International and Area Studies Commons^™

National Development And The Fight Over Black Gold: U.S. Perspectives On The Argentine Oil Industry 1946-1955, Clayton S. Oppenhuizen

International ResearchScape Journal

The paper summarizes the relationship between the U.S. and Argentina in the immediate post WWII period focusing on both nations aims in developing Argentina’s oil industry. It is a comparison on the intension of negotiations between the two nations focusing on bargaining strategies and ultimate goals of what developing an industry can mean to multiple actors on an international stage.

Putin And Business: Good Or Bad?, Abby D. Greutman

International ResearchScape Journal

Russia has long been considered a superpower, but why, then, is its economy faltering? With all of its natural resources, why is there not more international investment? This paper explores the effects of Russian political policies on the international and domestic business within Russia in order to better understand the reasons behind Russia’s unstable economic environment.

“The Hitchcock Touch”: Visual Techniques In The Work Of Alfred Hitchcock, Paige A. Driscoll

International ResearchScape Journal

Since his beginning as a filmmaker in Britain, Alfred Hitchcock has become a household name not only in Britain and, later, the United States, but also internationally. Hitchcock’s unique auteur style has made his name recognizable even if one has not personally viewed one of his many films. How is it, then, that Hitchcock has accumulated such a distinct and well-known style? Using examples from his films, the research of other Hitchcock experts, and cinematic technique and terminology resources, this article illustrates the way Hitchcock’s visual techniques have contributed to the creation of this auteur style. The visual techniques examined …

Analyzing To Live Through The Mediums Of Literature And Film: Two Vastly Contrasting Presentations Of Twentieth Century China’S Radical History, Abbie Doll

International ResearchScape Journal

This essay examines the acceptance and public interpretation of modern China’s rather turbulent past in light of Yu Hua’s novel To Live and Zhang Yimou’s film adaptation. It explores how fictionalized traumatic experiences have the ability to ultimately and effectively communicate social truth. Other aspects examined are the utilization of death as an effective political critique, the overall significance of and interpretive variances caused by the urban-rural divide in Chinese society, and also the particular molding of citizens’ lives that occurs due to either Mao’s overbearing presence or the conspicuous lack thereof. Types of sources referred to and used throughout …

Literature Of Bushidō: Loyalty, Honorable Death, And The Evolution Of The Samurai Ideal, David A. Coldren

International ResearchScape Journal

This essay will address the evolution of the samurai warrior code (bushido), concentrating on its depiction in several prominent works of Japanese literature from 1185 to 1989. This essay will argue that rather than a concrete set of principles, bushido was actually a malleable set of romanticized qualities supposedly possessed by the samurai that were repeatedly adapted to a changing Japanese society in order to maintain a national identity predicated on the warrior class. Beginning with the introduction of the samurai through the Tale of the Heike, this essay will then proceed to discuss the blatant romanticization …

The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia: An Analysis Of Globalization Effects On Union And Disintegration Of Yugoslavia, Una Bobinac

International ResearchScape Journal

The purpose of writing this project is to identify the influence globalization had in two most important parts of Yugoslavia: its formation as well as its fragmentation. The effects of this ongoing process range from direct intervention in the breakup of Yugoslavia to more indirect influence in its formation. This research strongly centers on previously established and well accepted theories of globalization to illustrate the consequences globalization had on Yugoslavia specifically. Throughout the research, the concept of critical globalism emerges as the prevailing method in the attempt to explain the events that took place in this region. The findings and …

Lunar New Year And Coca-Cola, Michelle Lee

SURGE

“Happy New Year!”

It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? It’s already February.

