Academic literature on the topic 'United States' Civil War'

Native Americans played a vital role in the history of the United States of America. During the upheaval of the Civil War (1861-1865), many American Indians expressed their commitment to the Union or Confederacy. They assembled armies and participated in battles. Their alliance was important for both sides of the war (the Union and the Confederacy) as they recognized that American Indians’ involvement in this conflict could influence the outcome of the bloody conflict. At the same time, Native Americans were affected by the Civil War, because during this period they faced division among their tribes, and after the war they struggled to exist without slavery and to cope with broken treaties and territorial growth despite promises by the United States government. This article examines the role of American Indians during the Civil War and their condition after the war. The research explains how slavery affected the American Indians’ commitment and how their decision shaped the American experience in the Civil War.

During the extant “War on Terror,” U.S. and foreign nationals who did not engage in hostilities were detained and mistreated abroad by the United States or by other countries with the acquiescence of the United States. These individuals were accused of being terrorists or were suspected of associating with terror groups, but they were, in fact, innocent. They were eventually released and were never charged by the United States with any crime. Despite their innocence, the United States has failed to provide them with any form of redress for their mistreatment. The Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations refused to apologize or provide any reparations to these individuals. The federal courts have consistently dismissed their efforts to seek redress through legal process. And, to date, Congress has remained silent. To remedy these acts of injustice, this Article offers a legislative proposal based on the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which Congress adopted to address the discrimination and detention of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Based on this historical analog, this Article proposes the adoption of the Civil Redress and Historical Memory Act of 2029, which would establish a commission of inquiry to investigate these cases of arbitrary detention and mistreatment perpetrated by the United States during the War on Terror. The Act would offer an apology and provide restitution to individuals who were wrongfully detained and mistreated by the United States or by other countries with U.S. complicity during the War on Terror. The Act would also establish a public education program that would publicize the commission’s findings and promote awareness of human rights in the United States and abroad.

The thought that the United States could engage in a second civil war is disturbing, as it represents a significant threat to the stability not only of one nation, but also of the world. Harbouring the idea of such a conflict is not as outlandish as it might seem at first glance: Several movements that have gained attention in recent years seem to be preparing for such a scenario. The two that are most interesting, essentially because they come with territorial claims, are the Greater Idaho Movement, which advocates for the secession of rural counties in eastern Oregon and northern California to join the state of Idaho and create a super-state, and the American Redoubt, which supports the establishment of a territorial entity that would include most of Greater Idaho plus Montana and Wyoming. Significantly, northern Colorado, along with North and South Dakota, while ideologically in tune with American Redoubt political and cultural philosophies, are specifically excluded in the territorial plan for this super state, as they are mainly flat and therefore difficult to defend against a modern mechanised military. It is obvious that the American Redoubt’s hypothetical defensive operations are being calculated to thwart United States Army advances in case of conflict. I will argue here that these movements’ ideology is secessionist, and that they may cause armed conflict in the United States, the likelihood and scale of which is difficult to determine.

Abstract: This essay introduces the special forum on transpacific connections in the Civil War era. The forum investigates how US interaction with Asia and the Pacific shaped race relations, gender ideology, diplomacy, and legal rights in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. By examining the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States, the experience of Black migrants in Japan, Chinese women's habeas corpus litigations, and the naturalized citizenship of Chinese Americans, the forum integrates Asia and the Pacific into Civil War–era scholarship. Conceptually, the forum is informed by three strands of historiography: the international history of the Civil War era, the American West during the Civil War era, and the history of the Pacific World.

The American Civil War had a serious impact in Europe because the United States supplied vital raw materials for both Britain and France and was also a major market for their manufactured goods. The prospect of intervention in the war raised difficult issues—morally repugnant support of slavery on the one hand, but on the other, in the aftermath of the rebellions of 1848 in Europe, the possibility to weaken democratic republicanism. Mediation remained elusive. Britain, being the leading economic, naval, and colonial power, was the most threatening and most involved with both the Union and Confederate sides in the war. Britain’s diplomatic and maritime policy is the most extensively studied, augmented by fresh examinations of the British minister to the United States, Lord Lyons. New research also examines possible French involvement in the war and the complications arising from France’s invasion of Mexico.

