Americans living in nineteenth-century Hong Kong and China's treaty ports encountered a contradiction. The British dominated elite foreign society, their political, social, and cultural agendas often setting the pace for life within the community. But as citizens of a country that had recently wrested its independence from its one-time imperial overlord, Americans arriving in China were ostensibly averse to imperialism and the culture of empire. They maintained a belief that theirs was a benevolent republic that championed international amity and self-determination. Still, as Elisa Tamarkin notes, if Americans were wary of the British Empire, many found the spectacle of it appealing—a tendency evident in Hong Kong and the foreign enclaves along China's coast. Americans eager to enter elite foreign society proclaimed newfound sympathies for British belligerence in China, in turn developing increasingly prejudiced opinions about their Chinese neighbours and staff. Their derisive expressions of racial difference reinforced efforts to reconcile Anglo-American cultural incongruities. Such sentiments reflect the entangled processes through which extraimperial groups such as Americans fashioned themselves as members of the colonial elite. I argue that through such processes, the British and Americans subordinated national rivalry in the interest of entrenching racial divisions between white and non-white communities.

The proliferating Sino-US peer competition is increasingly impacting Latin American states and triggering uncertainty. As China’s expanding influence in the region challenges longstanding US supremacy in the western hemisphere and reshapes the strategic calculus for regional states, hedging behaviour becomes increasingly opportune. This most notably includes Brazil, the largest state in Latin America both politically and economically, whose hedging behaviour oscillated between governments, a characteristic normally associated with states facing higher systemic pressures. As such, how does the Sino-US peer competition impact Brazil’s hedging strategy? And why do coping behaviours differ on various indices between different administrations, from Lula to Bolsonaro? Findings suggest that depending on whether the incumbent government was left- or right-wing, Brazil’s hedge was recalibrated as either pro- or anti-US regional supremacy.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has made strengthening the alliance relationship with the United States a key part of his foreign policy positions. At the same time, South Korea continues to maintain a decent relationship with China, pursuing a precarious position to decide its role in the context of the growing US–China rivalry. The US has made the trilateral cooperation and close coordination among the US, South Korea, and Japan the centerpiece of its Indo-Pacific strategy, while South Korea and Japan have maintained their contentious relationship. The articles in this special issue address the challenges that South Korea faces today, focusing on two major themes in the contemporary era: first, how the US–China rivalry and power competition affect South Korea’s security and economic foreign policies, and second, how the bilateral tensions between South Korea and Japan affect regional security and alliance capabilities.

In this study, we examine South Korea's foreign policy strategy in the context of the increasing strategic rivalry between the United States and China. We ask why South Korea is relatively hesitant to actively balance against China, especially compared to other US allies like Japan. We present a theory that examines how the lack of territorial and maritime disputes between a US ally and China affects an ally's foreign policy strategy in the US–China rivalry, to explain the case of South Korea. In general, when a US ally is engaged in an ongoing, active territorial and/or maritime dispute with China, we expect the US ally to more actively help the US balance against China. Because bilateral relations between the US ally and China are already tense, the US ally can afford to side with the US without being as vulnerable to Chinese retaliation. On the other hand, when a US ally has no ongoing, active territorial and/or maritime dispute with China, the US ally is expected to be more cautious in siding with the US against China because doing so can provoke China to retaliate in ways more costly than if they already had ongoing disputes. We find that without ongoing, active disputes with China, South Korea is more vulnerable to retaliation by China through critical issues like North Korea and trade. As a result, it is difficult for South Korea to side with the US in actively balancing against China.

South Korea and Japan have maintained tense bilateral relations over their unresolved historical and territorial disputes for decades. The US has repeatedly called for improved relations between South Korea and Japan and underlined the importance of US–South Korea–Japan trilateral relations to address North Korean threats and regional security challenges. Would we, then, expect the US to play a role in helping to mediate South Korea–Japan problems? If so, under what conditions and to what extent would the US get involved in South Korea–Japan disputes? If not, what makes the US hesitate to do so? We argue that US involvement in South Korea–Japan bilateral relations depends on the degree to which the US perceives the tensions as costly and risky for US national security interests. With an issues-based analysis, a granular examination of South Korea–Japan trade disputes and the spat over the GSOMIA in 2019, and qualitative interviews with former US government and military officials, we find that the US is more likely to involve itself in South Korea–Japan relations and more likely to use its leverage as a major power with its allies when it perceives significant risks to its capabilities to address security challenges, primarily those posed by North Korea.

