Political Science Commons^™

Supranationalism And The Superpower Rubicon, Imtiaz Hussain

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Chapter VII Powers of the United Nations Security Council by Erika de Wet. Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2004. 413pp.

Neotrusteeship In Afghanistan, Melanie Kawano

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Afghanistan is currently under the tentative rule of an international administration, or neotrusteeship, thereby restricting its national sovereignty. However, self-determination and nonintervention have never been persistent features of Afghanistan. Foreign interventions, invasions and great power showdowns on its territory have made a truly autonomous Afghan state a shortlived phenomenon. The outcome at each stage of Afghan history has been an unstable state that seems to invite even more external involvement.

State-Building In Afghanistan, Melanie Kawano, Amy Mcguire

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001, Afghan citizens and members of the global community have been grappling with the question of how to build a state that can fill the void created by decades of conflict and violence. However, the concept of “state-building” is complex. The term describes both an internal process and international assistance; it requires short-term action as well as a long-term vision. While no precise formula for state-building exists, there are historical precedents and “models” of state-building expressed by great powers and multilaterals. In reality, however, these are based on best guesses that fail …

Democratization In Bosnia, Melanie Kawano, Amber Goodman, Chris Saeger

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Democratization in post-conflict, post-Dayton Bosnia has been characterized by many scholars as a “noble experiment”: the West’s guinea pig for internationally initiated post-communist democratization. In a state so wearied by war and dictatorship, democracy would be expected to take root quickly and flourish. However, due to various cultural and political influences, what the Dayton Peace Agreement originally intended to quickly lead to Bosnia’s self-governance has instead resulted in the state’s crippling dependence on external actors. The articles in this section of this bibliography explore the myriad influences (primarily under the umbrella of ethnicity) on the process.

Neotrusteeship In Bosnia, Lauren Ingram

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The conflict in Bosnia resulted in 4.3 million displaced people, 250,000 estimated casualties, and more than 200,000 wounded including 50,000 children. (Cousens and Carter 25). In 1995, these facts became known to the world when the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), NATO, and the United States were able to reach a peace agreement with warring factions. As in World War II, Bosnian-Serbians, Bosnian-Croatians, Croatians, Muslim were active combatants. However, unlike World War II, no single governing authority emerged. Instead, the U.N., with key U.S. involvement, had to institute not only peace but also an administration that could uphold that peace. The …

State-Building In Bosnia, Chris Saeger

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Although the idea of state-building is at least as contentious as the idea of the state itself, international technocrats and foreign policymakers remain resigned to this project. International state-building has been conceived of as maintaining intermestic social order, protecting individual rights, and consolidating transnational linkages of power. Yet whatever the motive, effect or standard form of state-building, some political organization called “the state” is a necessary condition for membership in international society, if not for protecting individual human rights.

Sudan, Alexandra Nichols

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since independence Sudan has found itself almost constantly embroiled in civil conflict within its own borders. Throughout the 1990’s, Sudan was widely known to sponsor terrorism, having such as including Osama bin Laden from 1991-1996. American sanctions have been in place in Sudan since 1997, the last American ambassador was removed in 1998, and Sudan has been on the U.S. State Departments list of sponsored terrorists since 1993.

Structures Of Violence: The Proliferation Of Atrocity Environments Under The Brazilian Military Government And The Bush Administration, Kara Martinez

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities by Martha K. Huggins, Mika Haritos- Fatouros, and Philip G. Zimbardo. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. 293 pp.

Human Rights And Globalization: Is The Shrinking World Expanding Rights?, Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Globalization of Human Rights. Edited by Jean-Marc Coicaud, Michael W. Doyle, and Anne-Marie Gardner. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2003.

and

Globalization and Human Rights. Edited by Alison Brysk. Berkely: University of California Press, 2002.

Human Rights And Post-War Reconstruction: Introduction, Roberto Belloni

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The expression “post-war reconstruction,” commonly adopted by both practitioners and academics, is somewhat misleading. Reconstruction does not entail rebuilding or return to the pre– war state of affairs as the expression seems to suggest. Rather, reconstruction involves difficult multiple transitions: from war to peace, from a state to a market economy, and from authoritarianism to democracy. Each transition taken by itself would be daunting. Taken together, they can be almost overwhelming.

Background For The “War On Terror”

Human Rights & Human Welfare

September 11 changed the United States’ understanding of terrorism. Prior to these attacks, Americans typically viewed terrorist events and actors through the lens of foreign affairs, quite removed from “everyday” concerns. Terrorist events involving Americans did occur, occasionally on American soil, but a sense of American invulnerability never truly wavered. September 11 challenged this presumption; as well as perspectives on the history of terrorism, compelling some to reexamine past events in order to find portents of the future tragedy.

