Topic
Expansionism
About: Expansionism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 979 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11169 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
Book•
30 Aug 2007
TL;DR: Tschirgi as mentioned in this paper argued that the attacks of 9/11 were understandable human reactions to a combination of factors that fueled the Arab world's marginalization and led to a generalized feeling among the people of that region that the West (and particularly the United States) posed a mortal threat to their identity.
Abstract: The danger raised by the terrorist threat is real, existential, and vital to the United States. But the attacks on 9/11 have been broadly misunderstood. In assessing the meaning and significance of the war on terror, Tschirgi raises many issues related to the Middle East and American policy toward that area. For example, he debunks the entire exceptionalist approach to the Arab world (the presumption that Arab societies fail to be fathomed by Western social science). While Tschirgi stresses the need for resolving the war on terrorism favorably, he also suggests two broad policy recommendations. First, he argues that while the United States should maintain its firm commitment to Israel's preservation as a Jewish state, it has no corresponding duty to support Israeli expansionism. U.S.-Israeli relations should proceed on this basis and should be informed by a greater American reliance on principles of international law. Second, Tschirgi concludes that an American withdrawal from Iraq must be effected as early as possible. Tschirgi's provocative thesis is that the attacks of 9/11 were not as unique an event as we commonly believe. Rather, they were understandable-though deplorable-human reactions to a combination of factors that fueled the Arab world's marginalization and led to a generalized feeling among the people of that region that the West (and particularly the United States) posed a mortal threat to their identity. Employing three case studies of marginalized violent conflict-Mexico's Zapatista conflict, Egypt's struggle against the Gama'a al-Islamiyya in Upper Egypt, and Nigeria's fight against the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta-Tschirgi demonstrates the dynamics through which traditional peoples have in modern times opted to wage hopeless struggle against objectively more powerful states. The parallels between the dynamics that informed each of these situations and those marking the international Muslim insurgency against the West are striking, as are the significant differences between the two phenomena. The parallels are found in the mechanics of marginalization and resistance. The differences lie, first, in the Muslim insurgency's identification of the West as a total enemy and the struggle with it as having a zero-sum nature and, second, in the modern terrorists' potential access to lethal means of mass destruction. Both the parallels and differences that mark the two phenomena help deepen a real understanding of the meaning of 9/11.
4 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the media coverage of the sporting "civilizing mission" that the American YMCA initiated in the Philippines, Japan, and China through the founding of the Far Eastern Championship Games (1913-1934), the biggest regional sports event held during the interwar period.
Abstract: This article focuses on media coverage of the sporting “civilizing mission” that the American YMCA initiated in the Philippines, Japan, and China through the founding of the Far Eastern Championship Games (1913–1934), the biggest regional sports event held during the interwar period. It analyzes a number of cartoons printed in Philippine English-language newspapers, which communicated visions of a “modern” Asia meeting Western civilization. Cartoons dealing with the Asian capability for self-government in sports show that between the 1910s and 1930s images of Asian bodily and social deficits and of American expertise were substituted with images showing Asian officials appropriating the “civilizing mission.” The analysis of cartoons about internationalism and egalitarianism illustrates that in 1934 all newspapers saw these ideals as part of “civilization” and rejected Japanese expansionism. Cartoons featuring gender roles reflect the fact that female athletes were still a marginal topic for cartoonists. Finally, the depiction of stadiums promoted development successes.
4 citations
TL;DR: For example, the authors pointed out that despite China's constant assurance of peaceable foreign policy intentions and claims that it will never seek hegemony, skeptics rebuke these as a mere smokescreen that covers an enormous forward thrust, evidenced by the expansionist moves toward islets in the South China Sea.
