Neoconservative Ideology Research Articles

Junior faculty of color in the corporate university: implications of neoliberalism and neoconservatism on research, teaching and service

In higher education today, an overwhelming acceptance of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies that advance corporate logics of efficiency, competition and profit maximization is commonplace. Market-driven logics and neoconservative ideals shape decision-making about what is taught, how material is taught, who teaches, who does research, who belongs, what counts as valid research and, ultimately, the purposes of higher education. Against this backdrop, in this essay, I provide a critical analysis of the ways in which market-driven and neoconservative values shape the experiences of junior faculty of color in American research universities. That is to say, I am concerned with the ways in which neoliberal racialization structures the lives of junior faculty of color in the US academy. In my analysis, I reason that in order to substantively improve conditions for junior faculty of color, there is a need for those concerned with change to fine-tune understandings of the US academy – its history and new re-alignment with the market, neoconservative ideals and corporate values – identifying in the process the non-benign impact of the corporate university on scholarship and teaching, working conditions and visions for social justice and equity.

Neocon Greece: V. D. Hanson’s War on History

Given the fact that Victor Davis Hanson has a habit of making his views on almost everything public, it is not difficult to fit them into a neoconservative ideology. His remarks about ex-President Bush, the Iraq war or the threat of Mexican immigration to the identity of the United States leave no margin for doubt on this point. What we want to do in this article is to show how this ideology lays the foundations upon which he builds his proposals on the character of ancient Greek society, and especially on hoplite combat. Given these theoretical premises, it is easy to understand that the result is a complete distortion of the history of Greece, a distortion Hanson wants to expand to the entire history of the Western civilization.

El paradigma neoconservador de las relaciones internacionales : ¿debate retardatario o aporte marginal?

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the fragmentation of the Soviet bloc have given rise to a proliferation of various diagnoses about what would be some of the basic characteristics of the new international context. These include the neoconservative analysis focused on the notion of "end of history" proposed by Francis Fukuyama and that of Samuel P. Huntington's civilizational cleavage. The present work focus on the complex interaction between the neoconservative ideology in the field of international relations and an international system characterized by its multipolarity, patterns of complex interdependence and the presence of intermestic agendas of increasing importance and diffusion.

Can the PSI be Legitimate for the Nonproliferation Regime? A Critical Analysis

The Proliferation Security Initiative was launched in 2003 by the Bush administration right after the So San incident. Its primary purpose is to interdict the spread of WMD and their delivery systems. Due to the provocative and challenging characteristics of the Initiative, which are inconsistent with conventional international law, there are some objections against the Initiative. This paper answers the highly topical questions regarding the Initiative in three parts. The first part addresses the origin and development of the Initiative. The second part critically analyzes the background of the Initiative such as the neoconservative ideology of the Bush administration and its world strategy, international terrorism, and the U.S. arms industry. The third part scrutinizes questions concerning the preemptive use of force for self-defense and the interdiction of foreign vessels on the territorial and high seas. The Initiative is also examined from a viewpoint of customary international law.

Howard's End: a narrative memoir of political contrivance, neoconservative ideology and the Australian history curriculum

In August 2006, Australia's conservative prime minister John Howard convened a history summit in Canberra. The purported goal of the summit was the framing of a nationally‐acceptable curriculum in Australian history. However, as this article suggests, Howard's hidden intention was to use the summit as a device for introducing a narrowly traditionalist syllabus that would be personally pleasing to the prime minister. As it happened, Howard's plan encountered resistance from members of the history education community and, after several diversions and alarms, was discarded when the conservative coalition government was defeated in the general election of November 2007. The author was closely involved in these proceedings and this article constitutes a contextualisd memoir of events.

Neoconservative democratization in theory and practice: Developing democrats or raising radical Islamists?

Neoconservative democratization took on new life after 9/11: the United States should be a global guarantor of liberty, even if coercing this freedom. The justification was a hybrid of liberal democratic peace and realist national security. However, this aggressive democratization is contradictory: the philosophical foundation is insincerely decorated by liberal language that overlooks damaging compromises when ideology is put into practice. Uzbekistan, with whom a close partnership in the war against terror was developed and then was further deepened along supposedly democratic development lines, is used as a critical case study. In short, the contradictions in neoconservative ideology create flaws in policy implementation that do not create smoother paths to development, prevent democratic consolidation and weaken American security interests.

