Digital Commons Network^™

Are We Prematurely Designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards As Criminal-Soldiers?, Robert J. Bunker, Hakim Hazim

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The recent U.S. consideration to designate the 125,000 person strong Revolutionary Guard of Iran as a "specially designated global terrorist" (per Executive Order 13224) has quite a few international security implications. (1) On the most basic level, it highlights growing U.S. and Iranian tensions over Iran's nuclear weapons program and Iranian involvement—via its Quds Force belonging to the Revolutionary Guard—in both fermenting and supporting terrorist and insurgent activities in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

What may be far more significant, however, is the U.S. designating the military branch of a sovereign state as a terrorist organization. In the past, such …

Power, Liberalism, And Political Science: Some Christian Reflections, Daniel E. Young

Faculty Tenure Papers

No abstract provided.

Defendendo Privilégio: Os Limites Da Participação Popular Em Salvador, Bahia, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

Este estudo enfoca as mudanças das relações Estadosociedade no estado da Bahia, e os fatores que condicionam uma participação democrática. A partir de trabalho de campo realizado durante várias viagens entre 2001 e 2006 à Salvador, BA, coletei dados sobre a qualidade da participação comunitária na gestão de escolas públicas, no processo de planejamento urbano (PDDU) e no orçamento participativo, iniciado em janeiro de 2005 naquela cidade.

Comparei três áreas de interação entre o governo local e a sociedade em geral, sociedade civil especificamente. Este artigo é enfocado nas duas últimas áreas da política, mas, em todos os casos observados, …

Exploring Universal Rights: A Symposium, Jamie Mayerfeld, Brooke Ackerly, Henry Shue, Jack Donnelly, Kok-Chor Tan, Charles Beitz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Which Rights Should Be Universal? by William J. Talbott. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 232pp.

John Rawls’S Proffer To Believers: A Bargain Called, ‘The Idea Of Public Reason’, William J. Wagner

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Beyond Westphalia: Competitive Legalization In Emerging Transnational Regulatory Systems, Errol E. Meidinger

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 7 in Law and Legalization in Transnational Relations, Christian Brütsch & Dirk Lehmkuhl, eds.

This paper analyzes several emerging transnational regulatory systems that engage, but are not centered on state legal systems. Driven primarily by civil society organizations, the new regulatory systems use conventional technical standard setting and certification techniques to establish market-leveraged, social and environmental regulatory programs. These programs resemble state regulatory programs in many important respects, and are increasingly legalized. Individual sectors generally have multiple regulatory programs that compete with, but also mimic and reinforce each other. While forestry is the most developed example, similar …

Community Knowledge And Attitudes Toward Refugees And Asylees In Miami-Dade And Broward Counties: An Analysis For The International Rescue Committee, Brianne Gilbert

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

This paper presents the findings of a research project on knowledge and attitudes about refugees and “asylees” in two South Florida counties. The project was a collaboration between the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an international NGO that assists refugees and asylees with resettlement in the United States and other countries, and four graduate students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University in Miami. South Florida receives large numbers of refugees and asylees, principally from Latin America and the Caribbean, and the IRC was interested in finding out more about the knowledge and attitudes in the community …

The Biology Of Political Behavior: An Introduction, John R. Hibbing, Kevin B. Smith

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

A broad cross-section of the social sciences is increasingly turning to biology and evolutionary theory to help explain human behavior. Political science is a notable exception to this trend, even though there are sound conceptual reasons for expecting biological processes to play an important role in explaining political behavior. While agreeing with the conceptual arguments, the authors believe original empirical research is the most persuasive means of convincing political science to incorporate biology in explanations of political behavior. Techniques developed in neuroscience, behavioral genetics, agent-based simulation, experimental economics, and other fields offer exciting research opportunities to explore questions of central …

A Survey Of Terrorism And Human Rights In Uganda, Arika Long

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Tragically, Uganda is a primary example of a country dominated by terror and human rights violations. In a 2006 interview with Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, the news department of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, called the conflict in Uganda “the worst form of terrorism in the world.” Defining terrorism as indiscriminate violence against civilians, he declares that nowhere in the world is there a more concentrated area where so many people are being terrorized, and have been for such a long period of time. According to …

The Roma: During And After Communism, Florinda Lucero, Jill Collum

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Roma are an interconnected ethnic and cultural group that migrated out of India more than ten centuries ago. In the Czech Republic, they may have been present since the 15th century. Although relations within Czech lands began honorably, they quickly disintegrated into enmity and within a century Czechs could kill the Roma with impunity. Legislation restricting Roma movement came about in 1927 with Law 117: the “Law on Wandering Gypsies,” which stated that the Roma were now required to seek permission to stay overnight in any given location. In the run-up to World War II, parallel restrictions to those …