What determines when states adopt war taxes to finance the cost of conflict? We address this question with a study of war taxes in the United States between 1789 and 2010. Using logit estimation of the determinants of war taxes, an analysis of roll-call votes on war tax legislation, and a historical case study of the Civil War, we provide evidence that partisan fiscal differences account for whether the United States finances its conflicts through war taxes or opts for alternatives such as borrowing or expanding the money supply. Because the fiscal policies implemented to raise the revenues for war have considerable and often enduring redistributive impacts, war finance—in particular, war taxation—becomes a high-stakes political opportunity to advance the fiscal interests of core constituencies. Insofar as the alternatives to taxation shroud the actual costs of war, the findings have important implications for democratic accountability and the conduct of conflict.

Texte remanié de: Doct. diss.--Baltimore--the Johns Hopkins University.
Publ. la première fois en 1960 aux États-Unis sous le titre : "Canada and the United States : the Civil war years" Notes bibliogr. Index.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Feb. 29, 2008). Directed by Nancy Walker; submitted to the School of Music. Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-176).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of California, Davis, 2004.
Joint doctoral program with California State University, Fresno. Degree granted in Educational Leadership. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the World Wide Web. (Restricted to UC campuses)

Soldiers from southeastern Ohio and their families fought the Civil War (1861–1865) in a reciprocal relationship, sustaining one another throughout the course of the conflict. The soldiers needed support from their families at home. The families, likewise, relied upon the constant contact via letters for assurance that the soldiers were surviving and doing well in the ranks. This dissertation qualitatively examines the correspondence between soldiers and their families in southeastern Ohio, developing six major themes of analysis including early war patriotism, war at the front, war at home, political unrest at home, common religion, and the shared cost of the war. The source base for the project included over one thousand letters and over two hundred and fifty newspaper articles, all of which contribute to a sense of the mood of southeastern Ohioans as they struggled to fight the war together. The conclusions of the dissertation show that soldiers and their families developed a cooperative relationship throughout the war. This dissertation helps to provide a corrective to the overly romantic perspective on the Civil War that it was fought between divided families. Rather, Civil War soldiers and their families fought the war in shared suffering and in support of one another.

Гражданская война в Китае стала временем острого столкновения интересов США и СССР в разгорающейся «холодной войне», поэтому, не удивительно, что американские спецслужбы про-являли повышенный интерес к этому региону. Чан Кайши – лидер условно проамериканской Ки-тайской Республики очень быстро проявил себя ненадёжным союзником, что во многом повлияло на ход войны. Информация о коррупции, махинациях и различных сложностях политики в этой части Китая стала доступна американскому руководству, в том числе и благодаря работе спец-служб. The Chinese civil war was a time of sharp clash between the interests of the United States and the USSR in the flaring Cold War, so it is not surprising that the American intelligence services showed an increased interest in this region. Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the conditionally pro-American Republic of China, very quickly proved to be an unreliable ally, which largely influenced the course of the war. In-formation about corruption, fraud and various political complexities in this part of China has become available to the American leadership, including due to the work of intelligence agencies.

For more than the last fifteen years, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) has been using a probabilistic performance goal-based seismic design method for structures, systems, and components (SSCs) in its nuclear and hazardous facilities. Using a graded approach, the method permits the selection of probabilistic performance goals or acceptable failure rates for SSCs based on the severity level of SSC failure consequences. The method uses a site-specific probabilistic seismic hazard curve as the basic seismic input motion definition, but utilizes the existing national industry consensus design codes for specifying load combination and design acceptance criteria in such a way that the target probabilistic performance goals are met. Recently, the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have undertaken the development of a number of national consensus standards that will utilize the performance goal-based seismic design experience base in the DOE complex. These standards are presently in various stages of development, some nearing completion. Once completed, these standards are likely to be adopted by various agencies and organizations in the United States. In addition to the graded approach of DOE’s method, these standards incorporate design provisions that permit seismic design of SSCs to several levels of functional performance. This flexibility of choosing a functional performance level in the design process results in an optimum, but risk-consistent design. The paper will provide an outline of two of these standards-in-progress and will present the author’s understanding of their basic philosophies and technical bases. Even though the author is an active member of the development committees for these two standards, the technical opinions expressed in this paper are author’s own, and does not reflect the views of any of the committees or the views of the organizations with which any member of the committees are affiliated.

