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Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

Incumbent And Challenger Campaign Spending Effects In Proportional Electoral Systems The Irish Elections Of 2002, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Marsh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Positive effects of campaign spending on electoral outcomes have been found in several comparative, multiparty contexts, but very few of these systems use proportional representation. The few studies examining spending effects in multiparty elections have found that incumbent spending is no less effective than challenger spending, contrary to the vast bulk of empirical literature drawn from single-member district contexts. This study reexamines incumbent-challenger differences in spending effects under the single transferable vote. Examining the Irish general elections of 2002, the authors find a positive and statistically significant relationship between spending and votes. Candidates that spend more win more votes, and …

What Exactly Happened In Copenhagen?, Yu Zhou

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Commentary and coverage of China’s role at Copenhagen has been widespread in the past few weeks, including from some of the writers and journalists we pay close attention to like Xujun Eberlein, Pallavi Aiyar, and Evan Osnos, among many others. Here, China Beat contributor Yu Zhou critiques the reading of China’s role as it has developed in the Western press.

Not Aesopian Enough: A Chinese Publishing Fable, James W. Loewen

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In April 2008, Ma Wanli, a professor of American history at Nanchang Hangkong University in Nanchang, China, emailed me to introduce himself as the translator of the Chinese version of my U.S. best seller, Lies My Teacher Told Me. He also invited me to write a preface for this new edition. I agreed.

Coming Distractions: Chinese Whiskers, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Pallavi Aiyar’s 2008 memoir, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China, details the six years she spent living in Beijing, first teaching English and then becoming a reporter for The Hindu. Now stationed in Brussels with the Business Standard, Aiyar’s articles tend to focus on topics such as Belgium’s cultural conflicts and theuneven parallels drawn between India and China. For this reason, I was quite surprised to learn that Aiyar’s second book, to be released by Harper Collins India in early 2011, is a story of Beijing narrated by two cats: Tofu and Soyabean, the protagonists of Chinese Whiskers, share …

Gray Wolves Under The Endangered Species Act (Esa): Distinct Population Segments And Experimental Populations, Kristina Alexander

Congressional Research Service Reports

The wolf was among the first animals protected under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, a predecessor to the current Endangered Species Act (ESA). In 1978 the gray wolf was listed as endangered in all of the conterminous 48 states except Minnesota, where it was listed as threatened. With the exception of experimental populations established in the 1990s, the protections for the gray wolf have been diminishing since that date, as wolf populations have increased in some areas. The use of distinct population segments (DPSs), a term created in the 1978 ESA amendments, has played a role in that reduced protection. …

The U.S. Strategic Imperative Must Shift From Iraq/Afghanistan To Mexico/The Americas And The Stabilization Of Europe, Robert J. Bunker

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Spiritual Significance Of ¿Plata O Plomo?, Pamela L. Bunker, Robert J. Bunker

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

A recent insight, gained by the authors after the conclusion of a major research project on Mexican drug groups, is that this insurgency has at its basis a spiritual, if not religious, component that threatens the underlying foundations of our modern Western value system. This component is derived from the well known cartel technique of offering an individual ¿Plata O Plomo?—take our silver or we will fill you with our lead. As a tactic taken by groups with a theological bent, such as La Familia, this offer becomes Faustian, join us and in the process give up your soul or …

Successful Grassroots Mobilization: Explaining The Victory Of Tom Perriello's 2008 Congressional Election, Brian John Mandeville

Theses & Honors Papers

The 2008 congressional election for the Fifth District of Virginia was unique for many reasons. It is exceptional that a relatively unknown challenger was able to take on an entrenched incumbent and succeed in defeating him, breaking the trend of incumbent victory seen in almost all House of Representative elections. This research demonstrates that the Perriello campaign's ability to create an effective grassroots network was a significant factor in determining the out come of the election. Through a detailed examination of the activities, personnel, and fundraising tactics that Perriello campaign made use of, this research found that Perriello's victory was …

No. 04: Urban Food Production And Household Food Security In Southern African Cities, Jonathan Crush, Alice Hovorka, Daniel Tevara

African Food Security Urban Network

Optimism about the role of household food production (urban agriculture) in improving the food security of the urban poor has given way to pessimism and even scepticism. This paper critically examines the views of advocates of urban agriculture and suggests that it cannot be isolated from a broader consideration of the changing nature of urban food supply systems in Southern African cities. Urban food production by poor households is currently very limited across the region and even fewer produce for market. While food production is a useful livelihood supplement in some cities and a source of income to some wealthier …

The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies Are Brutal, Robert J. Bunker

