bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Metacognition in the process of education
Authors: Mirkov Snezana
Published: July 2006

This paper deals with different theoretical views and research regarding metacognition, its components and relations to cognition, conceptual discrepancy as well as opposing research results. Special attention was paid to the relation between metacognitive knowledge and the regulation of cognitive strategies. Reflexive awareness about personal cognitive processes is emphasized, but research discrepancies are apparent in regard to cognitive regulation. Research results focused on development of personal learning awareness and regulative skill involvement in the educational process (planning, monitoring and evaluating) are presented. A discussion was also focused on various views on relations between metacognition and the self which are of special importance for providing motivation in learning. Research data show that metacognitive awareness correlates with self. Metacognitive training affects development of the control experience and self-efficiency. The role of metacognition is emphasized as important for understanding relationship between cognition and motivation, which also affects learning self-regulation development. The paper emphasizes the significance of further study of metacognition and the possibilities for its use in the educational process. Research show that both metacognitive knowledge and regulation may be beneficial for: problem solving in learning processes, development of learning strategies and student achievement.
Towards the determination of capabilities relevant for expert thinking
Authors: Krnjaic Zora
Published: July 2006

The paper starts from the assumption that expert thinking is a complex manner of thinking of higher order, comprising higher mental functions and complex capabilities based on deep structures and knowledge patterns. It is a domain-determined and specialized thinking developed through systematic education. Particular aspects of ability, selected for this study, primarily concern the relation between abilities and knowledge and the relation between general and specific abilities. Particular emphasis was laid on the key concepts of the theories presented, relevant for the study of the complex nature of expert thinking. Special attention was paid to mediated intelligence and the process of systemogenesis of knowledge, Katel?s definition of crystallized intelligence, Gardener?s work on multiple intelligences in the context of knowledge and experience as well as Sternberg?s two-facet subtheory. The capability for abstract thought and the ability to select what is important as well as the domain of relevant specific capability are assumed to be of special relevance for understanding expert thinking and, as such, they were articulated and examined. Expert thinking-abstract, specialized and domain-specific, seems to be based on general and specific capabilities and their interaction.
Approaches to giftedness and creativity in Slavic countries
Authors: Sefer Jasmina
Published: July 2006

The paper deals with various conceptions of giftedness and creativity developed in psycho-pedagogical theoretical and research framework of Slavic countries, mainly Russia. Specific characteristics of such theories are discussed, testifying to a particular thinking paradigm - holistic, systemic contextual/cultural approach to understanding the formation and development of personality and its potential - giftedness and creativity. Special emphasis on unstructured situations, the role of emotions and intuition together with considerable contribution of capability, knowledge and meta-cognitive processes, reveals Slavic orientation towards an irrational component in understanding the essence of a creative act. Emphasis on the cultural-historic developmental context, manifested in an aptitude development through the interaction of bio-psychological resources and a social environment, represents an expression of a collectivistic-oriented human studies and contextual approach, even in the field of psycho-physiological research. The domination of qualitative methodology oriented towards understanding and encouraging giftedness and creativity through experimentation in natural sciences (as opposed to the identification of individual differences through quantitative, statistic-based testing methodology applied in the West), indicates a tendency towards theory and systemic analyses of elements? interaction processes. Cultural and spiritual foundations of the scientific paradigm in Slavic countries will be discussed in this journal one some other occasion.
Student under stress
Authors: Krnjajic Stevan
Published: July 2006

Stress is a natural phenomenon, sooner or later experienced by the most Rapid increase in the number of students with health problems, seeking health and advisory services, causes deep concern to parents, schools and wider community. This, in turn, arouses the interest in the research of the negative effects of poor physical and mental health on academic success. Considering the fact that school age population was rarely the subject of research, this paper deals with psycho-social and developmental aspects of stress, namely, with causes, consequences and the strategies for overcoming stressful events in the education of children and adolescents. Life events in which children most often participate and which are also potential sources of stress (stressors) can be classified into familial, interpersonal, personal and academic. Out of numerous identified sources of stress, we have focused our attention on several less researched ones in the field of school life starting school, transition from primary school to secondary and from secondary school to university, peer rejection and problems concerning financing school education. Anxiety, depression and anger were analyzed as the most frequent consequences of unfavorable life events. The following strategies for overcoming stress are most often used by children and adolescents: seeking social support, problem-solving orientation, reduction and avoidance of tension as well as sport and recreation.
Factors and challenges of successful education for civil society
Authors: Pavlovic Branka
Published: July 2006

