Digital Commons Network^™

A Hierarchical Cluster Approach Toward Understanding The Regional Variable In Country Conflict Modeling, Benjamin D. Leiby, Darryl K. Ahner

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how the regional variable in country conflict modeling affects forecast accuracy and identifies a methodology to further improve the predictions.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses statistical learning methods to both evaluate the quantity of data for clustering countries along with quantifying accuracy according to the number of clusters used.

Findings: This study demonstrates that increasing the number of clusters for modeling improves the ability to predict conflict as long as the models are robust.

Originality/value: This study investigates the quantity of clusters used in conflict modeling, while previous research assumes a specific quantity before …

José Martí: The World's Most Popular Poetry, And A Vision For The Americas, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

This chapter begins with a capsule biographical sketch that situates José Martí as an agent of decolonization. It discusses Martí's place in literature, especially Spanish American letters, his transcultural importance, his work in translation, his role in the history of Cuban–US relations, and his vision for US relations with Latin America. It demonstrates the extraordinary international reach of his most popular writing by giving close attention to how two works, a book of poetry, Simple Verses (Versos Sencillos) and an essay, “Our America” (“Nuestra América”) have come to represent him to an increasingly broad audience.

India’S Surgical Strikes: Response To Strategic Imperatives, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

In September 2016, militants who were allegedly backed by Pakistan attacked an Indian Army camp in Uri. The government in New Delhi was facing important regional elections. It faced intense public pressure to muster a military response. Such a response, however, ran the risk of triggering a nuclear exchange. Ten days after the Uri attack, India reported that it had carried out ‘surgical strikes’ on terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled territory. The paper examines this specific episode in India–Pakistan deterrence dynamics, focusing on the nomenclature ‘surgical strikes’. The paper argues that the choice of the term itself is new and …

Review Of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet On Fire: Buddhism, Protest, And The Rhetoric Of Self-Immolation, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Review of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet on Fire: Buddhism, Protest, and the Rhetoric of Self-Immolation, in Journal of Contemporary Religion

[Review Of] Jose Marti And The Global Origins Of Cuban Independence, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Infancia (In)Visible: La Subjetividad De La Niñez Como Transgresión A La Marginalidad En Las Películas Conducta Y Pelo Malo, Tania Carrasquillo Hernández

Faculty Publications

Tania Carrasquillo Hernández's research on race, gender, and sexuality has led her to develop a more specific interest in the study of childhood and sexuality in literature and cinema. This article, based on a presentation given at the Hispanic Literatures Across Cultures Conference (October 6–8, 2016 at Fresno Pacific University), analyzes the representation of boyhood and masculinity in contemporary Cuban and Venezuelan cinema via the films Conducta (2014, directed by Ernesto Daranas) and Pelo Malo (2013, directed by Mariana Rondón).

In the case of Chala (Armando Valdes Freire, Conducta), Carrasquillo Hernández explores how his masculinity is related to the …

[Review Of] Estrada, Oswaldo, Ed. Senderos De Violencia. Latinoamérica Y Sus Narrativas Armadas, Cheyla Samuelson

Faculty Publications

A review of Estrada, Oswaldo, ed. Senderos de violencia. Latinoamérica y sus narrativas armadas. Valencia: Albatros (Serie Palabras de América), 2015. Impreso. 367 pp.

Review Of Jacob S. Eder, Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic Of Germany & American Holocaust Memory Since The 1970s, Carol A. Leibiger

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

El "Juego" De Los Voladores: Adaptación Indígena Y Vida Festiva En La Nueva España, Matthew J.K. Hill

Faculty Publications

El rito conocido como “los Voladores” existe hoy en día como testimonio a la tenacidad de los grupos indígenas en adaptar sus antiguas prácticas al nuevo orden sociopolítico impuesto por los españoles. Aunque parte del significado y las prácticas asociadas con este rito prehispánico se haya perdido, el hecho de que la práctica haya sobrevivido en lo más mínimo todavía resulta sorprendente. Dada la tendencia de los españoles por erradicar o modificar el pasado pre-Conquista, ¿cómo podía un rito de tal visibilidad como los Voladores permanecer más o menos intacto hasta hoy? En contestación a ese interrogatorio se examinarán algunos …

Civil Liberties And Rights, Equality And The Quality Of Democracy In Greece, Constantine Danopoulos

Faculty Publications

Good quality democracy is considered one that provides its citizens with a high degree of personal freedom, political equality, and popular control over policies and public officials through the legitimate and lawful functioning of stable institutions. It is assessed through an interrelated and interconnected three dimensional scheme: procedure, content, and result. Procedure refers to the quality of governance and is assessed through the rule of law, participation, competition, and government accountability. Result involves citizen satisfaction with the quality of governance. Content is concerned with two key components: individual liberties and political and social equality. This paper will assess the quality …

Arts: Fiction And Fiction Writers: The Americas, Rachel Norman

Faculty Publications

This essay by Rachel Norman, which originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, discusses contemporary Muslim fiction published in the United States with a particular focus on three novels: Mojha Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Laila Halaby's Once in a Promised Land, and Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home.