Sri Lanka, Amanda Donahoe

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sri Lanka has been entrenched in a civil war for two decades. As in ethnic conflicts in many other post-colonial countries, the different groups of Sri Lanka give loyalty primarily to the group, rather than to the entire country. The Sinhalese majority have slowly populated the government and treated the Tamil minority as a threat to national stability, instead of as candidates for conciliation and power sharing. Consequently, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has taken up arms against the Sinhalese controlled government to fight for an independent homeland in the north and north-east parts of the country in …

Equality News (Winter 2005-2006), Matthew R. Dubois

Equality news / EqualityMaine (2004-2008)

No abstract provided.

Solving The Bargaining Democracy Problem Using A Constitutional Hierarchy Of Law, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In the “bargaining democracy” groups form coalitions that are able to grant benefits to themselves through legislation. These benefits may lack popular support. A constitutional hierarchy of conflicting laws is proposed to resolve this democratic problem. In the hierarchy more “rule-oriented” legislation dominate. The hierarchy would create a momentum of the political process towards more rule-oriented legislation and policy debate. The difficulty of defining a rule operationally is overcome by limiting the task of a constitutional court to simply rank conflicting policy actions in terms of criteria for rules.

Conscientious Communities: The Question Of The Government Legislation Of Morality, Lindsay Nicole Jenkins

Honors Program Theses

Clearly, the issue of government legislation of morality is a relevant issue in American society today. It is a complicated issue, to be sure, but it is a question that is deserving of time and contemplation. In this paper, I will argue that not only should the government be allowed to legislate morality, but that it is imperative that it does. Additionally, I will refute common disputes against this stance, as well as delve into the intricacies of the implementation of this policy. Finally, I will paint a picture of how a modem United States would function while allowing the …

Brothers' Foundings, Bradley M. Strouse

Honors Program Theses

In 1776, twelve of the thirteen colonies simultaneously but independently declared their independence from Britain. New York, whose delegate had yet to obtain permission to do so from the capital, declared independence shortly after learning the other twelve had done so. In the coming months and years the revolutionaries would fight a tough and bitter war together and . draft the infant nation's first formative document. In this period of great trial and turmoil, the colonies banded together like never before, fighting side by side for their dream of freedom and independence.

Some Yemeni Ideas About Human Rights, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

Yemeni intellectuals voiced human rights concerns throughout the twentieth century. Of course, as elsewhere, the early incarnations of a human rights movement in this most populous corner of Arabia did not use the term huquq al-insan (human rights), popularized only in the 1990s. Moreover, the emphasis was consistently on limiting arbitrary governance and justice. Still, Yemenis tackled issues such as social equality, popular participation, judicial autonomy, due process, prison conditions, and intellectual freedom, among others. This chapter explores how a fragmented yet tenacious intellectual movement grounded in indigenous political culture produced writings intended to breach authoritarianism for over half a …

Election Reform After The 2000 Election, Daniel J. Palazzolo

Political Science Faculty Publications

The 2000 presidential election, marked by a crisis in the electoral process in the state of Florida and a challenge to the legitimacy of the election of George W. Bush, sparked a national debate on the quality of American democracy. The discussion quickly came to focus on "technical" problems associated with voting practices, including issues related to voter registration, ballot counting, ballot machinery, and election administration. Numerous commissions weighed in on these issues and made recommendations for reforming various aspects of the election system.¹ Congress debated election reform and ultimately passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) at the …

Beyond The End Of The Beginning, Daniel J. Palazzolo, Doug Chapin

Political Science Faculty Publications

The chapters in this volume contain detailed analyses of election reform politics in eleven states from 2001 to 2003. Over this three-year period, the states and Congress passed legislation that was designed to address the many serious problems with election administration that came to light during the 2000 presidential election. Each of the case studies revealed important insights about how the individual states responded to the 2000 presidential election and the requirements and incentives of the HAVA. The common framework of nine key factors for analyzing reform politics enables us to compare the results of the individual studies and determine …

Politics, Rights, And The Refugee Problem, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt pointed to the years between World War I and World War II as the time when the plight of refugees became a pressing political problem.' If Arendt were still alive (she died in 1975), she would no doubt agree that the problem is at least as pressing in the early twenty-first century as it was sixty or more years ago, when she herself was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Who would not agree? According to a report of the U.N. Population Division, 16 million people were refugees at the …

Extension Of National Membership: Government Promises, Immigrant Expectations And The Impact On The Foreign Population In Germany, Justin Dubois

Honors Theses

This study posited that the gap between the governmental goals and actual outcomes of the Reform to the Citizenship Law of 1999 was produced by a variety of factors, the most influential one being the institutions of the Federal Republic. Other suggested variables were domestic public pressure and a failure in policy implementation. The earlier chapters of this study concluded that these three factors did in fact contribute to the goals-outcomes gap of the citizenship reform.

