American Leaders Research Articles

US-EU: Middle East as a Zone of “Shared Responsibility”

The article examines a number of aspects of the process of updating the approaches of the United States and the European Union to the problems of the Middle East (ME), as well as attempts by Washington and Brussels to coordinate their actions under the new conditions. In the United States, the voices of politicians and experts are growing who believe that, despite the fact that threats from the ME are much more significant for the security of Europeans, the latter refrain from increasing their participation in Middle Eastern affairs, still relying on America's military power there. In turn, many European politicians do not hide their disappointment in the US approaches to a number of crises in the Middle East, and increasingly reproach them for the “loss of American leadership” on the world stage. The need for Europeans to increasingly rely on their own strength and resources, formalized in the form of the concept of the EU's “strategic autonomy”, is today determined not only by the situation around Ukraine, but also by the increasing level of conflict in the Middle East – namely, Israel's military actions against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip, direct clashes between Israel and Iran, the activation of pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The settler homeland: racial violence, frontier colonialism, and Filipino repatriation

ABSTRACT On March 1938, representatives from the Philippine Commonwealth and Filipino American community organizations organized the First Official Filipino National Convention in Seattle. A committee proposed to send their less-educated kababayan (countrymen) to the Philippines to colonize Mindanao, the archipelago's Moro (Muslim) and Lumad (non-Muslim and non-Christian Indigenous) South. For Filipino American leaders, state expansion into the archipelago's south was a project of recuperating the utility and respectability of destitute Filipino migrant men, and thus, for the growth of the provisional nation itself. By following Filipino repatriation schemes within migrant communities, and their relationship with the Philippine state's aspirations to expand into the south, I argue that Filipino diasporic nationalism - the consolidation of migrants' affiliations not with their regions and hometowns, but with a bourgeois patriotism that lays claim to the entire Philippine archipelago - constitutively imagined the ‘home country' as a settler homeland, a simultaneous place of homeward return as well as economic development and conquest. Probing the intersections between Asian American history, Southeast Asian statecraft, and settler colonial studies, I critical reconsider two fundamental questions in Asian migrant life: Where exactly is the home country—and what does it mean to ‘go back to where you came from’?

The Tehran discussions, formal and informal

A comparative study of memoirs and documentary sources pertaining to the Tehran Conference allows the author to challenge and correct some of the prevalent positions held within both historiography and popular literature on the subject. In contrast with the pervasive assumption regarding the stance of the “Big Three” on the matter of the Second Front (Stalin and Roosevelt were proponents of an expeditious invasion of Normandy, in contrast to Churchill’s ‘Mediterranean-Balkan’ strategy), he demonstrates that the US President, ostensibly under the influence of his military advisers, was initially amenable to supporting British plans. It was only through the persistent efforts of Soviet diplomacy that the American leader was persuaded to join Stalin in prioritising Operation Overlord. The real breakthrough on the Second Front issue occurred during and after an informal dinner hosted by Roosevelt after the first session of the conference on 28 November 1943, which was earlier than had previously been asserted. In the course of these informal discussions, which have been largely overlooked in previous historiography, the Soviets proposed several important projects for a post-war settlement in Europe. These proposals were largely agreed upon by Western representatives. A consensus was reached on the issue of changing the Soviet-Polish and Polish-German borders, which was subsequently updated and ratified at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Additionally, the article addresses other matters pertaining to the Tehran Conference, including discussions on German war criminals, the role of interpreters, and other pertinent topics.

