Reagan Administration Research Articles

To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré by Reed Brody

Reviewed by: To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré by Reed Brody Naomi Roht-Arriaza (bio) Reed Brody, To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré (Columbia University Press 2022), ISBN 9780231202589, 296 pages. When the verdict was announced in a Dakar courtroom in May 2016, it marked the culmination of a decades-long effort to bring Chad’s former dictator, Hissène Habré, to justice for crimes against humanity. It was also the first time that domestic courts located outside the country where the crimes took place brought a former head of state to justice for international crimes. The remarkable saga of the Habré case is told in a recent book by Reed Brody, former counsel at Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a key actor in supporting, guiding, and backing the case over many years. The book is required reading for anyone interested in international justice or human rights, but it’s also a moving meditation on the effect of North-South power dynamics on activists, the personal toll on those involved of continuing to fight, and all the ways in which the stars must align for justice to prevail. Habré ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990. According to one of the first truth commissions, established after his overthrow, he killed at least 40,000 people, tortured thousands, razed villages, and attacked ethnic groups he perceived as potential opponents. He was supported in this by the US Reagan administration, which saw him as a bulwark against Libyan leader Mohamar Qaddafi, and by the French. Eventually, he was removed in a coup, and took up a gilded exile in Senegal, helped by the millions he stole from the Chadian treasury. Brody tells the story of Habré’s misrule succinctly, but most of the book focuses on his victims and their almost forty-year struggle for justice. He writes chronologically about the investigation and trial, focusing on major incidents, twists and turns, and the strategic decisions (good and bad) that drove the process. I. EVERYTHINGEVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE One of the takeaways from the book involves the need for those seeking justice to look everywhere, and to play multilevel chess. Dictators and war criminals have huge advantages of money, contacts, and powerful networks to protect them. To fight back, advocates and victims must use all the avenues they can simultaneously and sequentially. This insight isn’t unique to the team pursuing Habré: the efforts to bring Augusto Pinochet to justice in the 1990s spanned not only Spain and the United Kingdom (as well as Chile, of course), but also Belgium, Argentina, France, and other possible forums.1 As both Brody and Chadian lawyer for the victims Jacqueline Moudeïna (in a foreword) note, the precedent of Pinochet’s arrest in London, and its positive impact on both prosecutions in Chile and on efforts to use universal [End Page 335] jurisdiction against despots elsewhere, were important to the Chadians as they considered their strategy. But more than any previous efforts, the Habré case drew on a wealth of international and regional forums and strategically combined them. When it looked like the Senegalese government would expel Habré, putting him beyond the reach of justice, lawyers for the victims went to the UN Committee on Torture to pressure Senegal to honor its “extradite or prosecute” commitments under the Convention Against Torture.2 When Senegal refused to act on a Belgian request to extradite Habré for trial in Belgium or to try him in Senegal, they convinced the Belgian government to complain to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ’s subsequent decision was a huge win for human rights advocates, establishing that the extradite or prosecute provisions of the Torture Convention (and other human rights, anti-terrorist act, and anti-corruption treaties) could not be indefinitely ignored or delayed.3 The African Union (AU) eventually became a key political actor in creating the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) that convicted Habré. Brody’s book, written for a general audience, doesn’t detail the legal background, structure, and operations of the court that eventually tried and convicted Habré. But it’s worth pausing a moment to...

레이건 행정부의 대소련 전략(1981-1985)과 트럼프 행정부의 대중국 전략(2017-2021) 비교연구: 대전략의 관점에서

레이건 행정부의 대 소련전략과 트럼프 행정부의 대중국전략은 미국 패권전략의 변화를 볼 수 있다는 측면에서 매우 중요하다. 따라서 이 연구는 미국 주요 문서를 중심으로 1981년부터 1985년까지 레이건 행정부의 대소전략과 2017년부터 2021년까지 트럼프 행정부의 대중전략을 대전략의 관점에서 군사, 경제, 정치체제 부문으로 나누어 비교하였다. 연구결과, 레이건 행정부는 봉쇄전략이라는 대전략의 원칙하 공세적 군사전략, 유럽을 통한 간접보복 방식의 경제 전략, 자유 민주주의 독려 전략을 시행하였다. 트럼프 행정부의 경우 비자유 패권주의라는 대전략의 전제하에 중국에 대한 공격적인 군사전략, 직접 무역보복 전략을 행하였다. 그러나 정치체제 부문의 전략에 있어서는 초기 유화책에서 강경책으로 선회하였다.

