POLS170 Group 2

 In my third blog post, I wanted to discuss global economy, and specifically, Strange's article that discussed the difference between Japan's financial power compared to the United State's (keep in mind that this article was written in 1990). Strange's core argument is that the reasoning behind the disparity between the financial powers of Japan compared to the united states comes down to the fact that Japan's power was "relational", while the United State's was structural. Essentially, the international use of the Yen along with the "percentages of Japanese trade invoiced in Yen" (269). Strange argues that these two indicators fell short on the international playing field, as the use of the Yen made up very small percentages in international trade. The United States, on the other hand, dominated in terms of the use of the dollar, and even had exchange rate protections for imports and exports.  The point of my discussion, however, is to discu...

Recently looking into our class discussions and readings about globalization, I was particularly fascinated with the concept of transnational corporations. Transnational corporations are defined simply as companies or corporations that exist in more than one country. We can see an ever increasing number of these as globalization remains a driving force of capitalism in our society.  According to Abdelal and Ruggie in their piece called "New Perspectives" there were seventy seven thousand transnational corporations in 2010, spanning eight hundred thousand subsidaries and millions of suppliers. This is eleven years ago, and that number has definitely grown since then. These corporations, such as Nike or Amazon, have frequently used other countries for cheap labor, exploiting workers with poor living conditions and mistreatment at small wages. This article continues to talk about how these corporations get away with behaviors that would never be acceptable at home, simply becaus...

Blog Post 3: China and its Economy Throughout the course, our class has discussed a lot about China since it can be categorized as a modern great power. In particular, China is often viewed as a threat to the United; this is typically from an economic standpoint. With this, the word communism is frequently thrown around. China operates under a one party system with the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, the ruling party. From a Western perspective, it may be assumed that every aspect of China is communist, but the economy does not exactly follow this rule.  During my East Asian Politics course, I’ve studied Chinese history and looked at the evolution of China and what has accounted for its major growth. When people think of China, many think of Mao Zedong, communism, and censorship. And since China is so heavily associated with Mao Zedong who mobilized the masses, enacted land redistribution, and left much of China poor, there is no sign of China being anywhere close to having a capit...

     After our class discussion on Game Theory and Cooperation, I have been thinking a lot about the Prisoners Dilemma. Being one of the participants, and also being a participant that told on my "partner", I have been thinking about this a lot.      During my junior year of high school I took a class that focused primarily on morals and ethics. During this class, we also discussed the prisoner's dilemma. When I was in high school I did not understand this concept very well, but after taking part in the example, reading and studying about it, and listening to our class discussion, I have gained new perspectives on the importance of this game: the framework of cooperation and competition.      Before this year, I learned about this "game" that is the Prisoners Dilemma, and never fully understood the point. I thought it was a weird documentary from Stanford that I watched and would never learn about again. After taking various political science...

  Harrison Gold POLS170 Blog 3 Economic Funding Under COVID-19 The Covid world we are living into today has created tremendous hardship, in many forms.  In addition to the unthinkable death toll associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, there is the devastating impact that the coronavirus has had on the economy – both in the US and abroad.  However,, some of this impact has been mitigated by our governments efforts. Because of the deadly and contagious nature of the Covid-19 and its variants, the last two years have created changes in our lives that were previously unthinkable – which includes the devastating economic toll resulting from Covid’s impact on the global economy.  For the sake of this blog, I will initially lay out the economic impact of the coronavirus, followed by the measures with which the US government has enacted to keep our economy in check and to avoid a complete collapse.  Many other countries has taken comparable measures w...

  Due 10/27 Throughout class in regards to the global economy we talked about the use of the United States dollar and the relation to the IMF. The United States has been the top dog really since the end of World War II. The IMF, while headed by a European leader, is still at the hands of Washington due to the unique veto power held by America. This brings into connection the claims of structural vs relational power. The US has tremendous power through legal channels and with the expansion of the global economy stretching far and wide. It is silly to think that in some way or another the United States does not have their hand on an issue in the 21st century.  Susan Strange references the way that Japan is related to global finance by acting as the largest donor/lender but the problem is that most of the money is funneled to the United States. I think that this scenario is reflective of a larger problem. If the money that the United States takes from their allies were to be pa...

       The definition of an empire, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is as follows, " a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign  authority especially : one having an emperor as chief of state". I argue that the United States is, in fact, and empire, despite opposing arguments.       The United States has troops or military bases in the majority of countries in the world, save for a few in Africa and a scattering of other countries. An empire is reliant on military power, and acts as a ruler (of sorts) for the countries that it occupies. Because the United States has troops, or has the potential to place troops, is such a vast number of countries around the world, it is reasonable to say that they also have the potential to excerpt power over these countries (maybe some more easily than others).      In an article regarding the withdrawal...

 For my blog post, I wanted to discuss another topic from the analytical paper that I did not select for my specific paper. I wanted to talk about the idea of security and how it has changed over time. At one time, security used to mean keeping the country as a whole safe and protected from invasion and being overrun by our enemies. Around this time, the main concern was to protect our borders and not allow attacks. Then, Pearl Harbor happened in 1941 and this concept was revamped yet again. This showed a new moment in our society, which meant we were no longer "invincible" as people may have thought.  For a while following this, security meant building up our arms and military power to ward off potential enemy countries. During the cold war, we kept security in a somewhat ironic way, by "scaring off" other countries. Then, we felt as though we were maintaining security by exerting our own political ideals on other countries, such as in the Korean or Vietnam wars. W...

     The United States undoubtedly influences nearly every corner of the world. It has set examples of what to do and what not to do, and can be categorized as one of the few great powers. The question then arises, is the United States an empire? And if it is, why doesn’t it want to be recognized as an empire? At first glance, the United States is not behaving like a traditional empire like the Roman Empire or British Empire, but when looked at closely, the United States partakes in practices that may resemble those of past empires. Following the class discussion about empires, I conclude that this argument comes down to an argument of definition when trying to break down whether or not the United States is an empire or not. As a class, we looked at empires in terms of their influence around the world and how countries act relative to said empire. In terms of the United States, this meant the number of  US troops around the world; regardless if there is an official c...

Defining security in the 21st century is a lot more difficult than it seems. After writing about the aspect of security within the 21st century in my first analytical paper, I have been thinking about what security means to me. Throughout each day, I am starting to realize things that make me feel secure: sometimes they are small and random, like my mom calling me once a day, making me sure that she is safe, secure and healthy, and sometimes they are common things like being able to lock my door at night knowing that someone can’t break in, or my car door automatically locking after I shut the door. Krebs and Lobasz published Security Studies , a work on 9/11, the feeling of security post tragedy, and how to combat terrorism within the United States. The terrorist attack occurring on September 11, 2001 was a defining shift within the definition of security. This traumatic time brought out a new side of the United States. Similar to this, the unknowing pandemic seemingly created a multi...

The idea of a world without nuclear weapons sounds great, reduced risk of a catastrophic history-changing event and a more safe world in theory. What if that was not the case, what if disarmament could lead to an increase in violence and more fear in the hearts of civilians. It is truly impossible to eliminate a nuclear threat with the knowledge held today. Thomas C. Schelling wrote that if we were to reach a point of no active warheads, all of the countries that have nuclear knowledge would have “hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild.” The theory makes sense. I equated it to riding a bike, once you learn how to ride a bike you truly never forget, i.e. the saying “it's like riding a bike.”  In class and more specifically the discussion on what it means to be a great power in today's world revolved around nuclear capability and the prestige it brings. We concluded that power comes from the threat of a nuclear strike. However, this does not support a path to nuclear disarm...