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The intent of this short essay is to move past the hype, rhetoric, and passions of the moment and get to the core of the issue at hand. The ugly truth has nothing to do with who released the documents, why they were released, or even what political outcomes and potential policy fallout will occur after the dust settles. The core issue at hand is that insurgencies, by their very nature, are inherently brutal. This point was recently driven home after doing a considerable amount of research and reflection on issues pertaining to insurgent use of targeted killing, via both …

Locating Xenophobia: Debate, Discourse, And Everyday Experience In Cape Town, South Africa, Belinda Dodson

Geography & Environment Publications

In May 2008, South Africa experienced an outbreak of violence

against foreign Africans living in the country. Political

leaders expressed shock and surprise, but there has in reality

been long-standing and well-documented hostility toward

African immigrants in South Africa. Several competing explanations

have been put forward, with debate gaining urgency

and polarization since the xenophobic attacks of 2008. After

a selective review of the relevant literature to sketch the

contours of that debate, this paper presents findings from

research conducted with African immigrants living in Cape

Town. Their experiences provide further evidence that antiimmigrant

attitudes and behaviors on the part …

International Relations Fall 2010 Syllabus, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Blogging Aas 2010 (5), Miri Kim, Charles Wheeler

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In this panel, organized by Siyen Fei (University of Pennsylvania), Mark Edward Lewis (Stanford University), Hilde De Weerdt (University of Oxford), and Fei presented papers that creatively engaged the work of G. William Skinner on how to conceptualize empire in time and space. Lewis proposed that the northern capital historically functioned as a peripheral center that connected the agricultural and economic centers found further south with the steppe, and this positioning, a prime concern of the dynasties founded by nomads, helped maintain China as a coherent empire. De Weerdt used social network analysis to mine Song dynastybiji for data that …

Travelogue, Delhi-Beijing, Pallavi Aiyar

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The plane burps to a halt and almost immediately everyone is on their feet, jostling to open the over-head lockers, reaching high for their strolleys. My head feels stuffed with lead and I marvel at the nimble alacrity of my fellow travellers, at 3:00 in the morning. Slowly we shuffle off the Air China flight and make it into the inadequately-air conditioned environs of Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Dangerous Obscurity: A Study Of The Female Suicide Combatants Of Sri Lanka, Jessica Santala

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Since 1991 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have used female suicide operatives in their civil war with the Sri Lankan government. Gaps in research about these phenomena suggest that it’s not seen as a gender specific problem and that female suicide bombers can be compared toe to toe with their male counterparts. I contend that the situation surrounding female suicide terrorism is unique and that certain discernable socioeconomic indicators can explain the reasons behind why some women of Sri Lanka become more active in suicide terrorism. I have compiled a suicide terrorism dataset out of terrorist acts perpetrated by …

“Revolution By Eradication:” On The Khmer Rouge’S Making Of The Tragedy Of Cambodia, Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space . By James A. Tyner. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 209pp.

Dying For Love: Homosexuality In The Middle East, Heather Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Today in the United States, the most frequent references to the Middle East are concerned with the War on Terrorism. However, there is another, hidden battle being waged: the war for human rights on the basis of sexuality. Homosexuality is a crime in many of the Middle Eastern states and is punishable by death in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran (Ungar 2002). Chronic abuses and horrific incidences such as the 2009 systematic murders of hundreds of “gay” men in Iraq are seldom reported in the international media. Speculation as to why this population is hidden includes the …

Bedouin Women In The Naqab, Israel: Ongoing Transformation, Marcy M. Wells

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since its inception in 1948, the state of Israel has based development plans on an agenda of nation-building that has systematically excluded Palestinian Arab citizens such as the indigenous Bedouin. Policies of relocation, resettlement, and restructuring have been imposed on the Bedouin, forcing them from their ancestral lands and lifestyle in the Naqab (or Negev, as it is called in Hebrew) desert of southern Israel. The rapid and involuntary transition from self-sufficient, semi-nomadic, pastoral life to sedentarization and modernization has resulted in dependency on a state that treats the Bedouin as minority outsiders through unjust social, political, and economic structures. …

American Overreach: Strategic Interests And Millennial Ambitions In The Middle East, Asli Bâli, Aziz Rana

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article argues that American actions in the Middle East designed to advance democracy and/or ‘moderation’ tend to yield perverse outcomes that frustrate the aspirations of local actors while undermining the values purportedly being promoted by the US. In order to explain these contradictions, we emphasise the linkage between policies of democracy promotion and long-standing American commitments both to millennialism and geographical omnipresence. As a result of these policies and geopolitical vision, we argue that ‘democracy promotion’ often devolves into a simple defence of American interest – by producing electoral outcomes intended to strengthen local agents seen as compliant with …

The Blue Dog Coalition: Impact Of A Single-Issue Caucus From The 104th To The 110th Congress, Andrew James Clarke

