SJS4- "The Catastrophic Greek Crisis"

Source: Matsaganis, Manos. "The Catastrophic Greek Crisis." Current History Mar. 2014: 110-16. Print.

Author Credentials: Manos Matsaganis is an Associate Professor of European Social and Employment Policies at Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). He is also the Coordinator of the Policy Analysis Research Unit at AUEB. He has served as Special Advisor to the Greek government’s Office of the Prime Minister and the Office of the Finance Minister.

Summary: In this article, the author argues that the outrage and crisis in Greece were caused by corrupt government officials and deep recession. To begin, Greece has a corrupt judicial system that lacks integrity to Greek citizens. In a recent ruling, the Judicial Pay Court decided on salary cuts for nearly all government professions except for themselves, ruling that pay cuts on the judicial system is unconstitutional. Another recent case violated Greece's interpretation of freedom of speech by ruling a 10-month sentence on a blogger who voiced his opinion on Greece's government. Also, more public outrage resulted from corrupt government officials. The former Transport Minister was caught using European Union structural funds (meant to build up Greece's tourism industry) for personal use. The minister of defense was sentenced for money laundering and a former mayor was given a life sentence for embezzlement. Furthermore, public outrage resulted from the rapid increase in Greece's financial deficit and the deep recession that resulted. In 2009, the PASOK government announced that the budget deficit was 15.6% as apposed to the 3.7% recorded earlier. In conclusion, the outrage and backlash in Greece are results from government corruption and deep financial recession.

Analysis: After reading this article, I feel that the author strongly supported his thesis of the outrage and crisis in Greece being caused by corrupt government officials and deep recession. Matsaganis uses several strong details and examples to support each of his statements. His details are slightly biased towards the side of the public; however, he uses strong evidence, including facts and statistics, to support his points. He also presents a variety of informative details (ranging from economical to political and social), allowing the reader to gain a well-rounded understanding of the topic. After analyzing this article and informing myself of the author's credentials, I can confidently conclude that this is a reliable source.

PDP 4 - "Communist Manifesto"

Author's Credentials:  Mark A. Kishkansky completed his undergraduate degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1970. He proceeded to graduate study under David Underdown at Brown University, receiving his M.A. in 1972 and his PhD in 1977.
Date and Context: The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as a platform for their new international workers organization, The Communist League. It suggests that workers do not belong to a nation and that they should overthrow the upper class because it is the working class that provides for the upper class. This document is what fuels contemporary Russia. It gave them a desire for their Bolshevik Revolution where they got rid of their royal familly. This revolution has shaped a large majority of the worlds modern and contemporary history.
Summary: This document is mainly focused on explaining the motives of communism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel wrote it for the Communist League as a platform for its cause. Kishkansky gives a brief biography about Marx's upbringing before providing the text of the manifest. The document says that it is important for the working class to unite. That they are not bound to a nation and need to rise up against middle and upper classes because it will not happen otherwise.

Key Quotation: "The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The workingmen have no country."

SJS4 - Which Way Out?

Citation: Muller, Jan-Werner. "Which Way Out?" Current History (2015):
118-19. Print.

Author Credentials: Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of foreign
affairs and politics at Princeton University. He focuses many of his
studies on the Eurozone, and the problems with it in which he
discusses to breath length on this SJS. He studied at Oxford
University, Berlin University, and Antony's College. He has written
many strictly non-fiction books and articles of world problems and
epidemics. I believe from this information he is more than qualified
to be credited as a credible author. From his article in the scholarly
journal one can tell that he is for sure unbiased as he uses views
from two authors with completely opposite views and does not choose
one over the other.

Summary: "Which Way Out?" deals with trying to find out a way to get
out of the Eurozone debt crisis. The majority of the article explains
first whether or not there is a way out, and then presents two
different ideas on how to escape the debt. The first idea was to
completely get rid of the Eurozone system entirely. Which was
supported by some and not by others. One of the people who did not
support that idea said that to completely erase the Eurozone the
present day is unrealistic. However he did agree that we should tone
it back a bit and make it less dominant and important in the European
economies.

Analysis: I believed the author makes a strong and valid argument
within this article. He is not biased to one side and presents both
sides of the argument equally. He uses a sufficient amount of evidence
from other historians and economists to help distinguish facts from
opinions which he does very well. I would state that this author is
reliable and can be considered a credible source.

SJS4- "The New Middle East Will Test Europe"

Source: Serfaty, Simon. "The New Middle East Will Test Europe." Current History 111.743 (2012): 118-19. Print.

Author Credentials: Simon Serfaty is a senior professor in U.S. foreign policy and a former research professor at Johns Hopkins Center of European Studies. In addition to this, Serfaty also has many of his written books in professional journals that have been published focusing on European articles.

Summary: This article talks about the Middle East improving itself and going hand and hand with that of Europe. It's been 800 years that the people in the Middle East have been abused by their rulers and the rulers by those who overpowered them and finally, the rule of the Islam is being replaced with a democracy. President Bush of Europe in 1989 said that there is a long road ahead of the Middle East before they become an entirely free democracy because many people were comparing the Arab uprising of the Middle East to the European revolutions when it is a far fetched idea. The main focus of this article is how the emergence of a new and better Middle East will push the Europeans and test them on their freedom and democracy and it will compare the two situations. The author argues that the European road to a stable democratic system was rough due to many limitations. These limitations included rehabilitation, reconstruction, reconciliation, and stabilization. The author also talks about how the European military is lacking in its capabilities to support and protect Europe. I can relate this to our class activities when we went over the summary notes in which we talked about how Europe had an advanced military in terms of weapons and highly trained soldiers.

