The American aggression in Iraq and the campaign in Afghanistan resulted from the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. 9/11 has had a massive, catalysing effect on the American public, press, main political parties and official foreign policy makers. This article assesses the impact of 9/11 in changing US foreign policy and especially in creating a new foreign policy establishment by comparing it to the consequences of an historical military attack on the United States – Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. It concludes that there is adequate evidence to suggest that a new bipartisan foreign policy consensus/establishment has emerged.

This article examines the domestic and international pressures since 11 September 2001 on the liberal democratic asylum regime practised within the European Union. It looks at three areas of confrontation. The pressures exerted upon national governments by anti-immigrant and anti-asylum seeker/refugee far right populist parties. It examines the attempts by the European Union and its member states to arrive at a Common European Asylum System in light of policy developments over the past 20 years, and places these long-standing processes within the events of 11 September 2001. It discusses whether or not the liberal democratic tradition of asylum embodied in the Geneva Convention of 1951 been sacrificed to the dual pressures of the electoral victories of the far right in Europe and a new form of terrorism that threatens European societies.

Inter-institutional cooperation between the congress and the presidency may be the best way to promote good governance in a regime of separation of powers. In order to evaluate the performance of different political institutions, especially the different frameworks associated with ‘presidentialism’ and ‘parliamentarism’, we adopt the criterion that policy outcomes coinciding with the median voter's preference can produce the highest satisfaction or social utility. From this perspective, proportional representation in congress can be very appropriate since it tends to establish a close correspondence between the median party's and the median voter's preferences. Likewise, cooperation – rather than conflict or mutual checks – between the median party in congress and the presidency for both legislative decisions and cabinet formation can favour socially efficient outcomes. A survey of some recent institutional reforms in democratic presidential regimes in Latin America shows that ‘parliamentarization’ of presidentialism is gaining acceptance, although intermediate formulae may be more conflictual than a global, more coherent institutional reform.

The article provides an overview of gay identity politics today. It begins with an introduction to the historical trajectory of the post-1945 period, and then turns to the challenges posed by queer politics and theory to gay identity politics. The related issue of the globalization of being gay is then considered, in terms of the universalizing of identity politics. Finally, the ramifications for gay identity politics of the political and legal recognition of same-sex relationships are discussed, leading to the obvious final question: whether being gay will continue to have a political logic in the years ahead.