Neighbor Policy Research Articles

New Perspectives on the Good Neighbor Policy

New Perspectives on the Good Neighbor Policy

ANALYSIS OF UZBEKISTAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, AND SOUTH KOREA: UTILIZING TEXT MINING BASED ON GDELT BIG DATA

GDELT (Global Dataset on Events, Language, and Tone), a comprehensive event dataset developed in 2013, provides quantifiable data on cooperative and conflictual relations between countries, as well as events related to specific phenomena. Its utility has been widely recognized, and it is actively used in international relations and foreign policy research. This study also utilizes GDELT data to introduce a method for analyzing the relationships between Uzbekistan and China, Russia, and South Korea through keyword correlation indicators derived from text mining, and to present the actual analysis results. By conducting a keyword correlation analysis based on event data between Uzbekistan and the three analyzed countries—China, Russia, and South Korea—it was possible to identify diplomatic action patterns through the correlation of core keywords such as "engage," "express intent," and "make" with keywords indicating specific actions. Uzbekistan’s foreign policy under the Mirziyoyev government has shown a diplomatic action pattern of seeking or participating in negotiations, expressing intentions for negotiation or cooperation, and pursuing meetings for negotiation and cooperation with the analyzed countries, while inviting or visiting counterpart countries as part of these processes. This demonstrates that Uzbekistan has actively worked towards establishing cooperative relations, which were set as the goal or direction of its foreign relations, named the “Good Neighbor Policy” by President Mirziyoyev. Such keyword correlation indicator analysis facilitates the explanation of cooperative relationships.

Donald Duck goes south: Walt Disney and the Inter-American relations

In the 1930s, with the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that the United States would soon need the sympathy and cooperation of Latin America. His Good Neighbor policy sought to improve relations between the countries of the Americas. Walt Disney was commissioned by Nelson D. Rockefeller, who was in charge of inter-American relations, to make a goodwill tour of Latin America in search of inspiration for films about the region. He and his group met with politicians and artists, researched local cultures, and personally experienced the region’s society, geography and wildlife. As a result of these experiences, Latin America became the setting for two Disney films in the 1940s, Saludos Amigos (Norman Ferguson, 1942) and The Three Caballeros (Norman Ferguson, 1944). The aim of this article is to describe the key role played by Walt Disney and his cartoon characters (especially Donald Duck) in the transformation of inter-American relations, especially from the aspect of culture.

Is Mongolia's 'Third Neighbor Policy' Truly Effective?

The Third Neighbor Policy is a strategic foreign policy approach adopted by Mongolia to diversify its international partnerships beyond its immediate neighbors, China and Russia. This policy aims to enhance Mongolia's economic, political, and security ties with countries outside its immediate region, reducing dependence on neighboring giants and enhancing strategic autonomy. The United States has become an important "third neighbor" for Mongolia, with the two countries establishing a strategic partnership focusing on areas such as trade, clean energy, and aviation. While there are similarities and differences in the implementation of the Third Neighbor Policy by other countries, Mongolia should continue to pursue this approach in the future to enhance its strategic autonomy. The policy holds promising future opportunities for Mongolia to expand cooperation in various sectors, particularly in terms of economic cooperation.

China’s Geoeconomic Strategy for Southeast Asia under the Leadership of Xi Jingping

Southeast Asia is becoming increasingly important in China’s global strategies. Under Xi Jinping, China has intensified the implementation of its foreign policy called, “The Good Neighbor Policy,” with countries in the Southeast Asian region to protect its “core interests” and build a belt of peace and stability beneficial for China's development. This article analyzes China’s economic geoeconomic shift towards Southeast Asia with the following content: (i) China's geoeconomic strategic perspective on Southeast Asia; (ii) The objectives of implementing China’s geoeconomic strategy in Southeast Asia; (iii) The methods used to implement China’s geoeconomic strategy in Southeast Asia; and (iv) The reactions of countries in the Southeast Asian region to China’s geoeconomic strategy under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

Bending Time and Space for Pan-Americanism: Shots of the “Western Hemisphere” in Wartime Cinema

Analysing World War II films, from Allied propaganda to Good Neighbor Policy productions, this work probes the visual construction of the idea of the Western Hemisphere and Latin America’s place in it. It finds how war propaganda carried messages beyond the explicit anti-Axis one. In the films discussed here, the resources of novel aerial photography, cartography, and time-travel plots achieved the contradictory effect of showing the entire continent as one, while North and South were in contrast. During the war, Good Neighbor Policy productions promoting a continental alliance used many of the same visual elements as war propaganda to shore up morale ahead of battles. A focus on Brazil offers a counterpoint to US-based pan-Americanism, considering its nationalist discourse in the Estado Novo. Wartime cinema created a New World where the US was the future of “Western” civilisation as a continuum of Europe, while Latin America was visualised as existing in the past, resulting in a deeply ambivalent Western Hemisphere.

Journey to Indo-América: APRA and the Transnational Politics of Exile, Persecution, and Solidarity, 1918–1945

Journey to Indo-América demonstrates the centrality of transnational exile networks for understanding the evolution of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) and its political struggles in Peru over the course of the party's first two decades of existence. During most of this period APRA could not operate legally in Peru, and hence the far-flung network of exiled Apristas who developed a continental consciousness. Using archives that had not been much consulted, Geneviève Dorais traces these networks and details how the experience of exile for Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and other Apristas shaped their conception of Indo-America and helped to support the party's efforts to gain power in Peru.Even before APRA's founding in 1926, transnational connections influenced the thinking of Haya de la Torre and other future Apristas. While APRA's roots in the university reform movement that began in 1918 have been well established, its connections to networks of progressive Christian and pacifist intellectuals in the United States have received less attention. Dorais dedicates a whole chapter to these connections that began in Peru and centered on two key figures: John Mackay, a Scottish Presbyterian pastor who founded the Colegio Anglo-Peruano in Lima, and the Christian pacifist and activist Anna Melissa Graves, who developed a strong friendship with Haya de la Torre. Both Mackay and Graves were attracted to expressions of hemispheric identity and solidarity, which they saw as signs of a necessary spiritual regeneration in the West.Dorais highlights the tensions within these transnational networks in which Apristas and non-Apristas had different goals. Mackay and Graves pursued their own agendas in promoting Haya de la Torre as a kind of spiritual leader for Latin America. Yet they were less accepting of the nationalism of Apristas who sought to address Peru's specific problems of social injustice. While Haya de la Torre initially relied on them for both emotional and financial support (particularly in the case of Graves), he gradually broke ties as he developed new connections in Mexico, the Soviet Union, and Europe, and after APRA became a national party in Peru.Among the most convincing aspects of Dorais's analysis is the link she establishes between the experience of exile and APRA's ideological shift away from its early anti-imperialism. While this shift has usually been attributed to Haya de la Torre's response to changing world events, including Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy, Dorais offers a more sociological interpretation. Deprived of political rights in Peru, where APRA remained proscribed, exiled Apristas embraced the notion of a continental identity (Indo-America) that included democratic rights. Their position thus aligned them more closely with the United States at a time when communism and fascism were growing forces on the world scene. Ideology and praxis were interwoven as exiles “used Indo-América as a way to universalize their demands in the context of local repression” (p. 186).Dorais also argues that the Aprista transnational networks remained central to the party's political struggles inside Peru during the long period of political persecution that stretched, with a few interruptions, from 1932 to 1945. For example, immediately following APRA's establishment in Peru in 1930, Apristas returning from exile relied on their experience abroad as a source of authority and legitimacy vis-à-vis party leaders in Peru. The broad international campaign to free Haya de la Torre from jail during the year 1932 further strengthened those Apristas with transnational connections and bolstered the “Hayista faction” within the party.The degree to which these Aprista transnational networks remained instrumental in sustaining the party in Peru during the long period of persecution known as the catacombs (1933–39) is more open to debate. There is no doubt that the continued efforts of exiled Apristas to write political propaganda influenced international opinion, created sympathy for APRA by criticizing the dictatorial government of Oscar Benavides, and reinforced the narrative of APRA as a party with strong popular support. In some cases, foreign Christian “intermediaries” inside Peru also helped to circulate propaganda at a time of persecution. Yet networks of Apristas throughout Peru lacking transnational connections continued to engage in struggles of their own to keep the party alive. In fact, an Aprista counternarrative about exile emerged in Peru in which exiles were portrayed as leading an easy life far from the realities of political persecution or, to use the words of Haya de la Torre, a life of “sensualization.”Dorais's book is a welcome addition to the most recent scholarship on APRA's transnational dimension. The author convincingly argues that we must take seriously the experience of exile to understand the history of APRA and has modeled an effective methodology for doing so. Hopefully this work will inspire others to pursue similar lines of research to further uncover the intricacies of the transnational networks that stretched throughout the Americas during these crucial decades in world politics.