Analysis: Based off of this article, I can tell that the author is more biased towards the Middle East side in terms of them becoming a new and free democracy. Serfaty goes on to describe and point out all of the Europeans negative aspects in their time of Revolution. This can be shown by how Serfaty was criticizing the Europeans for their poor stability skills and their weak army. Serfaty also goes to say how the Middle East had much ahead of them and it will take time for them to become entirely free and democratic but once they do, they will give the Europeans a run for their money.

SJS4 - "The Burden of Communist Legacies

Source: Tismaneanu, Vladimir . "The Burden of Communist Legacies." Current History Vol. 113: No. 765. October 2014. (293-295).

Author Credentials: Vladimir Tismaneanu is qualified to discuss the issue of Soviet Communism because he is a professor of politics and has devoted his life to studying and interpreting Communism and has had a first hand account of Communism in Romania. He is the current chair of the Editorial Committee of East European Politics and Societies and is affiliated with a multitude of organizations studying Soviet Communism. While growing up in Communist Romania, Tismaneanu acquired a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Bucharest, Romania. With a background centralized around communism and a life of studying politics, I would consider Vladimir Tismaneanu to be a very credible and reliable source for the topic of Soviet Communism. 

Summary: The main point argued by Vladimir Tismaneanu is that the dominating force of Communism in Soviet Russia brought the region of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe into a transition paradigm, in which power shifted from former dictatorships to democracy, and equality for the people. He brings up a good point by saying "Legacies are neither homogenous nor linear, but polychromatic structures linking the past to the present." In short, he is arguing that the Communist legacy of the Soviet Union has not relinquished its influence on contemporary Russia because it was a unifying, or connecting force from modern Russia to contemporary Russia. The cultural context of this article is that it provides insight towards the forces of past Communist governments and how they continue to impact society today. Despite being more or less a dying and less significant governing system today, the burdens of a Communist past lead to social patterns and regimes, which help define their cultures today. 

Analysis: Yes, I would support Tismaneanu's argument due to the fact that it was very informative, and provided core structural background information in a concise, understandable manner. Despite being a relatively short article, I believe that it was sufficient in this case in deepening my understanding of the broad topic of Soviet Communism. On multiple occasions, the author does a good job of succinctly differentiating between fact and opinion, making for a clear argument. As a result of his proper execution of the article and studies in the field, I would consider Tismaneanu to be a very reliable source. 

SJS4- "Germany Rethinks Its Role in the World"

Source:
 Kundnani, Hans. "Germany Rethinks Its Role in the World." Current Hustory
    114.770 (2015): 115-17. Print.

Author Credentials:
Hans Kundnani studied philosophy and German at Oxford University along with journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also spent a year at the Freie Universitat Berlin for undergraduate school. He is currently a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Berlin and an associate fellow at the Institute for German Studies at Birmingham University. Therefore, his knowledge would be extensive on topics involving Europe and specifically Germany.

Summary:
The president of Germany made a speech in January 2014 regarding how Germany should not use its past as an excuse for laziness in the future. His announcement got much criticism from the German public, but sparked discussion about Germany's stance on foreign policy (specifically regarding Russia and Ukraine). Many believe that Germany was experiencing a "geopolitical awakening". More recently, Germany has been reluctant to use military force but still forceful to other nations of their economic and political standings, making their foreign policy unique from others. The majority of the German public supports Germany's mediation between the West and Russia, while the Chancellor of Germany (Angela Merkel) is resisting the military track that the Baltic States and Poland enforce. Germany remains a geopolitical power, showing a growth of economic interdependence with China. Hesitation to use military forces persists in Germany, though it's newest challenge is dealing with "irresponsible stakeholders".

Analysis:

After reading this article, it was clear that the author had a slight bias towards the German public majority. This was most apparent when he chose to include statistics such as percentages of Germans supporting various foreign policies. Each statistic included showed that the German public supported his proposed economic solution. Although, all of his statements appeared to be based on facts, as he often referred to quotes and speeches for support. I would consider his information to be reliable considering he has extensive knowledge on the topics regarding the geopolitical standpoint of Germany, and with such knowledge comes a well supported opinion and viewpoint.

SJS4 - "Under threat; The euro-zone economy"

Source: "Under threat; The euro-zone economy." The Economist 24 Oct. 2015: 72(US). Student Resources in Context. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Author Credentials: This article does not have a stated author or editor. The Economist is a well-known and highly regarded publication. It's journals have been continuously published since 1843. The Economist's editor in chief is Zanny Minton Beddoes. Beddoes received an undergraduate degree at Oxford University, where she studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. She earned a master's degree at Harvard University, as a Kennedy Scholar.


Summary: In this article, the author argues that the euro-zone economy is suffering and is projected to continue with very low inflation rates even though it has seemed to be doing slightly better. The euro has been suffering for about the past five years due to a combination of economic, financial and political ailments, making it the main source of fragility in the global economy. Recently, however, the euro zone has seemed to be doing increasingly better.  The euro zone's output grew at an average rate of 0.4% a quarter between late 2014 and mid-2015. This recovery was initially led by Germany but has recently benefited from strong growth in Spain, Italy, and France. However, the overall pace of recovery in the euro area remains disappointing given the strong stimulus it has been receiving. The ECB's goal is to get inflation back to its objective of nearly 2%.  After a few months of very low inflation, the euro experienced deflation again in September. Since the major drop in energy prices last year among other negative factors, the inflation is projected to stay very low.

Analysis: I feel that the author strongly supported his/her thesis that the euro-zone economy is doing poorly. However, I feel that he/she could have used more direct reasons to support why the euro is doing poorly. Also, I feel the author did a nice job of including a contradiction by saying that the euro-zone economy has been doing slightly better, but then refutes this contradiction by saying that the increase is very minor. I feel that this article was a reliable source because it presented opposing viewpoints but still used facts to support its main point that the euro is suffering.