Assumption Of Office Research Articles

Friendship under Strain or Fundamental Alienation?

DESPITE TWO PERSONAL MEETINGS between German chancellor Gerhard Schroder and US president George W. Bush during the G8 summit in Evian and the UN General Assembly session in New York, Germany-US relations remain in their deepest crisis of the post-Second World War era. Immediately after the German elections in September 2002, the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, called the bilateral relationship poisoned, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to meet his German counterpart during a conference in Warsaw, and President Bush avoided a personal meeting with Schroder during the Prague NATO summit.The most visible reasons for this tension have been the political differences between the two governments over Iraq, namely on the questions of whether Saddam Hussein had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to regional and international security, what the appropriate means to disarm Iraq could be and--if force was necessary--which institutional framework should be used to legitimize and implement it.But the German-American conflict over Iraq was only the tip of the iceberg and has revealed structural incoherencies between the two partners which began much earlier and whose sources and more complex than the Iraq issue alone. Since the inauguration of the Social Democratic-Green coalition in October 1998, the pre-existing gap between the political elites on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean has widened even further, so that a fundamental alienation between the two former partners can be diagnosed. The issues which came to the forefront during the Iraq debate were actually the same as those that already clouded the first phase of the Germany-US relationship under the Schroder/Fischer government: the use of force in international relations, the structure (unipolarity versus multipolarity) of the international system, and the role of international institutions in the foreign policy of the US and Germany.(1) To fully understand that development, it is necessary to analyze first the development of the bilateral relationship from Schroder's assumption of office in October 1998 until the end of the Iraq war in the spring of 2003. Next this article will discuss three underlying determinants in German politics and society responsible for the structural rift in the Germany-US relationship, of which the Iraq debate is just an outward sign. Finally the paper analyzes the future prospects of bilateral relations from a German point of view and proposes some necessary steps to avoid a transatlantic break.THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC-GREEN COALITION AND THE US: THE IDEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONCommon political wisdom holds that Germany enjoys a broad foreign policy consensus supported by all democratic parties, in which the most fundamental foreign policy orientations of post-Second World War Germany are included: reconciliation and co-operation with the west European states within the framework of the European integration process; the obligation to support the transformation process of the east European states, which belonged to the Communist bloc until 1989 contributions to European and Atlantic security via NATO membership; the multilateral implementation of German foreign policy; the rule of international law; and finally the German-American relationship, which has been a cornerstone of Germany's foreign policy since 1949. The Federal Republic enjoyed the special attention of the US not only because of its central location in Europe and its relevance as a major political and military battleground. Because of the large US military presence, a range of political and academic exchange programs and the growing Americanization of German society since the 1950s, the United States not only was regarded by the political elites as Germany's most important partner in the international system but is also deeply embedded in German society.(2)Given this foreign policy consensus, continuity was expected when the Social Democratic-Green coalition won the elections in September 1998. …

Die Transition zur Demokratie in Indonesien. Überlegungen zum Systemwechsel vom Ende der 80er Jahre bis zur Gegenwart

This article deals with political developments in Indonesia since 1988, especially since 1997. Priority is given to the description and analysis of four different phases of this transition period (1988-2000). The first phase lasted from the late 1980s until the fall of Suharto. The regime lost its legitimacy, the regime coalition gradually fell apart and the diversified opposition forces gained an ever growing impact upon public debates. These processes accelerated at the beginning of 1998, forcing Suharto fmally to step down. The second phase began with the assumption of office by Habibie and ended with fairly free national elections in June 1999. Although most decisions were made by the conservative government, i.e. by old Suharto followers, the pressure exerted by moderate and radical reformers was strong enough to enforce a significant democratisation. The third phase began in June 1999 and lasted until Abdurrahman Wahid was elected President and formed his coalition government. Ideally, at the end of the last phase the still highly fragile parliamentarian democracy will be sufficiently consolidated.

Choice and strategy in Canadian foreign policy: Lessons from the postwar years, 1946–1968

This article offers an historical perspective on the development and implementation of Canadian foreign policy at the Department of External Affairs (now the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade). After the discussing the era of “golden diplomacy,” the authors examine the pressures for reassessment and adaptation on the Department following Trudeau's assumption of office.

Reviving U.S.-India Friendship in a Changing International Order

Ever since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, India's biggest foreign policy challenge has been to build a new, cooperative relationship with the sole surviving superpower, the United States. The end of the Cold War understandably generated new hopes about a fresh start in Indo-U.S. ties, for it implied that both countries could now talk to each other honestly without the stereotypes and suspicions of the past. From America's strategic perception, the dissolution of the USSR reduced Pakistan's significance as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in West Asia. For the first time, the U.S. could look directly at the countries of the region without reference to any outside power. Economically, the failure of socialism prompted the Indian government, like many governments the world over, to initiate marketbased economic reforms largely along lines advocated by Washington. New Delhi sought to move toward the U.S. to compensate, as far as possible, for the loss of its time-tested friend, the Soviet Union, as well as seek American aid in India's program of economic recovery. It was not surprising, therefore, that the process of improving U.S.-India relations, which had begun in the Reagan era, reached its peak during the Bush administration when the two countries conducted joint military exercises in the summer of 1992. Understandably, the assumption of office by a Democrat, President Bill Clinton, aroused expectations of another leap in ties between the two democracies.' These expectations, however, were soon dashed to the ground as shrill voices out of Washington produced shriller echoes in India. To some extent, the press in both countries in general, and the Indian press in particular, was to blame. But there were other structural reasons for the

