National Origins Act of 1924 (a capstone on a series of anti-immigration bills passed in the few years before that), set very strict quotas on immigration to America from any country — and especially strict quotas on any country that wasn't in western or northern Europe. (Immigration from Asia was, for the most part, simply banned.) That's the bottleneck you see in the graph.
The second, the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, demolished the old quota system. But instead of just turning the clock back to the dawn of the 20th century, the 1965 law created a completely different era of immigration to the US from all over the world — and especially from Latin America and Asia. None of the colors that are dominant on this chart up until the 1920s are dominant from the 1970s onward. Once large-scale immigration to the US was restored, the face of it looked totally different.

READ MORE....

Monday, September 19, 2016

The Second Machine Age Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

W.W. NORTON -2014

In recent years, Google’s autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM’s Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.
In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.
Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.
Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.
A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.

READ MORE....

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Books on US Military Bases

Gulf Security and the U.S. Military Regime Survival and the Politics of Basing

Geoffrey F. Gresh

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 2015

The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic as most Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to diversify their political, economic, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States—with many turning to ascending powers such as China, Russia, and India. For Gulf Arab monarchies, the choice of security partner is made more complicated by increased domestic and regional instability stemming in part from Iraq, Syria, and a menacing Iran: factors that threaten to alter totally the Middle East security dynamic.  Understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a Gulf host nation—or any other—is therefore vitally important for the U.S. today. Gulf National Security and the U.S. Military examines both Gulf Arab national security and U.S. military basing relations with Gulf Arab monarchy hosts from the Second World War to the present day. Three in-depth country cases—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman—help explain the important questions posed by the author regarding when and why a host nation either terminated a U.S. military basing presence or granted U.S. military basing access.  The analysis of the cases offers a fresh perspective on how the United States has adapted to sometimes rapidly shifting Middle East security dynamics and factors that influence a host nation's preference for eviction or renegotiation, based on its perception of internal versus external threats.

Base Nation How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World American Empire Project 

David Vine 

Metropolitan Books - 2015

From a hilltop at the Guantánamo Bay naval station, you can look down on a secluded part of the base bordered by the Caribbean Sea. There you'll see thick coils of razor wire, guard towers, search lights, and concrete barriers. This is the U.S. prison that has garnered so much international attention and controversy, with so many prisoners held for years without trial. But the prison facilities take up only a few acres of the forty-five-square-mile naval station. Most of the base looks nothing like the detention center. Instead, the landscape features suburban-style housing developments, a golf course, and recreational boating facilities. This part of the base has received much less attention than the prison. Yet in its own way, it is far more important for understanding who we are as a country and how we relate to the rest of the world.  What makes most of the naval station so remarkable is just how unremarkable it is. Looking out on Guantánamo Bay, a U.S. flag flies outside base headquarters. Nearby, an outdoor movie theater has a regular schedule of Hollywood blockbusters. Next door, there are bright-green artificial turf fields for football and soccer, at a new sports facility that also features two baseball diamonds, volleyball and basketball courts, and an outdoor roller-skating rink. In the air-conditioned gym, ESPN's Sportscenter plays on TV. Across the main road there's a large chapel, a post office, and a sun-bleached set of McDonald's golden arches. Neighborhoods with names like Deer Point and Villamar have looping drives and spacious lawns with barbecue grills and children's toys. There's a high school, a middle and elementary school, and a childcare facility. There are pools and playgrounds, several public beaches, a bowling center, barber and beauty shops, a Pizza Hut, a Taco Bell, a KFC, and a Subway.  From the hilltop you can also faintly see two nearby Cuban towns, but most everywhere else on base it's easy to forget you're in Cuba. What base residents call "downtown," for example, could be almost anywhere in the United States-or at another of the hundreds of U.S. military bases spread around the globe, which often resemble self-contained American towns. The downtown is where you find the commissary and the Navy's version of the post exchange, or PX-the shopping facility present on U.S. military bases worldwide. Surrounded by plentiful parking, the commissary and exchange feel like a Walmart, full of clothing and consumer electronics, furniture, automotive products, and groceries. At Guantánamo, the base souvenir shop is one of the few reminders of where you really are. There, along with U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay postcards and mugs, you can buy a T-shirt bearing the words DETAINEE OPERATIONS.  During years of debates over the closure of Guantánamo Bay's prison, few have asked why the United States has such a large base on Cuban territory in the first place, and whether we should have one there at all. This is unsurprising.  Most Americans rarely think about U.S. military bases overseas. Since the end of World War II and the early days of the Cold War, when the United States built or acquired most of its overseas bases, Americans have considered it normal to have U.S. military installations in other countries, on other people's land. The presence of our bases overseas has long been accepted unquestioningly and treated as an obvious good, essential to national security and global peace. Perhaps these bases register in our consciousness when there's an antibase protest in Okinawa or an accident in Germany. Quickly, however, they're forgotten.  Of course, people living near U.S. bases in countries worldwide pay them more attention. For many, U.S. bases are one of the most prominent symbols of the United States, along with Hollywood movies, pop music, and fast food. Indeed, the prevalence of Burger Kings and Taco Bells on many of our bases abroad is telling: ours is a supersized collection of bases with franchises the world over. While there are no freestanding foreign bases on U.S. soil, today there are around eight hundred U.S. bases in foreign countries, occupied by hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops.  Although the United States has long had some bases in foreign lands, this massive global deployment of military force was unknown in U.S. history before World War II. Now, seventy years after that war, there are still, according to the Pentagon, 174 U.S. bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. There are hundreds more dotting the planet in Aruba and Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar, to name just a few. Worldwide, we have bases in more than seventy countries. Although few U.S. citizens realize it, we probably have more bases in other people's lands than any other people, nation, or empire in world history.  And yet the subject is barely discussed in the media. Rarely does anyone ask whether we need hundreds of bases overseas, or whether we can afford them. Rarely does anyone consider how we would feel with a foreign base on U.S. soil, or how we would react if China, Russia, or Iran built even a single base somewhere near our borders today. For most in the United States, the idea of even the nicest, most benign foreign troops arriving with their tanks, planes, and high-powered weaponry and making themselves at home in our country-occupying and fencing off hundreds or thousands of acres of our land-is unthinkable.  Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, highlighted this rarely considered truth in 2009 when he refused to renew the lease for a U.S. base in his country. Correa told reporters that he would approve the lease renewal on one condition: "They let us put a base in Miami-an Ecuadorian base."  "If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil," Correa quipped, "surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorian base in the United States.

Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945

Amy Austin Holmes

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS - 2014

Over the past century, the United States has created a global network of military bases. While the force structure offers protection to U.S. allies, it maintains the threat of violence toward others, both creating and undermining security. Amy Austin Holmes argues that the relationship between the U.S. military presence and the non-U.S. citizens under its security umbrella is inherently contradictory. She suggests that the while the host population may be fully enfranchised citizens of their own government, they are at the same time disenfranchised vis-à-vis the U.S. presence. This study introduces the concept of the “protectariat” as they are defined not by their relationship to the means of production, but rather by their relationship to the means of violence. Focusing on Germany and Turkey, Holmes finds remarkable parallels in the types of social protest that occurred in both countries, particularly non-violent civil disobedience, labor strikes of base workers, violent attacks and kidnappings, and opposition parties in the parliaments.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Water Wars in Central Asia

By David Trilling 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - August 24, 2016
 
The relations of the five former Soviet Republics in Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—are, more often than not, defined by water. When they were still a part of the Soviet Union, the upstream republics—Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan—which have an abundance of water, would release some from their reservoirs in the spring and summer to generate electricity and nourish crops both on their own land and in the downstream republics, which would return the favor by providing gas and coal each winter.  But since the dissolution of the Soviet Union over a quarter century ago, that system has collapsed. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan now face constant blackouts and hope to build giant dams to provide for their energy needs. Kyrgyzstan completed its Kambarata-2 power station in 2010 and is building a second one, Kambarata-1, with the help of Russia. Although he doesn’t have the funds, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon often speaks zealously about his mission to build a 335-meter dam, Rogun, which has the potential to turn his impoverished statelet into a powerbroker. But there is one glaring issue: the region’s glaciers, the source of huge and once predictable water supplies, are melting at record rates. Every year, it loses about as much water as consumed by a country the size of Switzerland. And the dams stand to limit water supply even further for the downstream countries. This has set them on edge.

READ MORE...

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

ISA Forum of Sociology - The Arab Council for Social Science (ACSS) - Social Gathering Wednesday 13 July from 12:30 to 1:45

Open Invitation

The Arab Council for Social Science (ACSS)
Cordially invites you to a social gathering
With brief presentations of
The ACSS by the ACSS President Prof. Abdulkhaleq Abdellah
The first report on “The Arab Social Sciences” by Prof. Mohamed Bamyeh
With refreshments
Wednesday 13 July from 12:30 to 1:45
Place:
kleiner Festsaal: main building, first floor, in the exhibition area (on the map on the right hand side, called "kleiner Festsaal":
http://events.univie.ac.at/raum-management/raumvergabe-fuer-veranstaltungen/standorte-plaene-und-fotos/hauptgebaeude/hauptgebaeude-1obergeschoss/

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Cfp: International Conference on Inter-Regional Connectivity: South Asia and Central Asia-November 9-10, 2016 - GC University Lahore, Pakistan


From: "m.manzoor elahi" <mmelahi(at)gcu.edu.pk>
Date: Saturday, July 2, 2016 at 1:47 PM
To: <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Subject: Call for Papers: 4th International Conference 2016, Department of Political Science, GC University Lahore, Pakistan.