Image restoration strategies in pandemic crisis communication: a comparative analysis of Chinese and American COVID-19 political speeches

This study explores the effectiveness of image restoration strategies in pandemic crisis communication at the highest levels of administration. By integrating corpus-assisted discourse analysis with Image Repair Theory, it aims to uncover the prevailing strategies adopted by Chinese and American leaders to restore or enhance a positive national image in the post-COVID era. Lancsbox 6.0 was utilized to extract excerpts and analyze linguistic devices from a self-built corpus of 144 political speeches delivered by top leaders in China and the United States. The results reveal that Chinese leaders, through the use of shared image restoration strategies such as bolstering and transcendence, shape a positive national image of a responsible country. In contrast, American leaders construct a confident and ambitious national image, projecting a leading geopolitical role in the world. These strategies have distinct features that contribute to the image restoration process. Apart from contributing significantly to the comparative research on Chinese and American pandemic-related political speeches, the research findings carry implications for the practice and promotion of national ideologies. The study also highlights the diverse ways in which credible and accurate crisis messages are employed, providing valuable insights for handling pandemics or other crises in the foreseeable or distant future.

The Cold War Tango: When US and Soviet Leaders Sought Summit Meetings

ABSTRACT Summit meetings between Soviet and American leaders critically influenced events during the Cold War. However, despite their significance, little is known about why these meetings transpired. This paper provides a crucial understanding for when leaders sought summit meetings and when the meetings actually occurred. Moving beyond previous research that focuses on particular meetings or leaders, this study develops a theory of leadership security to explain why leaders sought summits. This theory is tested using a new dataset developed by the author, with the results showing the tenure in office and job security were more critical in determining the desire for a meeting than strategic or economic concerns.

The Personalist Leadership Style of Fabio Vásquez: A Case Study on the Origins of the ELN

This article examines the personalist leadership style of Fabio Vásquez, a founding member of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the Colombian guerrilla group. Personalism, as a theoretical framework for understanding Latin American leaders, has primarily focused on traditional political practices, emphasizing the tensions and conflicts among formal institutions, political parties, and personalist politicians. While these studies provide valuable insights, they overlook leaders who operate outside conventional political structures who also rely on personalist strategies to attract and retain followers. This article seeks to bridge this gap by presenting a case study of Vásquez’s leadership style. In an era marked by the resurgence of populism and renewed interest in the effects of personalism on conventional politics, this article argues that examining personalist leadership within revolutionary insurgent groups that reject conventional party politics is necessary for a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. In particular, it offers a comprehensive overview of how Vásquez’s personalist strategies shaped the ELN’s early insurgency, ultimately revealing the strengths and vulnerabilities of such leadership within revolutionary movements.

"City upon a Hill" in the Face of Significant Challenges

The editor-in-chief proposes a context for examining the crisis processes in American society explored in the articles. The author suggests that this crisis should be viewed in the context of the American history cycles. Many of the current conflicts in the USA have a similar internal source, which is a sharp intra-elite conflict involving a significant part of society. This conflict is unusual in its depth, given that for many decades the «trademark» of the American political class has been its consensus character. One important element of this consensus can be seen as an unquestioned focus on global American leadership and a shared commitment among members of the community to the force imperatives in foreign policy – either the classic “hard” or “flexible” power. Among the sources of American foreign policy continuity are a number of factors. First, it is the stability of institutional mechanisms of decision-making, which, in turn, is based on a stable system of representation of dominant interests. Second, the stability of formal and informal institutions that ensure a high degree of elite cohesion; and the specificity of American political culture, which is based on a set of political and philosophical views of messianic nature. The consensual nature of the political elite was the system-forming basis of liberal democracy, so the breakdown of this consensus may entail – and partially has already entailed – a crisis of the US political system.

Russia and the challenges of global leadership

Are we, in 2024, navigating a world without American leadership or a world with contested leadership? Regardless of the winner in the US elections this autumn, contested leadership for influence in international affairs is sure to continue. If the United States fails to lead, little will stand in the way of Putin's vision of a new multipolar world where Russia, as an exceptional power pursues the domination of a natural sphere of geographic influence that extends beyond Ukraine, well into Europe.

