Why did the Truman administration reject a pragmatic approach to the Taiwan Strait conflict—recognizing Beijing and severing ties with Taipei—and instead choose the path of strategic ambiguity? Dean Chen sheds light on current US policy by exploring the thoughts and deliberations of President Truman and his top advisers, among them Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Livingston Merchant,    More >

How did Macedonia attain its status as the only Yugoslav republic to achieve a nonviolent transition to independence in the early 1990s? And why did the initial peace fail to endure? Sasho Ripiloski traces Macedonia's peaceful extrication from the Yugoslav morass and then examines the new country's subsequent state-building efforts and offers an explanation for its later collapse into    More >

How has the World Food Programme come to be so well-regarded—even in the US—despite being part of the much-maligned UN system? What are the political and institutional conditions that have enabled it to accrue legitimacy as an international organization? And how much substance lies behind the perceptions of its effectiveness? Finding the answers to these questions in his analysis of    More >

Despite the homogenizing effect of globalization, identity politics have gained significance—numerous groups have achieved political goals and gained recognition based on, for example, their common gender, religion, ethnicity, or disability. Are each of these groups unique, or can comparisons be drawn among them? What is the impact of globalization on identity politics? The authors of    More >

Why do some enduring, violent rivalries between states end peacefully, while others drag on interminably or cease only with the complete collapse or defeat of one of the states? Eric Cox provides extensive evidence to support his explanation of how these disputes end, comparing successful and failed attempts to terminate rivalries in Latin America and the Middle East.    More >

Why do states join ad hoc military coalitions? What motivated South Korea to contribute significantly to the Iraq War "coalition of the willing," while such steadfast allies as Turkey and Germany resisted US pressure to become burden-sharing partners? Drawing on his extensive examination of South Korean, German, and Turkish politics in the approach to and during the Iraq War, Daniel    More >

Did the United Nations successfully help to build a just, peaceful state and society in postconflict East Timor? Has transitional justice satisfied local demands for accountability and/or reconciliation? What lessons can be learned from the UN’s efforts? Drawing on extensive field work, James DeShaw Rae offers a grassroots perspective on the relationship between peacebuilding and    More >

In the midst of the atrocities reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the seemingly constant strife in the Horn of Africa, and the ongoing violence in Darfur, how do we make sense of the simultaneous increase in interstate security cooperation in Africa? To what extent, and why, does this cooperation differ from previous initiatives? In what direction is it heading? Benedikt Franke assesses    More >

Reconciling the imperatives of Germany’s national identity and its national interest has been a challenge for the country’s policymakers since the end of the Cold War. Anika Leithner explores how (and how much) the past continues to shape Germany’s foreign policy behavior in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Leithner argues that, while German foreign policy is still    More >