Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Environmental Resource Management In Borderlands: Evolution From Competing Interests To Common Aversions, Patrick H. Buckley, John Belec, Jason Levy

Environmental Studies Faculty and Staff Publications

Great enthusiasm is attached to the emergence of cross-border regions (CBRs) as a new institutional arrangement for dealing with local cross-border environmental resource management and other issues that remain too distant from national capitals and/or too expensive to be addressed in the traditional topocratic manner requiring instead local adhocratic methods. This study briefly discusses the perceived value of CBRs and necessary and sufficient conditions for the successful and sustainable development of such places. Then, assuming that necessary conditions can be met, the study investigates an intriguing hypothesis concerning the catalyzing of sustainable consensus for cross-border resource management based on a …

"What Is Love?" The Sounds Of Love From William S. Burroughs, Kathryn Cronin

Occam's Razor

William Burroughs, his life and works, have a set beginning and end, but the biological and spiritual connections he draws between language, sound, and the human body appear to have undefined points of origin. Sound has always been. Language has always been. To exist outside of language and sound is to exist outside of time and space and thus outside the body. Burroughs’ theories on language, the word, and their connection to the body are woven through texts filled with structural and narrative convolutions. ­ Nova Trilogy, especially The Ticket that Exploded, as well as the early novel …

Occam's Razor Vol. 5 - Full (2015)

Occam's Razor

No abstract provided.

Monetizing Some Benefits Of Participation In Nexus, Christopher Dingman, Daniel Edgel

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

There are many benefits of the NEXUS program, ranging from personal time savings to improved security. While monetizing those benefits is challenging, it is important to assess the value of NEXUS and provide information that can support further expansion of the program. This Border Brief quantifies certain individual economic benefits of membership in the NEXUS program using data from 2012 to 2014. We focus on the Peace Arch/Douglas crossing, where the traffic volume is high and a large percentage of travelers are enrolled in NEXUS.

Improving The Process Of Adjudicating Tn Status, Border Policy Research Institute

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

In 1994, pursuant to NAFTA, the TN (for “Trade NAFTA”) labor-mobility provision was established. The TN concept was intended to meet the goal of “facilitating temporary entry on a reciprocal basis and of establishing transparent criteria and procedures for temporary entry” amongst the three NAFTA countries. For Canadian citizens seeking temporary work of a professional nature in the U.S., TN status created an alternative to the H-1B program, which was established in 1990. The process of gaining TN status was meant to be simpler than that of acquiring H-1B status, and no cap on the number of TN workers was …

An Inventory Of Policy Actors And Instruments Relevant To The Salish Sea, Stacy Clauson, Laurie Trautman

BPRI Working Papers

The Salish Sea Governance Study is a baseline inventory, designed to identify and categorize the variety of actors and instruments that bear on the maintenance and revitalization of the Salish Sea. Both sides of the border have regulations and actors working to mitigate the multitude of stressors adversely impacting the health of the Salish Sea and to preserve and restore the system. These include governmental entities at varying scales; indigenous communities working individually or integrating efforts; and non-state actors working within non-governmental organizations and NGO-networks.

Formal and informal mechanisms bring these different actors together. Such interaction crosses multiple levels and …

Exchange Rates And Border Crossings In The Cascade Gateway, Border Policy Research Institute

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

There has been recent speculation about the influence of the declining Canadian dollar on the volume of cross-border travel. This article explores that relationship in the context of the Cascade Gateway, which is the group of border crossings (Peace Arch, Pacific Highway, Lynden/Aldergrove, and Sumas/Abbotsford) that serve the Interstate 5 corridor, connecting Whatcom County, WA, to the Lower Mainland of B.C.

The Pacific Northwest As An Emerging Arctic Region, Heather Exner-Pirot, Joel Plouffe

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

This border brief, authored by two Arctic scholars, takes a special look at how borders are changing in the Arctic. The fast-changing Arctic is increasingly defined by boundaries drawn at a regional scale, rather than traditional borders that are based on national lines. This has major implications for the national and foreign policies of both Arctic and non-Arctic actors. The Pacific Northwest, which has an Arctic foothold through the northern subnational units of Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (NWT), has been playing an active role in this regionalization process for several years, and seeks to expand its presence, …

Washington State's Economy In Relation To Canada And The Border, Paul Storer, David L. (David Lindsay) Davidson, Laurie Trautman

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

Economic ties have spanned the contemporary border between Washington State and Canada for as long as the Pacific Northwest has been inhabited. The native peoples of North America interacted across the border for centuries prior to the arrival of European explorers. In the early 19th century, the major regional European economic entity was the Hudson’s Bay Company. The fur-trading operations of this British-chartered corporation took place throughout its “Columbia Department” (a region that straddled the modern Canada – U.S. border), with outposts at locations such as Fort Vancouver and Fort Nisqually. The contemporary border dates from 1846, when the 49th …

A Business Case For Increasing Rfid At The Canada - Us Land Border, Border Policy Research Institute

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

This business case presents results-to-date of ongoing work by the Whatcom Council of Governments (WCOG) and the Border Policy Research Institute (BPRI) to investigate the benefits and costs of significantly increasing the portion of cross-border traffic using radio frequency identification (RFID). Before reviewing the analysis, it is useful to review the current policy context as well as some details about travel documents and U.S.-Canada cross-border traffic operations.

Unnecessary Roughness: Examining Terrain, Indiscriminate Violence, And Conflict Duration, Christine Dulaney

WWU Graduate School Collection

During the past decade scholars have attempted to identify factors influence conflict by using cross-national quantitative analysis, many of which utilize terrain roughness as an independent variable asserting that it provides an advantage in guerrilla warfare. However, despite the theoretical assumptions, these studies fail to reach consensus regarding how or if rough terrain contributes to conflict. One study in particular, Buhaug and Lujala (2005), found that higher levels of rough terrain in the conflict zone were associated, albeit insignificantly, with shorter conflicts, while higher levels of terrain roughness at the country level were associated with longer conflicts. This thesis seeks …

Rethinking Majoritarian Modification: Toward An Explanatory Theory Of Electoral System Reform In Canada, The U.K., And New Zealand, Christopher M. Miller

WWU Graduate School Collection

Traditional theories of electoral reform have focused on the outcomes of reform as a way of explaining the rational-strategic actions of political elites. Recently, the literature has moved from an ex post to an ex ante approach, analyzing the context and process of reform independent of its expected outcomes. This new conceptualization of electoral reform has produced new analytic frameworks, from which I propose to explore the development of an explanatory theory of electoral reform.