When Fidel Castro announced he was temporarily relinquishing power due to his illness, people began to debate the possibility of democratic changes in a post-Castro Cuba. While reports circulate that the ailing Castro is recovering, speculations about significant changes in Cuba continue. This pap...

The government, whether we think about it or not, plays a very significant role in all of our lives regardless of our ethnic background. Though there are many differing forms of government, they affect our lives in the same way. Changes in how the government works slowly begin to effect how we car...

In the history impetus of man, civilization has progressed by the establishment of strong governments that have made the greatest contributions to society and the advancement of industrialism. These governments include Socialism, Communism, and the Constitutional Republic. All of these governments g...

I am a 19-year-old male, born and raised in support of our national government. My resent interest in the way our great nation is governed began in the classroom. I found my American Government class to be quite interesting and the Bush and Clinton scandals only increased my interest in American pol...

China ascribes to its own form of communism, Maoism (as opposed to the Soviet Marxist model). It also has many characteristics that distinguish it from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and make any sort of economic comparison difficult, to say the least. As much as the socialist econo...

In the middle of the twentieth centaury, the two biggest countries in the world, India and China, underwent significant changes in the structure of their governments. Both countries were rural where the majority of population was poor. As they were not yet industrialized, Western countries looked do...

Angola is a country on the southwest coast of Africa. Its official name is the Republic of Angola. The Congo River and Congo (Kinshasa) separate it from the rest of the country. Most of Angola's people live in rural areas and work on farms. Angola produces a variety of crops, including b...

In his book Nils Gilman speaks about the many theories that defined modernism and modernization during the twentieth century. Those theories refer mainly to the American pint of view and their concept of situations, compared to other countries that were, at that time, less developed. The theory of ...

At the height of the Cold War, a new cartoon emerged. Little blue people called Smurfs sang and skipped into the hearts of the American populace. The good, clean antics of the Smurfs were the model of American values, or were they? One should look closely at the Smurfs, their values, their cultures....

With all of the changes going on within America, and the prosperity and production that came with the industrial revolution, the temptation to stray from the foreign policy that Washington set out a hundred years before was very great. The Americans now entered a time where they were in a position...

To understand the differences between Socialism in the Soviet Union and in the third world, we first have to explain what Socialism in the Soviet and the third world context really mean. The phrase the 'the third world' is generally taken to include the Americas south of the United Stat...

There were many things that lead up to the creation of the Reagan Doctrine, which was supposed to help stop a major conflict in the world. Many years before this doctrine was created, there were a major conflict that began with the Communist. Most of the Communistic activities at this time was in...

Zaire and Vietnam – Countries in Turmoil After, before, and during the Vietnam War, America has tried to push democracy, or at least democratic ideas, onto other countries. In Africa, Zaire was a country that was heavily influenced by the morals of the U.S. – a stable government and...

Under communism, only the tiniest fraction of people expressed open dissent against the system. The system tried to draw in as many people as possible as accomplices. One of the most effective means was the threat that a failure to actively denounce opponents of the ideology would mean classificat...

In his introduction to The Lexus and the Olive Tree, published in 1999, Thomas Freidman states that "[t]he world is 10 years old. It was born when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Cold War system was replaced by a new, very greased, interconnected system called globalization." As a...

Preface: How has the ninth edition been updated? In this updated edition, certain chapters have in added in light of the attacks of September 11, 2001. There was a chapter added on the foreign policies of Clinton and Yelstin-Putin also, an introduction to the beginnings of George W. Bush's...

Industrial revolution marked a momentous turning point in human history. The Industrial Revolution created, first in Great Britain and then in continental Europe and North America, a growing and tremendously dynamic economic system. In the course of the 19th century, that system was extended across...

As WWII ended, the world remained in total disarray. Actual battles on land, sea and air transposed into a new type of war and with new players. USSR ruler Joseph Stalin depicted the globe as a ball cut in half: imperialist and capitalist regimes on one side and the Communist and progressive wor...

The definition of imperialism is the ambition of a powerful nation to dominate the political, economic and cultural affairs of another nation or region. The question that has been asked is why in this period of history do all of a sudden European powers begin a blitz to imperialize. The answer has b...

After WWII, there was an iron curtain dividing eastern and western Europe. And there were also two superpowers left standing, the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States dominated in western Europe while the Soviet Union dominated in eastern Europe. Tensions grew between the two superp...

Government Intervention For many nations, it is essential to choose a system of organization that successfully and thoroughly meets the needs of all the people. While some countries have supported the idea of communism and strong government intervention in the economy, others have limited the role a...

Communism is a concept or system of society in which the community owns the major resources and means of production rather than by individuals. In theory, such societies provide for equal sharing of all work, according to ability, and all benefits according to need. Some conceptions of communist soc...

Communism in Eastern Europe was a tragedy. It did do well in Eastern Europe for quite a while, however, it was doomed to failure. Communism was condemned due to lack of support from other nations, condemned due to the lack of an efficient solution to the economical failure, and condemned due to the ...

Imagine the next time you step into the voting booth your ballot only lists one candidate to choose from. Or perhaps your ballot lists four candidates, but they are all from the Liberal party. Dictatorships are one party political systems that are ruled by one leader or an elite group of people unde...

For some reason it seems so true. The truth in the statement "you never know what you have until you do not have it anymore" is so over-powering. It almost turns around to just slap you in the face. When you have what you never knew meant so much you always wonder why it is there...