Dear Colleagues and Fellows,

Hope this email will find you in good health. We are pleased to announce that the Department of Political Science/Centre of Excellence China Studies, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan, invites submission of research papers for “International Conference on Inter-Regional Connectivity: South Asia and Central Asia (ICIRCSACA)” to be held on November 9-10, 2016.

Call for Papers The Department of Political Science/Centre of Excellence China Studies, GC University, Lahore, invites submission of research papers for “International Conference on Inter-Regional Connectivity: South Asia and Central Asia (ICIRCSACA)” to be held on November 9-10, 2016. The conference encompasses within its purview new trends of regionalism and regionalization in connection with indigenous demands and realities of ‘Sisterly regions’ i.e. South Asia and Central Asia. The focus of this academic endeavor is to discuss regional dynamics beyond the conventional parameters of regional study and to contribute in the formulation of a theoretical as well as methodological framework that must be synchronized with the Asian milieu. In addition, the conference initiates an academic debate on critical discourse in the realm of regionalism and intends to fill the research gap by constructing a model of inter-regional connectivity across the traditional settings of the regions. The phenomenon of inter-regional connectivity in Asia is need of the hour and a way forward for South and Central Asian states, wherein they could get more through cooperative interplay on the dictum of mutual dependence by strengthening mobility. The conference accentuates on geostrategic vitality of South Asia for Central Asia and vice versa; under the spectrum of geopolitics, geoeconomics and geoenergy. In this perspective, both regions are interdependent in varied fields. For instance, South Asia endows with pragmatic and cost-effective transit trade route to the Central Asian landlocked states. Whereas, Central Asian hydro-carbon reserves are strategic assets for energy stricken South Asia in order to pacify the latter’s unbridled energy demand. In addition, hydel-power generation of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan can also be a mean of connectivity and liaison between the both regions. Geographical proximity, historical affinities and socio-cultural propinquities are significant means to engulf the bridge of connectivity. Historically, both the regions were once on the crossroads of Silk Route, a conduit for the transformation of cultures, ideas and commodities from north to south and east to west or vice versa. This route was the hub of world economic activity but wrath of imperial powers, Tsarist Russia and Great Britain, disconnected this strategic link and started a perennial geopolitical vendetta, the Great Game, to extend one’s influence on to others. In this game of imperial preponderance, Central Asia was ‘soft-underbelly’ of Russia; likewise, South Asia was ‘crown of jewel’ for Britain. Later, the rise of British imperial yoke from South Asia and the fall of Soviet ‘iron curtain’ from Central Asia paved the ways to reinvigorate inter-regional connectivity between the aforementioned regions which is the primary concern of this conference. Post-Soviet Central Asia is once again ready to revive historical legacy, wherein focus is on economic linkages, strengthening of cultural ties, building of mobility, consolidation of political harmony and culmination of diplomatic bonds. Apart from this, it is equally imperative today to launch joint ventures to quell the rise of terrorism, militancy, and religious extremism for sustainable peace and development in ‘heart of Asia’. The new framework of inter-regional connectivity is a ‘win-win situation’ for the both regions. This academic initiative, therefore, has been taken up to highlight the vitality of inter-regional connectivity and to provide an opportunity to scholars to further explore avenues of mutual-cooperation. 

Conference Themes The conference themes are covering multiple dimensions of inter-regional connectivity. 
Theme-I: Conceptualizing Inter-Regional Connectivity
Theme-II: Geopolitics of Corridors: Building Economic and Political Linkages
Theme-III: South Asia’s Energy Security vis-à-vis Central Asia
Theme-IV: Peace and Security-centric Cooperation
Theme V:  South Asia-Central Asia Connectivity and the World

Kindly submit abstracts of 150-300 words clearly indicating objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions by August 05, 2016. The host University will provide facilities of travelling, accommodation and food to its paper presenters/speakers.

For further details please contact the under signed or find us on the following links.


--
Best Regards

Muhammd Manzoor Elahi
Focal Person, (ICIRCSACA)
Lecturer, Department of Political Science

GC University Lahore, Pakistan.
Email: 
mmelahi@gcu.edu.pk
UAN: +92 (42) 111-000-010, Ext. 351
Mobile: +92 (321) 4200550