This article concerns education for civil society through regular schooling as a significant issue of preparing children and young people for life in a modern, complex society. The paper aims to improve our understanding of the concept and the objectives of education for civil society, the role of the teacher, the role of teaching methods and the influence exerted by school culture. It also seeks to point out serious implications and open questions concerning our school practice. The article brings findings from several relevant studies emphasizing their significance for the improvement of our educational practice in relation to civil society. It places particular emphasis on the importance of interactive working methods, functional attitude of the civil society oriented teacher as a role model for students the atmosphere in which students can express critique and personal attitudes as well as the importance of school culture stimulating the balance between the culture of a role and the culture of support. Special emphasis is laid on the need for flexible approach to subject matter in relation to civil society as well as the need that it should not be limited to one school subject. Education for civil society is supposed gradually to become the principal model for school practice, both in subject matter content and in extracurricular activities as well.
Personality traits of a music teacher
Authors: Bogunovic Blanka
Published: July 2006

In the context of individual musical instrument teaching, pedagogical abilities of a music teacher and the atmosphere he creates, result from his personality traits and can be of crucial importance for the initial and further progress of his students. The paper seeks to: describe the personality of a music instrument teacher, determine the differences in comparison to a group of non-musicians, and determine the position of personal characteristics in the structure of general and professional teacher profile. The sample comprised 60 individuals, teaching various musical instruments in five primary music schools. The research method is explorative and based on the use of the five-factor personality model (NEO PI-R was administered). The findings show that music teachers display a higher level of: openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The degree of congruence with the findings of other research is discussed and certain similarities were found, as well as differences stemming from professional and cultural specificities. Differences are proved to exist in relation to gender, musical instrument, working experience, degree of musical education and active public performance. Compared to non-musical population, it is confirmed that teachers of instrument in musical education represent a distinctive group. There are also differences between teachers who are oriented to pedagogic work only and those who, in addition, actively perform in public. Selection of teachers, according to characteristics which may be connected to students? accomplishment, is a practical implication relevant for the music education.
The Collapse of the European Political System, 1914–45
Authors: Holborn Hajo
Published: July 2006

Any attempt at the formulation or critical review of American policies in Europe is conditioned by our historical conceptions. Whether we try to define American policy with regard to Germany, the economic recovery of Europe, or the protection of western Europe against further Russian inroads, we are consciously or unconsciously influenced by what we consider to be the “normal” organization of Europe, and are thereby led to direct our political actions as much as possible toward the restoration of the traditional order. There exists, on the other hand, a general awareness of radical changes in world politics and especially European affairs, and our practical political experiences demonstrate that we are constantly driven to adopt unprecedented measures which run counter to what we still envisage as the historical pattern of Europe.
The Organization of Responsibility
Authors: Kaufmann William W.
Published: July 2006

Wishes have been the fathers to many thoughts, but wishes alone have never sired an effective international organization. It is only when the desirable and the possible have been brought into some sort of relation with each other that plans for international organization have ever had any chance of succeeding. This statement is of course a truism; anything which succeeds must have been possible. Can one, however, make any statements about the limits of what is possible without waiting for the historical record to complete itself? In the field of international organization failure to undertake this task has resulted in many cruel disappointments, and unfounded optimism has given way to uninformed cynicism. It is therefore of some interest to consider some of the ways in which the stubborn facts of international life condition the range of choice within which men of good will may hope to act successfully.
On Boundaries
Authors: Fischer Eric
Published: July 2006

In judging a boundary from a geographer's point of view many physical as well as human aspects come under consideration. Stress has shifted from one aspect of the problem to another according to the particular bias of the times.

At the time of the Paris peace conferences, geographers shared the general opinion that the linguistic factor should receive the greatest consideration in determining boundaries between national states. Language was regarded as the best criterion for drawing boundaries which would recognize what was called at that date “the right of self-determination.” It was a new factor in diplomatic negotiations. Shift of emphasis from physical features to cultural characteristics as bases for boundary lines reflected the popular swing toward self-determination.
Economic Aspects of the Soviet “New Course”
Authors: Granick David
Published: July 2006

HOW new is the Soviet “new course”? It is just as difficult to answer this question as it applies to the internal Soviet economy as in its application to internal politics or to foreign affairs. Nor is this surprising, for it is probable that there is a close interrelationship between the various facets of Soviet policy.
The First Capitulation: France and the Rhineland Crisis of 1936
Authors: Parker R. A. C.
Published: July 2006

