Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Advocate, Fall 2014, Vol. 26, No. 3, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From The Editor’s Desk: In Support of Violence (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief: CUNY Goes Corporate; Trustees Say Silence Implies Guilt (p. 5)

Guest Editorial: Shaking The Heavens in Ferguson, Amy Goodman (p. 8)

In Memoriam: Remembering Leslie Feinberg: Letters from Two Activist-Scholar Queer-Femmes, Jennifer Polish and Leilani Dowell (p. 9)

In Conversation: Confronting Institutional Racism: Steven Salaita on Academic Freedom, BDS, and the Colonial Logic of the Neoliberal University, Rayya El Zein, Gordon Barnes, and Melissa Marturano (p. 11)

Edifying Debate: Palestine, Israel, and the Responsibility of Scholarship: Against Absolute Boycotts, Towards a Politics of …

Advocate, Fall 2014, Vol. 26, No. 2, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Politics and the Academy (p. 3)

Letter to the Editor: The Dangers of BDS (p. 5)

CUNY News in Brief: PSC, Trustees Wrangle over Adjunct Pay (p. 6)

Guest Editorial: Ebola Czar, but No Surgeon General?, Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan (p. 8)

Photo Essay: International Solidarity with Mexican Students, CUNY Internationalist Clubs (p. 10)

Political Analysis: The No State Solution: Institutionalizing Libertarian Socialism in Kurdistan, Alexander Kolokotronis (p. 15)

Edifying Debate: Overcoming Fear: Negotiating a Position on the DSC’s BDS Resolution, Dadland Maye (p. 22)

Featured Articles:

- The Adjunct Wage Gap …

Advocate, Fall 2014, Vol. 26, No. 1, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: The Purpose of the Academic Boycott (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief:

- BDS Debated, Adjuncts Go Unpaid (p. 5)

- A View from the Left Wing: Reflections on the 2014 World Cup, Arman Azimi (p. 7)

- Graduate Center Student Runs for Political Office: Q & A with Brian P. Jones, Francisco Fortuño Bernier (p. 10)

Dispatches from the Front:

- This Woman’s Work: The Misogynistic Realities I Face As a Female Professor, Melissa Marturano (p. 15)

- From Ferguson to New York, CUNY Internationalist Marxist Club (p. 17)

Edifying Debate:

- …

Regional Integration And National Social Policies, Mary Anne Madeira

Publications and Research

How does regionalization affect national social policies? Although there is an extensive literature on the effects of globalization on social protection, the literature on the impact of regional integration is much less developed. I argue that the distinctive nature of regionalization processes calls for rigorous empirical testing of the domestic policy effects of regional integration. To this end, using an innovative dataset that measures the degree to which countries are integrated into regional economic and political organizations, this article uses statistical analysis to consider the influence of regional integration on government social spending. The results are surprising: regionalization has a …

The Politics Of Transportation Megaprojects, Patrizia Christa Nobbe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Large infrastructure investment decisions, especially for mega-projects defined as costing more than one billion U.S. dollars, are largely based on complex, unclear and non-transparent decision criteria. The project's specific context and a variety of actors and interests add to the complexity of the decision processes. All projects deviate, to a certain degree from a "rational" decision-making process, are politically motivated and subject to multiple interests. Cost-benefit analyses are conducted for about half of the projects. In this work I hypothesize that the politics of project decision-making is comparable across countries, relative to their nature, form of involvement and impact on …

"Gent De Forca I De Presó": Jueus I Xuetes Als Dietaris De Joan Estelrich, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Els Dietaris de Joan Estelrich, publicats per Quaderns Crema, aporten una informació substantiva sobre el personatge i la seva circumstància. Per exemple, les nombroses referències que hi fa als jueus i als xuetes mallorquins, reveladores dels prejudicis de l'època.

Moral Inscriptions: Politics And The Rhetoric Of Responsibility, Steven Pludwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation advances two interrelated claims. First, I examine the concept of responsibility and show how it operates as a rhetorical form that mediates a large segment of political life. Framing responsibility as a distinctly political problem, I argue that it functions to produce, discipline and govern subjects as well as legislate forms of identity, difference and community. Second, I argue that the definitional space of responsibility is not sacred, but contested. It is within this contested space that political battles regarding how we ought to understand the world and what it means to live in common with others plays …