Doha experienced a remarkable transformation since oil and natural gas exportation began in the mid-twentieth century. Rapid urbanization and globalization ('process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide involving goods, services, data, technology, and capital') characterize this transformation. Doha expanded to accommodate significant population increases and lifestyle changes. The urban expansion was auto-centric and suburban, similar to post-war development in the United States and other western societies. Qatari citizens 'emptied' Old Doha as they moved to contemporary villas in new developments at the suburban periphery. In response, the Qatari government launched plans for Msheireb Downtown Doha. Its purpose is to attract Qataris back to Doha's historic center by providing a walkable, mixed-use urban environment promoting a new model of sustainable urbanism. The design and planning explicitly seek to become rooted in Qatari social identity while preserving cultural heritage and historic resources. Our paper investigates the urban form and function of Msheireb Downtown Doha to evaluate its success. It examines the urban morphology, including figure-ground and pedestrian sheds analysis from crucial locations and surveys of ground-level land uses, active/inactive frontages, and the pattern of building heights. The goal is to illustrate and understand the project's urban form and function logic. Based on this, we argue that Msheireb Downtown Doha does satisfy the inhabitants' desire for a downtown lifestyle. It offers a model for urban regeneration consistent with the Qatar National Vision 2030 for an advanced society, sustainable development, and a high standard of living for people.

Low-altitude windshear is recognized by the commercial aviation industry as a major hazard. In the United States, during the period 1964 to 1985, windshear was a contributing factor in at least 26 civil transport incidents and 3 accidents, involving 500 fatalities and 200 injuries. On a single day, in July 1988, windshear caught four jetliners at Denver/Stapleton Airport and dropped one of them within 100 feet of the ground. The FAA has now mandated that all commercial aircraft have some kind of windshear warning devices onboard by 1994, or a predictive, forward-looking device by 1996.

The pedestrian mall became a fixture in declining American cities from the 1960s to the 1980s when landscape architects, municipal officials, and business associations created it as a design strategy to help downtown business districts compete with ascendant suburban malls, importing many of their spatial and programmatic strategies into the fabric of the city. Recent reassessments of pedestrian malls in planning journals have argued that factors such as tourism, climate, and even length contribute significantly to their ultimate success or failure. However, few have historically situated the mall-building phenomenon explicitly within the context of the civil rights movement, urban renewal, desegregation, and white flight—all factors that underwrote suburbanization and urban decline. This paper reads one pedestrian mall—the Mid-America Mall in Memphis, TN (1976)—within the context of the city’s racial politics. The Mall was one of the longest in the United States at its construction, stretching ten blocks along the city’s Main Street and terminating at the pedestrianized Civic Center plaza. Utilizing abstract, repetitive forms first popularized by the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, Memphis architects Gassner, Nathan and Browne designed the mall with a block-long water feature at its center, surrounded by “performance platforms” of varying sizes and heights.

Open, distance learning (ODL) has been with us over the years; however, very few accepted it until the outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It seems like COVID-19 was an ODL messenger sent to convince the world of the need to imbibe the distance learning pedagogy. During the pandemic, schools which hitherto had no formulated policy on distance learning had to imbibe the distance learning pedagogy to sustain their academic curricula. To sustain the drive, policy making bodies on education must formulate policies that will enshrine the use of distance learning in the education system. To build a resilient education system demands a deliberate effort by actors and stakeholders in the education sector viewing ODL as a tool to fast-track the learning process. Two studies were conducted within the period of the COVID-19 pandemic (between 2020 and 2021) – a cross-sectional study of 255 students from five major institutions located in the Niger Delta, Nigeria and a study involving students, faculties, civil servants and some uncategorized individuals selected from nations in Africa, Asia, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Canada. Results obtained from the analysis indicate the need to rejig the drive on distance learning and access to ODL mode of teaching and technology.