Ronald Reagan and Menachem Begin: Bridge across Stormy Waters

abstract Throughout the first two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency, there seemed to be a consistent discord between him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. However, this article aims to demonstrate that despite any apparent disagreements between the two leaders, the relationship between their respective countries remained robust and durable during their tenures.

The Iran Contra Affair: Reagan's Greatest Failure

The paper is focused on the individuals who were involved in the affair directly and those who investigated the under the table dealings of the Reagan administration, as well as Reagan's part in the affair. It also looks at how the affair came to light, and how the whole affair was swept under the rug within a few years due to popular U.S. Cold War beliefs and the fear of communism spreading. Even those appointed to investigate Reagan could not do much, since he was so popular, and would remain so after what he had done came to light. He was essentially slapped on the wrist for having a "lax managerial style", and was not removed from office. In the end, those convicted for their roles in the arms dealing were pardoned, even as late as 1991, by president HW Bush, who was Reagans vice president.

Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy by Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard

Reviewed by: Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy by Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard Aryeh Neier (bio) Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), ISBN 9781108495639 (hard-back), 324 pages. Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, a Danish historian teaching at a Swedish university, has written an excellent account of the way that the United States Congress, through its struggles in the 1980s with the Reagan Administration, helped to make the promotion of international human rights an important ongoing component of American foreign policy. His book, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy, is deeply researched. To one who was a close observer and participant in those struggles as they were taking place, Søndergaard’s highly detailed reporting seems flawless. Most of his judgments seem well-considered and fair. And yet, despite his book’s many virtues, it appears to me that Søndergaard has told only part of the story. It was not only struggles with Congress during the Reagan years that led to an ongoing American commitment to promote human rights. It was also the focus on human rights reporting in the mainstream American press during that period and the emergence of an array of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to the human rights cause. The press coverage and the lobbying by NGOs complemented and contributed to the efforts of those members of Congress who were at the forefront of disputes with the Reagan administration. In turn, of course, the battles waged by members of Congress provided material for press attention to human rights, and NGOs built their constituencies by mobilizing their supporters around struggles in Congress. Before the 1970s, the international human rights cause did not attract much attention. It was rarely an issue in the US Congress. Press coverage was scarce. And a civil society movement to promote human rights barely existed. Amnesty International had been founded in 1961, but while it caught on in a few European countries, it had only a small following in the United States. Also, in those days, it restricted its activities to very few issues. Its main activity was to identify “prisoners of conscience” in a number of countries and to organize letter-writing campaigns for them. All of this changed in the 1970s because human rights became a focal point in the Cold War struggle. The most important developments were the emergence of a small dissident movement, quickly subjected to harsh repression in Moscow, at the heart of the Soviet empire; a military coup that was accompanied by extensive torture and killings that overthrew a democratically elected leftist government in Chile; and large scale protests against the Apartheid government in South Africa that were violently suppressed. The geopolitical alignments of the governments engaged in repression became a central part of the story. Some reacted to abuses because of their political sympathies for certain victims of repression. Others were insistent that all such abuses should be condemned and that human rights should be upheld regardless of Cold War alignments. [End Page 157] A member of Congress who responded to the human rights developments in different parts of the world was Representative Donald Fraser of Minnesota. He conducted hearings on those developments and was the principal author of legislation that would change the way the United States Department of State would deal with human rights. Fraser’s legislation mandated the creation of the post of Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, provided that the Department would issue annual “country reports” on the human rights practices of governments worldwide, and prohibited security aid to governments that had practiced gross abuses of rights. The latter provision was seen as a repudiation of the role of Henry Kissinger in facilitating the military coup in 1973 that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. The legislation was vetoed by President Gerald Ford, for whom Kissinger served as Secretary of State. It was adopted by Congress over Ford’s veto. An essential part of the process that secured the votes needed to override Ford’s veto is that the legislation won the support of right-wing members of...

