Digital Commons Network^™

Polemics In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jerome Slater

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. 264pp.

and

Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History by Norman G. Finkelstein. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 332pp.

Examining The Declining Utility Of Military Force, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by Andrew J. Bacevich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 270pp.

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 Guatemala, Jennifer Archibald

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Thirty six years of civil war affected human rights negatively in Guatemala. Many actors that violated human rights were also victims of human rights violations; a complex series of events that has still not been fully resolved today.

Human Rights In Honduras, Andrea Degaetani

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Honduras’ history of human rights violations is rooted in a political culture of militarization. Following a military coup in 1963, Honduras faced strengthened military authority and a decade of harsh military rule. It was also during this time that the United States used the country as a base for Contras fighting leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. In 1981 Honduras returned to a parliamentary democracy, electing Roberto Suazo Cordova as president. However, by then the process of militarization had been so heavily funded by the U.S and had made such a significant impact on public policy that little changed for the better. …

Holy Books Or Pocket Books? Class And Values In American Politics, Matthew Keaton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There has been much speculation recently as to the political effect that "moral values" have on Americans and much research has shown inconclusive results as far as the effect of class. This paper aims to study how class and values, including moral values and postmaterialist values, interact with politics in the United States. The analyses performed to determine these effects include crosstabulation and logistical regressions and will include data from the National Election Studies (NES). It is found that postmaterialist values have little effect on political behavior but in separate analyses, class and moral values have increasing influences on vote …

Papua New Guinea: Weak, Failing, Failed? : An Examination Of Failed State Theory And The Usefulness Of The Failed States Index, Maria Sussanna Tulkiewicz

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the problem of failed and failing states set against the 'theory' that has accompanied this discourse. It uses a case study of Papua New Guinea (PNG) to examine both the theory and its related application in the Failed States Index (FSI) developed by the Fund for Peace and the Foreign Policy magazine. Critically examining the methodology used in the FSI, the thesis analysis a wide range of information about the social, economic and political problems facing PNG to highlight shortcomings in the current construction of the Index. These shortcomings are then used to highlight conceptual problems in …

Schumaker, Kiel, Heilke: Great Ideas/Grand Schemes Study Guide, 1998-2006, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Great Ideas/Grand Schemes is a systematic treatment of twelve ideologies by means of an elaborate conceptual framework. This twelve-point analytic grid, which is comprised of six substantive political principles, four philosophical bases, and two political bases, is introduced in the first chapter. Subsequent chapters focus on the ideologies themselves.

Robert Kaplan: The Coming Anarchy Study Guide, 2001-2006, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Robert D. Kaplan: When North Korea Falls Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Promise And Peril Of Public Anthropology, Ben Feinberg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Why America’s Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back edited by Catherine Besteman and Hugh Gusterson. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2005. 282 pp.

and

Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power edited by Roberto J. González. University of Texas Press: Austin, 2004. 288 pp.

and

Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists by David H. Price. Duke University Press: Durham, 2004. 426 pp.

The Limits Of Intervention—Humanitarian Or Otherwise, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism by David Kennedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 400 pp.

and

At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention by David Rieff. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 288 pp.

Turkey's Entrance Into The European Union: Global Implications, Melanie Miller

Honors Program Theses

The European Union has helped to unify twenty-five European countries. It continues to have a plan of enlargement that allows countries to apply to be candidates for accession. One of the countries wishing to enter the European Union is Turkey. Located in what is considered the Middle East, Turkey is partially on the continent of Europe and partially in Asia. If Turkey becomes a member it would be the first to be located in Asia, the first Muslim state, and one of the most populous of the entire member states (second only to Germany).

There are many people and many …

Anti-Americanism: An Exploration Of A Contested Concept In Western Europe, Gregory Johnston

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite its popular currency and salience, anti-Americanism is understudied and misunderstood by social scientists. Even within academia, studies of anti-Americanism are often polemic, and logically or methodologically flawed. Focusing on Western Europe, we argue that anti-Americanism is a public opinion phenomenon, and present a definition of anti-Americanism based on social psychology, and demonstrate how cognitive psychological processes shape anti-Americanism. We outline several predictors of anti-Americanism, processes of internal cognition, responses to international political events, patterns of interpersonal communication and information diffusion, and the contextual role of ideology. We also observe the important implications European anti-Americanism has for support international institutions, …

Genocide: What Do We Want It To Be?, Alan A. Ryan Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

The definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention has been universally accepted, in the statutes of the ad hoc international tribunals and the International Criminal Court, but it conceals a host of ambiguities. Sociologists, political scientists, and others have not devised any legally adequate substitute. This article proposes a non-linear definition of genocide, that is, a definition that takes into account the presence or absence of several factors, rather than one that attempts to generalize the crime of genocide. It disregards the motives or objectives of the perpetrator, sheds the secondary phenomena that often accompany genocide (such as dehumanization of …

How To Understand China: The Dangers And Opportunities Of Being A Rising Power, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

china’s situation lends itself to hyperbole. the people’s republic of china (prc) has the largest population in the world, the fastest growing economy in the world, the largest army in the world, the largest middle class in the world, a permanent seat on the united nations security council, a manned space programme, a nuclear arsenal, and so on. but analysts, commentators and policymakers have yet to decide just how to understand china.

