American Politics Analysis - Admission/Application Essay Example

? American Politics The terrorist attack of 11th September has shattered the sense of security of the Americans. Moreover, it had led to an elevationof the perceived risk and threat of terrorism on US soil. Understanding the political effects of risks and threats has become a hot topic for the researchers of the opinion of the American’s citizens. Threats and risks had not been overlooked by the political researchers. It has played an important role in the understanding of the origins of political prejudice, development of political prejudice and dynamics of the opinions of the Israeli publics. The incidents of 9/11 have provided new urgency to the understanding of degree, nature, consequences and origins of the threats experienced by the citizens of America in the aftermath of the event of 9/11. The citizens of America were concerned about the terrorism activities before 11th September 2001. In the year 1989, 23 people of America were killed by the terrorists. The Oklahoma City explosion and bombing was taken place in the year 1995. Moreover, in the year 1996, during the Atlanta Olympic the citizens of America had experienced the sense of terrorism quite badly. Between 1989 and 2001, the country has experienced critical experience of several terrorism activities (Celmer 48). The perceived personal threat levels are quite high in America. According to several effective evident, the crime risks and threats guides to effective behavioral changes. It is designed in order to reduce risk. In an addition, there are no perceptible gender differences in the fear of terrorism, but there are significant differences in the education level. The less educated individuals generally tend to fear terrorism. The general effects of the threats of terrorism on the cognitive processing, behavior have been quite well described by the political scientists and the psychologists. The threats increase the ethnocentrism and promote intolerance. The threats lead to a closed mindedness and look to reject the willingness to forego very basic civil liberties. The threats reduce the efficiency of the memory processes and promote the threat related thought process. Certain kinds of threats increase the reliance on the stereotypes; increase the vulnerability to influential messages, biased cognitive processing and also increase readiness to take risks. Perceptions of the international threat lead some of the people to resist international involvement and look to increase the dependency on the increased support for the confrontational policy options. The threats accompany by the pressure of time has been found to have increased the conformity pressures among the groups and decrease the consideration of alternative policies. Most of such findings show the presence of some cognitive lock down process under threatening conditions; which also happens to be the main theme for the emotions and fear (Jongman 401). Although the common effects of threat are known to all. Several relative attempts have been found out to distinguish between the personal differing effects and collective or remote national threats. Personal threats can be referred as the threats that can pose a physical danger. These are very affectively arousing. This can elicit fear to a greater degree, which can remote threats to the nation. The terrorist attack of 9/11 has indicated that personal threat is more likely comparing to the other national threats to elicit anxiety, fear and related symptoms, such as insomnia and depressions. Considering design, there is something individually immediate, distributing, frightening and vivid about the threat of terrorism. Several researches on risks and threats that involve the physical harm, such as natural disasters, crime and violent conflicts has provided clear evidence that fear and personal threat leads to a personal behavior change. It is designed in order to minimize the risk exposure. The citizens of America disagree over the perceived effectualness of the regulatory policies, such as complicating the link between support for policy solutions and perceived threat and gun control in order to reduce the increasing crime rate. There is a plausible connection between public policy support and personal threat that will help to minimize or reduce the level of threat. Personal threat also elicits the effects that are associated with the threats. Decision theorists have found out that, risks are exaggerated for several events that are intensely reported in the news. These are highly vivid, involuntary, unusual and responsible for huge number of deaths (Lassiter 12). These events lead to overstatement of risk as they are always available in memory. Events that stimulate negative feelings also guide to a risk overestimation. Considering the finding of the study, it can be stated that, the citizens of America highly overestimated the personal terrorism risk after the incident of 9/11. Several research works have been distinguished between the collective and personal threat of violence conflict. On the basis of several global evidences, it can be argued that national and personal threats are distinct. The attack of 9/11 has broken the backbone of American political stability. It is evident that, during that period being a super power the government of America gets confused to take appropriate action and steps. The whole world has seen the situation through digital media. This terrorist attack had caused huge number of deaths. There is a possibility that the people of America may base the reactions on the attacks of 9/11 on the threats possessed to the country as a whole. Such predictions are quite consistent among certain