The United States, Great Britain, and the Chilean Presidential Election of 1942

Scheduled for February 1, 1942, the election of the successor of Chilean president Pedro Aguirre Cerda, who passed away on November 25, 1941, confronted the United States and Great Britain with an unexpected challenge and forced their governments to reassess their policies toward Latin America amidst a war that, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, had become a truly world affair. Until then, the United States and Great Britain had not openly taken sides in Chilean electoral contests. Economic interests had been a significant concern of U.S. and British diplomats stationed in Chile, but no strategic alliance with national political forces had come about as a result of those interests. In the case of the United States, moreover, the implementation of the Good Neighbor policy by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration had stood on the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of Latin American countries. The policy was more germane to U.S. hegemony over Central America and the Caribbean than to relations with South American countries, but it still operated as a framework for U.S. foreign policy decisions regarding the latter, including Chile. The election of February 1942, in which U.S. and British diplomats and intelligence agents identified one of the candidates as an ally of the Axis countries, forced the U.S. foreign policy apparatus to ponder the possibility of intervention in the race in a way that had no direct precedent and, more importantly, required a significant reappraisal of the principles and pertinence of the Good Neighbor policy in the new reality imposed by a war in which the United States was directly involved.

The Good Neighbor policy and Colombia-United States relations

Relations between Colombia and the United States began the 20th century with the seizure of Panama, which opened a new stage in the Monroe Doctrine, that of the Big Stick. With the signing of the Urrutia-Thompson Treaty, the Colombian leadership accepted the facts, and a gigantic U.S. investment began in the 1920s. But the modernization of the country was amalgamated with the growing Latin American nationalism fed by the bad taste of the Big Stick, to which was added the Crisis of 1929 and the rise of fascism in Europe. This number of imponderables led the United States to propose a new deal towards the region, the Good Neighbor, which sought to strengthen economic and political ties with the region and with a mediumsized player, Colombia, where anti-American winds were notorious within a sector of the ruling elite.

“In Honorable Remembrance to All Generations”: Commemoration and the Making of Mormon Battalion Memory, 1921–2021

“In Honorable Remembrance to All Generations”: Commemoration and the Making of Mormon Battalion Memory, 1921–2021

The role of the European Union and democratisation process in post-communist Romania

The fall of Communism in the Central and Eastern European countries in the year 1989, was a historical change had occurred after the demise of communism. The decline of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was one of the most important proceedings of the period: the conclusive end of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. After the disintegration of the former USSR, the Eastern bloc had started the modernisation of institutions and adopted the norms of democracy. The third wave of democratisation of Samuel P. Huntington’s theory would apply the democratic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and Romania as well. It traces the discussions and opinions of institutional and political development in Romania with special attention to the events around 1989 Post-communism and Eastern enlargement of the European Union. The paper assesses the role of the European Union to promote democratization through Eastern neighbour policy. The paper broadly discusses the institutional and political development in Romania and the role of Copenhagen criteria and the country’s accession to the EU in early 2007. The result of this article is that Romania has successfully integrated into the European Union but that democratization is declining in the country.

Mongolia's Strategic Partnership with India: The Third Neighbour Policy and Beyond

Following the collapse of its trusted ally, the USSR, Mongolia faced significant challenges in aligning itself within the new global order. As a result, Mongolia's external and internal strategic environment compelled the nomadic nation to establish and maintain friendly relations with major powers other than China and Russia. Mongolia has since attempted to diversify its diplomatic and strategic reach in regional and international forums that had previously been overshadowed by Mongolia's previous patron, the Soviet Union. Mongolia had adopted two distinct policies, namely the ‘Good Neighbor Policy’ and the ‘Third Neighbor Policy’, which outlined Mongolia's aspirations in the post-Cold War global order. This paper will attempt to understand the changes and continuities in Mongolian foreign policy as a result of Mongolia's 'Third Neighbour Policy,' as well as to investigate the possibility of mutual cooperation between India and Mongolia. The most important aspect of this research is identifying Mongolia's relevant security issues. This study will use empirical data to examine Mongolia's security dilemma, but the analysis will be qualitative. The study's findings show that, despite its small power status, Mongolia will play an important role in North Asian great power politics due to its geostrategic location and mineral resources. Given China's dominance and Western powers' counter-dominance initiatives, this assumption is becoming true. With this in mind, India started to transform it spiritual partnership with Mongolia into a comprehensive strategic one.