ON March 7, 1936, German troops entered the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. Germany thus violated Articles 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Versailles and Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty of Locarno of 1925. Remilitarization moved forward for about one hundred miles the areas of concentration for any German armed attack in the west and advanced the defensive line that could be held by the German army. It severely weakened France and, in consequence, all the other powers concerned to maintain the Paris peace settlements and to preserve the peace of Europe.
Struggle Against Power: Notes on Indian Political Behavior
Authors: Weiner Myron
Published: July 2006

INDIA'S experiment with democratic institutions is still only an experiment. Although India adopted a parliamentary system when she achieved independence in 1947 and has thus far been able to maintain her democratic institutions with much more success than some other newly independent Asian nations, no observer can have complete confidence in their stability. Indians have had to adjust from the role of natives in a country occupied by an imperialist power to that of citizens in a democracy, and the adjustment has not been easy. Traditional attitudes have a way of persisting and are not always readily accommodated to a parliamentary system of government.
Some Recent Changes in Soviet Economic Policy
Authors: Campbell Robert W.
Published: July 2006

SOVIET economic policy in the few years since Stalin's death has been characterized by flamboyance and ferment. In an attempt to free economic growth from the bottleneck of stagnation in agriculture, Khrushchev has sponsored some extravagant gambles in corn-growing and in expansion of the sown acreage. Policy toward the consumer has gone through two complete reversals: the regime at first experimented with offering the population an improvement in the standard of living, but is now once again asserting that abundance in the future requires austerity today. Perhaps the most startling innovation of all emerged in the past year when the regime began to develop a program of foreign economic assistance as a weapon in its economic competition with the capitalist part of the world. Because of their spectacular nature, these shifts of policy have attracted considerable attention in the West and have been commented on at length. Aware diat the Soviet Union is expanding her economic power at a more rapid rate than are the capitalist countries, Western students of the Soviet economy have sought in these policy changes-some clue as to whether its rate of growth is likely to decline or to be maintained in the future. The early indications of a rise in standards of living that would cause a reduced growth of heavy industry and so a decline in investment and in the rate of growth have now been dispelled. The inability of Soviet agriculture to provide an expanding food supply for a growing work force certainly appears to be a real threat to industrial growth, and with die failure of Khrushchev's gambles, this threat remains. Thus the evidence as to the over-all effect of these changes on the rate of expansion of die Soviet economy is still inconclusive.
Economic Growth, Coercion, and Freedom
Authors: de Schweinitz Karl
Published: July 2006

The flood of attention that underdeveloped economies have received in recent years has revived interest in the normative questions of political economy. For the society that stands on the threshold of development apparently can choose among economic systems with different normative properties, each one of which claims enthusiastic followers. One such question concerns the impact of economic organization on freedom. Does a centrally administered economy restrict freedom by achieving its objectives through coercive means? Is the market economy fundamental to free institutions?.
Paris from EDC to WEU
Authors: Leites Nathan , de la Malène Christian
Published: July 2006

On July 28, 1949, the French parliament ratified the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; a week before, it had given its assent to the treaty establishing the Council of Europe. On May 9, 1950, M. Robert Schuman proposed the creation of a European coal and steel community.

None of these arrangements for the defense of the free world and the unification of Europe altered France's status as one of the “big three” of the West: her sovereignty was not going to be substantially reduced by the institutions then created or planned.
The Davies Mission and United States-Soviet Relations, 1937–1941
Authors: Ullman Richard H.
Published: July 2006

In the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, N.Y., resting on the open shelves along with other books from the President's personal collection, is a copy of Joseph E. Davies' Mission to Moscow. As was his custom, FDR wrote a short comment in the book after reading it. Inside the front cover, under the glowing dedication to him by the author, the President scratched four words: “This book will last.”
In Praise of Political Science
Authors: Lindblom Charles E.
Published: July 2006

Is anyone's esteem for political science better suppressed than a political scientist's? Ordinary modesty is admirable, but his is professionally destructive. For, not only hiding his light under a bushel, he follows the more nihilistic course of blowing it out. Granted that many political scientists neither deprecate their discipline nor permit a low regard for it to stultify their work, I have been repeatedly assured by members of the profession that no social science is more retarded and none less promising for systematic theory. Thus they hide—even from their own eyes—their discipline's accomplishments. This I shall try to show, offering two books as evidence. There is other evidence, too. When even politically ignorant undergraduates complain that the major in political science is thin, no imaginable poverty of the field explains enough. Such a phenomenon proves concealment, either deliberate or unintended.
On Comparative History
Authors: Hoselitz Bert F.
Published: July 2006