Public Space--Urban Spaces Of Multiple And Diverse Publics, Antti Moelsae

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shopping centers, hotel lobbies and - as was recently reported - McDonald's restaurants have been appropriated as social and political spaces by the public, but then encounter resistance by the owners of those spaces. Shopping centers, which have come to replace urban public space around the world, are notorious for limiting the modes of use and actively prohibiting forms of political expression. The legal status of commercial spaces that substitute for traditional public spaces is still unclear. Much of the critique of privatization of public space has been directed towards these enclosed spaces, the ownership of which is unambiguously private. …

Religion Is Not The Answer: How To Turn Restlessness Into Meaningful Change - The Egyptian Conundrum, Alain C. Seckler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The situation in Egypt and elsewhere in parts of the Arab world is to some extent reminiscent of the situation that prevailed before 1914 in Europe, where a motley array of unharnessed popular micronationalisms (today, instrumentalized religious fervor) combined with big power politics and interests and led to the cataclysm of war. With regard to Egypt, there is also a huge generational gap, with 2/3 of Egypt's population below the age of 35 years. The so-called "solutions" of the past, whether religious or secular, will no longer work if the voice of the young people is not heard by their …

Reconstructing The Nation: African American Political Thought And America's Struggle For Racial Justice, Alex Zamalin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how twentieth-century African American intellectuals engaged American political cultural beliefs central to American identity. A prominent argument of American political thinkers has been that the liberal-democratic ideals of freedom, equality, representative government, the rule of law, tolerance and civic obligation are what make Americans a unique people. From the immediate aftermath of the Second World War to the late twentieth-century such an argument provided American politicians, social movements and intellectuals a strong justification for divergent political claims, from Cold War warriors calling for the containment of Soviet Communism, to Civil Rights activists calling for racial integration to …

Committee Decision Making In Monetary Policy, Hyungju Cha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One reason of the criticism about Taylor rule would be that the rule could not provide a micro foundation about the decision-making mechanism. because it is simply describing the policy process in terms of the short-term nominal interest rate. In order to reconcile the tension between critics and supporters of Taylor rule, chapter I employs the theory of team, which investigates how members in a team interact to determine optimal decisions. Using team theory, it is shown how optimal monetary policy is results from committee members' interactions.

In chapter II, if the government cannot recognizes that the monetary policy can …

Politics As A Sphere Of Wealth Accumulation: Cases Of Gilded Age New York, 1855-1888, Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines political wealth accumulation in American political development. Scholars have long understood the political system selects for "progressive ambition" for higher office. My research shows that officeseekers have also engaged in "progressive greed" for greater wealth. I compare the career trajectories of four prominent New York political figures during the Gilded Age: William Tweed, Fernando Wood, Roscoe Conkling, and Chester Arthur. Using correspondence, census, tax and land records, government reports, investigations, and newspaper coverage, I explain why each political figure chose to either seize or pass up opportunities for political wealth accumulation. I also examine the principal sources …

The Shadow Banking System In The United States, Bhakti Joshi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2008 the United States suffered a devastating economic collapse. Millions of Americans were unemployed; families lost their homes; and long time businesses were forced to shut down. These events put the United States into an economic depression so deep that the country has yet to fully recover. The crisis was not a natural disaster but varieties of private sector agents such as banks and hedge funds were responsible for its efficient cause. Even though the housing and stock bubbles were generated largely by market forces rather than by government policies, the US government policies and institutions also played a …

Mayibuye! Let Us Reclaim! Assessing The Role Of Memorialization In Post-Conflict Rebuilding, Ereshnee Naidu-Silverman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The past decade has seen a global increase in scholarly and practitioner interests in memorialization and social memory studies. While memorialization initially gained social and political significance after the Holocaust, as it served as a symbol of recognition of the millions of victims, it gained increased recognition with the growth of the transitional justice field. Initially subsumed under the banner of symbolic reparations, memorialization has over the past few years become a transitional justice mechanism in its own right. Increasingly, victims turn toward memorialization as a mechanism for recognition, justice and healing, and more truth commissions are recommending memorialization as …

Civilization Of The Living Dead: Canonical Monstrosity, The Romero Zombie, And The Political Subject, Nicholas Walter Robbins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the canonical monsters of Western political theory, including Plato's wolf-man, Hobbes's Leviathan and Tocqueville's mechanical mass. It argues that monster theorists - including horror film director George A. Romero, creator of the zombie and its apocalyptic narrative - utilize the horror genre in order to reveal the hidden dysfunctions and unrealized potentials of self and society. The canon features several prison-like heuristics - including Plato's cave, Hobbes's sate of nature, Tocqueville's prison, and Romero's zombie apocalypse - that bring to light the mass enslavement, intellectual dysfunction, appetitive tyranny, and cannibalism of the political subject. Theorists consistently depict …

