Böcker av Helen Osieja

Democracy in the 21st century is jeopardized in many parts of the world. Yet people who live in autocratic systems struggle for democracy, because democracy is the only political system that respects the rights of the people. The aim of this textbook is to present the tenets of democracy for young people who will soon come of age and become citizens as well as for people who have immigrated to a democratic country from a non-democratic country and do not know what rules apply, as well as for people in democratic countries who tend to forget that in a democracy everybody has rights.While democracy is by no means a perfect political system, it is the only one in which people of different ideologies, religions, lifestyles and ethnicities can live together: Democracy is based on tolerance and pluralism, characteristics that do not exist in other political systems. However, democracy does not only imply rights for the citizens- it implies obligations and responsibilities. This textbook can be used for a basic course on democracy or can be incorporated as a literature supplement for social studies courses.

Economic sanctions have been used as an instrument of American foreign policy ever since the Taft administration adopted the Dollar Diplomacy. This dissertation analyzes the trade Embargo the United States imposed upon Cuba after the Revolution from different perspectives: from the political, considering the main guidelines of American foreign policy toward Latin America, especially during the Cold War, and from the juridical, considering different perspectives of customary international law. Since the embargo was imposed only after American property had been expropriated without compensation, the dissertation analyzes the legality of expropriation, seen from the perspective of both capital-importing and capital-exporting countries, and the legality of economic sanctions as a legitimate peaceful reprisal. Due to the fact that the American embargo against Cuba is quasi-total, that is, consists of a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of these, and finally, to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Many books and articles have been written about this very controversial embargo, almost as old as the Cuban Revolution itself. For the Cubans, it constitutes and "economic blockade", and a violation of Cuba's right to free trade; for the Americans, it is a reprisal for the confiscation of American property. Nonetheless, since the embargo, as stated above, is not a sanction itself but a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of the sanctions that comprise the embargo and its legality, according to customary international law. Another aim of this dissertation is to prove why the American embargo against Cuba has only enhanced Castro's power and further centralized it. A brief chapter about the economic sanctions the United States imposed upon Chile under President Salvador Allende and the fall of his regime serves to compare the two cases with some similarities where sanctions were applied- in the first without success and in the second with success. Finally, the dissertation aims to prove that a lifting of the American embargo against Cuba is highly unlikely unless there is a change of regime in that nation of the Caribbean.