When John Stuart Mill composed his System of Logic, he maintained that valid application of the comparative method to problems in the moral or social sciences is impossible, or, at best, inadmissible, since it must be based on a priori judgments. Mill founded his objection to the use of this method in social science on two essentially interrelated propositions: the uniqueness of each social event, and the multiplicity and variety of causal factors which may be considered as having a determining influence on these events. Although this conception of the special nature of social events has, on the whole, remained unchanged, social scientists have freely applied the comparative method to the analysis of social problems. History has been outstanding among the social sciences in rejecting longest the application of this method. The main argument against its use was derived from the description of history formulated by Ranke and his school, a description which was endowed with a philosophical underpinning by Windelband and Rickert, who classified sciences according to method into a nomothetic and an ideographic group. History was the ideographic science par excellence, and with the strong historical emphasis that was placed in Germany upon other social sciences as well, there was a tendency to return to the viewpoint of Mill and to regard as scientifically suspect generalizations in social science based on the application of the comparative method.
A New Future for World War II?
Authors: Giffin S. F.
Published: July 2006

Mahan wrote protractedly about sea power, although certainly not more than his notable subject deserved, without using an unqualified “Sea Power” as the title for any of his works. His “Sea Power in Its Relation to the War of 1812,” for example, was published in two volumes totaling 860 pages. Held against this standard of thoroughness, any book entitled “Air Power” and running a modest 200 pages should perhaps be suspect at the outset. The purchaser should nevertheless be entitled to anticipate that such a book would in fact concentrate on discussing air power, that air power would be defined and placed in perspective as an instrument of policy, and that knowledgeability would be exhibited with respect to existing and projected national air forces. The reader might also expect a full awareness of the scientific and technological revolution now proceeding at so accelerated a pace that air power in some respects has to repeat its coming of age almost annually. Some expectation might be justified that the author would make his own contribution toward concepts and philosophy touching the use of air forces and the place of air power. If the author was English, as is Mr. Lee, the reader could also confidently expect some appreciation of future British air power, more especially as the United Kingdom has unequivocally replaced its ancient reliance on sea power with a new reliance on air power as the military fulcrum of its national strategy.
The Crisis of Modern Socialism
Authors: Shell Kurt L.
Published: July 2006

It would be a mistake to view the intellectual and political movement of socialism as a clearly identifiable and neatly circumscribed historical structure. Out of the many strands which have gone into the making of “socialism” it is possible, by simplifying the complexity of the process, to select at least four broad sources of socialist inspiration and thus four different versions of the socialist goal. These different concepts of socialism are not to be identified with specific historical figures or groups or movements, but represent rather the basic social and psychological elements which combined in varying degree to form the socialist movements known to us. The crisis of modern socialism—as exhibited in the books under consideration—is due to the fact that each of these concepts, for different reasons, has reached a dead-end from which advance toward any one goal means retreat from others also previously embraced.
West German Rearmament
Authors: Onslow C. G. D.
Published: July 2006

Probably the most consistent feature of the policy of the three Western powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—towards the defeated Germany, from the time of Potsdam until a few months ago, was the emphasis on the need for the disarmament and demilitarization of the Germany of the future; and when it was decided, in 1949, to establish the Federal Republic of Western Germany, this policy was endorsed once more.

In June 1949, the Foreign Ministers of the three powers met in Paris, and on the twentieth of that month the High Commission charter was signed. At a second meeting held early in November of the same year, also in Paris, it was agreed that certain wider powers should be granted to the Federal Republic through the High Commissioners. Nevertheless when, on November 22, the definitive Occupation Statute, sometimes known as the Petersberg agreement, came to be signed by Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the new Republic, and by the three High Commissioners at the Petersberg Hotel in Bonn, the headquarters of the High Commission, it contained the following significant clause:
Science and Politics in the U.S.S.R.: The Genetics Debate
Authors: Wrinch Pamela N.
Published: July 2006