Review: Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture, by Corrina Laughlin

Book Review| February 01 2023 Review: Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture, by Corrina Laughlin Corrina Laughlin. Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021. 201 pp. Paperback $29.95. Terry Shoemaker Terry Shoemaker TERRY SHOEMAKER is an assistant teaching professor at Arizona State University. He holds advanced degrees in religious studies and has published books and articles on the topics of evangelicals in America, religion and sports, and popular culture. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2023) 100 (1): 107–109. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.1.107 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Terry Shoemaker; Review: Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture, by Corrina Laughlin. California History 1 February 2023; 100 (1): 107–109. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.1.107 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search American evangelicals, a politically active and vocal Protestant subgroup, first rose to political prominence in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration. In the past decade, evangelicals reclaimed a prominence in American news and media outlets due to their overwhelming support for the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump. Known for adopting new technological tools, evangelicals have successfully utilized digital resources to spread their message, values, and ethics. However, adoption of technology has many consequences, as Corrina Laughlin argues well in Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture. Simply stated, the digital world is “reshaping what it means to be an evangelical” (8). As a framework for her study, Laughlin establishes the concept of the “digital habitus,” a relational space that permits individuals to engage with one another and form echo chambers; however, the algorithmic systems that power the digital habitus are not neutral, and they influence the... You do not currently have access to this content.

Silence From the Great Communicator: The Early Years of the AIDS Epidemic Under the Reagan Administration

1981 not only commenced Ronald Reagan’s presidency but also marked the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The early framing of the disease as an exclusively homosexual affliction disadvantaged gay communities. This sexually transmitted disease proliferated across the United States; yet, the AIDS epidemic failed to reach the Reagan administration as a top priority until it was too late. When discussing the Reagan administration’s early response to AIDS, historians tend to follow one of two positions: avoid mentioning the disease and in its entirety; or blame Reagan’s homophobia for the deaths of thousands of Americans. The Reagan administration’s delayed response to the AIDS epidemic reveals the deadly consequences of a society primarily structured by heteronormativity and political expediency. From Federal internal suppression to public dismissal, the strategies to combat the AIDS epidemic highlight the politicization of public health issues that continue to plague the people of the United States.

Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America by Theresa Keeley

Reviewed by: Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America by Theresa Keeley Joseph P. Chinnici Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America. By Theresa Keeley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2020. Pp. xii, 352. $49.95. ISBN: 9781501750755.) Awarded the John Gilmary Shea Award by the American Catholic Historical Association in 2021, Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns is an important work. It richly illuminates multiple dimensions of post-conciliar divides in the Catholic community in the United States: the movement away from the Cold War alliances with conservative political structures in Latin America; the emergence in the 1960s of a leftward critique of U.S. foreign policy; the importance of missionary experiences and international exchanges as shaping internal divisions within the American Catholic community; the mirroring in the United States of polarized views on the presence of the Church in society, and different implementations of the Council in the 1980s. All of this is done through a singular focus on developments in El Salvador and Nicaragua (with some reference to other Latin American countries) and the role of the Maryknoll sisters. The bulk of the work covers the period from the murder in El Salvador of Maryknoll nuns Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, the Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and the lay missionary Jean Donovan (December, 1980) to the murder of the members of the Society of Jesus and their co-workers in November, 1989. After a very comprehensive and summary Introduction, Keeley breaks the period up into chapters. Chapter One describes the evolution of the missionary vision and its alliance with the option for the poor, while Chapter Two covers the opposition in Nicaragua between the Maryknoll congregation and U.S. backed strong man and the familial consortium of Anatasio Somoza. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters describe developments in El Salvador leading up the killing of Archbishop Romero and the strong alliance between the missionaries, liberation theology, and the Sandinistas. Here, the politically driven divide between the Reagan administration and its support by conservative Catholics fuels the domestic image campaign against allegedly pro-communist, radical religious women, liberation theology, and left-wing Catholicism. Politics and theology begin to blend as the various sides take different approaches to liturgy and the understanding of the “people’s Church.” Chapter 6, entitled “Real Catholics versus Maryknollers,” details the alliance between Tip O’Neill and the sisters. In doing so, it brings the divisive picture into particular sharpness by analyzing the gender bias of the conservative campaign when it paints a picture of the relationship between developments in Nicaragua and the role of women in society and Church. The last two chapters (7 and 8) cover the Nicaraguan Iran-Contra affair and the murders in El Salvador. The epilogue moves beyond the careful attention to documented historical data that marks the whole work and attempts to identify analogous divisions in the debates over the Catholic Church and the government’s health-care directives in the second decade of the twenty-first century. [End Page 221] The author is to be congratulated for providing a close analysis of how presidential policies, international developments, and religious perspectives crisscrossed and enabled the solidification of political Catholicism in the United States. While the argument is for the most part sound, it is also provocative and probably awaits modification. Attention to the economic disparity in Latin America is hinted at but never treated as a component part of the right-left divide. Relying on newspaper reports, the interpretive methodology offers little critique of the virtual reality created by the press, both left and right, for its own purposes. The analysis may also be modified when other archival depositories become available: the religious and political interventions of the Holy See, the discussions among the bishops, government sources that remain untapped. Still, this reviewer recommends Reagan’s Gun-Toting Nuns for all students of contemporary Catholicism and its divides. Joseph P. Chinnici Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press ...