Aim/Purpose: This paper provides the results of the preliminary analysis of the findings of an ongoing study that seeks to examine the social media use, cultural and political awareness, civic engagement, issue prioritization, and social activism of Gen Z students enrolled at four different institutional types located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The aim of this study is to look at the group as a whole as well as compare findings across populations. The institutional types under consideration include a mid-sized majority serving or otherwise referred to as a traditionally white institution (TWI) located in a small coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean, a small Historically Black University (HBCU) located in a rural area, a large community college located in a county that is a mixture of rural and suburban and which sits on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and graduating high school students enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs in a large urban area. This exploration is purposed to examine the behaviors and expectations of Gen Z students within a representative American region during a time of tremendous turmoil and civil unrest in the United States. Background: Over 74 million strong, Gen Z makes up almost one-quarter of the U.S. population. They already outnumber any current living generation and are the first true digital natives. Born after 1996 and through 2012, they are known for their short attention spans and heightened ability to multi-task. Raised in the age of the smart phone, they have been tethered to digital devices from a young age with most having the preponderance of their childhood milestones commemorated online. Often called Zoomers, they are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation and are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history. Gen Zers in the United States have been found in the research to be progressive and pro-government and viewing increasing racial and ethnic diversity as positive change. Finally, they are less likely to hold xenophobic beliefs such as the notion of American exceptionalism and superiority that have been popular with by prior generations. The United States has been in a period of social and civil unrest in recent years with concerns over systematic racism, rampant inequalities, political polarization, xenophobia, police violence, sexual assault and harassment, and the growing epidemic of gun violence. Anxieties stirred by the COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these issues resulting in a powder keg explosion occurring throughout the summer of 2020 and leading well into 2021. As a result, the United States has deteriorated significantly in the Civil Unrest Index falling from 91st to 34th. The vitriol, polarization, protests, murders, and shootings have all occurred during Gen Z’s formative years, and the limited research available indicates that it has shaped their values and political views. Methodology: The Mid-Atlantic region is a portion of the United States that exists as the overlap between the northeastern and southeastern portions of the country. It includes the nation’s capital, as well as large urban centers, small cities, suburbs, and rural enclaves. It is one of the most socially, economically, racially, and culturally diverse parts of the United States and is often referred to as the “typically American region.” An electronic survey was administered to students from 2019 through 2021 attending a high school dual enrollment program, a minority serving institution, a majority serving institution, and a community college all located within the larger mid-Atlantic region. The survey included a combination of multiple response, Likert scaled, dichotomous, open ended, and ordinal questions. It was developed in the Survey Monkey system and reviewed by several content and methodological experts in order to examine bias, vagueness, or potential semantic problems. Finally, the survey was pilot tested prior to implementation in order to explore the efficacy of the research methodology. It was then modified accordingly prior to widespread distribution to potential participants. The surveys were administered to students enrolled in classes taught by the authors all of whom are educators. Participation was voluntary, optional, and anonymous. Over 800 individuals completed the survey with just over 700 usable results, after partial completes and the responses of individuals outside of the 18-24 age range were removed. Findings: Participants in this study overwhelmingly were users of social media. In descending order, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Tik Tok were the most popular social media services reported as being used. When volume of use was considered, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter were the most cited with most participants reporting using Instagram and Snapchat multiple times a day. When asked to select which social media service they would use if forced to choose just one, the number one choice was YouTube followed by Instagram and Snapchat. Additionally, more than half of participants responded that they have uploaded a video to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Tik Tok. When asked about their familiarity with different technologies, participants overwhelmingly responded that they are “very familiar” with smart phones, searching the Web, social media, and email. About half the respondents said that they were “very familiar” with common computer applications such as the Microsoft Office Suite or Google Suite with another third saying that they were “somewhat familiar.” When asked about Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard, Course Compass, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle, Course Sites, Google Classroom, Mindtap, Schoology, Absorb, D2L, itslearning, Otus, PowerSchool, or WizIQ, only 43% said they were “very familiar” with 31% responding that they were “somewhat familiar.” Finally, about half the students were either “very” or “somewhat” familiar with operating systems such as Windows. A few preferences with respect to technology in the teaching and learning process were explored in the survey. Most students (85%) responded that they want course announcements and reminders sent to their phones, 76% expect their courses to incorporate the