In the Soviet Union, views on all intellectual subjects—the social sciences, philosophy, and even the biological and physical sciences—are frequently regarded as expressions of political views. As a consequence, all intellectual fields are considered appropriate arenas for the struggle against “reaction” and other supposed manifestations of “bourgeois” ideology. To consider science a-political and supra-national, or to speak approvingly of “world science” or “world culture,” is to subscribe to the “bourgeois” ideology of “cosmopolitism”—an ideology which is assumed by virtue of its universalist emphasis to deprecate the contributions to culture made by individual nations.
International Politics and the Structure of International Organization: The Case of UNRRA
Authors: Johnson Robert H.
Published: July 2006

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), created in November 1943 and dissolved in September 1948, was in some respects unique in the history of international organization. Unlike traditional functional organizations it was not established to deal with some technical problem of common interest but of limited significance. Nor was its creation motivated as was the institution of the League and the United Nations by the hope that it might solve the vast problems of war and peace. Its scope, the management of postwar relief and the caring for displaced persons, was limited but significant. Its decision-making powers within the field of relief operations were broad when compared with the authority of both prior and subsequent functional organizations. Since national influence within the organization had operational, not simply technical orpropaganda, significance, it was not surprising that the structure of the organization should be a matter of considerable concern to its member states. Both in its creation and in its subsequent development thestructure of UNRRA reflected the conflicting interests of the constituent governments in international relief.
The Casuistry of Dictatorship
Authors: Corbett P. E.
Published: July 2006

For the political scientist in America there can scarcely be a more fascinating or more elusive study than the Soviet Union. The first enticement is the menacing importance of Soviet power. Then there is the miracle which in a single generation has changed a defeated and disintegrating agrarian society into one of the two greatest industrial and military States of our day. But these are claims to everybody's attention. The peculiar challenge to the professional student of social phenomena is another matter. For him Russia now is an enormous but dimly lighted laboratory in which doctrine is tested by experience, where the strain between ideology and reality is carried to a pitch never previously attempted, where techniques are developed by which a small elite secures a steady ninety-nine per cent of formal acquiescence from a population of two hundred millions, where political and economic strength is accumulated by processes in which what we consider normal human reactions are choked off by fear or concealed in the trite responses of an authorized litany.
Political Behavior and International Tensions
Authors: Truman David B.
Published: July 2006

Organized efforts to deal with the problem of war through channels other than those of traditional diplomacy seem peculiarly subject to frustration. Perhaps this is inevitable. Certainly it is common. The current disappointment with the achievements of UNESCO, which Professor Dunn examines in the opening pages of his book, is only the most recent and most obvious instance of the dismay which sometimes follows upon the discovery that the star to which the wagon supposedly has been hitched is, after all, a decidedly earth-bound horse. The fervor that often accompanies a desire to “do something” about international understanding seems to invite a kind of oversimplification that leads inevitably to disillusionment and despair. Social scientists are by no means immune from this affliction, although it is not peculiar to them. The myopias of academic specialization, confronted with the tremendous complexities of such a task in applied social science, may encourage a neglect of the limitations of particular specialties and produce oversimplifications at their peripheries.
The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference
Authors: Wolfers Arnold
Published: July 2006

In international relations, two opposing schools of thought have fought each other throughout the modern age. Ever since Machiavelli published the Prince, his “realistic” views have shocked “idealist” thinkers. As a battle of the mind, fought by and large outside the political arena, the dispute between the two schools was of great concern to philosophers and moralists; but not until Woodrow Wilson set out to bring Utopia down to earth did it become a political issue of the first magnitude. For the first time, the responsible head of one of the leading powers acted as though the world were on the verge of crossing the thresh-old from sordid “power politics” to a “new era” in which the admonitions of the idealist philosophers would suddenly become the political order of the day.
A Protest Against a Dilemma's Two Horns
Authors: Niebuhr Reinhold
Published: July 2006

Both our idealists and our realists conceive patterns which are too logical for the tortuous course of human history. They both persist in confronting us with two horns of a dilemma and beg us to choose between them. All idealistic schemes of world peace insist that we must either achieve world government or resign ourselves to an inevitable war; we must find some way of reaching an understanding with the Russians or face the consequences of a world war. Our realists are convinced that neither world government nor a pragmatic understanding with the Russians is an attainable goal. They are therefore tempted to grasp the second horn of the dilemma. They accept the fact of an inevitable war. From the idea of an inevitable war it is only a short logical step to the concept of a preventive war. For if we must inevitably fight the Russians, why should we not have the right to choose the most opportune time for joining the issue?
American Wartime Objectives in Latin America
Authors: Furniss Edgar S.
Published: July 2006

