Is American power in decline? What is the relationship between the perceived decline of American power and the rise of Donald Trump and authoritarian politics elsewhere? Understanding the puzzle of American decline and the world order requires the recognition of how capital and wealth are unjustly distributed, entrenched, and sustained across the society. The core argument here maintains that American decline pertains not only to the decreasing economic vitality underscored by the concrete detrimental effects generated through sharpening material inequality within the US. Rather, decline also constitutes its decreasing appeal and legitimacy as a dominant actor in the international system. This paper contributes to current scholarly and policy debates on American power and authoritarianism in three ways. First, it offers a more holistic conception of American power, particularly by highlighting both its materialist and ideational foundations that co-constitute each other during its periods of ascent, consolidation, and decline. Second, it underscores the mutually reinforcing interdependence of domestic and transnational dimensions of US power. Third, while dominant scholarship on American decline rarely address its implications on international human rights, the paper highlights the uniqueness of the Trump presidency and the emerging authoritarian politics elsewhere: while neoliberalism's detrimental consequences to human rights within and beyond the US constitute a relatively long history, Trump and his allies have abandoned the legitimation tactics that their predecessors had so willingly used. Highlights: • American power constitutes the mutually reinforcing relationship of domestic conditions as well as transformative changes in the international system-an insight often ignored in dominant International Relations scholarship on American decline. • The decline of American power constitutes its decreasing appeal and legitimacy as a dominant actor in the international system. • Examining the status of American power includes its material position and legitimation tactics within the United States and in the international system. • While neoliberalism's detrimental consequences to human rights preceded the Trump administration, currently emerging discourses have abandoned the legitimation tactics that Trump's predecessors had so willingly used.
How and to what extent do ideas and political discourses shape bilateral cooperation between a powerful state and its weaker ally? Why do weaker states act in ways that diverge from the expectations and preferences of the powerful state despite the contractual agreement borne out of bilateral cooperation? Drawing perspectives from constructivism and principal-agent framework, this article provides a conceptual-interpretative analysis of post-9/11 counterterror cooperation of the US government with Colombia -America's long-standing ally in the region. The case study shows that the provision of security is not only conceived in the domestic levels but also produced in the transnational sphere; that security provision is not only a materially oriented political activity but also an ideational-discursive exchange where political actors legitimize and facilitate interstate cooperation; and, finally, that the power of dominant states is not only produced from within them but strategically reconstituted by weaker powerful states.
China is emerging as a key state actor in international developmenta sector that has been dominated by the United States for decades. US and Chinese foreign aid programs can be compared on the basis of several benchmarks: 1) official state definition and accounting of foreign aid programs; 2) historical foundations and origins; 3) sectoral distribution, particularly in terms of the professed goals and objectives of the aid program; 4) nature of targeted recipient actors; 5) institutional mechanisms for delivery in recipient countries. Notwithstanding particular differences, Chinese and US foreign aid portfolios demonstrate their respective strategic political and economic interests in two ways: they shape the domestic politics of recipient countries in ways that accommodate the donor government's policy preferences, and they enhance the social reputation and legitimacy of the donor state in the international system.
How do we consolidate developing democratic regimes in the Global South so that the life expectancies of these regimes are considerably sustainable? What have been the key epistemological and normative shortcomings of the mainstream scholarship of democratization? How can we overcome these limitations? Is it necessary to consider the global political economy as a fertile source for deducing some explanatory variables that will help us understand the sources of democratic instability at the national‐domestic spheres of political governance? In view of these questions, I contend that there are fundamental limitations in the mainstream scholarship on democratization that we have to overcome. In this essay, I critically appraise the nature of the democratization debate by positing that existing material inequities and injustices in new electoral democracies in the developing world are constitutive of global hegemonic interests that function as the critical determinants of democratic stability. Second, I propose some corrective suggestions that will perhaps inspire a new research agenda about democratization that should overcome the limitations of the current mainstream social science scholarship on democratization. Finally, I articulate some concluding substantive remarks on why we need to bring the global political economy back into our scholarly analyses of democratic consolidation.
Peace is one of most widely used yet highly contested concepts in contemporary politics. What constitutes peace? That broad analytic inquiry motivates this article, which focuses on the contentious discourses of peace within a society besieged by widespread trafficking and use of illegal drugs. Focusing on the illegal drug problem in Colombia and the Philippines, the central puzzle of this paper constitutes two fundamental questions: How do state leaders justify their respective “war on drugs”? How do they construct and discursively articulate ideals of peace in the context of the illegal drug problem? This paper compares the post-9/11 Colombian war on drugs (2002–2010) vis-à-vis the Philippine war on drugs under the Duterte administration (2016–2019), particularly in terms of how their presidential administrations articulate “peace” in the context of resolving the drug problem. The paper examines the varying discourses of peace, investigates how those local discourses relate to global discourses on peace and illegal drugs, and underscores how and under which conditions those peace discourses portray the material distributive conflicts in those societies. The core argument states that the Uribe and Duterte administrations primarily deployed the notion of peace as a justificatory discourse for increased state repression, intensified criminalization of the drug problem, and the reluctance of the state in embracing a public health approach to the proliferation of illegal drugs.
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