Political and moral myths in American foreign policy: the neoconservative question

The United States, under the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, entered in two major wars and saw enacted a series of controversial anti-terrorism measures (warrantless wiretapping, military prison at Guantanamo Bay, the use of enhanced interrogation techniques [torture]). In light of these extreme policies in post-September 11 America, much attention has been paid to the neoconservative ideology and its shaping of Bush Administration policy. Appropriately, opponents of the policies of the Bush administration including John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 have suggested a return to a traditional American foreign policy, emphasizing military restraint and multilateral cooperation. Underlying these appeals is the notion that neoconservatism represents a break from American foreign-policy tradition, an aberration that can be reversed. The approach in this essay instead treats neoconservatism not as an aberration in American thought, but as a virulent strain of the enduring American ideology, chiefly exceptionalism. The recurring moral motifs in America's foreign policy are examined, with particular focus on the Cold War era and the subsequent post-Soviet era, which culminated in today's War on Terror. It is further argued that the recurring rhetorical themes of US foreign policy its moral example, its democratic mission, permanent threats to democracy were drawn upon to justify the War on Terror, and more particularly, the Iraq war. Because of the nature of the enemy in this case (Islamofascists in their parlance), this American narrative took on interesting mutations, stressing the supposed medievalism and backwardness of the enemy which drew upon well-established Orientalist motifs and stereotypes; the selling of the war was hence facilitated by these cultural reference points, which characterized America's War on Terror as a struggle between modernity and the premodern.

Treatment responses to the drugs problem in Warsaw

The aim of this article is to trace developments in treatment response to drug problem in the capital city of Poland–Warsaw which is its largest municipal city and which has been the starting point for new consumption patterns as well as for new treatment ideologies. Although the focus of this analysis is on the 1990s and the 2000s, to improve our understanding of current treatment responses, earlier decades will be briefly examined. Drug treatment and its expansion cannot only be considered in terms of a rational solution to epidemiological trends, but rather as a reflection of the changing public definition of the drug problem. Initial definition of drug abuse as resulting from inadequate social environment laid foundations for therapeutic communities located far away from ‘bad influence’ of family or peers, HIV panic paved a way to harm reduction, criminalization of drug possession associated with neo-conservative ideologies froze drug treatment structures for more than a decade, and eventually new system of funding health services encouraged the private sector to enter the field.

Australia's History under Howard, 1996-2007

This article argues that since the election of his Coalition government in 1996, John Howard and his conservative allies in government and the media have waged a long campaign to influence the representation and public understanding of Australian history. They have sought to play down the historical harm done to Indigenous Australians and to emphasize more affirming stories of the rise of a new, democratic nation. The conservatives' waging of the “history wars” has been motivated by neoconservative ideology imported from the United States, the political interests of the Coalition government, and the personal background and convictions of the prime minister. Despite sustained criticism of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as well as the National Museum of Australia and many academic historians, and despite attempts to institute a national history curriculum, this article concludes that the history wars, for all their smoke and fury, have had only transient effects on the practice of Australian history.

Confronting the new conservatism: the rise of the Right in America

Acknowledgments Introduction: Confronting the New ConservatismMichael J. ThompsonPart I What Is the New Conservatism?1 America's Conservative Landscape: The New Conservatism and the Reorientation of American Democracy Michael J. Thompson2 Cultural Rage and the Right-Wing Intellectuals Philip Green3 Considerations on the Origins of Neoconservatism: Looking Backward Stanley Aronowitz4 The New Political Right in the United States: Reaction, Rollback, and Resentment Chip BerletPart II The New Conservatism at Home5 From Neoconservative to New Right: American Conservatives and the Welfare StateCharles Noble6 Tearing Down the Wall: Conservative Use and Abuse of Religion in Politics Diana M. Judd7 Paradox or Contradiction: The Marriage Mythos in Neoconservative Ideology R. Claire Snyder8 The Neoconservative Assault on the Courts: How Worried Should We Be? Thomas M. KeckPart III The Global Reach of the New Conservative Ideology9 The Imperial Presidency: The Legacy of Reagan's Central America PolicyGreg Grandin10 The Neocon Con Game: Nihilism RevisitedNicholas Xenos11 One-Dimensional Men: Neoconservatives, Their Allies and Models Lawrence Davidson12 Resisting the Right: Challenging the Neoconservative Agenda Stephen Eric BronnerContributorsIndex