БЕЛЫЙ ДОМ И КАПИТОЛИЙ: БИТВА ЗА ВЕРХОВНЫЙ СУД (ВТОРАЯ ПОЛОВИНА XX ВЕКА)

The U.S. Constitution requires the President to submit Supreme Court nominees to the Senate for its advice and consent. The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an event of major significance in American politics. Since the early 20th century, Presidents have submitted 62 nominations for the Court, including those for the post of Chief Justice. Of this total, 55 were confirmed (seven declined to serve). The article dissects the crucial constitutional disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government from the Eisenhower administration to the end of the Clinton administration, and examines the day-to-day working relations between the President and Congress, which go beyond the traditional discussions of Supreme Court decisions. The article analyzes the conflicts between the President and Congress in the field of shared power – nomination and confirmation of the Supreme Court Justices in the Senate. The research is based on historical and statistical data on the Supreme Court: its institutional development; decision trends; background, nomination; its relations with public, governmental, and other judicial bodies; and its influence. A special place in the article is given to the analysis of the policies of the Nixon, Reagan and Clinton administrations.

Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton (review)

Reviewed by: Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton Brian Whetstone Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. By Ben Railton. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. ix + 194 pp. Note on sources, index. $36.00 cloth. The tumultuous administration of Donald Trump and ensuing initiatives to examine American history and identity, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project, have produced extensive public and academic conversations about American patriotism and identity. Ben Railton's Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism intervenes in these scholarly and popular debates, tracing the history of American patriotism from the American Revolutionary era to the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s before concluding with a reflection on patriotism in the age of Trump. Railton's method reflects his background in English and American literature as he draws upon the writings and cultural works of a diverse spectrum of Americans across the nation's history, including such disparate works as Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the passionate appeal of Ponca chief Standing Bear in his 1879 trial, and the Wizard of Oz to underscore the appeal of patriotic sentiments across time. Less interested in rooting his analysis in original archival research, Of Thee I Sing works well as a broad synthesis of secondary literature on American patriotism, and Railton's accompanying Note on Sources will surely serve as a useful entry point for students and scholars of American identity looking to expand their research beyond Railton's overview. Railton identifies four varieties of United States patriotism: celebratory, mythic, active, and critical. Celebratory patriotism encompasses actions and shared rituals like the national anthem invested in portraying the US uncrit ically as the "greatest country in the world." Mythic patriotism, Railton argues, is the most dangerous because it generates mythologized narratives about the past that increasingly divided the US into communities perceived to belong to an idealized nation and "those overtly and violently excluded from it." In contrast to celebratory and mythic patriotism, active and critical patriotism constitute more constructive and inclusive patriotic impulses. The former involves active commitments to the US such as military service, social activism, and protest, while the latter stems from a desire to right historical wrongs and drive the country to live up to its high ideals for all Americans. Railton devotes considerable attention to developments in the Great Plains, particularly westward expansion, that generated expressions of critical patriotism, such as the works of Helen Hunt Jackson in the nineteenth century and the American Indian Movement in the late twentieth century. While Railton's work succeeds at introducing readers to a wide cast of historical actors, his analysis and insistence on dividing patriotism into four primary expressions tends to oversimplify complex historical developments. While characters come and go through each of the eras Railton analyzes, the four varieties of patriotism are unyielding and unchanging, presenting American history as one timeless, unchanging struggle between those who subscribe to celebratory and mythic forms of patriotism and those who place faith in active and critical patriotism. Despite this oversimplification, Of Thee I Sing still offers an important historical intervention into contemporary debates about American patriotism, nationalism, and identity. [End Page 111] Brian Whetstone Department of History University of Massachusetts Amherst Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

