Transatlantic Partnership Research Articles

Transatlantic partnership: Withering strength?

Despite the historic success of the Atlantic alliance during the Cold War the future of the partnership between the United States and its European allies seems to be uncertain. Following the dramatic changes in the international system after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, increasingly different interests have begun to pull America and Europe apart. Obviously, different American‐European estimates with regard to the current and emerging security‐political threats and the ideas about an adequate answer to the new challenges have caused already a remarkable loss of the alliance's decisiveness and flexibility. In addition, the European disunity with respect to a realistic security and defense policy and to the future role of the alliance makes it more difficult to find an American‐European consensus on vital questions. The accelerated efforts of the European Union to develop its own defence capability cannot solve the problem. Rather, this step could even further undermine the alliance in the future. If the current trend of different political thinking and decision‐making prevails, the strength of the transatlantic partnership might wither.

Presidents and prime ministers: conviction politics in the Anglo-American tradition

I am a conviction politician declared Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and her stand against consensus politics won immediate endorsement from Ronald Reagan. Both promised to provide strong leadership, establish new priorities and restore fundamental principles to national politics. To many they appeared to form a transatlantic partnership, but they were not the first. Looking back over 200 years of political history, Patricia Lee Sykes examines presidents and prime ministers to show how idealistic leaders have challenged liberal ideas and institutions within the Anglo-American tradition, and in the process have altered the political landscape. She reveals how conviction-style politicians have appeared in the US and UK at the same time: individuals who articulated similar ideas that adapted liberal ideology to shifting circumstances and who achieved fundamental change at critical moments in their nation's history. The comparative study of chief executives examines not only Reagan and Thatcher, but also three other pairs of leaders who used moral rhetoric to challenge the status quo: Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George; Grover Cleveland and William Gladstone; and Andrew Jackson and Robert Peel. Sykes discusses each pair, describing their leadership styles and their roles in the liberal tradition. She then analyzes the mercurial context of conviction politics over time to show when party politics, the media, the state, or global affairs can prevent even the most visionary of leaders from enacting their programmes. Sykes also charts an increasing convergence of political practice and philosophy in the two countries - particularly with the presidentialization of the prime minister - and tracks the tensions created between executive authority, individual freedom and the public good when leaders purposefully avoid consensus to pursue their own lofty visions.

The NCI All Ireland Cancer Conference

The NCI All Ireland Cancer Conference

For Europe or Empire?: French Colonial Ambitions and the European Army Plan

This study deals with the furst attempt at postwar European integration in the defense and foreign policy fields. The European army plan was laid forth by Paris in 1950 after Washington demanded a German contribution to Western defense. Claiming that she could not accept a German presence in NATO, France instead drafted a plan for a supranational, European army. This ill-fated proposal occupied much of the political debate both within Western Europe and between France and the United States until 1954, when the European Defence Community Treaty was buried, ironically in the same state that had conceived it, by the French National Assembly. Research has generally concentrated on the European arena when analyzing this episode. A basic premise of this study is that the European army plan must be approached from a broader global perspective. The proposal is here positioned within a wider context involving the major postwar processes of the emergence of the transatlantic partnership, European integration, and decolonization. The thesis is that it was not merely the fear of German rearmament that prompted Paris to pursue a European army option rather than a NATO solution. Instead, the author highlights the significance of French colonial ambitions, specifically against the background of the Indochina War, coupled with the nature of Franco-American relations. The study involves two approaches. First, American hegemony over Western Europe and the particular dynamics of this relationship form a core of the study. It is argued that the nature of the transatlantic relationship granted France a certain leverage over the United States, particularly since Washington made clear that European unity was a foremost foreign policy priority. Secondly, patterns of image-construction and the importance of perceptions to foreign policy making are discussed in order to illuminate the French view of both the colonial arena and America's position in this context. A significant portion of the study is dedicated to tracing the evolution and crystallization of French views of America as a disturbing factor in the colonial world even after Washington began supplying France with assistance in the Indochina War, and this analysis is taken back to World War II. The connection between the European army plan and the Indochina War in Franco-American diplomatic interaction is then traced for the years 1950 to 1954. (Less)

Bit by bit: building a transatlantic partnership for the information age

Building on Barry Bozeman's classic Bureaucracy and Red Tape, this book provides the most comprehensive treatment available of red tape research and theory, with new chapters that focus on the recent work on red tape research that has burgeoned in the fields of public managment, public administration, and public policy.

German‐American relations: The case for a preference

Germany's main interests likely will continue to be the maintenance of the transatlantic partnership, the further integration of Western Europe, and all‐European stability. Given its dependence on access to world markets, Germany requires a peaceful international environment. German history has demonstrated the need for a continued Western policy orientation. While European unification remains a long‐term vision, Germany is well‐advised to give highest priority to German‐American relations.

The Transatlantic Partnership: An American View

The Transatlantic Partnership: An American View

From transatlantic partnership to permanent war?

From transatlantic partnership to permanent war?

