• North American Studies

Unleashing the Financial Sector reveals how policymakers utilized financial regulation for economic and social engineering purposes. Scholars assume that outdated regulations, regulatory capture, and fraud instigated a savings and loans (S&L) crisis that began in 1979. This project challenges those accounts by demonstrating how structural changes to the U.S. financial sector beginning in 1966 thrust the S&L industry into an existential crisis from which it would never recover. I resituate the S&L crisis within a longer historical narrative that explores the socio-economic, political, and intellectual factors that both shaped the trajectory of the U.S. financial sector after World War II and informed policymakers’ interpretations of and responses to S&L instability. This work explores how other financial institutions replaced S&Ls as the main conduits of mortgage credit, a change that fundamentally altered the composition and functionality of the financial sector and the U.S. economy. A bipartisan coalition of policymakers, not fully comprehending the changing world around them, heralded deregulation and a return to the market as the only appropriate responses to market failure. Their efforts to implement what I identified as transformational deregulation only worsened the economic and political fallout when the S&L industry collapsed in 1989.

Unleashing the Financial Sector reveals how policymakers utilized financial regulation for economic and social engineering purposes. Scholars assume that outdated regulations, regulatory capture, and fraud instigated a savings and loans (S&L) crisis that began in 1979. This project challenges those accounts by demonstrating how structural changes to the U.S. financial sector beginning in 1966 thrust the S&L industry into an existential crisis from which it would never recover. I resituate the S&L crisis within a longer historical narrative that explores the socio-economic, political, and intellectual factors that both shaped the trajectory of the U.S. financial sector after World War II and informed policymakers’ interpretations of and responses to S&L instability. This work explores how other financial institutions replaced S&Ls as the main conduits of mortgage credit, a change that fundamentally altered the composition and functionality of the financial sector and the U.S. economy. A bipartisan coalition of policymakers, not fully comprehending the changing world around them, heralded deregulation and a return to the market as the only appropriate responses to market failure. Their efforts to implement what I identified as transformational deregulation only worsened the economic and political fallout when the S&L industry collapsed in 1989.

This thesis explores the United States’ boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a tool of American foreign policy. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 which prompted US President Jimmy Carter to impose sanctions on the Soviets, including a boycott of the Moscow Games. The purpose of the paper is to explore why the boycott failed to achieve Carter’s objectives and evaluate what the President may have considered to substantially increase its success. Carter’s dealings with essential groups within the Olympic movement, such as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the Olympic athletes, as well as foreign leaders, will be critically evaluated. The paper argues that Carter failed at convincing these essential groups to support a boycott and offers some thoughts as to what the President might have considered to increase his chance of success. The thesis concludes by critically evaluating how Carter sought to promote the boycott and offers an analysis on the effectiveness of using the Olympics to advance a nation’s foreign policy agenda.

Práce poskytuje komplexní pohled na Panamskou šíji jako oblast, která byla a je velmi atraktivní pro světových mocností. Práce podrobně analyzuje historický a politický vývoj geopolitického významu Panamské šíje od objevu území až po současnost. V obsahu práce jsou zdůrazněny osobnosti, události a dokumenty, které měly dopad na plánování a výstavbu vodní cesty a stále mají vliv na efektivní provoz Panamského průplavu. Práce se zaměřuje zejména na pozici významu Panamské šíje pro námořní dopravu, zahraničně-politickém významu pro USA a významu pro stát Panama. V tomto kontextu je kladen důraz i na analýzu výzev spojenou s rozšířením Panamského průplavu a výstavbou průplavu v Nikaragui. Obhájeno The work provides a comprehensive look at the Isthmus of Panama as an area that has been very attractive for the world powers. The work closely analyzes the historical and political development of the geopolitical importance of the Isthmus of Panama since the discovery of the territory to the present. The content of work are emphasized personalities, events and documents that had an impact on the planning and construction of waterways and still have an impact on the effiective operation of the Panama Canal. It especially focuses on the importance of the position of the Isthmus of Panama for maritime, a foreign-political significance for the US and its relevance for the state of Panama. In this context emphasis is placed on analysis of the challenges associated with the expansion of the Panama Canal and the construction of the canal in Nicaragua.

“We can’t be more machista than the Argentines,” former President Bill Clinton reportedly quipped in 2008, when his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton was battling in the Democratic primaries of the presidential election, shortly after Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had been elected President of Argentina in 2007, and following Michelle Bachelet’s election in Chile the year before. The United States more ‘machista’ than Latin America in politics ? A challenging issue that was tackled during the Fren...

International audience; The First Lady has emerged as an institution of great influence. Whether out in the open like Hillary Clinton or behind the scenes like Nancy Reagan, most First Ladies have served as their husbands’ most trusted and closest political allies. Thus the modern era has seen the advent of the presidential couple, as symbolically epitomized in the 1990s' neologism “Billary.” It seems, however, that the American public is not ready to accept power-sharing in the White House and that the First Lady, visible and influential though she might be, should not play the role of a co-president. A number of feminists simply propose to “abolish” her.

When Barack Obama acceded to the Presidency of the United States he held out the promise of a new beginning. As a master of political rhetoric he had spoken of a new start following the dismal years of the Bush administration. He would take America back to its inspirational creed of freedom and democracy. He augured a break with policies infringing on civil liberties and government under the law. Once in office, though, the power of rhetoric that had carried him into the White House ran into the hard reality of political rule under conditions of ongoing wars in far-away countries and the threat of terrorism, lurking at home and abroad. This chapter will explore how well President Obama managed to preserve democratic freedoms at home while fighting terrorism.