William Warren Scranton and the United Nations 1976-1977

During his year of service as the American ambassador to the United Nations, William Scranton, who had a distinguished career in domestic and foreign service before his appointment to the position in February 1976, faced a number of challenges during this time period. His first task was to improve the standing of the American delegation with other representatives following the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, especially when it came to delegates from the Third World. Scranton attempted to find a balance in the Middle Eastern disputes between Israel and much of the Arab world. Following this, Scranton dealt with the end of European imperialism in Africa through welcoming new member-states into the organization. The Cold War, even during the era of détente, was never far from the agenda, and Scranton helped pioneer the efforts to attack on the Soviet record on human rights, a tactic later used by representatives from the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry by James Cooper

<i>A Diplomatic Meeting: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Art of Summitry</i> by James Cooper

FREEZE! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War by Henry Richard Maar III

Henry Richard Maar III gives the reader the most definitive study yet of the nuclear weapons freeze movement and its impact on the arms race in the 1980s. (Full disclosure: As the chief foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy from 1977 to 1984, I wrote the U.S. Senate resolution favoring a nuclear freeze, which Senator Kennedy introduced jointly with Senator Mark O. Hatfield, a Republican from Oregon.) The book provides broad discussion of the U.S. and European peace movements, covering the policies of the Reagan administration, the role of Congress, debates within the Catholic Church, broader cultural and political trends, and the outcomes in national politics and U.S.-Soviet diplomacy.Maar traces the freeze movement's evolution from a grassroots movement to a national vehicle countering the Reagan administration. He is especially persuasive in his discussion of policy and politics. He convincingly highlights the freeze movement's catalytic role in helping to transform President Ronald Reagan's rhetoric, at least, from nuclear weapons to disarmament advocacy. Maar also tells a compelling story of how congressional leaders, including Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Silvio Conte (R-MA), were able to harness a more diffuse national movement behind a more focused congressional initiative. The book also captures well the irony, even the hypocrisy, of congressional support for the freeze while simultaneously voting in favor of new weapons systems such as the B-1 bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative.Maar acknowledges the tactical compromises the freeze movement found itself having to make with its political supporters, but he underestimates the contribution of the latter to elite support for the freeze. He gives little attention, for example, to how widely Senators Kennedy and Hatfield were able to garner academic, labor, professional, religious, think tank, and business support, which played a large role in transforming U.S. arms control policies in the 1980s.Maar also overstates his argument that the freeze movement played a major role in ending the Cold War. Although the movement did affect U.S. policies, far more decisive were such factors as the Soviet war in Afghanistan, anti-Communism in Eastern Europe, and the bankruptcy of the Communist system in the Soviet Union itself, not to mention the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev.In one of the book's best chapters, Maar examines the impact of nuclear weapons fears on political and popular culture in the 1980s. From Jonathan Schell's book The Fate of the Earth (1982) to the seminal made-for-TV film The Day After (1983), with references to comics, cartoon strips, Hollywood films, rock performances, and television shows, Maar vividly re-creates the spirit of the age and the freeze's place in it.The book is most effective, and moving, in its description of the rise and fall of the nuclear freeze movement itself. Maar achieves his goal of “decentering the narrative away from a top-down focus on the personalities of statesmen.” In the great tradition of U.S. popular movements, the freeze was perhaps most impressive as an expression of the grassroots, and Maar tells that story exceedingly well.

Scars of War: The Politics of Paternity and Responsibility for the Amerasians of Vietnam by Sabrina Thomas

<i>Scars of War: The Politics of Paternity and Responsibility for the Amerasians of Vietnam</i> by Sabrina Thomas

The Ends of Modernization: Nicaragua and the United States in the Cold War Era by David Johnson Lee

<i>The Ends of Modernization: Nicaragua and the United States in the Cold War Era</i> by David Johnson Lee