Economic Survival And Borderland Rebellion: The Case Of The Allied Demoocratic Forces On The Uganda-Congo Border, Lindsay Scorgie-Porter

Faculty Publications

One of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s oldest, most organized, and traditionally best-trained—but, arguably, least known—rebel groups is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Its resiliency and particularly its economic survival skills have largely been understood through the prism of Islamic extremism. Yet this narrative has proven to have serious inaccuracies and flaws. Explanations focused on terrorism, for example, do not take into consideration the ADF’s pivotal business ventures, such as cross-border trade, agriculture, and the taxing of timber forests. They not only ignore these activities but are unable to explain how the ADF was able to practice, and become successful …

Effective Innovation Policies For Development: Uganda, Julius Ecuru, Dick Kawooya

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The African Peace And Security Architecture: Introduction To The Special Issue, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Cyril Obi, Lindsay Scorgie-Porter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Paisajes Del Exilio En La Poesía De Juan Balboa Boneke: Compromiso Social Con La Patria Guineoecuatoriana, Dosinda Garcìa-Alvite

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Unintended Consequences: Reverberations Of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Lauren Heidbrink

Faculty Publications

This paper details the socio-legal factors that shape the relationship between the child, the family, and the state, and the ways unaccompanied migrant children’s lives have come to be defined and contested. The legal identity of migrant children is socially situated within a history that intertwines social movements of helping professionals, legal jurisdictions characterized by increasingly intolerant approaches to juveniles, and shifts in the treatment of unauthorized migrant youth under immigration law over time. In a globalized world, this triangular relationship between children, families, and the state becomes increasingly complex and dynamic. Social policies and legal norms often lag far …

Democracy Education: The Radical Teaching, Learning, And Doing Of Tao Xingzhi, Todd A. Price Dr.

Faculty Publications

The apex of China’s 1911 Republican Revolution, the election in Nanjing of native son Dr. Sun Yat-sen, heralded an historic break with autocracy. Tragically, Sun Yat-Sen’s democracy did not last long. A bitter period of feudal strife followed as warlords sought to carve fiefdoms out of the young republic. Humiliating concessions to Japan under the Versailles Treaty added to the new republic’s problems. Continuing violation of China’s sovereignty spawned the May 4th, 1919 student movement in Peking. Reverberations from May 4th helped launch a small communist party cell in Shanghai and a larger democracy movement across the country.

Trenchant feudalism, …

Appendix 7: Open Source Information On The Fate(S) Of Perpetrators/Conspirators, Lee Crowther, Brian Champion

Faculty Publications

Between 1979 and 2010, a number of Iranian expatriates were assassinated by putative agents of the Iranian or by persons believed to be associated with the regime. This table collects information from open sources that describes judicial or fugitive outcomes for some of the alleged perpetrators.

Appendix 4: Selected Putative Iranian-Perpetrated Extraterritorial Killings And Attempted Killings Of Non-Iranians, 1980-2012, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

Appendix 4 documents selected attempts (successful or otherwise) made on the lives of non-Iranians outside of Iran for which some allegation was made that Iran itself, at an official or quasi-official level, was responsible. The appendix documents twenty incidents taking place between June 1980 and February 2012 targeting twenty-six individuals.

Appendix 3: An Interlinear Comparison Of Six Chronologies Documenting Allegedly Iran-Sponsored Extraterritorial Attempted Killings, 1979-1996, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

In "Appendix 3," we compare six of the sources cited in "Appendix 1." While many of our sources focus on a single event, each of the six we investigate here alleges Iranian state responsibility for a pattern of attempted killings outside Iran. Due to the larger scope of the six sources, we here refer to them as chronologies.

Appendix 1: Selected, Allegedly Iran-Sponsored Attempts To Kill Iranian Expatriates, 1979-2012, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

In “Appendix 1,” we document attempted killings that meet the following criteria: (1) The attempt was made against one or more Iranians. (2) The attempt took place outside of Iran. (3) Some allegation was made that the state of Iran was at least partially responsible for the attempt.

