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| 1 |
ID:
086376
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is premature to predict how Japan-US relations will be shaped under Obama. The real test, as said before, will be Obama's Iraq policy and Japan's role in the US strategy. When the senior Bush was in the White House, the end of the cold war in the early 1990's gave him a "peace dividend" - a drop in military spending that opened the door to fund more constructive federal programs. Obama would probably hope for the same advantage should he manage to wind up the war in Iraq as promised during the election.The savings are potentially substantial.
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| 2 |
ID:
099312
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
President Barack Obama came into office with a social welfare policy agenda that aimed to reconstitute what can be understood as the "submerged state": a conglomeration of existing federal policies that incentivize and subsidize activities engaged in by private actors and individuals. By attempting to restructure the political economy involved in taxation, higher education policy, and health care, Obama ventured into a policy terrain that presents immense obstacles to reform itself and to the public's perception of its success. Over time the submerged state has fostered the profitability of particular industries and induced them to increase their political capacity, which they have exercised in efforts to maintain the status quo. Yet the submerged state simultaneously eludes most ordinary citizens: they have little awareness of its policies or their upwardly redistributive effects, and few are cognizant of what is at stake in reform efforts. This article shows how, in each of the three policy areas, the contours and dynamics of the submerged state have shaped the possibilities for reform and the form it has taken, the politics surrounding it, and its prospects for success. While the Obama Administration won hard-fought legislative accomplishments in each area, political success will continue to depend on how well policy design, policy delivery and political communication reveal policy reforms to citizens, so that they better understand how reforms function and what has been achieved.
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