#Betita TaughtMe: Risk-Taking as a Coalitional Gesture

#Betita TaughtMe:Risk-Taking as a Coalitional Gesture Rafael R. Solórzano (bio) Betita's History of Risk-Taking Movidas One cannot discuss the waves of youth activism in 1990s California without talking about the indispensable femtorship of Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez.1 As a freedom fighter and icon of the civil rights, Chicana/o, and women's movements, Betita's accessibility and popular education tools shaped youth of color's political activism and "understanding of their roles in social change" over many generations.2 For these youth, "to fight for justice alongside" Betita "was to connect to a lineage of nearly a century of revolutionary struggle."3 As a writer and organizer, Martínez documented and contributed to multiple freedom movements—from San Francisco, California, to Washington, DC. Her commitment to revolutionary politics and the fight against white supremacy led her to become director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) New York office in her forties. She continuously was part of young militant activist efforts to confront "southern strongholds of racism" despite its risks.4 Not only was "the work … grueling, especially for a single parent," as Tony Platt documented, Betita also carried out her activism in areas considered too dangerous to organize, such as rural Mississippi. In 1964, SNCC launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project (MFSP) to draw attention to the ways Mississippi Black people and civil rights workers experienced intimidation and violent oppression.5 As part of SNCC's increasing militancy in the region, Betita's stouthearted participation in this project helped document and build a homegrown freedom movement that consisted of traveling across the South to interview civil rights leaders and collect letters from volunteers. She later published this material in Letters from Mississippi (1965). But the act was particularly perilous, and in fact, scholars and organizers have acknowledged that the MFSP movement took "tremendous risks to combat the evil of racism."6 I open this piece with Betita's contributions to SNCC and MFSP to [End Page 1031] situate her activist past and how her many years of activism offered Bay Area youth of color activists in the nineties an understanding of the transformative potential that risk-taking and coalition building can facilitate. As the movement scholar Karma Chavez writes, Betita provides a "helpful model for how to think about such coalitional orientations."7 In a conversation with Angela Davis on May 12, 1993, at UC San Diego, Betita emphasized how building coalitions in a "me-first" generation after the Reagan-Bush administration requires experimentation, risk, and self-sacrifice, similar to the seven Black youth who sat down at the Woolworth's lunch counter at the first sit-in on April 1, 1960.8 She shared: "I want to emphasize the point about risk. There's not a climate of taking risks today. …There has to be some of that spirit today. Let's experiment, we don't have all the answers; we certainly don't have to have the ideology down, you know the whole package. But let's see some things that are wrong and try to change them, and take risks."9 So much of Martínez's writings and activism teaches us to reconsider the possibilities of risk-taking practices, or what I like to call "risk-taking movidas," on behalf of Black, Indigenous, queer, and youth of color activists. Risk-taking movidas not only are high-risk actions linked to activists' personal costs of time and energy and anticipated dangers but are resourceful undertakings meant to inspire mobilizations that center a new vision of racial solidarity among youth of color, queer youth, and women of color.10 At times, these new communityorganizing practices involve discomfort, fear, and sacrifice, such as the sit-ins at bus terminals and lunch counters led by Black leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. It is this teaching that remains most prominent and, I believe, inspired many of us youth of color in California to shift from our comfort zones in order to challenge the intensification of nativism and the state's youth abandonment by building a massive coalition in the 1990s. Drawing on my experience as a queer Chicano youth organizer in academic...

From Anti-Government to Anti-Science: Why Conservatives Have Turned Against Science

Abstract Empirical data do not support the conclusion of a crisis of public trust in science. They do support the conclusion of a crisis of conservative trust in science: polls show that American attitudes toward science are highly polarized along political lines. In this essay, we argue that conservative hostility toward science is rooted in conservative hostility toward government regulation of the marketplace, which has morphed in recent decades into conservative hostility to government, tout court. This distrust was cultivated by conservative business leaders for nearly a century, but took strong hold during the Reagan administration, largely in response to scientific evidence of environmental crises that invited governmental response. Thus, science-particularly environmental and public health science-became the target of conservative anti-regulatory attitudes. We argue that contemporary distrust of science is mostly collateral damage, a spillover from carefully orchestrated conservative distrust of government.

The political effects of trade with Japan in the 1980s

AbstractThe 1974 trade act substantially increased the executive branch's authority in trade negotiations through the granting of fast‐track and Section 301 authority. This paper evaluates the effect on U.S. voting behavior resulting from trade with Japan over 1976–1992 time period. To capture U.S. trade exposures to Japan, we develop the Bartik index from Autor et al. (2013) for import competition with Japan and show that local exposure to import competition had statistically significant negative impacts on Republican presidential candidates over the 1976–1984 period. Although the second Reagan administration used Section 301 to open Japan's markets and Japanese firms shifted production to the United States, job‐creation effects of exports and foreign direct investment did not have any influence on voting outcomes.

Review: The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity, by Jessica Ordaz

Review: <i>The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity</i>, by Jessica Ordaz

Fighting for Farmers

Fighting for Farmers