The Tea Party Movement As A Modern Incarnation Of Nativism In The United States And Its Role In American Electoral Politics, 2009-2014, Albert Choi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Tea Party movement has been a keyword in American politics since its inception in 2009. Widely regarded as having helped the Republican Party to engineer a comeback during the elections of 2010, the Tea Party movement offered the American public a Republican agenda that was distinguishable from the Bush era by limiting its talking points to issues such as fiscal discipline and budget deficit. However, fact that the image of Republicans changed because of the Tea Party presence and the Republican focus on fiscal issues leaves whether the Republican agenda as influenced by Tea Partiers changed much in substance …

Ulu Al Amr & Authority: The Central Pillars Of Sunni Political Thought, Hisseine Faradj

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation evaluates the political history of Islam through the prism of the Sunni conception of authority. It finds an historical red thread that explains the legal and political evolution of different types of Islamic government that have, instead of a European-type sovereign, the Ulu Al Amr (those in authority). In addition, it argues that it is the authority of Ulu Al Amr that legitimizes temporal power via legal rulings such as Wilayah al ahed (allegiance to a dynastic monarchy) and Wlayah al qaher (obedience to coercive power and rule). Those rulings are essential to legitimating historical change. Historical legal …

Right Without Might: Prophecy And Enervation In The American Political Tradition, Jonathan Keller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the ways Old Testament prophecy has influenced American political thought and rhetoric. Although political scientists have long recognized the impact of the Scriptures on the ways Americans express and think about themselves, they have misunderstood this important part of America's political tradition. I study political sermons by leading Protestant ministers in three historical eras, to demonstrate three claims. First, American prophecy is not a singular but a multiple tradition, consisting of three Old Testament rhetorics. Second, only one of these rhetorics encourages political action while the other two urge political quietism. Third, all three rhetorics thrived until …

Immigrants Facing Immigration Policy: State Laws Regulating Eligibility For In-State Tuition And Belonging Among Immigrant Youth In The United States, Fanny Lauby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on new paths of immigrant incorporation and on the political mobilization of undocumented youths in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. The goal of this investigation is to assess whether contrasting state laws that either open or restrict eligibility for in-state tuition are associated with different levels of belonging and different styles of organizing among immigrant youths. This research draws from theories on political incorporation and a resource mobilization model of collective action. It also builds on theories of policy design highlighting the role of policy images in immigration reform. This dissertation aims to develop a broader …

China's Search For "Peaceful Internationalism" Vis-À-Vis A Liberal World Order: Interests, National Identity And Foreign Policy, Bo Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I employ the concept of national identity to explain China's foreign policy behavior during the history of the People's Republic of China. Specifically, I propose the concept of "peaceful internationalism" to characterize the behavioral orientation of China in the post-Mao era. Peaceful internationalism as both an idea and a policy, aims at a cross-national framework for cooperation and co-existence through non-conflictual, non-hegemonic and non-unilateral mechanisms of dispute resolution. This study argues that China pursues peaceful internationalism in a liberal international order, which is consistent with its contemporary national identity, which I term the "phoenix rising" identity. This …

Expanding Political Space In Contemporary China: A Comparative Study Of The Advocacy Strategies Of Three Grass-Root Women's Groups, Weiting Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The absence of contentious performance has led scholars to question the existence of social movements and to agree with the description of state-social group relations in China as state corporatism. However, defining social movement by confrontational performance is inappropriate to examine social organizing under repression regimes. Most western social movement theories assume that political space for organizing exists before the formation of social movement. My research challenges this assumption by extending the concept of political opportunity structure to conduct process-tracing comparisons of two women's and one lesbian groups' respective strategies when facing interferences from the central authorities. By conducting interviews …

Access To Healthcare For Vulnerable Asian Subgroup Populations In The United States, Deborah Kim-Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objectives: This dissertation examines the barriers for access to healthcare for the top four most uninsured Asian American subgroups (Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Korean, and Pakistani communities). Methods: Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study consisted of: (1) an in-depth review of the Health Services Research literature; (2) qualitative interviews with 24 national health experts and advocates on Asian American health; (3) a survey of a non-probability sample of 107 Koreans in the tri-state region (Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York) using the Access to Healthcare Survey for Koreans in the U.S. instrument, which includes a Likert scale with 21 barrier questions …