Cultural And Individual Influences On Foreign Policy, Emine Sunduz Demir

Masters Theses

The principle aim of this thesis is to examine how strategic culture affects foreign policy decision-making, as contrasted to the particular decree of influence the individuals have on the foreign policy process in the concept of an immediate extended deterrence. This thesis is based on three case studies that are tested separately using both Cha's notion of strategic culture and Allison's Bureaucratic Politics Model in order to find which model (if any) best explains foreign policy decision making. Cases are: The SemiVietnamese War in 1979 and Deng Xiaoping, the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996 and Jiang Zemin, and the Kosovo …

Ethnicity And Religion: An Inquiry Into The Origin And Nature Of Conflicts In Nigeria, Ugochukwu Chrys. Nwabueze

Masters Theses

The policy goal of a Pax Nigeriana in the African continent is hardly realizable without a focused confrontation by Nigeria of its own security deficits. A security and politically deficient Nigeria will have nothing to offer the African continent in terms of peace and political stability if it cannot by example overcome its own accidental and structural flaws.

With this in mind, the work sets out to address the origin, nature and resolution of conflict in Nigeria. Before adequate resolution therapy could be recommended for violent conflicts in Nigeria, any intending researcher must of necessity address the origin and nature …

Great Expectations: An Examination Of The Defense Spending And Military Modernization Of Poland, Hungary, And The Czech Republic Form 2002-2004, Kyle Raney

Masters Theses

In 1999 at the Madrid Summit, NATO officially opened its doors to three new states. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were the first states to enter NATO since the end of the Cold War. The idea of NATO expansion has been heavily contested and critics argue that these new members do not have the capabilities to be strong contributors to the alliance and are unable to produce modern defense systems. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have all taken unique paths on the way into the alliance and all three states since their induction have in some form attempted …

Don't Forget About The Me In Afscme: An Analysis Of Collective Bargaining In Municipalities, Michael L. Woods Jr.

Masters Theses

Collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently political. Public unions negotiate either directly or indirectly with elected public officials. This thesis explores the political bargaining strategies adopted by municipal public unions and the inherent factors that surround the collective bargaining process (e.g. trust, state of the economy, community interest groups, and media). The intentions of this study were to see if these variables influenced negotiated wage increases and the likelihood of experiencing bargaining impasses. The findings suggest that public union political bargaining strategies positively affect negotiated wage increases. Trust, however, seems to evolve as the most important variable. Building …

Betting On Democracy: Electoral Ritual In The Philippine Presidential Campaign, Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr

History Department Faculty Publications

This article ofers an analysis of the ritual character of Philippine elections for national positions, particularly for the presidency. It is argued that the structuring of the electoral complex is akin to a ritual, specifically, a ritualized gamble or game of chance. The cultural figuration of elections is traced to long-term historical processes. The broad insights on Filipino political culture are supported as well as expanded by data collected by the lnstitute of Philippine Culture (PC), Ateneo de Manila University, from sixteen focus group discussions conducted nationwide before national elections were held on 10 May 2004.

A Personal Exploration Of Complacency, And Awareness, Jason Darnell

Whittier Scholars Program

The questions in this paper are about issues that are very serious and affecting many people from day to day. Some of these issues include: Poverty, Healthcare, Medicare, civil rights, abortion, male violence, hate crimes, war on drugs, education, religion, consumerism, capitalism, terrorism, the slave industry, and news entertainment. This project addresses many college students who deal with these same issues, and is written from a college student’s perspective. The project includes conversations with peers, pressing issues raised in classes, and debates on historical and philosophical issues to examine the political and social environment of both the upper and lower …

Appendix E: Comments By Number, 2005, Us Army Corps Of Engineers

US Government Documents Related to Indigenous Nations

This comments matrix, published in 2005, provides a summary of public comments made in 2005 regarding the proposed return of land to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. These comments were recorded from transcripts of three public meetings held in Bismarck, North Dakota (ND) on May 24; in Dickinson, ND on May 25; and in Williston, ND on May 26. The matrix also includes comments received outside these meetings via email and letter. The land return, based on the Mineral Restoration Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-602), proposed to return a portion of the land taken for …

Health As Foreign Policy: Between Principle And Power, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Katrina In New Orleans: A View From Ground Zero, Christine L. Day, Marc R. Rosenblum

Political Science Faculty Publications

What is New Orleans like today? What will it take to return the city to some semblance of normalcy? Stunned by the events and revelations of governmental incompetence since Katrina, we review Katrina's aftermath and chime in on current policy debates about the city’s future. Our love for New Orleans may compromise our objectivity, but we find scholarly inspiration in three excellent articles in the last issue of The Forum.