Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Politics and Social Change Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2009

Political Science

Institution
Keyword
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1 - 30 of 35

Full-Text Articles in Politics and Social Change

Ideologia E Utopias Nas Mais Recentes Constituintes Brasileira E Portuguesa: Algumas Linhas De Leitura, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha Nov 2009

Ideologia E Utopias Nas Mais Recentes Constituintes Brasileira E Portuguesa: Algumas Linhas De Leitura, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Based upon a political compromise, in which « democratic socialists » and « social democrats » were the main protagonists, the ideology of Portuguese Constitution of 1976 was discrete, subtle. And ulterior constitutional revisions confirmed that fondamental aspect. Of course, utopia was present. But, even more present was the « hope principle ». We believe that the Brazilean constituent assembly, with the original importance of popular contributions, also had hope principle’s decisive influence. But the dinamics of the constituent assembly moderated, since the very beggining, the verbal signs of less discret ideologies. Utopia, neverthless, is very present in the aim …


The Citizens Were Heard, Donna M. Hughes Dr. Oct 2009

The Citizens Were Heard, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Congratulations to the citizens of Rhode Island and national anti-trafficking advocates for the legislative victory in Rhode Island. This past week, the Rhode Island Assembly passed an unprecedented pieces of legislation that will protect victims from sex industry predators and give law enforcement the tools they need to arrest pimps, traffickers, and “johns.” 


Violence In The House, Katherine Hite Oct 2009

Violence In The House, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There was something particularly haunting in reading this Kristof and WuDunn piece during the week’s major US headlines: a girl in California had been imprisoned for eighteen years in the home of a man who kidnapped and raped her, fathered her children, and employed her in his small enterprise—a business card design and printing agency. Business clients interviewed for the story appeared completely taken aback. Clients had always found the now twenty-nine-year-old Jaycee Dugard “professional, polite, and responsive” as well as “creative and talented in her work.” Others expressed similar shock, recounting that Ms. Dugard “was always smiling.” Ms. Dugard’s …


The Mirror Effect, The Law Of Attraction, And "Points Of Attraction" That Can Nurture The Evolution Of Human Consciousness, Carroy U. Ferguson Jul 2009

The Mirror Effect, The Law Of Attraction, And "Points Of Attraction" That Can Nurture The Evolution Of Human Consciousness, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

This message has several purposes. First, I want to express my immense joy that Chip Baggett and I are serving as Co-Presidents of AHP since August 16, 2009. In my view, Chip and I are long-time friends, who have a transcendent connection and synergistic energies. My desire and intent is for our co-presidency to mirror the effect(s) of synergistic collaboration as a “point of attraction” that can assist in the evolution of human consciousness across often “perceived personal and societal boundaries” (e.g., race, culture, ethnicity, class, individual and collective belief systems, and dogma). More generally, however, this message is intended …


The Political Economy Of Aid And Regime Legitimacy In Cambodia, Sophal Ear Jun 2009

The Political Economy Of Aid And Regime Legitimacy In Cambodia, Sophal Ear

Sophal Ear

.


O Que É Uma Universidade?, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha May 2009

O Que É Uma Universidade?, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Pouca gente sabe hoje o que é uma Universidade, a sério. Confunde-se muito Universidade e super-mercado de aulas, ou fábrica de « investigação » ou « pesquisa », assim como se confunde serviço público com negócio, vocação com interesse pessoal, etc. É a própria essência da Universidade que está em causa. A confusão é grande no público, que vê a Universidade sobretudo como uma forma de promoção social, pelos diplomas. A confusão não é menor na própria Universidade. Os universitários mais responsáveis interrogam-se sobre a sua função, o sentido do trabalho que fizeram e fazem, e a sua sorte na …


Aboriginal Affairs: Monologue Or Dialogue?, Vanessa Castejon May 2009

Aboriginal Affairs: Monologue Or Dialogue?, Vanessa Castejon

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

On January 26 2002, the thirtieth anniversary of the creation of the first Aboriginal tent embassy was celebrated. In 1972 the tent embassy emerged from the Black Power movement as a manifestation of the call for recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty and the right to self-determination. These claims have been raised continually by some prominent Aboriginal activists, but the main answer given by the government has been the creation of Aboriginal policies and sections for Aboriginal people within the Australian political system. The government, by different means, has brought Aboriginal activists within the system and has diverted attention from their aspirations. …