use of technology, 71% want their courses to have course websites, and 71% said that they would rather watch a video than read a book chapter. When asked to consider the future, over 81% or respondents reported that technology will play a major role in their future career. Most participants considered themselves “informed” or “well informed” about current events although few considered themselves “very informed” or “well informed” about politics. When asked how they get their news, the most common forum reported for getting news and information about current events and politics was social media with 81% of respondents reporting. Gen Z is known to be an engaged generation and the participants in this study were not an exception. As such, it came as no surprise to discover that, in the past year more than 78% of respondents had educated friends or family about an important social or political issue, about half (48%) had donated to a cause of importance to them, more than a quarter (26%) had participated in a march or rally, and a quarter (26%) had actively boycotted a product or company. Further, about 37% consider themselves to be a social activist with another 41% responding that aren’t sure if they would consider themselves an activist and only 22% saying that they would not consider themselves an activist. When asked what issues were important to them, the most frequently cited were Black Lives Matter (75%), human trafficking (68%), sexual assault/harassment/Me Too (66.49%), gun violence (65.82%), women’s rights (65.15%), climate change (55.4%), immigration reform/deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) (48.8%), and LGBTQ+ rights (47.39%). When the schools were compared, there were only minor differences in social media use with the high school students indicating slightly more use of Tik Tok than the other participants. All groups were virtually equal when it came to how informed they perceived themselves about current events and politics. Consensus among groups existed with respect to how they get their news, and the community college and high school students were slightly more likely to have participated in a march, protest, or rally in the last 12 months than the university students. The community college and high school students were also slightly more likely to consider themselves social activists than the participants from either of the universities. When the importance of the issues was considered, significant differences based on institutional type were noted. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was identified as important by the largest portion of students attending the HBCU followed by the community college students and high school students. Less than half of the students attending the TWI considered BLM an important issue. Human trafficking was cited as important by a higher percentage of students attending the HBCU and urban high school than at the suburban and rural community college or the TWI. Sexual assault was considered important by the majority of students at all the schools with the percentage a bit smaller from the majority serving institution. About two thirds of the students at the high school, community college, and HBCU considered gun violence important versus about half the students at the majority serving institution. Women’s rights were reported as being important by more of the high school and HBCU participants than the community college or TWI. Climate change was considered important by about half the students at all schools with a slightly smaller portion reporting out the HBCU. Immigration reform/DACA was reported as important by half the high school, community college, and HBCU participants with only a third of the students from the majority serving institution citing it as an important issue. With respect to LGBTQ rights approximately half of the high school and community college participants cited it as important, 44.53% of the HBCU students, and only about a quarter of the students attending the majority serving institution. Contribution and Conclusion: This paper provides a timely investigation into the mindset of generation Z students living in the United States during a period of heightened civic unrest. This insight is useful to educators who should be informed about the generation of students that is currently populating higher education. The findings of this study are consistent with public opinion polls by Pew Research Center. According to the findings, the Gen Z students participating in this study are heavy users of multiple social media, expect technology to be integrated into teaching and learning, anticipate a future career where technology will play an important role, informed about current and political events, use social media as their main source for getting news and information, and fairly engaged in social activism. When institutional type was compared the students from the university with the more affluent and less diverse population were less likely to find social justice issues important than the other groups. Recommendations for Practitioners: During disruptive and contentious times, it is negligent to think that the abounding issues plaguing society are not important to our students. Gauging the issues of importance and levels of civic engagement provides us crucial information towards understanding the attitudes of students. Further, knowing how our students gain information, their social media usage, as well as how informed they are about current events and political issues can be used to more effectively communicate and educate. Recommendations for Researchers: As social media continues to proliferate daily life and become a vital means of news and information gathering, additional studies such as the one presented here are needed. Additionally, in other countries facing similarly turbulent times, measuring student interest, awareness, and engagement is highly informative. Impact on Society: During a highly contentious period replete with a large volume of civil unrest and compounded by a global pandemic, understanding the behaviors and attitudes of students can help us as higher education faculty be more attuned when it comes to the design and delivery of curriculum. Future Research This presentation presents preliminary findings. Data is still being collected and much more extensive statistical analyses will be performed.

