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Advocate, December 2008, Vol. [20], No. [4], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Books Issue

From the Editor’s Desk: Shut it Down (p. 2)

Adjunct Layoffs on the Horizon: Effects of Paterson’s Budget Cuts Continue to Reverberate through CUNY Schools (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief: NYU-CUNY Financial Aid Partnership a Fraud (p. 3)

Grad Life: Debting on the Future. Justin Rogers-Cooper (p. 4)

Political Analysis: In Midnight’s Shadow. Danny Nassre (p. 5)

Adjuncting: Budget Cuts. Tuition Hikes. Job Insecurity. Renée McGarry and Jesse Goldstein (p. 7)

Afghanistan: The Use and Abuse of a Buffer State, Part 1. Christian Parenti (p. 8)

Masthead (p. 2)

Advocate Books Issue

Bolaño’s Inferno. …

Catch That Pepsi Spirit: Photo Update

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When Micki McCoy and Kelly Hammond sent China Beat the interview they conducted about Hammond’s participation in an international Pepsi commercial shoot in Xinjiang, we had a tough time tracking down images or videos. Though we still haven’t seen the commercial in full (let us know if you find it online), Hammond did recently send this photo of a “Mexican Uyghur” taken during filming. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, take a look at the original interview‘s discussion of the issues of nationalism, ethnicity, and commercialism that the Pepsi shoot raised for Hammond. Tags: Pepsi,

Peace Without Justice, Or Justice Without Peace?, Clair Apodaca

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Peace without justice is an illusion. The use of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute human rights violations not only provides restorative justice for those harmed by the wrongdoing but also retributive justice towards the perpetrators. Restorative justice seeks to help heal the wounds of the victims and community by acknowledging and witnessing the pain and suffering of the victim. Retributive justice seeks to punish the offenders. The hope is that retribution will deter or prevent future acts of violence by holding perpetrators accountable for the violations of human rights, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. …

The Federal Courts And Constitutional Interpretation: A Second Amendment Case Study, Mark Kemper

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Cultural Commentary: Race And The Race, William C. Levin

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Can Public Debt Enhance Democracy?, Clayton P. Gillette

William & Mary Law Review

This Essay draws on historical and current examples to examine the extent to which public creditors can enhance democracy by monitoring public officials in a manner that compensates for the failures of the government debtor's constituents to monitor public officials. Creditors and constituents may share significant interests, depending on the structure of security arrangements for public debt and the identity of the debtors. Where interests overlap, the capacity of creditors to overcome collective action problems suffered by constituents may transform creditors into surrogates for constituents. Whether creditors are willing to play this role, however, may depend on the existence of …

The Judicial Behavior Of Justice Souter In Criminal Cases And The Denial Of A Conservative Counterrevolution, Scott P. Johnson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “The following article documents the judicial career of Justice David Souter from his time served as an attorney general and state judge in New Hampshire until his recent tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon his written opinions and individual votes, Justice Souter clearly has evolved into a more liberal jurist than ideological conservatives would have preferred in the area of criminal justice. Over the course of his judicial career, Justice Souter has gained respect as an intellectual scholar by attempting to completely understand both sides of a dispute and applying precedent and legal rules in a flexible—albeit …

Latinos And The 2008 Presidential Elections: A Visual Data Base, Laura Limonic

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines the impact of Latino voters on the 2008 presidential election at both the national and state levels.

Methods: All data in this report were derived from the exit polls from Edison Media Research as published by CNN and Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of the exit polls from Edison Media Research as published by CNN.

Results: Nationwide, Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama over John McCain. Obama received 67% of the Latino vote, compared to 31% for McCain. Obama also received the majority of votes from other minority groups. Latinos increased their share of the national vote …

Perpetual Conflict Or Compromise? The Cost Of Domestic Legitimacy In The Realm Of Women's Human Rights: A Case Study On The Right To An Abortion, Kim Andrea Kelly

Honors Scholar Theses

With its turbulent and volatile legal evolution, the right to an abortion in the United States still remains a highly contested issue and has developed into one of the most divisive topics within modern legal discourse. By deconstructing the political underpinnings and legal rationale of the right to an abortion through a systematic case law analysis, I will demonstrate that this right has been incrementally destabilized. This instability embedded in abortion jurisprudence has been primarily produced by a combination of textual ambiguity in the case law and judicial ambivalence regarding this complex area of law. In addition, I argue that …

Communicable Disease And International Security: The Case Of Africa & Hiv/Aids, Amy L Rue

Archived Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I will look at how communicable disease fits into the human security discourse particularly with the disease being views as the 'potential threat' and the 'referent object' within the international sphere. The case of Africa will be used to illustrate the impact of HIV/AIDS on international security at country, regional and international levels. Ultimately, I will argue that communicable disease, as a human security issue, is a clear and important international security issue due to its status as a continual "potential threat" within international relations particularly in Africa. The elements that I will use to establish my …

A Battle Of Wills: Examining The Religious Factor In Hizbullah's 2006 Ground Engagements With Israel, Arwa Salah Mahmoud

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]

Environmental Elitism Vs. Environmental Justice: How Egyptian Ngos Shape Environmental Injustices Between The Elite And The Rest, Sarah Sensamaust

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]

Chapter 1. What Is Meritocracy?, Richard T. Longoria

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rocking The Vote: An Analysis Of What Makes The Millennial Generation Vote And The Correlation Of Civic Engagement To Empathy, Gabrielle Michelle Martinez