factions or groups that find a separation between the personal and social concerns of the people. For example, the personal concerns tend to have less impact as compared to national concerns. Such tendencies to generalize politics and keep the personal considerations away from the decision related to national policies or political policies are quite well documented. Generally the voters choose the candidates and decide the position on the present political issues from the assessment of the national events. It is evident that, before the terrorist attack of 9/11, the Americans have experienced several attacks. These are the critical national threats. The government of America had somehow overlooked the security factor of nation. Attack of 9/11 has raised several questions about the security of citizens within the country (Aubrey 91). On the other hand, the level of personal threats is also increasing as the political stability of the country is decreasing. People of America are suffering from the fear factor since the terrorist attack of 9/11. The terrorists have targeted the life line of America’s as well as global trade. However, the personal assessments of the leaders are usually not considered in such conditions. For example, the Israelis who believed that the outbreak of the war as a highly threatening in the late 1980s were more likely to be the ones to support the boost in the military power as compared to a peace process (William 84). Therefore it is important to have a competing predictions regarding the impact of the perceived to one self against that of a nation. On the other hand, there seems to be a reason to feel that the personal threat would motivate to support for certain policies that would reduce the threat and at the same time would lead to an indistinct view of the magnitude of the threat and the consequence of the threats. On the other hand, there also seems to be a reason to expect that national threats would drive the perceptions of a nation and would influence of the policies to a greater degree as compared to a personal threat (Pillar 51). Hence it is expected that citizens may decide to put aside personal concerns and needs to focus on the greater picture, i.e. the needs of the nation. Various studies have differentiated between the collective and the personal threats; and yet the findings tend to be inconclusive. It has been found that the personal threat was more emotionally moving as compared to national threats. The economic impact of terrorism can be analyzed from various perspectives. There is existence of direct costs to the property, immediate effect on productivity along with other long term indirect costs. The direct cost of the 9/11 attacks have been likely to be close to $20 to $22 billion, which is almost 0.2% of the GDP of USA in a year. The terrorist attacks also had major impact on the financial markets as the New York financial markets actually never opened on the September 11. Several political researchers have argued that a high level of international political issue was involved in the 9/11 incident. However, the original fact has not revealed yet. The unstable political scenario increased crime rate and frequent terrorist activities have badly affected the American community. The market was closed for one week and got reopened on September 17. After the attacks the defense and the security spending got increased by a huge amount after the 9/11 attacks. The economists also assessed the impact of the 9/11 attacks on the global supply chains (Azar 29). According to a statement released by the OECD, increased transportation costs could have a major negative impact on the developed as well as emerging economies. The emerging economies were also hurt in terms of the ability of the countries to combat poverty. Terrorism has been present in history as well. However, today the world is looking at a new global rebirth of the terrorist attacks. Today terrorist attacks do not just affect the third world countries that used to face the terrorist attacks on relatively regular basis. The terrorist violence today has affected citizens all over the world. Over the years various terrorist activities such as the 9/11 is a major proof of such impacts. The magnitudes of the attacks were such that it has left a permanent mark on the people and society of America. The attacks of 9/11 have made major impact on America from various perspectives including personal, national, social as well as economic. Several reasons have been highlighted in this study to describe why the individuals translate their personal concerns into the national concerns in rare cases. These include the link between situation of an individual and implemented policies by the policy makers of a country. The terrorist attack of 9/11 has opened up several hidden aspects of American politics in front of the whole world. Several conspiracies and issues had come up during that point of time. Works cited Aubrey, Stefan. The New Dimension of International Terrorism. USA: Pearson Education, 2004. Print. Azar, Khalil. American Foreign Policy and It’s Link to Terrorism in the Middle East. USA: AuthorHouse, 2011. Print. Celmer, Marcc. Terrorism U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies. USA: Greenwood Publishing, 1987. Print. Jongman, Albert. Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature. USA: Transaction Publishers, 2005. Print. Lassiter, Mary. Economics, Politics, and Social Issues. USA: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Pillar, Paul. Terrorism and United States Foreign Policy. USA: Springer, 2003. Print. William, Philip. Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism. UK: Routledge, 2002. Print. Read More