Presidential Transitions and Foreign Policy: The American Experience

More than 20 years ago when I was still a professor at Berkeley, I was visited by a young official, a member of what was then the British Colonial Service. He had just completed several weeks in Washington where he had watched with fascination the transition of Jack Kennedy to the presidency. His observations, I believe, included our supreme transition disaster of modern times: the Bay of Pigs. My British guest was appalled by what he perceived as the backbiting and the disorderliness that characterized our transfer of government and contrasted it, with pleasant but cocky superciliousness, to transitions in Great Britain.I Long before my British visitor flaunted his impressions, I had been wondering about the problems and the costs and the dangers of our presidential transitions, whose punctuation points are engraved on the Gregorian calendar. Changes in organizational leadership are common and inevitable in all societies. But the changes are often less pervasive, less intensive within the organizations concerned, and less frantic than ours. A few weeks ago, the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia announced its appointment of a new president who would assume office in the summer of 1985. Let us imagine that the transition to this new president were comparable to that of a new president of the United States. First, he would have just completed a bitter and acrimonious campaign against the incumbent and his administration, little conducive to harmonious and constructive relations between the two and their staffs. He would be expected to dismiss, on the very day of his assumption of office, the provost, all the vicepresidents, deans, and department chairmen, the entire personal staff in his office, and a number of tenured professors friendly to the predecessor administration. Some of the top replacements would assume office on that day, but the majority of the offices would remain vacant for weeks and months. Few of the appointees to the top positions would have had significant experience at the University of Virginia or any other university (except as students), and some would be outspoken opponents of public higher education. These might even include the new president himself. He would almost certainly arrive bearing a variety of promises and commitments-to make appointments, establish new schools and programs and abolish others, change the standards of entrance as well as of graduation, reorder the cur-

India and the Soviet Union: A New Stage of Relations?

THE DEFEAT OF Mrs. Indira Gandhi's government in the March 1977 elections held in India is a political landmark in the country's history. The victory of the Janata party, and the assumption of office by Prime Minister Morarji Desai, ended almost three decades of Congress party rule at the center. Since key figures in the new leadership have in the past been classified as representatives of the right wing of the Indian political scene, the possibility of a change in India's long rapport with the Soviet Union was considered, not only in the West but apparently in the USSR as well. Moscow had good cause to be less than enthusiastic about the new turn of events in India and uncertain about the attitude that the new government would adopt toward the Soviet Union. The Soviet press had lent enthusiastic support to Mrs. Gandhi's State of Emergency, a period during which many members of the new government had been jailed. When the decision was taken to hold elections, and the campaign got under way, the Janata party was summarily dismissed as a group of scheming reactionaries. As if this were not sufficient, the new Prime Minister was a man who had long been the Kremlin's ideological bete noire.' While it is premature to speak with any certainty on the future of Indo-Soviet relations, a stock-taking of Soviet-Indian ties and a study of the Janata's approach to foreign policy should enable one to make a

Some Permanent Political Characteristics of Contemporary Brazil

The positive and often decisive role of the military in the Brazilian political process has been demonstrated again by the overthrow of the João Goulart government on April 2, 1964. Chaos and confusion building up from the time President Goulart took power in August, 1961, finally culminated in his ouster by the Brazilian armed forces.The political history of modern Brazil centers on the military. The army toppled the monarchy in 1889 and in 1894 handed the administration of the country over to civilians who governed with minor challenges until 1930. The army managed the coup d'état of 1930 which brought Getúlio Vargas to power. It removed Vargas in 1945 and returned Brazil to a democratic political process. The army moved in November, 1955, to assure the assumption of office by President-elect Juscelino Kubitschek. The presidential elections of 1960 were guaranteed by the military even though a former Minister of War, General Enrique Lott, was decisively defeated by a civilian, Jánio Quadros.

Report From New Zealand

,A N outsider might well pronounce New Zealand to be the most stable nation in a tormented world. This verdict would arouse the indignation of many New Zealanders, who would point to labour troubles, rising prices, mass protest meetings, and the possibility of sweeping political and economic change in the near future. Yet, seen in a wide perspective, the relative stability of New Zealand is an outstanding fact: stability not only in her forms of life but in the character of those forces making for change. The argument is by no means that New Zealand has stood still or has faced no problems that are new, but rather that both challenge and response have followed lines long familiar to those who have studied the New Zealand community in its international setting. Let the obvious point be made at the outset that New Zealand must be almost unique in continuity of government in recent years. A Labour Government first took office at the end of I935 and won its third general election (though with a reduced majority) in i946. It is still the same, not only in party label, but in most of its key personnel. The present Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, has held office continuously, and the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, was from the first a dominant member of the cabinet. Further, certain very powerful groups among industrial labour are still, as they long have been, in vigorous alliance with the Fraser cabinet. That is not to say that there are no stresses and strains within the Labour Party, nor is it to ignore the inevitable and sometimes acrimonious accusation, dating almost from Labour's assumption of office, that Labour as Government has betrayed the ideals of Labour as Opposition. However, evolution in domestic policy has been gradual and consistent with data well known in 1936-37; and the same is even more true in foreign policy. Some observers would go further. In spite of ostensible differences from the older parties, and spectacular progress in certain spheres, it can be argued that the Savage-Fraser-Nash Government of I935 arose naturally out of a century-old New Zealand tradition. Similarly, when the electors go to the polls at the end of I949 they are likely, as in 1946 and I943 and even in 1938, to be faced with