I want to thank Aida, Ido, the two Richards, and Chris for their efforts and their endless patience! Keep up the good work, guys!!

I have some more pictures which I will upload in the next couple of days.

Last but not least, I want to thank my colleagues and friends participating at the program. It was a great pleasure to share this experience with you and I hope that we keep in touch! After all, it is a small world (especially in the times of facebook – this is a reminder to join the fb group )!

It was a great evening and thanks again to Richard Nolan and Chris! It was a superb time in Gainesville!

Yesterday we arrived in Chicago and had a traditional hot dog before going on a boat trip on Lake Michigan. Don’t miss the pictures (click on one of the pictures below to access the album)!

One of the highlights of the evening (apart from Joost’s pyrotechnical experiments ) was the ride with an airboat.

Click on the picture below to watch a short clip.

After four days in Miami and one day in Orlando we are now back in Gainesville. South Beach was fun and very relaxing (awesome breakfasts, sports, …). As you can see on the schedule, we also had a lot of meetings. Our visits to the Miami Herald and the Cuban American National Foundation were particularly interesting.

At the Baltimore Hotel, where we had lunch on Wednesday.

After a short stopover at the Disney Yacht Club Resort in Orlando, where I also met my friend Markus, we rented a car and visited the Kennedy Space Center. Going there has been a kind of childhood dream of mine Unfortunately, the guided tours to the launch sites were already over for that day, but the IMAX movie on the exploration of the moon was a highlight.

The new frontier …

On Sunday we traveled to St. Augustin, which is the oldest city in the US. The heat was stunning!

We then went on to an outlet center near St. Augustine, where the group spent a couple of hours shopping. A small sub-group of quick-shoppers and non-shoppers eventually happened to meet in the food court and remained there for another three hours reading, talking, eating, or taking a nap. Needless to say that I was a part of this group Thanx to Ido for sharing the NYT!

On the next day, we travelled to the capital of the state of Florida, Tallahassee. There we visited the State Capitol (the building on the picture is the Supreme Court of Florida) and David Mica, who is the Executive Directore of the Florida Petroleum Council, introduced us to the procedures of both houses and different aspects of the legislative process on the state level. In the afternoon we stopped at FAVACA, which is an organization doing development work in the Caribbean and the Americas.

On Tuesday we had two interesting lectures by Prof. Loch Johnson, who gave as an overview of U.S. intelligence agencies (in particular the problem of cooperation and the weak position of the DNI) and covert operations of the CIA. As it turned out, Prof. Johnson has visited Innsbruck many times and therefore knows the university and Innsbruck’s mountains very well. I am looking forward to meeting him there!

After this day in Gainesville, we  hit the road again and went to Tampa, where we visited the Port Authority and the U.S. Central Command. We were briefed about the Coalition Forces and their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ah … what was NATO for again?

On Thursday and Friday we had lectures on regional trade integration (Stephen J. Powell) and Latin America (Terry McCoy). Tomorrow we set out for Miami… So stay tuned and don’t miss the pictures

On Tuesday, we had three lectures on “The Domestic Sources of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of Russia” (Paul D’Anieri), “Religion, Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy” (Kenneth Wald), and “Congress, Interest Groups, and the Foreign Policymaking Process” (Michael Heaney). A lot of interesting input and issues to debate, but that day wore me out…

Herman M. Schwartz introduced us to the U.S. Economy and the causes of the current economic crisis. His lecture helped me to connect some dots. Incredible, really incredible … On Thursday, James Goldgeier gave us a very insightful overview of the dynamics in the U.S. foreign policy process between the end of the East-West Conflict and 9/11. It is really striking that most people have so far paid little attention to this decade, which has had a tremendous impact on current foreign relations of the United States. Goldgeier’s book is a very good read!

On Thursday evening we attended a session of the city council of the city of Gainesville, which proclaimed July 15 “United States Institute on Foreign Policy Day”. A video of the meeting is available here. Watch it, its worth it (re: What country are you from again?)

The acadmic part of the week was concluded by Michael D. Martinez and his lecture on public opinion and foreign policy.

Last evening we went to see a musical at the Hippodrome theater. It was definitely a cultural experience for many of us

Click here to watch the trailer.

New pictures are availble in the Picasa album.

Finally, three interesting web-pages I was shown this week:

The Living Room Candidate: an archive of presidential campaign commercial from 1952 through 2008.

American National Election Studies: data on voting, public opinion, and political participation in the United States

Center for Responsive Politics: project on the influence of money on U.S. elections and politics.

Today we went to the Alachua Sink to look for some aligators. Not only did we see a couple of them, but we also met Dominick Martino, a wildlife photographer. He has many beautiful wildlife pictures on his web-page. Click here to view it. The pictures below are definitely not as professional as Mr. Martino’s are, but at least they show an aligator.

Can you see him?

Now you see him …

As always, you can see all the pictures at my web-album.

First of all, I really enjoy the friendly atmosphere in the group. It’s only seven days that we all met, but it feels like we have known each other for a much a longer time. That’s really, really cool. Second, I guess that my Amazon.com wishlist is a pretty good indicator of the input and all the valuable hints we were given during the first days of the academic program.

On the picture below you see Richard and Aida, who gave us an overview of U.S. Foreign Policy institutions (in particular the Department of State and the Department of Defense, as we will deal with the President and Congress in separate units), U.S. Perspectives on International Security, and the U.S. in the World Economy.

One aspect which I found particularly interesting was our discussion about idealist internationalism and democratic peace. In the next days, I will read through Ido’s article “The Subjectivity of the Democratic Peace”, which he published in International Security (Fall 1995). Before I left Innsbruck for Florida, I had the pleasure to read a draft of David Rowe’s (who is currently Fulbright Professor at our department) latetst criticism of the liberal assumption that globalization enhances peace (click here to read an earlier article by him on this topic). I guess, this topic could stay with me for a while. Not least because there appear to be links to my previous work on rogue states.

Ido also mentioned the following book as a good read on the topic:

I’ve updated the Picasa web album with a couple of picture of today’s trip around Gainesville’s neighborhoods. I will add some more pictures tomorow. Click here to view the album.