We are far from the first to document allegedly Iran-sponsored attempts to kill Iranian expatriates. However, we attempt to fill a gap in the literature by combining breadth, detail, and a thorough citation of sources consulted.

Our survey begins with the 1979 assassination of Shahriar Shafigh in Paris and continues up to …

Appendix 5: Selected Worldwide Expatriate Killings And Attempted Killings, 1978-2011, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

Appendix 5 documents thirty-eight attempts (successful or otherwise) on fifty expatriates for which some allegation was made that the target's own state, at an official or quasi-official level, was responsible.

Appendix 6: Selected Cases Of Targeted Killings And Attempted Killings Around The World, 1979-2012, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

Appendix 6 documents selected instances for which some allegation exists that a state, at an official or quasi-official level, was responsible for an extraterritorial attempt (successful or otherwise) on the lives of citizens of other states.

Appendix 2: Selected, Allegedly Iran-Sponsored Attempts To Kill Iranian Expatriates, 1979-2010, By Locale, Brian Champion, Lee Crowther

Faculty Publications

In "Appendix 2," we compile geographic data from "Appendix 1." In "Appendix 1," we documented attempted killings which met the following criteria: (1) The attempt was made against one or more Iranians. (2) The attempt took place outside of Iran. (3) Some allegation was made that the state of Iran was at least partially responsible for the attempt. In "Appendix 2," we document locales, local in table 2.1 and by state in table 2.2, in which the 77 events documented in "Appendix 1" took place.

Prominent Peripheries: The Role Of Borderlands In Central Africa’S Regionalized Conflict., Lindsay Scorgie

Faculty Publications

The Great Lakes region of Central Africa has been beset by conflict for close to two decades now. Aside from the unprecedented humanitarian consequences, the most striking feature of the violence has been its profoundly regional character. This paper seeks to explore how one might better understand the spread and cross-border nature of conflict in this region. It argues that the dominant contemporary model for explanation of regional conflict, with its overwhelmingly state-centric orientation, is inadequate in providing a comprehensive understanding of the structure of this type of violence. Rather, the so-called peripheries of states – borderlands – need to …

Facilitating War-Affected Young Mothers’ Reintegration: Lessons From A Participatory Action Research Study In Liberia, Sierra Leone, And Uganda., Miranda E. Worthen, G. Onyango, A. Veale, M. Wessells, S. Mckay

Faculty Publications

Young women and girls formerly associated with armed forces and armed groups face multiple challenges. Many become pregnant or have children while they are associated and face stigma and marginalization upon reintegration into civilian communities. This article describes a multi-year participatory action research study that took place in twenty communities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and northern Uganda from 2006 – 2009 and included more than 650 young mother participants. We find that this community-based approach to reintegration improved the wellbeing of young mother participants and their children. We discuss the challenges and limitations of conducting participatory action research with war-affected …

German Views Of Amazonia Through The Centuries, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

An exploration of German conquistadors, missionaries, explorers, empresses, naturalists, travelers, immigrants and cultural interpreters who were conspicuous among Europeans over five centuries fascinated by the biodiversity and native peoples of the incomparably vast Amazon basin stretching from the Andes to the Atlantic, from the Guiana Highlands to Peru and Bolivia, from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador to the mouth of the Amazon at the Brazilian equator.

From Rapists To Superpredators: What The Practice Of Capital Punishment Says About Race, Rights And The American Child, Robyn Linde

Faculty Publications

At the turn of the 20^th century, the United States was widely considered to be a world leader in matters of child protection and welfare, a reputation lost by the century’s end. This paper suggests that the United States’ loss of international esteem concerning child welfare was directly related to its practice of executing juvenile offenders. The paper analyzes why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals. Two factors allowed the United States to continue the juvenile death penalty after most states in …

Peripheral Pariah Or Regional Rebel? The Allied Democratic Forces And The Uganda/Congo Borderland, Lindsay Scorgie

Faculty Publications

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have inflicted damage and insecurity on the Rwenzori region of Uganda for over a decade and, although their strength has diminished, still constitute a threat. This article argues that it is inadequate to see the ADF primarily as an internal Ugandan rebel group. Rather, the group's cross-border dimension with the Democratic Republic of the Congo should be conceptualised as a transnational phenomenon. A borderland analytic framework offers the best means of understanding the movement.

Womanism And Social Change In Trinidad Morgades Besari's Antã­Gona From Equatorial Guinea, Dosinda Garcìa-Alvite

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.