From British “Pride” to Indian “Bride”

From British “Pride” to Indian “Bride”

Beyond Strauss, lies, and the war in Iraq: Hannah Arendt’s critique of neoconservatism

ABSTRACTWhat are we to make of the neoconservative challenge to traditional international thought? Should we content ourselves, as many have done, to return to classical realism in response? Rather than offer another realist assessment of neoconservative foreign policy this article turns to Hannah Arendt. In a very different language, Arendt articulated a critique of the dangers of moralism in the political realm that avoids realist cynicism. She is also better placed to challenge the neoconservative vision of international affairs, ideological conviction, and their relationship to democratic society. Reading Arendt against Leo Strauss suggests that the fundamental problem with neoconservative ideology concerns its understanding of the place of philosophy in the public realm, the relationship between political thought and practice, ideas and action. She suggests why neoconservatives may be experts at selling wars but seem less adept at winning them.

The Right-Wing Attack on Critical and Public Education in the United States: From Neoliberalism to Neoconservativism

This article discusses how neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies, policies, and political projects inform the changing nature of educational privatization efforts by the right wing. It contends that these projects, which are global in nature, threaten the development of forms of education conducive to the expansion of democratic social relations. The author argues that the struggle for critical public education could not be more necessary and worthwhile at the present moment.

Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in U.S. Foreign Policy

How should we explain the recent unilateralist turn in U.S. foreign policy? Some accounts treat growing American unilateralism as a passing aberration attributable to the neoconservative ideology of the Bush administration. This paper, by contrast, traces U.S. unilateralism to the structural effects, at home and abroad, of the end of the Cold War. Internationally, the removal of the Soviet threat has undermined the “institutional bargain” that once guided relations between the U.S. and its major allies. Absent Cold War imperatives, the U.S. is less willing to provide collective goods through strong international institutions and other states are less likely to defer to U.S. demands for special privileges that exempt the U.S. from normal multilateral constraints. Domestically, the end of the Cold War has weakened the ability of presidents to resist the appeals of powerful veto players whose interests are threatened by multilateral commitments. These factors suggest that American unilateralism may have deeper roots and more staying power than many expect.

Articles: Trapped in the Dead Ground: US Counter-insurgency Strategy in Iraq

This article reassesses US counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and argues that its relative lack of success has been due to limited intelligence, a failure to secure political conditions which enhance counter-insurgency and an over-reliance on Israeli counter-insurgency methods. The article suggests that this failure of strategy has been in part due to the high political visibility of neoconservative ideology during the first Bush administration. It has led to a situation in Iraq where the outcome remains far from certain and the article suggests that the increasing escalation of insurgency contains the potential to lead to a revolutionary transformation of Iraqi politics and society.

Postmodern Thinking

•Summary: Postmodern discourse in contemporary social work literature has captured a growing audience and is raising a serious challenge for social work theory and practice. While attention is being focused on this new post-activist work the role and function of the welfare state in many western democratic countries is being devalued. At the same time state-based services and resources are being cut, with social workers becoming prime targets for rationalization. Addressing and responding to this postmodern ‘turn’is one of the major challenges that confront social work today: a concern that needs urgent attention if social work is to remain a viable player in the ‘post welfare’debate. •Findings: Social work needs to wake up from the enticing, almost mesmerizing effect of postmodern discourse and take another look at the way economic, gender and colonial issues continue to lie at the root of injustice and impoverishment. Focusing on the local and the contextuality of the specific takes attention away from the pervasive power of structural forces. Rather than call for the negation of grand theories, social work needs to realign itself with a more, rather than less, national and global focus. •Applications: Postmodern social work argues for the jettisoning of ‘grand’or ‘universal’social change theories on which social work was founded, in favour of the re-appreciation of the local and the everyday contexts of practice as sites for action and resistance. Underlying this development is a neo-conservative ideology that creates great discrepancies between rich and poor and undermines traditional social work theory and practice. Ultimately social work must refocus its attention on exposing global economic inequalities and oppressive gender and ethnicity-based relations across the globe. Social work will survive in its mission if it takes on this challenge in addition to the micro-deconstruction offered by the postmodern discourse. Finding a way forward means combining the personal with the political so that both are integrated into a more relevant social work discourse.