Global Transit, Imperial Performativity, and Survival: European Jewish Refugees in the Philippines Under US Tutelage and Japanese Occupation, 1937–1946

Abstract By late 1941, some 1,300 Jews had escaped from National Socialist-controlled Europe to the Philippines. This essay problematizes the existing historiography on this rescue by going beyond examinations of its mechanisms and the politics of memory. Instead, it introduces a rereading of the refugees’ struggles by focusing on their continued being-in-transit and mandated imperial performativity, which allows for analysing transnational spaces shaped by their seemingly mundane everyday practices, from walking to cooking. During the early years, American, Filipino, and Jewish community leaders expected the performance of imperial norms and policed interactions between the refugees and native Filipinos. Some of the refugees succeeded. Some even managed to open shops. Others failed or rebelled and soon found themselves in peril. The late 1941 invasion by Japanese forces subjected Philippine society to new racial hierarchies. Jewish refugees, suspected of collaborating with the enemy, had to engage in different imperial performances in order to survive. By late 1946, many Jewish survivors had managed to leave, mostly to the United States, where they encountered new challenging power asymmetries of a different kind.

JOHN MEARSHEIMER’S REALISM AND THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS

The paper sheds light on the ongoing debate around the Ukrainian war in American and Western scholarship, the focus is especially on John Mearsheimer’s views on the Western perception and attitudes towards Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. An in-depth critical analysis of Mearsheimer’s essay titled “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault” published in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his other works have shown that putting the blame on Putin and demonization of Russia for the Ukrainian crisis is a dominant and prevailing discourse in the West. In this ongoing debate, John Mearsheimer seeks to change such narratives viewing them as one-sided and biased, forcefully and persuasive ly arguing that the Western nations led by the United States are to blame for this international crisis that has led to military conflict in Ukraine. The prime cause of the Ukrainian conflict according to Mearsheimer, lies in the eastward expansion of NATO since the 1990s, which is seen by Russia as a grave threat to its national security. Another reason of why there is a bitter tension between the West and Russia is that the American and European leaders’ beliefs of international politics are shaped and guided by a flawed view in which they tend to trivialize realis m, contemporaneously subscribing to liberalism, a school in international relations theory that dominates the discourse about the Transatlantic security. Although Mearsheimer’s realist stance and views about the Ukrainian war and European security do not constitute mainstream discours e in the West, they contribute to a proper understanding of this international crisis from the perspectives of realism.

Pragmatic Study of Person Dexis in the Speeches of Chinese and American Leaders

Language not only conveys information, but also reveals information about the speaker’s identity, social status and behavioral motives. This paper focuses on how person dexis in the speeches of Chinese and U.S. leaders convey interpersonal connotations and realize pragmatic purposes. The selected texts are analyzed from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics according to the first, second and third person dexis. The paper is based on a corpus of 11 speeches delivered by President Xi and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in which the frequency of person dexis and the characteristics of the use are recorded. The study is conducive to have a clearer understanding of the interpersonal meanings and pragmatic purposes of different person dexis and the underlying conceptual and cultural factors influencing the usage.

Emotion norm violations in small communities: The Carter-Brezhnev hotline correspondence

How do international actors move from milder to more serious measures as they handle emotion norm violations that parallel behavioral norm infringements in small communities that would collapse if community members ejected the violator? Here, we trace this process analytically by examining the interaction between President Carter and General Secretary Brezhnev via the Moscow-Washington hotline, which we conceptualize as a small emotional community of Soviet (now Russian) and American leaders of the past, present, and future. Our findings suggest that one community member’s initial mild and tacit demands that the violator emote as expected are followed by other community members in turn committing emotion norm violations, which then erodes these norms. We conclude that such small emotional communities may only survive repeated violations if, at some point, the ejection of the violator becomes possible – for example, following an election loss by the violator – without causing the collapse of the emotional community.