International Norm Echoing In Rebel Groups: The Cases Of The Kosovo Liberation Army And The Liberation Tigers Of Tamil Eelam, Jennifer A. Mueller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research demonstrates that rebel groups use international norms in their discourse and echo patterns in the discourse of states and that they do so to promote their own legitimacy at key turning points in their conflicts. Which international norms rebel groups use most frequently is partially determined by the congruence of those norms with their local norms and beliefs and the degree to which a group's internal structure has become more hierarchical and specialized. Two rebel groups are examined in this study over the course of their conflicts: the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil …

The "Social Factory" In Postwar Italian Radical Thought From Operaismo To Autonomia, David P. Palazzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the "social factory" as it developed conceptually within postwar Italian Autonomist Marxism. This concept is defined historically as an outgrowth of the critique of political economy that accompanied a rethinking of Marxism in postwar Italian working class political thought through the experience of Quaderni Rossi, which culminated in the theoretical and practical work of Potere Operaio, with fragments in the area of Autonomia. Historically, this dissertation locates the "social factory" as derivative of two figures: Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti, as well as two subsidiary movements that were articulated, separately, by Antonio Negri and Mariarosa Dalla Costa. …

Media And Message In Modern Political Thought: From The Age Of Print To The Age Of Digital Reproduction, Asaf Shamis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation investigates the relationship between media and message in modern political thought. In the research I situate the ideas of three modern political theorists Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Theodor Herzl in the material conditions prevailing in the printing industry of their times. I investigate in each case how the media culture the thinker was working in influenced his political ideas. My findings indicate that in all three cases the political ideas were shaped and conditioned by the particular position of the author, the prevailing attitude to the printed word, and the existing media technologies. Based on the historical …

The Possibility For Peaceful, Global, Participatory Governance: A Political Evolution Enabled By The Internet And Manifested By Crowds, Frederick Thomas Tucker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper argues that peaceful, global, participatory governance is possible in the 21st century with the aid of the Internet and other forms of abundant, instantaneous, recorded communication (AIRC). Such a polity, however, must replace militarized republics and autocracies to be realized. No historical precedent exists for militarized governments to disband voluntarily. The realization of peaceful, global, participatory governance depends on popular resistance in its most potent, yet least militaristic form--political crowds. On the basis of professional and independent research, analysis of primary and secondary sources, and participant observation, this thesis details the historical development of AIRC, the political systems …

Saudi Aramco And The Politics Of Cultural Heritage, Anahid Hanounik Huth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Culture Heritage in recent decades has become a catch word within world discourse. It is increasingly receiving generous attention in both money and time form private and public sectors on preservation policy. The application of so-called preservation and restoration projects, the alleged care for Cultural Heritage, has become a motive and battle cry of UNESCO, World Bank, private companies, banks, NGOs, European Council, and Western governments' foreign policy. This leads us to ask what is behind this increasing attention, and whether we should see it as Christina Luke 2013 suggested in her article--is Heritage increasingly being seen as a soft …

Advocate, May 2014, Vol. [25], No. [5], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Diversity at CUNY: Statistics vs. Reality (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief: As Workers Grumble, a New Master (p. 5)

Letter to the Editor: Objections About Reparations (p. 6)

In Memoriam: Alas Enormes: Gabriel García Márquez, José Chevarry (p. 7)

Mentoring Future Faculty of Color: A Brief Conversation with Chris Eng and Melissa Phruksachart, Kristina Huang (p. 8)

Edifying Debate:

- Speech and Sanctions: Highlights from the CUNY Forum on the BDS Movement and Academic Freedom, Bill Mullen and Sherry Wolf (p. 10)

- Marching for Immigrants’ and Workers’ Rights, CUNY Internationalist Marxist …

Commitment Problems As A Cause Of War Severity, Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Advocate, March 2014, Vol. [25], No. [4], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: An Open Letter to the GC Community, The Advocate Editorial Staff (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief:

- Albany Kills Dream, Shafts Libraries (p. 6)

- Gay Activists Protest St. Patrick’s Day Parade Ban, Camilo Gomez (p. 10)

Guest Columnist: U.S. Sailors and Marines Allege Fukushima Radiation Sickness, Amy Goodman (p. 12)

Women in the U.S. Workforce: Much to Celebrate, Much to Do, Cristina Pérez Díaz (p. 14)

CUNY Gives ROTC the Boot, Conor Tomás Reed (p. 16)

Copyright and Democracy: The Case for Protecting Intellectual Property in the Digital Age, Eric Bayruns …