Dark victory: America's second war against Iraq

A prominent national security analyst provides a critical examination of the origins, objectives, conduct, and consequences of the U.S. war against Iraq in this major new study. Focusing on the intersection of world politics, U.S. foreign policy, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Jeffrey Record presents a full-scale policy analysis of the war and its aftermath. As he looks at the political and strategic legacies of the 1991 Gulf War, the impact of 9/11 and neo-conservative ideology on the George W. Bush White House, and the formulation of the Bush Doctrine on the use of force, he assesses rather than describes, judges rather than recites facts. He decries the Bush administration's threat conflation of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and calls U.S. plans inadequate to meet postwar challenges in Iraq.With the support of convincing evidence, the author concludes that America's war against Iraq was both unnecessary and damaging to long-term U.S. security interests. He argues that there was no threatening Saddam-Osama connection and that even if Iraq had the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration believed necessitated war, it could have been readily deterred from using them, just as it had been in 1991. Record faults the administration for preventive, unilateralist policies that alienated friends and allies, weakened international institutions important to the United States, and saddled America with costly, open-ended occupation of an Arab heartland. He contends that far from being a major victory against terrorism, the war provided Islamic jihadists an expanded recruiting base and a new front of operations against Americans. Such a solid, thought-provoking study merits attention.

In search of the public and the private: Philosophy of education in post-war Japan

The focus of this paper is on Japanese philosophy of education in the post-war period. We begin with a historical account, concentrating on developments in ideas and their interrelation with policy, and then go on to discuss aspects of the contemporary scene. Central to our concerns here are the ways in which there has been an impoverishment of the public and private realms, especially with the collusion of private and national interests under the sway of neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies. We conclude our discussion by identifying some current trends in Japanese philosophy of education, highlighting ways in which new developments in the subject may lay the way for restoring and enhancing the relationship between the private and the public.

Food Banks and Food Security: Welfare Reform, Human Rights and Social Policy. Lessons from Canada?

In the past twenty years food banks have established themselves as one of the fastest–growing charitable industries in first world societies. As institutionalized centres or clearing houses for the redistribution of donated and surplus food they have emerged as a key frontline response to the growing problem of food poverty and inequality. As welfare states have been restructured and cut back and basic entitlements have been denied, food banks have become secondary extensions of weakened social safety nets. This paper explores the growth of food banking in Canada and analyses its role in terms of advancing the human right to food, its effectiveness in achieving food security and the extent to which it contributes to, and/or counters the increasing emphasis by governments on welfare reform policies informed by neo–conservative ideology. Food banks are examined from the perspective of their origins and purposes, institutionalization, usage, food distributed and effectiveness. The rise of food banks in Canada is concrete evidence both of the breakdown of the social safety net and the commodification of social assistance. As such, they undermine the state’s obligation, as ratified in international conventions, to respect, protect and fulfil the human right to food. They enable governments to look the other way and neglect food poverty and nutritional health and well–being. A possible future role for food banks in countries where they are already established lies in public education and advocacy, but their institutionalization makes this seem an unlikely course. In countries where they are in their infancy, the question of whether to support their development should be a matter of urgent public debate.

Standardizing Globally, Responding Locally: The New Infrastructure, ISO 14000, and Canadian Agriculture

Neo-conservative ideology and the power of capital have increased significantly over the past two decades. Trade relationships and trade agreements between advanced capitalist nations have been negotiated largely in secret and with input limited to large corporations and trade associations. More recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) attempted to develop a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) established a committee to study a Multilateral Investment Treaty (MIA). These initiatives, which would grant corporations the unrestricted right to buy, sell, and move their business at their discretion, would reduce and/or eliminate the rights of countries to limit foreign investment and to impose reasonable standards of behaviour on investors.