'Outside Agitators:' The Role Of Foreign Islamists In The Chechen Fight For Independence, Robert Kent Pinkerton Jr.

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to identify the role of foreign Islamist charities and terrorist groups in the current conflict in Chechnya. The issue of foreign Islamism in Chechnya is introduced through a general history of the region, including the role of religion in both traditional Chechen culture and in the present war. The evolution of Chechen war from a secular to a religious conflict is first examined by looking into the perspectives of various Muslim groups on the Chechen war and other similar conflicts and, conversely, the perspectives of many Chechens on the outsiders who purport to aid …

Civil-Military Relations In A Civilized State: Panama, Ronald D. Sylvia, Constantine P. Danopoulos

Faculty Publications

This article traces and analyzes civil-military relations in Panama. After a brief overview of the role of the National Guard in the country politics, the article concentrates on political developments since the 1989 U.S. invasion to overthrow the Noriega regime and the subsequent elimination of the Panamanian military. The study seeks to shed light on political life in an armyless and politically and socially fractionalized country occupying a sensitive strategic location. The concluding part of the study speculates on the possibility that terrorism, domestic security concerns, and regional considerations may prompt Washington and Panamanian leaders to reverse the decision to …

On Cadava And Levy's Cities Without Citizens, Matthew Wolf-Meyer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

What, the editors of this collection ask in their introduction, is the nature of the relationship between cities and the people who inhabit them? And how do the historical situation of cities and their citizens limit the potentiality of new modes of subjectification? These are surely evocative questions, and as the editors remark, increasingly necessary ones, as the city is quickly becoming the organizing principle for global flows (of bodies, capital, law, etc.), but, in the collection that follows, the contributing authors barely scratch the surface of these issues, nor do they properly problematize such latter-day master narratives …

"Offshore” Or “Shorn Off”: The Oecd’S Harmful Tax Competition Initiative And Development In Small Island Economies, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

The difficulties of developing and executing a sustainable development program in Small Island Economies (SIEs) are well documented. Comparatively small domestic markets, remote export markets, a dearth of natural and human resources, susceptibility to environmental change and natural disasters, plus limitations on the state’s capacity to govern economic activity have narrowed the range of feasible development strategies resulting in a reliance on sectors vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the global economy.

Book Review: The Logic Of Political Survival, By Bruce Bueno De Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, And James D. Morrow, Harvey Starr

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Usa Patriot Act And The Alien And Sedition Acts A Comparative Analysis, David Wicclair

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis is meant to accomplish the task of comparing and contrasting the different aspects of the Patriot Act and the Alien and Sedition Acts in the hope that, in the process, something can be learned about the future of the Patriot Act.

The first chapter of the thesis consists of an analysis of the controversial sections of the Patriot Act. Moreover, the debate over the Act is introduced and dissected. The last section of the chapter discusses the importance of studying similar national security legislation in American history – such as the Alien and Sedition Acts – in order …

What’S Wrong With The Right: A Conservative Vision For The Twenty-First Century, Ted Mcallister

School of Public Policy Working Papers

What's wrong with the right? It has become a political movement, disconnected from a larger, more complicated and diverse social and cultural tradition. By the 1980s the right had transformed the Republican Party, had articulated a clear if not consistent agenda. After Reagan the right turned policy agendas into ideological objectives. What made their ideology different was the apocalyptic quality to the struggle for power. With the right ideas, the good cause, the right settled into a Manichean language that demonized opponents. With the stakes so high, those on the right approached politics as a Hobbesian conflict rather than a …

Women And Children: Deconstructing A Paradigm, Nadine Puechguirbal

Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations

No abstract provided.

The Exertions Of Better Men: The Role Of The Us Military In Planting, Protecting, And Nurturing Free Government, Alan W. Dowd

Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations

No abstract provided.

Terrorism In Western Europe: An Approach To Nato's Secret Stay Behind Armies, Daniele Ganser

Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations

No abstract provided.

The Black Market In Small Arms: Examining A Social Network, David Todd Kinsella

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms, a transnational trade amounting to over $7 billion in value during 2002. Small arms are difficult to track and are not the stuff of military parades, but they are immensely destructive. As much as $1 billion worth enters the black market annually. I argue that the illicit trade in small arms should be understood not as a market but as a network, one that shares some important properties with networked forms of organization studied by sociologists. I then employ quantitative methods developed for the study …

Judicial Confirmation Wars: Ideology And The Battle For The Federal Courts, Sheldon Goldman

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Nuclear Disarmament May Be Easier To Achieve Than An End To Partisan Conflict Over Judicial Appointments, David S. Law, Sanford Levinson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jonathan R. White: Terrorism Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.