Abstract: Thanks to supercharged economic growth, coupled with abundant physical and human capital, as well as political clout as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China is a rising great power on the world stage. Whereas the former China under its closed, mysterious, and communist ideology was characterized as a threat to Asian and world peace during the Cold War years, today, ironically, a more open and internationally engaged China again triggers the “China threat” rhetoric. Despite China's constant assurance of peaceable foreign policy intentions and claims that it will “never seek hegemony,” skeptics rebuke these as a mere smokescreen that covers an enormous forward thrust, evidenced, for example, by the expansionist moves toward islets in the South China Sea. On the one hand, whether aggressive moves qualified China as a threat is still debated. On the other hand, whether provocative actions would escalate into large-scale militarized conflicts that jeopardize regional stability constitutes the immediate concern.
4 citations
TL;DR: A number of explanations have been offered for the expansionist tendencies of large totalitarian powers as discussed by the authors, including economic and demographic interests; strategic and military interests; the psychopathology of totalitarian leaders, such as megalomania and paranoia, and psychological maladjustment of the nation as a whole.
Abstract: A NUMBER OF EXPLANATIONS have been offered for the expansionist tendencies of large totalitarian powers. Sigmund Neumann, writing of the Third Reich, sees ". . . unlimited expansion . . . [as] . . . the fourth characteristic of modern totalitarian rule ... Dictatorial regimes are governments at war, originating in war, aiming at war, thriving on war ... [They] ... find in international adventure a safety-valve against internal upheaval. The dictatorship becomes the exploiter of continuous conflict."' This "safetyvalve" theory of totalitarian expansion has found currency in a variety of applications. There are also other views, emphasizing economic and demographic interests; strategic and military interests; the psychopathology of totalitarian leaders, such as megalomania and paranoia, and psychological maladjustment of the nation as a whole. Nor does this exhaust the list: exuberance of nationalism, power-drive or vagaries of the nation-state system, the presence of aggressive or insecure elites in society and maladjustment of the capitalist system have been singled out as sources of imperialism. The ideologies of totalitarian powers are another source of explanations for these nations' aggressions. The Nazis expounded the mission of the superior race; the Communists, that of world revolution. These explanations have a common limitation; they are concerned with expansion only. They ignore the twin tendency which complements totalitarian expansionism, its equally strong impulse towards isolation. Totalitarian isolationism-that is, its protective Iron Curtain shielding the regime from external influence-is as striking as totalitarian expansion. In the course of this discussion, a set of factors is suggested which can explain both seemingly contradictory tendencies. The two impulses are seen as necessary protective devices without which
4 citations
[...]
TL;DR: In the absence of any physical force able to dislodge the repressive regime in South Africa, all the moral weight that their case commands avails nothing; the morality of their case has a marginal benefit, of course, but just thatmarginal as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Corbzs-Bettmann South Africans concerned about the future of their country must have discovered, in the past decade of life abroad, a very simple proposition: in the absence of any physical force able to dislodge the repressive regime in South Africa, all the moral weight that their case commands avails nothing. The morality of their case has a marginal benefit, of course, but just thatmarginal. There are a great number of liberal individuals in Western countries who are bitterly ashamed at the indecencies perpetrated in South Africa in the name of white or European Civilization, whatever you want to call it. That "European" Civilization has always preserved, at the inner core of the socalled "civilizing mission," a savage aggression and an ineluctable violence is acknowledged by some and not by others; the idea of "inevitability" is, in any case, abhorrent to most liberals. It is assumed that had European expansionism (just another name for colonialism) been wise and right in its choices, the cruelties and the barbarities that have gone hand in hand with imperialism would somehow have been avoided. What Western liberals dislike, therefore, about the white South Africans, the Rhodesians, and other white settler minorities left behind to carry on what essentially was the original task of the European "civilizing mission" is that these colonials have refused to share with the native peoples the fruits of "European Civilization." This is an important objection, however superficial a reading of history it may turn out to be. It constitutes the main reason for the support given to nationalist movements for liberation in Western metropolitan countries. However, it is not the kind of support that can withstand the vicissitudes of African politics forever; as Africa reels from one coup to another and instability remains a pervasive phenomenon, liberal support becomes more and more tired, equivocal, and uncertain; the support for the theory of "Africa for Africans," which
4 citations