Gay Parenthood And The Revolution Of The Modern Family: An Examination Of The Unique Barriers Confronting Gay Adoptive Parents, Nicholas Arntsen May 2009

Gay Parenthood And The Revolution Of The Modern Family: An Examination Of The Unique Barriers Confronting Gay Adoptive Parents, Nicholas Arntsen

Honors Scholar Theses

Abstract: In recent decades, the structure of the American family has been revolutionized to incorporate families of diverse and unconventional compositions. Gay and lesbian couples have undoubtedly played a crucial role in this revolution by establishing families through the tool of adoption. Eleven adoptive parents from the state of Connecticut were interviewed to better conceptualize the unique barriers gay couples encounter in the process adoption. Both the scholarly research and the interview data illustrate that although gay couples face enormous legal barriers, the majority of their hardship comes through social interactions. As a result, the cultural myths and legal restrictions …


A Place Like This: An Environmental Justice History Of The Owens Valley - Water In Indigenous, Colonial, And Manzanar Stories, Monica Embrey May 2009

A Place Like This: An Environmental Justice History Of The Owens Valley - Water In Indigenous, Colonial, And Manzanar Stories, Monica Embrey

Pomona Senior Theses

This text provides an environmental justice analysis of the stories of the people who lived in the Owens Valley, who watered its land and cultivated its crops—pine trees, apple trees, and kabocha alike. Telling the personal stories of challenge and resistance that manifested alongside the oppressive forces of military and state domination provides the opportunity to align forcibly relocated, exploited and incarcerated people’s struggles throughout time. This text starts with The Nü’ma Peoples who were the first humans to live in the Owens Valley and continues with the struggle for empire between rival colonial empires of agriculture and distant urban …


Latin American Migrants In The Las Vegas Valley: Civic Engagement And Political Participation, John P. Tuman Apr 2009

Latin American Migrants In The Las Vegas Valley: Civic Engagement And Political Participation, John P. Tuman

Institute for Latin American Studies

Funded by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (with support from the MacArthur Foundation), this project is part of a broader national study that examines Latin America migrants in selected cities in the United States. The goal of the project is to explore patterns of civic engagement and political participation among Latin American migrants and Latinos in the Las Vegas, Nevada, metropolitan area. A secondary, but not less important, goal is to understand the factors that contribute to or inhibit the ability of individuals from Latin America to acquire U.S. citizenship. The issues addressed by this …


Competing Social Movements And Local Political Culture : Voting On Ballot Propositions To Ban Same-Sex Marriage., Arnold Fleischmann, Laura Moyer Mar 2009

Competing Social Movements And Local Political Culture : Voting On Ballot Propositions To Ban Same-Sex Marriage., Arnold Fleischmann, Laura Moyer

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: This paper uses social movement theory to explain variation in local support for proposed constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage in 22 states during 2004 and 2006.

Methods: The analysis uses OLS regression with county-level data to explain variation in local support for the amendments.

Results: Support for the amendments in both years was positively related to the proportion of a county that was evangelical or Republican, but negatively related to its level of education and proportion of Catholics. Amendment support was positively related in only one year to the percentage of a county’s population that …


Archetypal Energies, The Emergence Of Obama As A Practical Idealist, And Global Transformation, Carroy U. Ferguson Feb 2009

Archetypal Energies, The Emergence Of Obama As A Practical Idealist, And Global Transformation, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

During this time of change, AHP and kindred spirits on the edge have important roles to play. We are the keepers and nurturers of a transformative and evolutionary Vision for Consciousness and a more humane world. At issue is what I will call the “psychic politics” for global transformation, nurtured by practical idealism and the Archetypal Energies. In other writings, I have described Archetypal Energies as Higher Vibrational Energies, operating deep within our individual and collective psyches, which have their own transcendent value, purpose, quality, and “voice”, unique to the individual. We experience them as “creative urges” to move us …


Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram Jan 2009

Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike …


Liberalism, Tolerance And Multiculturalism: The Bounds Of Liberal Intervention In Affairs Of Minority Cultures, Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Marco Zambotti Jan 2009

Liberalism, Tolerance And Multiculturalism: The Bounds Of Liberal Intervention In Affairs Of Minority Cultures, Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Marco Zambotti

raphael cohen-almagor

One of the most pressing issues facing liberal democracies today is the politicization of ethno-cultural diversity. Minority cultures are demanding greater public recognition of their distinctive identities, and greater freedom and opportunity to retain and develop their distinctive cultural practices. In response to these demands, new and creative mechanisms are being adopted in many countries for accommodating difference. This paper discusses some of the issues raised by these demands, focusing in particular on the difficulties that arise when the minority seeking accommodation is illiberal. It is increasingly accepted that common citizenship rights are not sufficient to accommodate all forms of …


Emergencia E Impacto De Los Pueblos Indígenas En Las Arenas Políticas De América Latina., Salvador Marti I Puig Jan 2009

Emergencia E Impacto De Los Pueblos Indígenas En Las Arenas Políticas De América Latina., Salvador Marti I Puig

Salvador Marti i Puig

El texto analiza las razones de la emergencia y del reconocimiento (por parte de los actores dominantes) de los movimientos indígenas en América Latina durante la década de los noventa e inicios del siglo XXI. Para ello se señalan los elementos que permiten interpretar la emergencia de actores políticos de carácter étnico y se interpreta su impacto tanto en el espacio internacional como en el doméstico. Esta tarea se realizará a través de dos opciones teóricas, por un lado, se interpreta la emergencia de los movimientos a través de la estructura de oportunidades políticas y, por otro, se hace referencia …


Nicaragua 2008: Polarización Y Pactos., Salvador Marti I Puig Jan 2009

Nicaragua 2008: Polarización Y Pactos., Salvador Marti I Puig

Salvador Marti i Puig

El año 2008, el segundo de la "nueva" administración de Daniel Ortega, estuvo marcado por la polarización política, la constatación de que El Pacto entre Ortega y Alemán se mantenía a pesar de las declaraciones de los miembros del partido liberal y de la dificultad de que las políticas sociales implementadas por el gobierno se tradujeran en una mejora del nivel de vida de los ciudadanos más pobres. En dicho marco, Daniel Ortega mantuvo una notable continuidad con el año anterior tanto respecto a la política exterior como a la doméstica, destacando el incremento del poder de la Primera Dama …


Los Múltiples Debates (Y Realidades) De La Democracia En América Latina., Salvador Marti I Puig Jan 2009

Los Múltiples Debates (Y Realidades) De La Democracia En América Latina., Salvador Marti I Puig

Salvador Marti i Puig

El estudio presenta una visión panorámica de cómo se ha analizado el proceso de implantación y permanencia de los regímenes democráticos en América Latina durante la historia reciente. Para ello el texto se divide en dos partes: en la primera se expone una síntesis crítica de la literatura que analizó los procesos de transición desde regímenes autoritarios a democráticos; y la segunda presenta la forma en que los analistas han interpretado los regímenes democráticos existentes en la región. Se desarrollan tres apartados que abordan con brevedad los siguientes temas: cómo se han calificado este tipo de democracias; cuál es la …


Mutaciones Orgánicas, Adaptación Y Desinstitucionalización Partidaria: El Caso Del Frente Sandinista De Liberación Nacional (Fsln), 1980-2006., Salvador Marti I Puig Jan 2009

Mutaciones Orgánicas, Adaptación Y Desinstitucionalización Partidaria: El Caso Del Frente Sandinista De Liberación Nacional (Fsln), 1980-2006., Salvador Marti I Puig

Salvador Marti i Puig

Después de haber liderado un proceso revolucionario en Nicaragua durante los años ochenta y de haber perdido el poder en unas elecciones en 1990, el FSLN con- siguió nuevamente el poder en unos comicios celebrados en noviembre de 2006. Para ello el FSLN tuvo que transformarse de una organización vanguardista y cor- porativa a otro tipo de organización partidaria. Esta mutación supuso para el FSLN enfrentar profundos cambios organizativos, simbólicos y estratégicos. La interpreta- ción de estos cambios y del tipo de partido resultante (a la luz de la literatura del cambio organizativo en los partidos políticos) es el objetivo …


Primitive Accumulation And Re-Appropriation Of The Information Commons, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2009

Primitive Accumulation And Re-Appropriation Of The Information Commons, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper suggests that LIS might benefit from critical political economy as a way of theorizing and responding to enclosures of information commons. The autonomist Marxist re-invigoration of ‘primitive accumulation’ offers a register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the commons. Autonomist Marxism also helps conceptualize resistance to enclosures.


Diabolical Frivolity Of Neoliberal Fundamentalism, Sefik Tatlic Jan 2009

Diabolical Frivolity Of Neoliberal Fundamentalism, Sefik Tatlic

Sefik Tatlic

Today, we cannot talk just about plain control, but we must talk about the nature of the interaction of the one who is being controlled and the one who controls, an interaction where the one that is “controlled” is asking for more control over himself/herself while expecting to be compensated by a surplus of freedom to satisfy trivial needs and wishes. Such a liberty for the fulfillment of trivial needs is being declared as freedom. But this implies as well the freedom to choose not to be engaged in any kind of socially sensible or politically articulated struggle.


Democratic Institutions Create Civic Health: How Local Jurisdictions Can Enhance Their Problem-Solving Capacities Through Inclusive Governance, Including A Case Study Of Newark, Delaware, Ezra Temko Jan 2009

Democratic Institutions Create Civic Health: How Local Jurisdictions Can Enhance Their Problem-Solving Capacities Through Inclusive Governance, Including A Case Study Of Newark, Delaware, Ezra Temko

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Civic health is a community’s economic, civic, and social infrastructure – its capacity to solve its problems. This paper explores how contemporary local governments address the opportunities and challenges facing their communities and how local governments could utilize civic engagement to enhance civic health. It also evaluates the status of Newark, Delaware’s civic health and offers pragmatic steps Newark’s government can take to enhance the community’s civic health. Democratic governance is the 21st century engine for communities like Newark, Delaware to enhance their civic health. Collaborative and inclusive governance can improve a community’s abilities to solve problems. The Newark community …


Political Islam In Jordan And Morocco: Changing Tides?, Andrew Johnson Jan 2009

Political Islam In Jordan And Morocco: Changing Tides?, Andrew Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to assess if the 2007 electoral failures of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) in Jordan, and the Justice and Development Party (PJD) in Morocco, represent a weakening of power, or merely a minor diversion in the quest of Islamists to attain greater political voice in both countries.


Hamas Controlled Televised News Media: Counter- Peace, Allen Gnanam Jan 2009

Hamas Controlled Televised News Media: Counter- Peace, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

The hegemonic force of Hamas censored televised news media in Gaza, can not be fully comprehended and appreciated without recognizing the role of propaganda, censorship, and the historical context of the middle east. These 3 interrelated dimensions will be analyzed using functionalism, the mass society theory, the dominant ideology framework, the critical criminology framework, and the symbolic interactionist framework. Through censorship, Hamas news media outlets were able to unilaterally inject culturally relevant propaganda, into the minds of children and citizens. The hypodermic syringe model can be applied to the state controlled news media situation in Gaza, as the people of …


Kathie Barrett On The Global Justice Movement: Cross-National And Transnational Perspectives Edited By Donatella Della Porta. Boulder, Co: Paradigm Publishers, 2007. 278pp., Kathie Barrett Jan 2009

Kathie Barrett On The Global Justice Movement: Cross-National And Transnational Perspectives Edited By Donatella Della Porta. Boulder, Co: Paradigm Publishers, 2007. 278pp., Kathie Barrett

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Global Justice Movement: Cross-National and Transnational Perspectives edited by Donatella Della Porta. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007. 278pp.


A New E.R.A. Or A New Era? Amendment Advocacy And The Reconstitution Of Feminism, Serena Mayeri Jan 2009

A New E.R.A. Or A New Era? Amendment Advocacy And The Reconstitution Of Feminism, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have largely treated the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) after its ratification failure in 1982 as a mere postscript to a long, hard-fought, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to enshrine women’s legal equality in the federal constitution. This Article argues that “ERA II” was instead an important turning point in the history of legal feminism and of constitutional amendment advocacy. Whereas ERA I had once attracted broad bipartisan support, ERA II was a partisan political weapon exploited by advocates at both ends of the ideological spectrum. But ERA II also became a vehicle for feminist reinvention. Congressional consideration …


Beyond Corporatism And Liberalism: State And Civil Society In Cooperation In Nicaragua, Hannah Pallmeyer Jan 2009

Beyond Corporatism And Liberalism: State And Civil Society In Cooperation In Nicaragua, Hannah Pallmeyer

Hispanic Studies Honors Projects

The Nicaraguan state has historically attempted to control Nicaraguan civil society using corporatist and liberal-democratic frameworks. This has created a difficult organizing environment for civil society organizations to struggle for social change. In this thesis, I argue that civil society organizations, operating in 2008 in a corporatist or liberal framework, were less effective in achieving national social change than organizations that worked cooperatively with the state, yet maintained some autonomy. This hypothesis is developed using the case study of three water rights organizations, and is further tested using the case of corporatist-structured Citizen Power Councils, created in 2007.


Contesting Justice: Women, Islam, Law, And Society, Ahmed Souaiaia Dec 2008

Contesting Justice: Women, Islam, Law, And Society, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

No abstract provided.


Strategy, Meta-Strategy, And Anti-Capitalist Activism, Stephen J. D'Arcy Dec 2008

Strategy, Meta-Strategy, And Anti-Capitalist Activism, Stephen J. D'Arcy

Stephen D'Arcy

Whereas Marxism is a theory, or rather a cluster of theories, Leninism is something else: a political strategy. And as Lenin himself pointed out, strategies are neither true nor false, but only effective nor ineffective, depending largely on the context within which they are carried out. In the context of contemporary North America, however, the adoption by radical activists of the standard Leninist norms for anti-capitalist organizing would be counter-productive. What is needed now is a very different approach: a strategy of attrition, as Lenin would have said, rather than a strategy of overthrow. This article concludes by sketching an …


Cyberconflict At The Edge Of Chaos: Cryptohierarchies And Self-Organization In The Open Source, Athina Karatzogianni Dr, George Michaelides Dec 2008

Cyberconflict At The Edge Of Chaos: Cryptohierarchies And Self-Organization In The Open Source, Athina Karatzogianni Dr, George Michaelides

Athina Karatzogianni

This paper differentiates between different levels of conflict in the open-source movement and discusses the role conflict and self-organization play in the emergence of structures of leadership and the bifurcation into core and peripheral groups and soft control by cryptohierarchies; in the different levels of group polarization and conflict between communities negotiating their identity, strategy, coordination and complexity; and lastly, in the dynamic relationships between hierarchies and networks. These dynamics are forcing open-source communities to exist at the edge of chaos, and to constantly engage in lines of flight and resistance from the system of global control, while ignoring current …


Introduction: New Media And The Reconfiguration Of Power In Global Politics, Athina Karatzogianni Dr Dec 2008

Introduction: New Media And The Reconfiguration Of Power In Global Politics, Athina Karatzogianni Dr

Athina Karatzogianni

Whatever the developments and transformations in the sphere of global politics, the new media technologies and the political opportunities they present are unsettling the world system, the are rendering it chaotic and they are having a deeper systemic effect than the more powerful actors care to admit. It remains to be seen whether information age ideologies, new modes of capitalism, conflict, activism, terrorism and war in cyberspace will ever transfer to the ‘real world’ reversing the opposite trend, and causing everyday effects on a bigger scale than we are witnessing today. Even so, we are undoubtedly living in interesting times …