Introduction: Falls from heights represent one of the most frequent accidents in civil constructions, mainly caused by different roofing activities. The risks should be first evaluated by conducting safety inspections, and then implementing adequate control measures to eliminate or reduce the risks of accidents. New technologies facilitate those inspections and make the processes much more efficient. The objective of this study was to make a systematic review to analyse works which used a drone as a visual tool for such safety inspection activities, systematize main information needed to consider in developing future drone research in civil construction. Methodology: The research was carried out on the Brazilian platform for scientific journals and conferences called “CAPES Portal”through the Preferred Report for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyzes (PRISMA) methodology. Several keywords were used for searching, including: "Construction", "Construction Safety", "Safety Inspection", "Safety Management", "Drone", "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles". Results and Discussion: In total, 102 articles were identified through the searching. After applying all the inclusion and exclusion criteria (published in the last 10 years, published in English or Portuguese language), In addition, the articles were included only if related to the use of drones in civil construction and if had some relationship with work safety inspection. A total number of 15 articles fulfilled the selection criteria’s and were included in this review. Theinformation about the analysed studies included information such as author/reference, the objective of the study, the country where the study was conducted, the activities which were analysed, conclusions, limitations and the type of the drone which was used in the research. In total, 8 of the 15 studies were developed in the United States, representing 53% of the total, while other studies are from Germany (4), Brazil (2), Australia (1) and Spain (1). Most studies analysed the inspection ofbridges and roofs. Conclusions: Studies have shown that there is evidence of the advantages of using drones to assist in safety inspections in civil construction, especially in bridges and roofs.