Measurement of sustainable attitudes: a scale for business students

PurposeThis study aims to present the development and validation of a scale to measure the attitudes of Latin American business students toward sustainable management practices in the economic, social and environmental dimensions.Design/methodology/approachUsing a nonprobabilistic sample, the appreciation for sustainable practices in students (ASP-S) scale was administered to a total of 653 undergraduate and graduate business students in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. A range of psychometric validity (construct, convergent and discriminant) and reliability criteria were applied.FindingsConstruct, convergent and discriminant validity was obtained from the ASP-S scale across all samples. During the internal validation process, two factors were found: systemic consciousness (ten items) and sustainable business leadership (nine items), both of which obtained acceptable reliability indices. The resulting structure is equivalent in all four countries.Originality/valueThe instrument can be applied by educators and learning assurance areas to diagnose and measure the effectiveness of pedagogical strategies used in sustainability courses taught at Latin American business schools. As a result, it has applications for curriculum design. As a valid and reliable instrument set in the context of regional business praxis, it can promote an understanding of sustainable behaviors and practices in future Latin American leaders.

Two Cheers for Biden’s Ukraine Policy

US President Joe Biden’s approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a qualified success. Under his leadership, the United States helped to ensure that Kyiv did not fall to Russia during the early stages of the war while also avoiding a catastrophic horizontal or vertical escalation of the conflict. These are non-trivial successes for which the president and his team of advisers deserve credit. However, Biden has fallen short when it comes to laying down markers for the post-war settlement in Europe. American leadership will be necessary to construct a stable security order once the current war is over, yet the United States under Biden has failed to articulate what such an arrangement should look like. The US should adopt a policy of retrenchment and offshore balancing toward Europe, with the European members of NATO taking primary responsibility for deterring future Russian aggression.

MIDDLE EAST POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: IN SEARCH OF THE EFFECTIVE STRATEG

The article examines the main directions of the Middle East policy of the European Union, which has intensified in recent years on the basis of the concept of «strategic autonomy». This concept itself is generated by the disappointment of European elites in the approaches of the United States both to the security problems of the Old World and to a number of crisis situations in the Middle East. The differences between Washington and Brussels were especially clear during the presidency of Republican Donald Trump (2016–2020), but they did not disappear under the administration of Democrat Joe Biden, which did not live up to the hopes of a number of European politicians for «restoring American leadership in the world». The need for Europeans to increasingly rely on their own strengths and resources is determined today not only by the situation around Ukraine, but also by Israel’s military actions against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip, direct clashes between Israel and Iran, and the intensification of pro-Iranian groups in a number of countries in the Middle East. The author believes that the EU’s attempts to develop an adequate strategy to neutralize threats from the Middle East region, as well as to promote its interests there, have not brought results. Questions remain regarding the achievability of this goal in principle.

Attitudes of Black American Christian church leaders toward Opioid Use Disorder, overdoses, and harm reduction: a qualitative study.

Black American Christian church leaders are trusted community members and can be invaluable leaders and planners, listeners, and counselors for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) sufferers in the opioid overdose crisis disproportionately affecting the Black community. This qualitative study examines the extent to which the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and beliefs of Black American church leaders support medical and harm reduction interventions for people with OUD. A semi-structured interview guide was used to conduct in-depth interviews of 30 Black Rhode Island church leaders recruited by convenience and snowball sampling. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified four themes: Church leaders are empathetic and knowledgeable, believe that hopelessness and inequity are OUD risk factors, are committed to helping people flourish beyond staying alive, and welcome collaborations between church and state. Black American Christian church leaders are a critical resource in providing innovative and culturally sensitive strategies in the opioid overdose crisis affecting the Black American communities. As such, their views should be carefully considered in OUD policies, collaborations, and interventions in the Black American community.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Religious Coping, and Congregational Support among Black Clergy and Religious Leaders

Limited studies have empirically investigated the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among Black clergy and religious leaders despite their status as helping professionals who are implicated in times of crisis. In light of cultural considerations that position African American churches as trusted institutions linking local communities of color with various social services, African American religious leaders are particularly implicated during crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the present study investigates the relationships between adverse childhood experiences, religious coping, and social support from one’s congregation among a sample of Black religious leaders within Christian churches. Compared to a national sample of Black Americans, we observed significantly higher prevalence rates for four forms of adverse childhood experiences: emotional neglect, parental separation or divorce, mental illness in the household, and an incarcerated family member. The results from two moderated moderation statistical models indicated that higher adverse childhood experiences predicted greater endorsement of PTSD symptoms and that negative religious coping strengthened this relationship. Furthermore, this moderation effect was itself moderated by greater perceived emotional support from one’s congregation, such that greater support mitigated this moderation effect. Conversely, we also found that positive religious coping has the potential to compensate for the lack of emotional support from the congregation. Implications for caring for clergy and religious leaders both within the church and in seminaries are provided.