Superficial observers of relations between the United States and the other American republics customarily deplore the decline of amity which has assertedly taken place since World War II and lay the blame to deficiencies in our diplomacy. Infrequently does one analyze the factors contributing to the high degree of cooperation that existed during the war itself. Only by such an analysis, it is submitted, can present practices of American policy be seen in their proper perspective. Answers in concrete terms should be suggested to the following specific questions: What did the United States seek from the other American republics? What techniques were employed to reach its objectives? To what extent were those objectives attained? Answers to these questions will help to clarify the place of Latin America in postwar United States policy.
The Role of the United Nations in the Conduct of United States Foreign Policy
Authors: Cheever Daniel S.
Published: July 2006

There have been repeated generalizations that support of the United Nations is a cornerstone of United States foreign policy. On February 22, 1950, the President, in a major address dealing with foreign policy, indicated that the United Nations was the proper forum in which to seek an international agreement for the control of atomic weapons. In so doing he reaffirmed a previous statement of policy of “unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies,” the first of the “four points” of his inaugural address of January 1949. The President in this fashion sought to reassure the public that he had confidence in the United Nations and that he proposed to utilize its machinery to the full in the conduct of United States foreign relations.
Standardized Error and Japanese Character: A Note on Political Interpretation
Authors: Embree John F.
Published: July 2006

Back in 1927 Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote a little book entitled The Standardization of Error. In this essay he shows first of all that errors which fill social needs become standardized and, he suggests, it might be construed as antisocial to try to destroy them by raising points of fact. To this end, there is an advantage to knowledge by definition in contrast to knowledge by observation. This, as the writer points out, gives to arithmetic its finality. Two and two is by definition four. In the social sciences also, we have many ‘facts’ that are so by definition and so become immutable.
Observations on France: Economy, Society, and Polity
Authors: Landes David S.
Published: July 2006

A HISTORIAN is always uneasy when he writes of his own time. The present is too fleeting. It changes as his pen moves; it is transformed by the time his manuscript becomes the printed page—nothing at all like the past, which poses problems of its own to the scholar but at least has the decency to stay put.
American Policy Toward Russia
Authors: Wright Quincy
Published: July 2006

I Believe that much historical data can be assembled to support the following propositions:

(1) The trend of power politics is toward a bipolar world, and such a world tends toward increasing rivalry, suspicion, and tension between the two leading states, making them develop into garrison states in a continuous relationship of cold or hot war.

(2) A state actively preparing for war in time of peace tends to become over-centralized, intolerant, and aggressive; to encourage other states to gang up against it; and, when war eventuates, to win the first battles but to lose the war.
The February Coup in Czechoslovakia
Authors: Duchacek Ivo
Published: July 2006

The Stalinists consider parliaments to be only schools for extra-parliamentary means of struggle. Were the Czechoslovak democratic leaders aware of this attitude while cooperating with the Communists both in the Parliament and Government of Czechoslovakia after 1945? If they were, what countermeasures did they devise? Even if the daily political fight over party or local issues necessarily narrowed their horizon, responsible democratic leaders had a fairly accurate picture of the situation even in 1945, when the Communists, thanks to the presence of the Red Army, could have seized power. The democrats' awareness of danger and their decision as to countermeasures were, however, influenced by many hopes and illusions, some justifiable in view of the international situation at the end of the war.
Political Parties and the French Army since the Liberation
Authors: Katzenbach Edward L.
Published: July 2006

In a recent article in Le Monde, a military writer remarked that ‘A country has the army it merits.”1 The expression is an old one. For a hundred years at least, French politicians and French military personnel have been quoting one another to the effect that the army is but the reflection of the state. But in a democracy, the strength of an army is not so much a question of merit as one of desire, desire as expressed by the people through the votes of their representatives. Certainly, it has little or nothing to do with international necessity.
The United States and Japanese Atomic Power Development
Authors: Wit Daniel , Clubok Alfred B.
Published: July 2006

MANKIND'S latest technological triumph—the ability to split certain atoms and harness the resultant energy for either destruction or construction—constitutes one of the most provocative developments in modern international relations. It not only creates the greatest opportunity for suicide yet available to humanity; it also introduces a new stage in the scientific, industrial, and technological revolutions which have given modernity its primary characteristics. For atomic power constitutes an entirely new source of energy capable of supplementing or even of replacing that traditionally derivable from fossil fuels and falling water. Moreover, the amounts of fissionable matter necessary to produce it are so small, in contrast to existing sources of power, that problems of fuel transportation are almost completely eliminated.
Observations on the Structure of World Trade and Payments
Authors: Woolley Herbert B.
Published: July 2006