The corrosion of infrastructure and facilities poses a significant challenge for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in terms of cost and military readiness. To tackle this challenge, our research introduces a data-driven corrosion segmentation method that combines three deep learning-based models and an ensemble learning approach for the automatic identification and segmentation of corroded regions within high-resolution images. The method involves several stages, such as data annotation, preprocessing, augmentation, model implementation, and performance evaluation. The deep learning models used include Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) with Residual Network (ResNet)-34 encoder, UNet with ResNet-34 encoder, and UNet++ with Visual Geometry Group (VGG)-19 encoder. Ensemble learning, a technique that integrates these deep learning models, was employed to improve prediction accuracy and overall performance. The proposed method is evaluated using both the Dice score and the Intersection over Union (IoU) score metrics. Experimental results demonstrate that the ensemble learning approach outperforms individual models, achieving a Dice score of 90.1% and an IoU score of 83.9%. The approach shows promise to automatically detect and measure corrosion, which can reduce inspection costs and identify major issues to aid in prevention of structural failure. The tool developed in this study will be expanded to provide similar capabilities for large-scale civil infrastructure.

In the decade after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African Americans made historic gains in accessing employment opportunities in racially integrated workplaces in U.S. business firms and government agencies. In the previous working papers in this series, we have shown that in the 1960s and 1970s, Blacks without college degrees were gaining access to the American middle class by moving into well-paid unionized jobs in capital-intensive mass production industries. At that time, major U.S. companies paid these blue-collar workers middle-class wages, offered stable employment, and provided employees with health and retirement benefits. Of particular importance to Blacks was the opening up to them of unionized semiskilled operative and skilled craft jobs, for which in a number of industries, and particularly those in the automobile and electronic manufacturing sectors, there was strong demand. In addition, by the end of the 1970s, buoyed by affirmative action and the growth of public-service employment, Blacks were experiencing upward mobility through employment in government agencies at local, state, and federal levels as well as in civil-society organizations, largely funded by government, to operate social and community development programs aimed at urban areas where Blacks lived. By the end of the 1970s, there was an emergent blue-collar Black middle class in the United States. Most of these workers had no more than high-school educations but had sufficient earnings and benefits to provide their families with economic security, including realistic expectations that their children would have the opportunity to move up the economic ladder to join the ranks of the college-educated white-collar middle class. That is what had happened for whites in the post-World War II decades, and given the momentum provided by the dominant position of the United States in global manufacturing and the nation’s equal employment opportunity legislation, there was every reason to believe that Blacks would experience intergenerational upward mobility along a similar education-and-employment career path. That did not happen. Overall, the 1980s and 1990s were decades of economic growth in the United States. For the emerging blue-collar Black middle class, however, the experience was of job loss, economic insecurity, and downward mobility. As the twentieth century ended and the twenty-first century began, moreover, it became apparent that this downward spiral was not confined to Blacks. Whites with only high-school educations also saw their blue-collar employment opportunities disappear, accompanied by lower wages, fewer benefits, and less security for those who continued to find employment in these jobs. The distress experienced by white Americans with the decline of the blue-collar middle class follows the downward trajectory that has adversely affected the socioeconomic positions of the much more vulnerable blue-collar Black middle class from the early 1980s. In this paper, we document when, how, and why the unmaking of the blue-collar Black middle class occurred and intergenerational upward mobility of Blacks to the college-educated middle class was stifled. We focus on blue-collar layoffs and manufacturing-plant closings in an important sector for Black employment, the automobile industry from the early 1980s. We then document the adverse impact on Blacks that has occurred in government-sector employment in a financialized economy in which the dominant ideology is that concentration of income among the richest households promotes productive investment, with government spending only impeding that objective. Reduction of taxes primarily on the wealthy and the corporate sector, the ascendancy of political and economic beliefs that celebrate the efficiency and dynamism of “free market” business enterprise, and the denigration of the idea that government can solve social problems all combined to shrink government budgets, diminish regulatory enforcement, and scuttle initiatives that previously provided greater opportunity for African Americans in the government and civil-society sectors.

The seventh review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/RES/75/291) underscored Member States' deep concern regarding the use of the Internet and other technologies for terrorist activities. Emphasizing collaboration among academia, the private sector, and civil society, the resolution sought to prevent terrorists from finding safe haven online while promoting an open, secure, and innovative Internet. In alignment with these principles, the Centre of Excellence in Cybercrimes and Digital Forensics (CoECDF) at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences (NAUSS) and UNOCT's United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) conducted a workshop on Cyber-enabled terrorism. A survey of selected Member States in Africa and the Middle East was conducted during the workshop, revealing their apprehensions about the misuse of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) for terrorism. The survey outcomes aim to inform Member States' capacity-building strategies to combat cyber-enabled terrorism. The report comprehensively analyzes cyber-enabled terrorism threats in the African and Arab regions, offering key insights, findings, and recommendations. It identifies active terrorist groups, their methods, and the crucial need for specific skills in digital forensics, cyber security, and cyber intelligence. The diverse requirements of the African and Arab regions underscore the necessity for tailored capacity-building efforts in tackling cyber-enabled terrorism.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was founded in 1959 as an initiative of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries and the United States to support the development of the region through an institution in which LAC countries would play a leading role through their majority capital and voting shares but with significant participation of the United States. The Agreement Establishing the Inter-American Development Bank (the Agreement; IDB 1959/1996) articulated the desired balance of responsibilities and power between LAC and the United States. It also provided that the IDB's governance would center around three governing bodies: the Board of Governors (BOG), the Board of Executive Directors (EXD), and Senior Management. The objective of this evaluation, requested by the EXD, was to assess the extent to which existing institutional arrangements at the IDB allow it to operate effectively and efficiently while providing sufficient accountability, transparency, and stakeholder voice in decision making. The evaluation focused on four dimensions: (1) effectiveness--the extent to which the IDB's governance arrangements allow the institution to effectively set strategic objectives, provide means to attain those objectives, and monitor performance; (2) efficiency--the degree to which the costs (in both money and time) of the IDB's governing bodies to perform their assigned roles and responsibilities are consistent with their priorities; (3) accountability and transparency--the extent to which the IDB's governance arrangements render the IDB governing bodies accountable to its shareholders for the responsibilities delegated to them, and the ability of secondary stakeholders, such as civil society, project beneficiaries, and private sector entities, to access information; and (4) voice--the extent to which the IDB's governance arrangements provide the shareholders and secondary stakeholders with an adequate voice in decision making.