Empire, imperialism and the Bush doctrine

Welsh Missionaries and British Imperialism: The Empire of Clouds in North-east India

Missionaries are no strangers to students and researchers of the British Empire. The hackneyed image of the rough-hewn Anglican vicar preaching salvation, Christ, and colonialism to legions of natives is one of the enduring archetypes of British colonialism. This image, like so many similar ones, is not without basis in historical fact. Missionaries played a notable role in British imperial exp...

Return to Empire: The New U.S. Imperialism in Comparative Historical Perspective*

The widespread embrace of imperial terminology across the political spectrum during the past three years has not led to an increased level of conceptual or theoretical clarity around the word ‘‘empire.’’ There is also disagreement about whether the United States is itself an empire, and if so, what sort of empire it is; the determinants of its geopolitical stance; and the effects of ‘‘empire as...

Worth A Pound Of Cure? An Empirical Assessment Of The Bush Doctrine And Preventive Military Action

The Bush Doctrine, or the proposal that allows the use of military force preventively to address prospective attack from terrorists or involving weapons of mass destruction, has been debated from various normative and legal vantage points. In this article, we introduce the new evaluative criterion that such military action must also produce the desired outcomes of defeating opponents and preven...

Imperialism and the Communist International

Commercial Imperialism?

We exploit the recent declassification of CIA documents and examine whether there is evidence of US power being used to influence countries’ decisions regarding international trade. We measure US influence using a newly constructed annual panel of CIA interventions aimed at installing and supporting leaders during the Cold War. Our presumption is that the US had greater influence over foreign l...