James Richter

Promoting Civil Society?: Democracy Assistance and Russian Women’s Organizations

Foreign assistance has both helped and hurt the feminist movement in Russia. Women’s groups have raised awareness of gender issues and domestic violence, but some Russians dismiss feminism as an alien philosophy imported from the West.

The New Transnational Activism

how this evidence challenges the basic realist insight that nuclear weapons are attractive in the face of large security threats—especially from powerful neighbors. The Australia case also seems consistent with the security model of proliferation. According to Hymans, Australian leaders flirted with the nuclear decision in the 1950s and 1960s when they perceived a “red-yellow peril” of Communism sweeping through Asia, but backed away from the nuclear option in the 1970s when they became convinced that China posed no direct threat to Australia. The apparent reason why Hymans sees his book as a challenge to the realist security model of proliferation is that he believes “threat perception . . . is in the eye of the beholder” (222); nuclear actions are driven not by real military calculations about how to meet objective security threats, but by nationalist self-conceptions and the need for nationalist self-expression. Perhaps Hymans is correct, but the kind of evidence likely to convince realists that the heart speaks louder than the head is not found here. Regardless, the book’s weakness on this score ought to be weighed against its many other strengths. The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation should be required reading for anyone interested in the role that identity and emotion play in foreign policy interactions, as well as for students and scholars seeking to understand the profoundly important issue of nuclear proliferation. Hymans has opened a new frontier in an already theoretically-rich and important substantive arena; his work offers a provocative stimulus for further inquiry.

The New Transnational Activism – By Sidney Tarrow

how this evidence challenges the basic realist insight that nuclear weapons are attractive in the face of large security threats—especially from powerful neighbors. The Australia case also seems consistent with the security model of proliferation. According to Hymans, Australian leaders flirted with the nuclear decision in the 1950s and 1960s when they perceived a “red-yellow peril” of Communism sweeping through Asia, but backed away from the nuclear option in the 1970s when they became convinced that China posed no direct threat to Australia. The apparent reason why Hymans sees his book as a challenge to the realist security model of proliferation is that he believes “threat perception . . . is in the eye of the beholder” (222); nuclear actions are driven not by real military calculations about how to meet objective security threats, but by nationalist self-conceptions and the need for nationalist self-expression. Perhaps Hymans is correct, but the kind of evidence likely to convince realists that the heart speaks louder than the head is not found here. Regardless, the book’s weakness on this score ought to be weighed against its many other strengths. The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation should be required reading for anyone interested in the role that identity and emotion play in foreign policy interactions, as well as for students and scholars seeking to understand the profoundly important issue of nuclear proliferation. Hymans has opened a new frontier in an already theoretically-rich and important substantive arena; his work offers a provocative stimulus for further inquiry.