Ironically, I was informed of the Lunar New Year by my beloved American friend, who seemed more excited to celebrate the Year of the Horse than I was. And then came the Toilet Paper Times, inviting students to the Attic to honor the holiday with Asian food and cultural exchange. [excerpt]

Syria And The Olympics: National Identity On An International Stage, Andrea L. Stanton

Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Since its 1946 independence, Syria has fielded a team for every summer Olympic competition except 1956, yet has won only three Olympic medals. In contrast with its smaller, higher-powered neighbor Lebanon, its participation at the Olympics has been consistent but limited, with the country making little impact internationally. Yet the history of Syria’s involvement with the Olympics reflects key elements of its political and social history: its ambitious but short-lived partnership with Egypt, the Baathist-supported promotion of women as athletes and head of the National Olympic Committee, and its commitment to participation in the vexed but ideologically important Pan-Arab Games. …

Monetary Regime Choice In Singapore: Would A Taylor Rule Outperform Exchange-Rate Management?, Hwee Kwan Chow, G. C. Lim, Paul D. Mcnelis

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper adopts a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium-vector autorgressive (DSGE-VAR) approach to examine the managed exchange-rate system at work in Singapore. We examine if the country has any reason to fear floating the exchange rate and adopting a Taylor rule. Our results show that, in terms of overall inflation volatility, the exchange rate rule has a comparative advantage over the Taylor rule when export price shocks are the major sources of real volatility, while a Taylor rule dominates when domestic productivity shocks drive real volatility. The exchange-rate rule also dominates the Taylor rule for reducing inflation persistence.

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose the change in poverty into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g., regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to include six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985–2009.

Sutd And Smu Jointly Launch Inaugural Undergraduate Dual Degree Programme In Technology, Design And Management, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

This May, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and the Singapore Management University (SMU) will admit the first batch of dual degree undergraduate students. Up to 45 top achievers will have the unprecedented opportunity to pursue an engineering degree from SUTD and a business management degree from SMU concurrently. The four-year programme, aimed at producing graduates who will be highly effective in an increasingly complex globalised world, will prepare students to be technology and management-grounded leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Students will spend time at both campuses, and will take SUTD and SMU courses from the first academic year, …

Protecting The Living Victims: Evaluating The Impact Of India's Farmer Suicide Crisis On Its Rural Women, Gowri Janakiramanan

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Price Discovery Puzzle In Offshore Yuan Trading: Different Contributions For Different Contracts, David K. Ding, Yiuman Tse, Michael R. Williams

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The People's Bank of China (PBC) lifted yuan trading restrictions in July of 2010 that led to offshore yuan spot trading in Hong Kong. Based on causality analyses, we find that price discovery is absent between the onshore and offshore spot markets. However, we document the presence of price discovery between onshore spot and offshore nondeliverable forward (NDF) rates. These seemingly inconsistent results present a puzzle wherein one offshore market appears to be more informationally integrated with the onshore market than another. We conclude that price discovery differences in the offshore markets stem from the offshore spot and forward contracts …

Managerial Agency Costs Of Socialistic Internal Capital Markets: Empirical Evidence From China, Jiwei Wang, Kangtao Ye

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study provides empirical evidence of managerial agency costs in socialistic internal capital markets. Listed Chinese companies are required to disclose the amount of resources that are reallocated to other firms of the parent company, which provides us with a direct measure of the socialistic subsidization of weak member firms by strong member firms within a business group. We hypothesize that in strong member firms, managerial compensation is less sensitive to firm performance because cross-subsidization makes it difficult for group CEOs to hold the managers in strong firms accountable for their own firms' performance, and also increases the noise in …

The Strength Of Sibling Ties: Sibling Influence On Status Attainment In A Chinese Family, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What allowed eight siblings from a politically disadvantaged rural family to overcome institutional barriers and achieve upward mobility during Maoist China? What then restricted their children’s chances of upward mobility during the Reform era, when both family background and institutional environment were more favourable? In studying this anomalous case, whose experiences contradicted the well-documented effects of state policies and yet cannot be explained by parental influence, this study examines how adult siblings influenced each other’s status attainment processes, an issue largely neglected in the literature. Through comparing the micro-level mobility processes of the two generations in this family, I propose …

The Lasting Impact Of Parental Early Life Malnutrition On Their Offspring: Evidence From The China Great Leap Forward Famine, Seonghoon Kim, Quheng Deng, Belton M. Fleisher, Shi Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether the effects of parents’ in utero malnutrition extend to the second generation (their children). Specifically, we explore whether the second generation’s level of schooling is negatively impacted by their parents’ malnutrition in utero, using the China Famine as a natural experiment. We find that, the impact of mother’s in utero malnutrition due to the Famine reduced second generation male and female entrance into junior secondary school by about 5–7 percentage points. We measure famine severity with provincial excess death rates instrumented by measures of adverse climate conditions, which corrects for possible biases induced by measurement errors and …

