Exploring Base Politics
Exploring Base Politics

Author: Shinji Kawana

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-25

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1000258637

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This book sheds light on the mechanisms of base politics that surround US overseas military bases, comparing several countries across different regions. Analysing cases from Japan, Greenland, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Singapore, the contributors paint a detailed and complex picture of the role and impact of US bases. In times of war they project military power, and in times of peace they deter the emergence of general and latent threats. Furthermore, they are used to secure access to resources, and as a means of politically and economically influencing small and mid-size countries. From the viewpoint of the countries that host them, military bases allow the host many benefits of the US security umbrella, but can cause internal problems, including accidents and noise pollution that accompany the functioning of a base, as well as constraining their own sovereignty. Military bases do not simply serve to bring America strategic and security benefits - as symbols of the hierarchical structure of the international system, they influence power relations in the entire world. An invaluable resource for scholars of International Relations with an interest in the practical and theoretical challenges of the US’s relationship with its allies.

Base Politics
Base Politics

Author: Alexander Cooley

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-09-15

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0801457238

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According to the Department of Defense's 2004 Base Structure Report, the United States officially maintains 860 overseas military installations and another 115 on noncontinental U.S. territories. Over the last fifteen years the Department of Defense has been moving from a few large-footprint bases to smaller and much more numerous bases across the globe. This so-called lily-pad strategy, designed to allow high-speed reactions to military emergencies anywhere in the world, has provoked significant debate in military circles and sometimes-fierce contention within the polity of the host countries. In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley examines how domestic politics in different host countries, especially in periods of democratic transition, affect the status of U.S. bases and the degree to which the U.S. military has become a part of their local and national landscapes. Drawing on exhaustive field research in different host nations across East Asia and Southern Europe, as well as the new postcommunist base hosts in the Black Sea and Central Asia, Cooley offers an original and provocative account of how and why politicians in host countries contest or accept the presence of the U.S. military on their territory. Overseas bases, Cooley shows, are not merely installations that serve a military purpose. For host governments and citizens, U.S. bases are also concrete institutions and embodiments of U.S. power, identity, and diplomacy. Analyzing the degree to which overseas bases become enmeshed in local political agendas and interests, Base Politics will be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the extent—and limits—of America's overseas military influence.

Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests
Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests

Author: Andrew Yeo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-06-13

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1139499068

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Anti-U.S. base protests, played out in parliaments and the streets of host nations, continue to arise in different parts of the world. In a novel approach, this book examines the impact of anti-base movements and the important role bilateral alliance relationships play in shaping movement outcomes. The author explains not only when and how anti-base movements matter, but also how host governments balance between domestic and international pressure on base-related issues. Drawing on interviews with activists, politicians, policy makers and U.S. base officials in the Philippines, Japan (Okinawa), Ecuador, Italy and South Korea, the author finds that the security and foreign policy ideas held by host government elites act as a political opportunity or barrier for anti-base movements, influencing their ability to challenge overseas U.S. basing policies.

Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia
Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia

Author: Yuko Kawato

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2015-04-08

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 080479538X

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Since the end of World War II, protests against U.S. military base and related policies have occurred in several Asian host countries. How much influence have these protests had on the p;olicy regarding U.S. military bases? What conditions make protests more likely to influence policy? Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia answers these questions by examining state response to twelve major protests in Asia since the end of World War II—in the Philippines, Okinawa, and South Korea. Yuko Kawato lays out the conditions under which protesters' normative arguments can and cannot persuade policy-makers to change base policy, and how protests can still generate some political or military incentives for policy-makers to adjust policy when persuasion fails. Kawato also shows that when policy-makers decide not to change policy, they can offer symbolic concessions to appear norm-abiding and to secure a smoother implementation of policies that protesters oppose. While the findings will be of considerable interest to academics and students, perhaps their largest impact will be on policy makers and activists, for whom Kawato offers recommendations for their future decision-making and actions.

Bananas, Beaches and Bases
Bananas, Beaches and Bases

Author: Cynthia Enloe

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-05-16

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 0520957288

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In this brand new radical analysis of globalization, Cynthia Enloe examines recent events—Bangladeshi garment factory deaths, domestic workers in the Persian Gulf, Chinese global tourists, and the UN gender politics of guns—to reveal the crucial role of women in international politics today. With all new and updated chapters, Enloe describes how many women's seemingly personal strategies—in their marriages, in their housework, in their coping with ideals of beauty—are, in reality, the stuff of global politics. Enloe offers a feminist gender analysis of the global politics of both masculinities and femininities, dismantles an apparently overwhelming world system, and reveals that system to be much more fragile and open to change than we think.

Night in the American Village
Night in the American Village

Author: Akemi Johnson

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2019-06-18

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1620973324

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"A lively encounter with identity and American military history in Okinawa. Night in the American Village is by turns intellectual, hip, and sexy. I admire it for its ferocity, style, and vigor. A wonderful book." —Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead A beautifully written examination of the complex relationship between the women living near the U.S. bases in Okinawa and the servicemen who are stationed there At the southern end of the Japanese archipelago lies Okinawa, host to a vast complex of U.S. military bases. A legacy of World War II, these bases have been a fraught issue in Japan for decades—with tensions exacerbated by the often volatile relationship between islanders and the military, especially after the brutal rape of a twelve-year-old girl by three servicemen in the 1990s. But the situation is more complex than it seems. In Night in the American Village, journalist Akemi Johnson takes readers deep into the "border towns" surrounding the bases—a world where cultural and political fault lines compel individuals, both Japanese and American, to continually renegotiate their own identities. Focusing on the women there, she follows the complex fallout of the murder of an Okinawan woman by an ex–U.S. serviceman in 2016 and speaks to protesters, to women who date and marry American men and groups that help them when problems arise, and to Okinawans whose family members survived World War II. Thought-provoking and timely, Night in the American Village is a vivid look at the enduring wounds of U.S.-Japanese history and the cultural and sexual politics of the American military empire.

The Politics Industry
The Politics Industry

Author: Katherine M. Gehl

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1633699242

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Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

The Increasingly United States
The Increasingly United States

Author: Daniel J. Hopkins

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 022653040X

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In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

Abortion Politics
Abortion Politics

Author: Ziad Munson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-05-21

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0745688829

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Abortion has remained one of the most volatile and polarizing issues in the United States for over four decades. Americans are more divided today than ever over abortion, and this debate colors the political, economic, and social dynamics of the country. This book provides a balanced, clear-eyed overview of the abortion debate, including the perspectives of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. It covers the history of the debate from colonial times to the present, the mobilization of mass movements around the issue, the ways it is understood by ordinary Americans, the impact it has had on US political development, and the differences between the abortion conflict in the US and the rest of the world. Throughout these discussions, Ziad Munson demonstrates how the meaning of abortion has shifted to reflect the changing anxieties and cultural divides which it has come to represent. Abortion Politics is an invaluable companion for exploring the abortion issue and what it has to say about American society, as well as the dramatic changes in public understanding of women’s rights, medicine, religion, and partisanship.

Exploring Universal Basic Income
Exploring Universal Basic Income

Author: Ugo Gentilini

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2019-11-25

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1464815119

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Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro†“tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI.