International Relations Commons^™

The Influence Of International Organizations On Militarized Interstate Dispute Initiation And Duration, Megan Shannon, Daniel Morey, Frederick Boehmke

Megan Shannon

No abstract provided.

China In Context: Energy, Water, And Climate Cooperation, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Climate resilient communities can be achieved with the support of global research, development, deployment, and diffusion of environmentally sound low GHG emission technologies and processes. Technology cooperation should lower emissions remaining mindful of biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods. China and the United States need to respond effectively to both economic and climate crises and can do so in part by cooperating on environmentally sound technology that transforms the global use of energy.

Collaborative Community-Based Natural Resource Management, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This article analyzes the importance of increasing civil society actor access to and influence in international legal and policy negotiations, drawing from academic scholarship on governance, conservation and environmental sustainability, natural resource management, observations of civil society actors, and the authors’ experiences as participants in international environmental negotiations.

The Bureau Of Municipal Research And The Development Of A Professional Public Service, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii

Bruce D. McDonald, III

This paper explores the professionalization of public administration in terms of its relation to the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. The formation of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research in 1907 served as the catalyst for the creation and expansion of a professional public service. Though public administration has failed to transform into a profession, this paper shows that the Bureau contributed to professionalization by (1) developing a body of knowledge and theory for the field; (2) developing a school in which to train persons in that knowledge; and, (3) promoting a place that the training and knowledge …

Psychology Of Terrorism, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

No abstract provided.

Understanding Terrorist Psychology, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

No abstract provided.

The Science Of Interpersonal Trust, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

Interpersonal trust - a willingness to accept vulnerability or risk based on expectations regarding another person’s behavior – is a vitally important concept for human behavior, affecting our interactions both with adversaries and competitors as well as with allies and friends. Indeed, interpersonal trust could be said to be responsible in part for nudging competitors towards becoming allies, or – if betrayed – leading friends to become adversaries.

This document summarizes the state of the art (and science) in interpersonal trust research, describing how researchers define trust and its components, exploring a range of theories about how people decide whether …

Crisis Intervention Teams May Prevent Arrests Of People With Mental Illnesses, Randy Borum, Stephanie Franz

Randy Borum

Historically, as many as 7–10% of US police contacts have involved persons with mental illnesses, with a disproportionate amount of these encounters resulting in arrest, usually for minor offenses. Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) were created, and have proliferated, to ameliorate this problem by offering a specialized response and serving – at least informally – as a liaison between mental health services and police departments. Because preventing unnecessary arrests is one of CIT’s principal objectives, this study examined the arrest rates of persons with mental illnesses and the number of arrests that might have been prevented after the implementation of a …

What Can Be Done About School Shootings?: A Review Of The Evidence, Randy Borum, Dewey Cornell, William Modzeleski, Shane Jimerson

Randy Borum

School shootings have generated great public concern and fostered a widespread impression that schools are unsafe for many students; this article counters those misapprehensions by examining empirical evidence of school and community violence trends and reviewing evidence on best practices for preventing school shootings. Many of the school safety and security measures deployed in response to school shootings have little research support, and strategies such as zero tolerance discipline and student profiling have been widely criticized as unsound practices. Threat assessment is identified as a promising strategy for violence prevention that merits further study. The article concludes with an overview …

Competing Narratives, Identity Politics, And Cross-Strait Reconciliation, Yinan He

Yinan He

After nearly 60 years of political confrontation, hopes for cross-Taiwan Strait reconciliation have run high since the traditionally pro-unification Nationalist Party (the Kuomingtang, KMT) returned to power in Taiwan in May 2008. However, obstacles to reconciliation remain daunting, due to a fundamental disjuncture between the ideological beliefs of the two sides, in particular because China and Taiwan still lack a shared memory of Taiwanese history that can serve as the foundation for their reconciliation. This article examines a wide variety of sources from Taiwan and China over recent decades. It illustrates their conspicuous memory gap over the history of the …

Human Rights Abuses In 1970s Argentina, Vanessa Gomez

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

In this paper I address various components to the human rights abuses in Argentina in the 1970s. The domestic political situation is analyzed with particular attention paid to the political culture and the history of the regime. Media outlets and interviews by victims are used to facilitate first-hand accounts of the regime. The international arena and the efforts of human rights groups are mentioned as a means to demonstrate the international implications of the regime. I wrote this paper to further my knowledge on human rights abuses and further the knowledge of all who read my attempt. This essay marks …

Gender, Human Security And The United Nations: Security Language As A Political Framework For Women, Natalie Florea Hudson

Political Science Faculty Publications

This book examines the relationship between women, gender and the international security agenda, exploring the meaning of security in terms of discourse and practice, as well as the larger goals and strategies of the global women's movement.

Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. From the environment to HIV/AIDS, state and non-state actors have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. As most prominently demonstrated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2001), activists for women's rights have increasingly framed women's rights and gender inequality as security issues …

Of Minarets, Headscarves, And Cartoons, Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is difficult not to agree with Tariq Ramadan. The fear of and discrimination against Muslims in Western societies since 9/11 is clear and worrying. The anti-Muslim populism he cites is real, although it may also be part of a broader anti-immigrant populism. The posters he describes are extremely disturbing, and reminiscent of World War II propaganda. They are an artifact of fear of the misunderstood “other.”

The Principled Case For Employing Private Military And Security Companies In Humanitarian Interventions And Peacekeeping, Deane-Peter Baker, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The possibility of using private military and security companies to bolster the capacity to undertake humanitarian intervention has been increasingly debated. The focus of such discussions has, however, largely been on practical issues and the contingent problems posed by private force. By contrast, this paper considers the principled case for privatising humanitarian intervention. It focuses on two central issues. First, is there a case for preferring these firms to other, state-based agents of humanitarian intervention? In particular, given a state’s duties to their own military personnel, should the use of private military and security contractors be preferred to regular soldiers …

Necessary Fictions: Indigenous Claims And The Humanity Of Rights, Peter Fitzpatrick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To begin, not propitiously. When checking whether my title ‘Necessary Fictions’ was being used elsewhere, Google revealed that it was going to be used in a future talk, and by me. It transpired mercifully that this use was going to be quite different to the present which suggested the prospect of a new academic genre: same title, different paper; rather than the standard combination of same paper, different title. Fortuitously, that contrast gave me the leitmotiv for this talk – that things ostensibly the same can be different, and that things ostensibly different can be the same.

© Peter Fitzpatrick. …

Tunisia–The Imprisonment Of Fahem Boukadous (Part One Of A Series), Rob Prince

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To most Americans with the exception of those few who, for whatever reason, have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to "Reporters Without Borders” and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa–deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country’s history in the past quarter century.

© …

Human Rights Education In Peace-Building: A Look At Where The Practice Has Come From, And Where It Needs To Head, Tracey Holland

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The world’s peace-building and development organizations increasingly are incorporating human-rights frameworks into the myriad of activities now under their purview. Slower to develop, however, are the capacity-building programs designed to impart knowledge about human rights to citizens and communities. Field-workers throughout the world indicate that the lack of such guidance-giving education hinders them when it comes to monitoring activities, helping to rebuild public institutions, setting up and organizing electoral politics, building an unfettered media, protecting human security, setting up transitional justice mechanisms, and the myriad of other peace-building activities and democratization challenges they face in post-conflict situations. This paper not …

Ann Hui’S Films And The Poetics Of Mundane Redemption, Peter Zarrow

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Seen from above, people are ants. As ants are specks in nature, so people—at least Hong Kongers—are specks in the massive infrastructure of forty- and fifty-storey highrises, the limitless concrete of train and highway networks, and the forbiddingly busy shops. Seen up close, however, face-to-face, they become souls. The camera in the masterpiece directed by Ann Hui, “The Way We Are,” switches between these two perspectives. “The Way We Are” (lit. “Day and Night in Tin Shui Wai” 天水圍的日與夜, 2008) simply shows the quotidian, extremely ordinary events in the lives of a few characters, gradually revealing how they came to …

Hardball, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This year’s holiday cheer has been dampened by a series of events that have shaken Taiwan’s sporting world – the abrupt release by the Sinon Bulls (興農牛) baseball team of All-Star catcher Yeh Chun-chang葉君璋, as well as the fishy circumstances surrounding his aborted attempt to resume his career with the Brother Elephants (兄弟象).

Reminder: China Beat At Aha

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A reminder that China Beat editors, contributors, and readers will be gathering for an informal get-together on Saturday, January 9 at the Marriott Starbucks at 7:30 a.m.