This article analyses Colombian South–South security cooperation. Drawing upon empirical research findings and by focusing on Colombian security engagements with other Latin American countries in the realm of military transformation, we identify the role of epistemological constructs as key drivers of Colombian South–South security cooperation. We demonstrate that Colombian policy and security actors intentionally created comparability between their own country and its security challenges, and the conditions existing in other countries of the region. This portrayal of idiosyncratic (in)security features as shared attributes across otherwise-different country contexts enables the transfer of security models rooted in Colombia’s expertise and experience. We show how such security-driven homologisation efforts enabled Colombian security practitioners to navigate international hierarchies, particularly unequal US–Colombian relations in their favour, allowing them to secure continued US support and position Colombian security expertise as a blueprint for addressing contemporary security challenges across the region and beyond.

The arrest and prosecution of Nissan executive Carlos Ghosn, together with his dramatic flight from Japan, have focused unprecedented attention on Japan's criminal justice system. This article employs comparison with the United States to examine issues in Japanese criminal justice highlighted by the Ghosn case. The criminal charges and procedures used in Ghosn's case illustrate several serious weaknesses in Japanese criminal justice—including the problems of prolonged detention and interrogation without a defense attorney that have been characterized as “hostage justice.” But in comparative perspective, the criminal justice systems in Japan and the U. S. have some striking similarities. Most notably, both systems rely on coercive means to obtain admissions of guilt, and both systems have high conviction rates. The American counterpart to Japan's use of high-pressure tactics to obtain confessions is a system of plea bargaining in which prosecutors use the threat of a large “trial tax” (a longer sentence for defendants who insist upon their right to a trial and are then convicted) to obtain guilty pleas. An apples-to-apples comparison also indicates that Japan's “99% conviction rate” is not the extreme outlier that it is often said to be. Commentary on Ghosn's case emphasized the weaknesses in Japanese criminal justice. Those weaknesses are real and important, but by many criteria, such as crime and incarceration rates, Japan outperforms the U.S. As for Ghosn's case in particular, this article explores four scenarios of what might have happened to him if his case had occurred in the U.S. It is not obvious that he would have fared better under American law, nor is it obvious that justice would have been better realized.

On 7 July 2017 122 countries at the UN voted to approve the text of a proposed international treaty entitled ‘Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.‘ This article assesses the significance of broad international support for the draft treaty, the opposition to it on the part of all nine nuclear powers, and its possible contribution to nuclear disarmament.

South Asians are among the fastest-growing immigrant population group in the United States (U.S.) with a unique disease risk profile. Due in part to immigration and acculturation factors, South Asians engage differently with behavioural risk factors (e.g. smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and diet) for hypertension, which may be modified for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Using data from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America cohort, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis to evaluate the association between behavioural risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diet. We created a behavioural risk factor score based on smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and TV watching. We also calculated a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary score based on inclusion of relevant dietary components. We used both scores to examine the association between engaging with risk factors for hypertension and the DASH diet among a cohort of South Asian adults. We found that participants with 3–4 behavioural risk factors had a DASH diet score that was 3 units lower than those with no behavioural risk factors (aβ: –3.25; 95% CI: –4.28, –2.21) and were 86% less likely to have a DASH diet score in the highest category compared to the lowest DASH diet score category (aOR: 0.14; 95% CI: 0.05, 0.37) in the fully adjusted models. These findings highlight the relationship between behavioural risk factors for hypertension among South Asians in the U.S.

Brazilians in the United States voted overwhelmingly for right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. What role did religion play? Based on exit polling, focus groups, and observation of local Brazilian churches, this article explores how Christianity drives support for right-wing populism among Brazilian migrants to the Boston area. Christians, and especially evangelicals, are significantly more likely to vote for Bolsonaro, and the priests and pastors of Brazilian migrant churches are particularly willing to discuss parties and candidates. Yet neither clergy endorsements nor political conversations at church explain this religious effect. I argue that indirect influence within congregations, which reinforces a conservative worldview in non-overtly political ways, helps explain why most observant evangelicals favor Bolsonaro. Migrants potentially influence the voting behavior of friends and family in Brazil, including via transnational religious communities, so their political attitudes can help bolster authoritarian populism in the homeland, as also seen in India and Turkey.

Conventional wisdom holds that women’s political underrepresentation partly stems from gendered stereotypes, with women candidates perceived as lower in ability and assertiveness, and as less competent to handle key issues like the economy and national security. However, recent research uncovers how societal leadership stereotypes have become less advantageous for men. Two conjoint experiments show that Americans’ stereotypes about political candidates follow similar trends: although women candidates (following conventional expectations) are perceived as friendlier and more moral than men, they are also seen as higher in ability and as equally assertive. Similarly, men and women candidates are perceived as equally competent to handle the economy, crime, and national security. Further analyses reveal that liberals and individuals low in hostile sexism hold stereotypes most favorable to women. These findings suggest that gendered candidate stereotypes likely constitute less of a hindrance to women seeking political nominations than in the past.