40 Years of Malaysia's Look East Policy and Relocation of Indonesia's Capital: Serumpun Solution in Sarawak-West Kalimantan Cross-Border Halal Hub

The relocation of Indonesia's new capital to Kota Nusantara (East Kalimantan) is a game changer. It creates a spill-over of the prosper thy neighbour policy upon the existing West Kalimantan-Malaysia Sarawak border for the first Japanese Big Eon in Kuching (Malaysia's Sarawak) and potential Halal Wagyu beef market in Pontianak (Indonesia's West Kalimantan). Both countries should seize this golden opportunity to revisit their respective Look East Policy (LEP) with Japan and integrate Japan's advantages in quality assurance to overcome different regulatory Halal practices. After all, sustaining the Halal economy is no longer determined by the growing Muslim population alone but a shared knowledge and mutual policy lessons on Halal regulations and quality assurance. While both countries are essential players in the global halal hub and shared trade borders, there needs to be more harmonisation between Kalimantan-Sarawak's cross-border halal framework. With the Indonesian decision to relocate to a new capital, Kota Nusantara (located in East Kalimantan), there is a severe immediate need to bring LEP's benefits and profile the existing business ecosystem in Kuching (the capital of Sarawak) and Pontianak (capital of West Kalimantan).

SMART SPECIALIZATION OF THE REGION: FUNDAMENTALS OF FORMATION, DEVELOPMENT AND DISSEMINATION

The article is devoted to the development of theoretical foundations of the concept of smart specialization at the regional level, the search for "smart" strategies and the dissemination of relevant processes, as well as of prerequisites that contribute to the sustainable development of regions. It is determined that the theories of uneven development and regional imbalance serve as a basis and starting point for the formation of smart specialization processes in the regions. The main postulates of the development of smart specialization in terms of economic schools, which emphasize the importance of technological progress for the growth of the economy and the country's competitiveness, are systematized. The main stages of the development and dissemination of smart specialization in the market space are highlighted. It has been established that smart specialization is an innovative tool of the EU, which contributes to the progressive development of the regional economy due to strategic approaches to the regional environment. The European Commission considers the renewal of European industry and the economy in general through the development of smart specialization strategies. The main criteria of modern regional innovation strategies in terms of the formation of smart specialization have been identified. Possibilities of smart specialization in the development of the country's regions have been proven. 
 Thus, smart specialization contributes to the transformation of regions into world-class European regional clusters through strategic growth priorities, which is reflected in relevant theories and concepts of regional development. In view of wide prospects offered by smart specialization, as well as taking into account the need to deepen cooperation between our country and EU countries within the framework of the European Good Neighbor Policy, it is necessary to disseminate the innovative culture of regional development and cooperation in Ukraine. The experience accumulated by European countries, which have a successful experience of implementing smart specialization in the regional economy, should be adapted and implemented in the regions of Ukraine to ensure sustainable development and improve the welfare of the country. It is possible to achieve the desired level of the development of the country under the condition of forming a favorable innovation climate within each region and introducing a system of mutually beneficial cooperation of all participants within the framework of smart specialization.

BUILDING ART DIPLOMACY: THE CASE OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ART EXHIBITION IN LATIN AMERICA, 1941

This article analyzes the construction of the visual narrative expressed in the exhibition Contemporary North American Painting in 1941. During the II World War, the U.S. government recovered the initiative to build a strong tight with Latin American countries by relaunching the Good Neighbor Policy. Cultural diplomacy was an important branch of this policy. With the purpose of winning friends in the continent, the government created the Office of Inter-American Affairs, led by Nelson Rockefeller, and he sent artists, intellectuals, and exhibitions to make North America known in the other Americas. The Contemporary North American Painting projected an image of the United States as a modern and industrialized society to South Americans. This narrative was one of the devices developed by the U.S. government as part of the soft diplomacy carried out in the 1940s.In this article, we delve into the construction of the visual narrative about the U.S as part of the Good Neighbor exhibition complex, and we will analyze how the exhibition process was thought of as part of representational and ideological machinery.The article was based on reading, analysis, and cataloging of primary sources. The sources were letters, catalogs, photos, and notes from the main characters of the Office of Inter-American Affairs. Likewise, the exhibited works of art were operationalized.