Britain and the ‘Great Betrayal’: Anglo-American Relations and the Struggle for United States Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919–1920

Historians have examined in great detail the dramatic debate in American politics over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles which culminated in the physical collapse of President Wilson and the defeat of his peace programme. The failure of Wilson to carry his programme through the United States senate represented also a distinct setback for the peacemaking strategies of the British government whose policies at the peace conference had been based in large measure on the hope that an enduring trans-Atlantic partnership could be established. The British government followed closely the American treaty debate, sending Viscount Grey, the former Liberal foreign secretary, as a special ambassador, and played a significant if unsuccessful role in the outcome of the drama. It is the intention of this article to examine the attitudes and role of the Lloyd George government through the latter part of 1919 and into 1920 with regard to the fate of the Treaty of Versailles in America, and in particular to reassess the part played by Viscount Grey. It is hoped to shed some new light on the dilemmas of foreign policy and defence strategy encountered at this time by Britain and the empire, as well as to elucidate certain aspects of the American struggle. Since the Covenant of the League of Nations lay at the heart of the American fight over the treaty, it is hoped also that new insight will be provided on the uncertain inauguration of the League.

Yankee Financiers and the Establishment of Trans-Atlantic Partnerships: A Re-Examination

Yankee Financiers and the Establishment of Trans-Atlantic Partnerships: A Re-Examination

A Note on the Authorship of The Case of our Fellow-Creatures (1784)

A NOTE ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE CASE OF OUR FELLOW-CREATURES (1784) By Patrick C. Lipscomb III and Edward C. Milligan* Among the writings ascribed to Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) is a pamphlet entitled The Case of Our Fellow-Creatures, tL· Oppressed Africans.1 The evidence for Benezet's authorship is, however, singularly lacking. A cursory inspection of the pamphlet itself shows that it was issued by the (London) Meeting for Sufferings of the Society of Friends and signed by "John Ady, Clerk to the Meeting for Sufferings."2 As to the author or authors who actually composed the pamphlet, the work itself is silent. George S. Brookes, however, in his biography Friend Anthony Benezet lists The Case of Our Fellow-Creatures as one of Benezet's works.3 Unfortunately, Brookes does not give any authority for his ascription. He may have derived it from Halkett and Laing,4 whose authority is Sabin.5 But Sabin gives no source for the ascription, merely citing a contemporary review of the pamphlet in The Gentleman's Magazine, which lists the pamphlet anonymously .6 * Since the writings of Anthony Benezet were read equally by English and American Friends, it is appropriate that this article should have been written by a transatlantic partnership: Patrick C. Lipscomb III, Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Edward H. Milligan, Librarian of the Library of the Society of Friends, Friends House, London. 1 Society of Friends, London, Meeting for Sufferings, TL· Case of Our Fellow -Creatures, tL· Oppressed Africans, Respectfully Recommended to tL· Serious Consideration of tL· Legislature of Great Britain by tL· People called Quakers (London : Printed by James Phillips, 1783). The pamphlet was reprinted in 1784 by James Phillips, and also by Joseph Crukshank of Philadelphia. In 1792 the remaining copies of the two London printings were reissued at the instance of Meeting for Sufferings (Meeting for Sufferings, Minutes, XXXIX, 45, 63). 2 John Ady (1744?-1812) was not the clerk of the meeting in the sense generally understood, but the paid secretary or (in later terminology) Recording Clerk. He served in this capacity from 1783 to 1811. 3 George S. Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937), pp. 197, 203. 4 Samuel Halkett and John Laing [and others], Dictionary ofAnonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (new and enlarged edition; 7 vols.; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1926-1934), VI, 305. 6 Joseph Sabin [and others], A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, from its Discovery to tL· Present Time (29 vols.; New York [and Portland, Maine]: Joseph Sabin [etc.], 1868-1936), II, 60. 6 TL· Gentleman's Magazine, LV, Pt. I (May, 1785), 377. 47 48Quaker History The evidence for Benezet's authorship would seem, therefore, to rest solely on Sabin's and Brookes's unsubstantiated ascriptions , and the whole problem of the authorship is thus open to question. To whom then should the pamphlet be ascribed? As the work itself gives the Meeting for Sufferings as the issuing body, one must turn for new light on the authorship to the extant manuscript records of that body, preserved at the Library of the Society of Friends, Friends House, London.7 It may be well to detail the steps that led to the publication of this pamphlet by the Meeting for Sufferings. The subject of slavery had occupied a good deal of attention at London Yearly Meeting in 1783, and the Meeting for Sufferings on 20 June 1783 appointed a large committee to give continuing attention to the subject.8 The minute book of this committee is extant (Friends House, London) and supplements the Meeting for Sufferings' minutes in showing what action was taken to bring the slavery question before influential members of church and state. Among the steps agreed upon was the preparation of a pamphlet. On 26 September 1783, John Lloyd and William Dillwyn were appointed by the Slave Trade Committee to "prepare a short address to the public on the subject of the slave trade."9 A draft of the address was presented to the committee on 3 October and referred to a sub-committee composed of John Wright, Thomas Knowles, and James Phillips,10...