Why Has Violence Come To Dominate Images Of Png Elections? The 2002 Elections In The Highlands Region, Krisztina Matefy

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the problem of election-related violence through a number of meta-theories, which have recently emerged in the social sciences to explain intrastate conflicts. By using the case study of the 2002 elections in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), this thesis examines the applicability and usefulness of primordialism, modernization theory and weak state theory in explaining election-related violence in PNG. Critically examining the theories, the thesis analyses a wide range of information about the historical, cultural, social and political factors that played a significant role in the surfacing of election-related violence in the PNG Highlands. By …

Reforming Politics: The Covenant Device In Anglo-American Political Theory, Glenn A. Moots

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation provides an historical and theoretical inquiry into “covenants” as a device within Anglo-American political theory. It includes an overview of Biblical covenants which are the source of the covenant device, together with an analysis of subsequent application by early modern and contemporary political theorists. I demonstrate that this revealed political theology, moderated by the political traditions of salus populi and natural law, provides support for contemporary political imperatives of liberty while avoiding both the terrors of gnostic political religion and the inevitable moral and political failure of natural political theology. The argument begins with an examination of contemporary …

Judgments About Cooperators And Freeriders On A Shuar Work Team: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective, Michael E. Price

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

Evolutionary biological theories of group cooperation predict that (1) group members will tend to judge cooperative co-members favorably, and freeriding co-members negatively and (2) members who themselves cooperate more frequently will be especially likely to make these social judgments. An experiment tested these predictions among Shuar hunter-horticulturalists. Subjects viewed depictions of pairs of workers who varied in the extent to which they had contributed to, and benefited from, a team project. Subjects were then asked to judge which worker deserved more respect, and which deserved more punishment. When judging between unequalcontributors, all subjects tended to favor more cooperative (i.e., higher-contributing) …

Balancing Ambition And Gender Among Decision Makers, Christopher W. Larimer, Rebecca Hannagan, Kevin B. Smith

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

Survey research from political science indicates that people are quite suspicious of ambitious decision makers; that people who desire power are self-serving and not to be trusted. In this paper, we use an original laboratory experiment to test not only whether people prefer nonambitious decision makers, but also whether people will seek to balance ambitious decision makers with non-ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is “appointed.” Participants vote from a slate …

'Heroism' In Warfare, Oleg Smirnov, Holly Arrow, Doug Kennet, John Orbell

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

The willingness of people to risk their lives fighting on behalf of their nation (which we call heroism) is a background assumption in the study of war, thus of international relations, but also an evolutionary puzzle. We use two computer simulations to explore the possibility that heroism could have evolved as a domain specific form of altruism, selected through humans’ ancient past as a consequence of warfare. In the first, “altruism” is modeled as a generalized disposition that promotes both heroism and other, non-military, forms of group-benefiting behaviors—which we call communitarianism. In the second, heroism and communitarianism are modeled …

Testosterone, Cortisol, And Aggression In A Simulated Crisis Game, Rose Mcdermott

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

This study investigated the impact of testosterone and cortisol on aggression in a crisis simulation game. We found a significant relationship between level of testosterone and aggression. Men were much more likely to engage in aggressive action than women. They were more likely to lose their fights as well. In addition, we found a significant inverse relationship between cortisol level and aggression. We end with some speculation about why we did not find victory effects in this population.

Genetic Configurations Of Political Phenomena: New Theories, New Methods, Ira H. Carmen

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

Recent research by E.O. Wilson, James Q. Wilson, Simon, Alford-Hibbing, Carmen and others indicates that the competing social science paradigms of behavioralism and rational choice are in their last throes. Their salient weakness is insensitivity, bordering on ignorance, to politics as a biologically-orchestrated phenomenon. More specifically, political scientists know precious little about either genetics or evolutionary dynamics.