EVENTS intimately linked to our foreign relations have profoundly affected the level of economic activity in the United States and the character of our economic progress and stability. They cannot be disregarded by those concerned with the level of economic activity in this country. Furthermore, those concerned with the economic policies of the United States must also be concerned with the impact of those policies upon the rest of the world because of the great importance of the United States in the world economy, and because of the link between economic, political, and military events at home and abroad. Since the United States cannot ignore the far-reaching and indirect effect of its policies and decisions, the American people and their government require a detailed and systematic understanding of the economic interrelationships among all countries of the world. Even more, to exercise the international leadership which our great size and resources impose upon us, we must be in a position to assess the effect of developments and actions everywhere upon the political and economic strength of the free world. This article considers a few of the salient features of world economic relations which should always be kept in mind in assessing economic policy alternatives.
Geography and International Relations
Authors: Gottmann Jean
Published: July 2006

The world we live in happens to be a diversified, highly partitioned space. The surface of the earth is partitioned in a great many ways: politically and physically, economically and culturally. The political divisions are the raison d'être of international relations; the variety of thedifferent parts of the earth's surface is the raison d'être of geography. If the earth were uniform—well polished, like a billiard ball—there probably would not be any such science as geography, and international relations would be much simpler. Because the general principles of geology, geophysics, botany, or economics do not apply in the same way throughout the different compartments existing on the earth, geographical studies appeared and were useful, cutting across the abstraction of the topical disciplines and attempting a scientific analysis of regions and their interrelations.
Quasi-War between Japan and the U.S.S.R., 1937–1939
Authors: Tinch Clark W.
Published: July 2006

The scale and intensity of the fighting in Korea have been such as Americans have, before 1950, associated only with full-fledged war. How such a conflict could fail to develop into World War III they only dimly understand. They had assumed that in the twentieth century war, or at least wars involving great powers, had to be total.

To the extent that this assumption is incorporated in the expectations of the ruling elite of either of two or more contending powers, it is likely to be true; to the extent that war is made an end in itself, is conceptually divorced from the political ends it in fact seeks to achieve, the organized violence of warring great powers must be not only totally organized, but totally applied, while the consequences go hang. The weapons and techniques of the last war when handled non-politically produced, therefore, as might have been anticipated, conditions singularly unpropitious to the realization of what were professed to have been the aims for which the war was fought.
The Cominform and the People's Democracies
Authors: Ulam Adam B.
Published: July 2006

The creation of the Cominform in the summer of 1947 marked an important stage in the development of communism in Europe. The precise reasons that led the leaders of Soviet Communism to revive a public form of co-operation between several Communist parties remain to this day uncertain. What is obvious is the use to which the Cominform has been put during its brief existence up to now. It has acted as an added catalyst of social and political change in the satellite countries. Its resolutions, like the one on the occasion of the expulsion of Yugoslavia from that body, have laid down the broad lines of policy to be pursued by the People's Democracies on such vital issues as the question of collectivization of agriculture, the “nationalist deviation,” etc. The original concept of the Com-inform included, undoubtedly, creation of the appearance of complete autonomy of the Communist parties in Eastern Europe. The language of the speeches at the founding meeting and the choice of the seat for the new organization, outside of the Soviet Union, testify as to the serious attempt to present the collaboration between the Soviet Union and her Communist allies under a veneer of equality. If the picture thus presented seemed to lack realism to the Communist leaders from Poland or Yugoslavia, it is unreasonable to assume that the propaganda effect of the establishment of the Cominform was entirely lost upon the masses who had, since the end of the war, joined the ranks of the ruling parties in the satellite states.
An Analysis of Power, with Special Reference to International Politics
Authors: Ash Maurice A.
Published: July 2006

It is possible to contend that in political science today, and particularly with regard to international politics, there is a significant trend towards interpreting events in termsof “power.” This trend has stimulated controversy between those who assert that the study of politics is that of the struggle for power and those who hold that such a study must incorporate other and contradictory values. This paper is not an attempt, directly, to resolve these differences. Rather, it is based squarely on the supposition that power does constitute the generalized end of politics, an end which is basic as a means to other innumerable and variegated ultimate ends. Granted this supposition, however, it is contended that there does not yet exist a structure of analysis dealing with the processes involved in the attainment of this generalized end—a conceptual structure comparable to that of economics, which deals with the attainment of the generalized end of wealth. The purpose of this paper, then, is to propose a skeleton upon which a formal body of political theory might be constructed. For until such a body of ideas about the processes of coercion exists, little progress is likely to be made in resolving the wider controversy mentioned above.
Danger Spots in the Pattern of American Security
Authors: Dennett Raymond
Published: July 2006