Leaders, Ideas, National Interests, And Economic Strategies: Explaining The Regional Integration Decisions Of Mexico And Brazil, Roberto Genoves

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Regional integration agreements (RIAs) facilitate economic integration by allowing member countries access to each other's markets and by removing or reducing trade and investment barriers. Their increasing influence on international patterns of trade and investment flows has stimulated substantial academic work. Yet, scholars note that we lack an adequate comprehension of the factors that cause governments to seek RIAs, and why they prefer a particular type of integration arrangement. These are important questions because they speak to the forces that shape cooperation among states, a vital issue in international relations with implications for global governance.

Using an eclectic analytical approach, …

Counterblast: Escaping The Gallows Singapore Style, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The four‐year long struggle by Yong Vui Kong to challenge his mandatory death sentence reveals how life and death decisions can turn on legal niceties. For instance, on 20 November 2009, the President of the Republic of Singapore turned down Yong's plea for clemency and this news was conveyed to the prisoner's brother by his then lawyer three days later. Along with this sad information, he was told that his brother would be hung on 4 December 2009. Yong's brother then engaged the respected human rights advocate, M. Ravi, who was granted an interview with the prisoner two days prior …

Budget 2014 Is About Doing The Right Thing, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan opined that the Budget’s move for the Pioneer Generation Package (PGP) was important and the right thing to do, as it mattered politically, and provided benefits and assurance to the pioneers. He said it was wise to set aside the $8b cost of the package, so future generations would not bear the cost of financing it. The Budget had acknowledged its role in caring for the elderly as well as preparing for the future and promoting social mobility through education assistance schemes for the children of lower earners, …

The Makings Of A Social Investment State, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan opined that the Budget was an economic, political and social instrument, and not just a fiscal policy instrument. He said that key economic themes persisted in Budget 2014: productivity, restructuring, reducing reliance on foreign labour and long-term planning. He highlighted that the Budget was dominated by social themes, as it exuded inclusiveness, equity and gratitude. The Government’s expansion of schemes to reduce the income gap and improve social mobility was actually a move to make up for its lack of investments in the social sector in past years, …

Streamlining Procedures For Judicial Review: Legislative Amendments To The Singapore Rules Of Court To Enhance Access To Justice, Denise Huiwen Wong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Judicial review cannot serve as an effective check on administrative action unless aggrieved applicants have a real way to access the courts to obtain relief. In an admirable, albeit belated move, significant amendments were made to the Singapore Rules of Court to remove the procedural strictures inherited from the pre-1977 UK system. The amendments allow an applicant to seek a declaration in addition to the traditional prerogative orders and recover damages within the same proceedings if the applicant can prove that he/she would have had a valid claim in a private law action. This article examines the mischief that the …

Judicial Inactivitism In Protecting Financial Consumer Against Predatory Sale Of Retail Structured Products: A Reflection From Retail Structured Notes Lawsuits In Taiwan, Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article analyzes 310 structured note lawsuits in Taiwan between 2000 and 2013 to examine courts’ attitude in dealing with claims of misselling retail structured notes. We find that courts were generally not favorable to retail investors. This provides a contrast with the financial regulator’s efforts to improve financial consumer protection since 2008. By examining plaintiffs’ key arguments and courts’ rulings, we find that it was difficult for investors to fulfill their burden of proof and courts were reluctant to award remedies when investors did sign on a contractual document confirming his knowledge on a few matters. While regulators are …

Deutsche Bank V Chang: A Dramatic Reversal By The Court Of Appeal, Kee Yang Low

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The 2012 High Court decision awarding scientist Chang Tse Wen US$49m for losses from investing in accumulators through Deutsche Bank has been overturned by the Court of Appeal. This article seeks to aid readers in understanding the CA decision and in appreciating the legal implications.