Honors Theses

The Blue Dog Coalition is an informal organization of legislators within the House of Representatives that strives to influence policy on fiscal responsibility, attract the attention of the electorate, They are a group that elicits wide range of reactions covering the length of the political spectrum, but despite this, their claims of special defense of fiscal conservatism within the Democratic Party have gone relatively undocumented by the academic community.This project has integrated a party literature with a caucus literature, in the attempt of building a novel framework for research. Work on polarization, the significance of parties, the purpose and history …

Fairness, Justice And An Individual Basis For Public Policy, Douglas R. Oxley

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Prior models of the policy process have examined how human characteristics can affect policy decision-making in such a way that it leads to aggregate effects on policy outcomes as a whole. I develop a model of the policy process which suggests that emotions related to fair and unfair experiences in the same policy domain are utilized by decision-makers as policy criteria. In the lab, I empirically tested this, and find that emotions and experience related to fairness do influence the policy decision to move away from the status quo alternative. Based upon this result, I simulated the evolution of a …

Transnational Political Participation Among Diasporic Migrants, Amanda Hanlin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Contemporary migrants participate in a variety of dual social, political, and economic processes. Sending and receiving states overtly encourage transnational practices when they allow migrants to maintain homeland citizenship regardless of their citizenship status in their receiving communities. Yet, we know little about migrants' ability to enact their citizenship and their propensity to participate in sending and receiving state networks and structures. We know also that diasporas experience and shape transnational spaces differently than other migrants, but we have much to learn about what influences a diaspora's desire and ability to maintain a political affiliation with their homeland and to …

Angelo M. Codevilla: A Student’S Guide To International Relations Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

A Realist Interpretation Of U.S.Relations With China, Xiansheng Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Realism theory provides the most powerful explanation for the state of war and the rise and fall of great powers. It expounds the important concepts and themes like national sovereignty, security, survival, interests, balance of power, balance of terror, alliance, dominance, hegemony and polarity. Realism can be classified as classical realism, structural realism and neoclassical realism. In recent years, liberalism, globalism and constructivism also have greatly influenced academics and policy-makers under the new phenomena of globalization and terrorism. This paper explores how classical realism theory has been applied to and revealed in the issue of American policy towards China. The …

El Paso, Texas, And Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, 1880-1930: A Material Culture Study Of Borderlands Interdependency, Gladys Arlene Hodges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Material culture theory informs this study of urban history and borderlands interdependency at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, from 1880-1930. Features incised into and structures built onto the natural environment by the first arriving colonists after the mid-seventeenth century endured for more than two centuries. Over that period, the humanly-created material environment, a social product, fed back into the development of social forms--institutions, rituals, practices, modes of interaction, activities, and beliefs. A significant number of these social forms endured into the late nineteenth century and beyond, even after mechanization and industrialization arrived in the region known …

Rights & Interests: Trade & Disputes, Howard Guille

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weight Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policy-Making. By Susan Ariel Aaronson & Jamie M. Zimmerman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 337pp.

and

Public Values & Public Interest: Counterbalancing Economic Individualism. By Barry Bozeman. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007. 219pp.

and

The Impact of the WTO: The Environment, Public Health & Sovereignty. By Trish Kelly. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2007. 220pp.

Migrant Workers In Saudi Arabia, Sarah Jessup

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also one of the largest exporters of oil, and as such, one of the most influential in the region. Despite this, more than 50 per cent of the work force (nearly 6 million people) in the Saudi Arabia are migrant workers (FIDH, 2003, 3). They contribute billions of dollars each year to their home countries through remittances. With such a large population hailing from outside the Kingdom, it would seem that transnational migrants would have a larger voice in the rights and freedoms they are …

Income Inequality And Poverty In Iran, Katie Susman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Income inequality is a hindrance to the global fulfillment of human rights, as acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Middle East North Africa (MENA) region is experiencing a steady increase of economic disparity. The impact of the global economic environment and the 2008 recession has brought to the forefront the region’s economic reliance on the rest of the world. As a result, a triple “food-fuel-financial” crisis has emerged. This will undoubtedly affect the most impoverished part of the population and could potentially exacerbate the gap between the poor and the rich.

Political Repression And Islam In Iran, Amy Kirk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Signs with the slogan, ‘I am Neda’, flooded the streets of Tehran in the violent aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections and assassination of Neda Agha-Soltan. The internationally publicized video of Neda’s death became an iconic rallying point for the reformist opposition in Iran. Stringent clampdowns since the 1979 revolution have signified a sociopolitical change that has endured for three decades. President Khatami’s reform efforts of the late 1990s were stifled by Ahmadinejad’s election of 2005. Since Ahmadinejad’s appointment there has been little official tolerance for political and fundamental Islamic dissent, leading to serious human rights violations against the reformist …