Speculation about the future, particularly about the nature and character of the problems which Americans may have to face in foreign policy, is admittedly risky. It is particularly so at a time when international society is far from static and domestic policy in a score of states may at any moment directly influence and even fundamentally change the balance of power as it now exists. Nevertheless, such speculation can be justified. However effective present policy may be judged to be, few would be brash enough to assert that “we planned it that way.” Postwar American policy, in the main, has not been planned: it has consisted until very recently of a series of reactions to the diplomatic and military initiative exercised by the Soviet Union and its satellites. These reactions have created a current pattern of policy for the United States which contains more long-range commitments for this country than at any previous time in American history. Future policy obviously must operate within the limits established by these commitments. Yet these are fairly broad in character in many areas of the world and any one of a number of policies might be chosen. It is not too soon to begin to plan now for some of the problems the United States will face in the very near future.
The Soviets and Northern Europe
Authors: Anderson Albin T.
Published: July 2006

The mainsprings of Soviet action, expressed locally and generally, are a theme which has confounded scholars and journalists for more than three decades. A lack of adequate documentation has contributed to the dilemma of those seeking to resolve the enigma that is Russia. One obvious consequence has been to rely heavily upon the doctrinal premises in an abundant Marxist literature. This is understandable, but it is also an invitation to innumerable pitfalls because of the variety of ways in which Soviet society and Soviet policies can be conceptualized. A further danger is the loss of perspective. One cannot lightly ignore the factor of a people's historical experience, conditioned as it is, in part, by persistent geographic and economic forces. The culminating error is to overlook the frequent gaps which exist between professed aims and Soviet capacity to achieve them. Considering Soviet foreign policy as a whole, one is impressed with the fact that it has been pursued with a realistic evaluation of the consequences. Not since the early years of the revolutionary era has there been any reckless pursuit of ideological ends without a careful inventory of the available resources of power.
The Ideological Bases of Soviet Foreign Policy
Authors: Zinner Paul E.
Published: July 2006

Foreign policy, the very existence of which Soviet leaders admitted only hesitatingly during the green years of the Revolution—although they availed themselves of it as an indispensable tool from the moment they gained power—has become a primary weapon in safeguarding the interests of the “Socialist Fatherland” and propagating the struggle against “world capitalism.”
The First Years of the Cold War
Authors: Munro Dana G.
Published: July 2006

We rarely have an opportunity to study the intimate reactions of two members of the President's cabinet to a series of very recent and very important events. Both Speaking Frankly and The Forrestal Diaries cover about the same period—the period when the United States was slowly awakening to the realities of the postwar world—but they are very different in other respects. Secretary Byrnes' book was written to give a picture of the problems that he encountered during his tenure as Secretary of State and to express his considered views about policy for the future. The Diaries, on the other hand, were never intended for publication, and without connective matter supplied by the editor they would be merely a collection of memoranda of meetings and conversations, copies or summaries of documents prepared by other people, personal letters, and less frequent entries in which Mr. Forrestal recorded his own opinions or impressions.
Massive Retaliation and Graduated Deterrence
Authors: Buzzard Anthony W.
Published: July 2006

Reliable disarmament, particularly of nuclear weapons, requires inspection and control, which in turn require much mutual trust. None of this is yet in sight. Disarmament of nuclear weapons is therefore still a long way off, although a measure of conventional disarmament may be nearer.
Regionalism, Functionalism, and Universal International Organization
Authors: Haas Ernst B.
Published: July 2006

Nothing compels the reexamination of basic constitutional postulates so much as the possibility of their peaceful revision. Hence the much-advertised United Nations Review Conference underscores the need for contrasting the theoretical structure of the Charter with the reality of the practices which have evolved within its framework. Such an effort, while it might give support to those who strive for severe alterations of the structure, may also lead to the conclusion that even though the operational practices of international organization fail to meet the specifications of the Charter, peace might be more secure in the Cold War era if it is permitted to depend on operational vagaries rather than on legal precision. What, then, is the basic theory of the Charter and what the actual practice?