Can rock and roll be a good neighbor: Auralizing the thump next door

Downtown Omaha is undergoing significant revitalization to include a 3,000-capacity live music venue. While myriad event types are expected in this new venue, a substantial portion are expected to be high-energy, high-volume musical performances such as rock/metal, country, hip hop, and electronic dance music. This new building is sited within one hundred feet of condominiums, apartments, and a hotel. The overall area is zoned as a central business district and has a permissive policy for decibel limits at neighboring properties. This paper will discuss how the design team helped project stakeholders create a good neighbor policy through the use of auralizations and how those criteria informed the enclosure design and sound isolation strategies for the venue.

Film narratives crossing time and space in the Americas: a comparative perspective os La Jaula de Oro (2013) and El Norte (1983); Rio (2011) and The Three Caballeros (1944)

The essay discusses how frequent migratory currents of certain narratives and ideas within the Americas have formed clusters of knowledge and stimulated audiences’ imagination about specific cultures or nations. The essay presents the process of narrative continuity and displacement in recent films about immigration and travel within the Americas, as they can be read in relation to earlier films on the same theme, La Jaula de Oro (Diego Queimada-Díez, 2013) vis à vis El Norte (Gregory Nava, 1983), and Rio (Carlos Saldanha, 2011) vis à vis The Three Caballeros (Walt Disney, 1944). La Jaula de Oro presents the same border crossing as El Norte, from Guatemala to Mexico to the USA, but thirty years apart, whereas in Rio the contemporary narrative of a migrating little blue macaw, Blu, who moves from the USA to Brazil, readdresses another culturally and politically invested symbolic icon from the mid-1940s and the good neighbor policy—a parrot named José Carioca, whose role in The Three Caballeros goes much beyond the frames of the film. The essay aims at an analysis of the narrative and aesthetic frameworks of the films and their ideological resonances and displacements in terms of American hemispheric relations.

Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor: Fact and Fiction in an FBI Investigation of Brazilian Literature during World War II

AbstractBrazilian novelist Érico Veríssimo (1905–75) was an ambiguous subject of the Good Neighbor Policy: invited to the United States by the Department of State, he was also accused of anti-Americanism by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). An international police investigation into Veríssimo shows a Brazilian-US network in which literature is questioned both as a potential vehicle for subversion and as representative of its political context. Archival sources related to this investigation reveal how police agents searched for clues within fiction and how ideology often got lost in translation. Through a close reading of these sources, I explore the function of literature and the processes for its interpretation in political culture. This essay, by probing the contradictions of the Good Neighbor Policy and the transition from World War II to the Cold War, reveals how Brazilian and US police in collaboration applied the anti-Axis counterintelligence apparatus to the surveillance of Allied literature.

Entre a ciência e a política: Donald Pierson e a busca por uma sociologia científica no Brasil

Abstract This paper analyzes the political dimension embedded in the work of the American sociologist Donald Pierson in Brazil. A former student of Robert Park at the University of Chicago, Pierson played a major role in the institutionalization of the social sciences in Brazil from the 1930s through the 1950s. While Pierson’s intellectual ambitions were centered on an academic agenda and he defended a strict division between science and politics, we argue that a proper historical understanding of his endeavor can only be achieved through an analysis of his underlying assumptions about the nature of both science and society – assumptions that were rooted in a reformist, liberal-democratic understanding of the world. To bring to light these values, we examine two key moments in Pierson’s career: 1) his doctoral research on race relations in Bahia, done in the mid-1930s; 2) his efforts to promote the field of sociology in Brazil during the Good Neighbor Policy and World War II, when he was hired to teach at the São Paulo School of Sociology and Politics.

Birds of a feather?: Lessons on U.S. cultural diplomacy from Walt Disney during the Good Neighbor Policy

ABSTRACT The Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration sought to improve relations between with Latin America and strengthen the Inter-American system through the Good Neighbor Policy. In 1940, to combat the spread of Axis influence, the Roosevelt administration formed the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA). Tasked with improving perceptions of the United States in Latin America and of Latin America in the United States, the CIAA worked closely with U.S. organizations and businesses to achieve these ends. One frequently cited success story of this period was sending Walt Disney to South America and its resulting films. This paper places the role of the CIAA and Walt Disney Studios within the broader strategic context of the Good Neighbor Policy. In addition, this paper attempts to glean lessons from the CIAA-Disney partnership that epitomize best practices and potential pitfalls in U.S.-Latin American Cultural Diplomacy.