The Relevance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities: From a Critical Race Theorist Standpoint

ABSTRACT Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were created to provide educational opportunities for African Americans when other educational pathways were closed or restricted. These higher education institutions with the assistance of the American Missionary Association and the Freedmen’s Bureau, churches and philanthropists, continue to educate African American leaders and advance society at large. From a Critical Race Theorists (CRT) perspective, the promotion and sustainability of HBCUs is relevant and much needed in the 21st century particularly with the gradual elimination of affirmative action standards at mainstream institutions. Acknowledging the persistence of racism, which CRT implores us to do, it is clear that HBCUs are critical educational entities as they lessen equity gaps and create opportunities for marginalized and disproportionately recognized students across the globe.

Subjugated to Free Independent States of America, Boston Tea Party by Sons of Liberty and Declaration of Independence

This article explores how Native Americans and Africans have historically been treated by Europeans, with a particular emphasis on how both groups have been portrayed as barbaric and primitive in a variety of media, including literature, minstrel shows, newspapers, and advertisements. We'll talk about Native Americans' difficulties and how they gained their independence in this section. European colonization of North America resulted in the displacement of these tribes, who were then forced into reservations and subjected to assimilation strategies that were often violent and betrayed treaties. European assimilation efforts aimed to erase Native American culture, history, and identity through the establishment of boarding schools that forced Native American children to adopt European habits, attire, and language. The method was intended to "kill the Indian, save the man," as institutions such as the Carlisle Indian School illustrated. Despite the hardships and cultural loss inflicted on Native Americans, their experience in boarding schools was critical in developing future Native American leaders and building a sense of pan-Indian identity, thereby refuting the notion of them as a dying race. The article also delves into the influence of British colonial rule on Native Americans, as well as the imposition of taxes without representation, which sparked riots such as the Boston Tea Party. The Continental Congress and the following Declaration of Independence were watershed points in the American Revolution. Furthermore, the Coercive Acts meant to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, stoked colonial discontent and aided in the commencement of the American Revolutionary War. The article finishes by underlining the significance of these historical events in establishing the identity of the United States and the ongoing struggle for Native Americans' rights and acknowledgment. This in-depth examination of historical events and their interconnectivity sheds light on the complicated and often brutal interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans, which ultimately influenced the establishment of the United States and its values (Volo, 2003).

External Factors’ Influence on Course of the April 25, 1974 Revolution in Portugal

The article examines the Portuguese Revolution of 1974 from 1974 to 1976, focusing on the influence of external forces. The analysis extensively utilizes documentary materials published by the U.S. State Department during the period under consideration, as well as memoirs by Portuguese and foreign authors. The study explores the process of shaping the United States' new foreign policy towards Portugal after the revolution, comparing American and European approaches to the events in Portugal. The role of the USSR and other socialist countries is also examined. The research findings indicate that the revolution caught the American leadership off guard. Initially, the U.S. response was restrained, but their attitude changed after members of the Communist Party joined the government. The U.S. adopted a policy of exerting political and economic pressure on the Portuguese leadership to exclude communists from the government, supporting all opposition left-wing parties, and exploiting divisions within left-wing forces. The Soviet Union provided relatively modest support to Portuguese communists, while socialist bloc countries showed significantly greater involvement and enthusiasm. U.S. allies in Europe took more moderate positions. European diplomacy made significant efforts to avoid direct confrontation between the U.S. and the USSR, with the greatest challenge being to prevent the U.S. from demonstrating its power on the European continent.