In this paper, I present a new theory--sociogenomics--to replace the shopworn conceptions of yesterday’s political science. I then demonstrate how social scientists can employ the tools of molecular biology to flesh out the genes coding for baseline political attitudes and behaviors. The theory …

Maria Falco, Ed.: Feminist Interpretations Of Niccolò Macchiavelli, Mindy Peden

Political Science

Book review of: Maria Falco, ed.: Feminist Interpretations of Niccolò Macchiavelli

Advocate, September 2006, Vol. [18], No. [1], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Graduate Center Set to Go Wireless: 1^st Phase Done by End of Spring ‘07, IT Provost says. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff (p. 1)

CUNY’s Iraq Vets Seeking New Purpose in Activism. Marriah Star (p. 1)

BoT Buys Baruch Prez a House. Advocate Staff (p. 1)

From the Editor’s Desk: Our Fashionable Cynicism (p. 2)

GC Technology: New Tech Chief Faces Thankless Role. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff (p. 2)

Academic Repression in the First Person: Two Plus Two Make Four – and Substantiate It. Kevin Barrett (p. 3)

Dispatches from the Front: First-Person Essays on Teaching. The Politics and …

Donors, Modellers And Development Brokers: The Pork Barrel Of Water Management Research, Julie Trottier

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Donors are shaping the mainstream research agenda concerning water management around the world. As large sums are made available within applied research programmes, many actors are competing to access them. This has led to the development of a new class of actors: the water research development brokers. Development brokers have mostly been studied in the developing world. They are usually defined as local actors who master the knowledge framework of donor organizations while their social positions and local networks allow them to act as intermediaries between the local population targeted by the donor and the donor itself. Such a position …

Naccs 33rd Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Linking Local and Global Struggles for Social Justice: Transnational Chicana and Chicano Studise
June 28-July 2006
Hotel Fénix and Hotel Morales

Fgm Abandonment In Egypt: A Case Study Of Changing Behavioural Patterns And Attitudes Towards Fgm In The Village Of Benban, Aswan, Laila Mahmoud El Moshneb

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]

I Am What I Wear: The Use Of Dress In Constructing And Evaluating Sexual Identity, Jean Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis explores different disciplinary studies and discussions of dress, and more specifically, the use of dress in constructing a gendered identity and sexual identity. To conduct this research, I performed a literature review and referenced various social psychological, sociological, and/or feminist theoretical frameworks. I argue that dress cannot serve as any sort of innate or accurate indicator of sexual identity; rather, the meanings associated with dress are socially produced and vary across time and place. Evidence for this argument emerges only after a literature review, as one can recognize a common theme linking the literature, or perhaps a commonly …

South Goes South: American Perspectives On Southern Immigrants To Brazil, Ernest R. Rheaume

Senior Honors Projects

Reconstruction following the American Civil War led to conditions in the South that caused upwards of 20,000 Americans to go into exile. Of these, approximately 2,500 to 3,500 made the trip to Brazil and established settlements of varying success. One hundred forty one years later descendents of the original settlers, known as the Confederados, still populate the areas of Americana and Santa Barbara D’Oeste, Brazil. Extensive studies have been conducted on the history of the migration and the resulting settlements, yet conflicting perspectives of the Confederados exist within American society. These include different understandings of the Confederate Battle Flag, the …

God In Civil Society: Prophetic, Sapiential, And Pacific, Gary M. Simpson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In Cuba, Susan Kemp

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In 1959, Fidel Castro established a Cuban socialist state closely aligned with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's collapse brought an end to Soviet economic support which, combined with the U.S. embargo, created an economic crisis in the early 1990s. The Cuban government's instability and desire to maintain control overrides the individual rights of its citizens. These events are the background for the lack of fundamental human rights in Cuba today.

Human Rights In El Salvador, Tait Robinson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Between 1979 and 1991 El Salvador was embroiled in a civil war that claimed over 70,000 lives. Longstanding socio-economic inequality between the rich and poor led to government-backed human rights abuses dispensed by the military. These ranged from denials of freedom and civil liberties to village massacres.

Human Rights In Chile, Stephanie Raessler

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Chile might evoke memories of Augosto Pinochet and his brutal reign, though there is more to this country than an oppressive authoritarian regime. A history of politics longer than Pinochet's rule has shaped Chile's current situation. Many issues recur across Chilean history, and continue to influence the present.

The Law Is Not The Case: Incorporating Empirical Methods Into The Culture Of Case Analysis, Kay L. Levine

Faculty Articles

While I consider case analysis in the context of cultural defense jurisprudence, this Essay should be regarded as a case study of a more endemic problem in legal scholarship. In tackling such an area, my goal is not to overthrow centuries of legal analysis, but rather to explore how we, as legal scholars, might use social science techniques to more systematically investigate, document, analyze, and predict the state of a particular comer of the legal universe.

The argument proceeds in two parts. Part II considers empirical approaches to the question raised by Lee: how might we ascertain the relationship between …

China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning In The People's Republic, 1949-2005, Tyrene White

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.