An Examination Of Western Representation Of The Muslim Brotherhood Through Various Media Outlets, Popular Literature And How Has Recent History And Outside Influences Affected The Viewpoint Presented To The Public?, Lynn Andrew Perkins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In depth study of Western media's coverage of the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Not only using key events between the West/ United States and the Middle East over the last 40 years to show how current events are reported but also investigating where and how the media receives their information to report. The outside and internal influences put upon western media are also under investigation in this paper and how those influences insure that their own interests supersede that of complete and accurate reporting …

Not By Accident: How Egyptian Civil Society Successfully Launched A Revolution, Helen-Margaret Nasser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the role of civil society in Egypt and argues that it was central to the success of the 2011 revolution that ended in the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. I will discuss the development of civil society under Mubarak and demonstrate its strength. In understanding civil society in Egypt, this thesis will discuss the strengths of groups such as associations, Islamist movements, women's groups, labor activism, and youth movements. I also demonstrate that it is important to understand the precedents established that shaped the state's stance towards civil society. As such, this thesis will also discuss the …

Cadê O Mico? Where Is The Tamarin?: Locating Monkeys In The Politics Of Land And Conservation In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Analía Villagra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The golden lion tamarin is a small, endangered monkey found in only a few municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This dissertation explores the project to conserve this rare primate, a project that links together agrarian reform, forest restoration, agroforestry, and conservation biology. Informed by Brazil's social and political history, and drawing from 12 months of fieldwork conducted in 2008 and 2010, this dissertation argues that by looking carefully at and for the tamarin, we discover the interrelated political, social, and animal relationships that weave together to produce conservation in southeastern Brazil.

El Oficio De La Escritura Y La Estetica En La Obra De Roberto Bolano, Ainoa Inigo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims at attaining a general understanding of the aesthetics and philosophy on the practice of writing of Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003), the Chilean poet and writer, through interpretive devices developed by him and by extrinsic means. Bolaño claimed that his works stemmed from a pre-extant poetic universe, so that each work is interrelated thematically with the rest of the oeuvre and individually representative of the totality.

Throughout the works analyzed, our two primary questions--the aesthetical and ethical--intercept while we examine his understanding of the role of the writer and literature itself. Estrella distante (1996), Los detectives salvajes (1998) and …

Roundup Ready Nation: The Political Ecology Of Genetically Modified Soy In Argentina, Amalia Leguizamon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a case study of agrarian transformation in an agro-export society, Argentina. I study the process of adoption of the technological package of genetically modified (GM) soy in the Argentine countryside, its socio-ecological consequences, and Argentines' responses to it. In particular, this research addresses Argentina's unique situation of being a developing country that has positively embraced the biotechnology of GM seeds as a key accumulation strategy without the emergence of major contestation against GM soy monocropping. In order to answer the puzzle of quiescence, I look at how power relations structure access to social and environmental goods and …

"A New Way Of Doing Politics": The Movement Against Cafta In Costa Rica, Jeremy Rayner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In October of 2007, Costa Ricans voted in a referendum to ratify a Free Trade Agreement with the United States (DR-CAFTA, or CAFTA). The first referendum in their nation's history--and the first referendum ever held on a Free Trade Agreement--marked the culmination of a cycle of contention over liberalization that transformed practices and expectations of politics in a country often considered an exemplar of representative democracy. In this dissertation I provide an account of the opposition to CAFTA (the NO), based on two years of ethnographic research with the Patriotic Committees (Comites Patrioticos), the decentralized, grassroots network at the heart …

A Cross-Boundary People: The Commercial Activities, Social Networks, And Travel Writings Of Japanese And Taiwanese Sekimin In The Shantou Treaty Port (1895-1937), Lin-Yi Tseng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores Japanese imperial history in East Asia and focuses on a group of "cross-boundary people"--Taiwanese sekimin (Taiwanese who registered as Japanese subjects) and Japanese--who went to the treaty port of Shantou in southern China during the period between 1895 and 1937. The starting time point (i.e., 1895) corresponds to the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which Japan acquired Taiwan as a colony and informal privileges in Chinese treaty ports. The ending time point (i.e., 1937) corresponds to the decline that Shantou's Japanese community experienced owing to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, …