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Chinese Scramble In East Africa: The Growing Interest Of China In Uganda, Kenya, And Tanzania, Ara Jannie Jo

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Agritourism As A Viable Strategy For Economic Diversification: A Case Study Analysis Of Policy Options For The Bahamas, Erecia Hepburn

All Dissertations

This research examines the prospects for developing an economic diversification policy for The Bahamas, utilizing agritourism. The Bahamas is plagued with the dominance of one traditional sector, tourism combined with the lack of economic innovation and the inability to maintain domestic demand for food security, which has the potential for economic crisis if there are any serious 'external shocks' or setbacks in mainstream tourism. Such a possible drop in tourism is most evident from experiences in 2001 with the Straw Market fire of Sept 4th, and the terrorist attacks in America on September 11th, coupled with the escalating cost of …

Unintended Consequences Of Repression: Alliance Formation In South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979), Paul Y. Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research regarding the impact of repression on social movements has yielded conflicting findings; some argue that repression decreases the total quantity of protest events while others argue that it motivates protest. To move beyond this impasse, various scholars have suggested exploring how repression influences the quality of social movements. This study assesses the impact repression had on the information of alliances between different social groups participating in South Korea's democracy movement. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that repression facilitated the formation of alliances between movement actors at a time when the overall number of protest events decreased. This …

Chinese Visions Of World Order: Post-Hegemonic Or A New Hegemony?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lately, there has been increasing interest among international relations (IR) scholars in Chinese thought, both as an alternative to Eurocentric IR, and because the PRC as an emerging power will soon have the institutional power to promote its view of the world. Rather than look for suitable Chinese parallels to "international," "security," or other mainstream concepts, this article will examine the concept of "Tianxia All-under-Heaven" to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of over two millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming …

Compared To What? A Comment On "A Robust Transformation Procedure For Interpreting Political Text" By Martin And Vanberg, Kenneth Benoit, Michael Laver

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In “A Robust Transformation Procedure,” Martin and Vanberg (2007, hereafter MV) propose a new method for rescaling the raw virgin text scores produced by the “Wordscores” procedure of Laver, Benoit, and Garry (2003, hereafter LBG). Their alternative method addresses two deficiencies they argue exist with the transformation of virgin text scores proposed by LBG: First, that the LBG transformation is sensitive to the selection of virgin texts, and second, that it distorts the reference metric by failing to recover the original reference scores when reference texts are scored and transformed as if they were virgin texts. Their proposed alternative is …

December Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Activist.” Harper's Magazine. November 2008.

Global Ethics And The Role Of Academics, Christien Van Den Anker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Academics have a social and professional responsibility that stems from their individual duties as global citizens. With their privileged position as lifelong learners they need to assess carefully where they direct their attention for research, their teaching and their exchange of knowledge with the wider public. This means that academic freedom does not only bring a range of rights, it also involves duties to develop and advocate ethical positions on real-life dilemmas and to engage in self-reflection on being in the role of contributing to oppression.

Web Portals To Taiwan’S Past

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the blessings of the Internet Age is the availability of valuable information about the past, in this case Taiwanese history. This post introduces a few English and Chinese websites that I have found most interesting/useful. The list is hardly meant to be exhaustive, and people should feel free to recommend other sites that would benefit all those interested in this topic.

1. The Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection — Put together by Paul Barclay at Lafayette College, this website contains 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner from 1937 to 1941 during and after his tenure as U.S. …

I Know It’S Only Rock’N’Roll (But They Don’T Like It)—The Sequel…, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My next posts were all supposed to deal with my recent trip to China, but news about the long-awaited Guns’n’Roses release, “Chinese Democracy,” stirring up controversy in China is something that I can’t resist weighing in on. I won’t go into details about whether or how it has actually been banned in Beijing, as you can find out about that other places, including here and here. And I don’t need to fill you in on the China-related content of the album (a work I hasten to admit I haven’t heard yet), as that is covered thoroughly in an excellent Huffington …

China In 2008: Pre-Orders Now Available

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The weekend after Thanksgiving is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, but if you’d like to avoid the crush at the malls, China in 2008 now has its own webpage, where you can order a copy for all those hard-to-gift friends (especially if they don’t mind it arriving in March–the release date for the book…).

In Case You Missed It: Post-Mao China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last year, the Association for Asian Studies inaugurated a new series of booklets under their “Resources for Teaching About Asia” branch called “Key Issues in Asian Studies.” The first two booklets in the series were published in 2007: Political Rights in Post-Mao China by Merle Goldman and Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia by Michael Peletz. (Those interested in applying to write a “Key Issues” booklet should see the AAS’s author guidelines.)

Goldman’s book on political rights in contemporary China canvases the factions that dominated political discussions in the post-Mao era, and is key reading for those who …

Thanksgiving In China…?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Despite calls several years ago for a Chinese Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving hasn’t caught on in China as Christmas has. And with good reason–the holiday hasn’t brought much to China other than (last year) Paris Hilton.

But tomorrow begins the Christmas shopping season (a holiday that has caught on in some places in China–if largely for its commercial meanings), and this new holiday may have more dire implications in China this year. Analysts are predicting slow Christmas sales in the U.S., which may mean a slow season for Chinese manufacturers as well.

In Case You Missed It: Three Faces Of Chinese Power, Eric Setzekorn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

David Lampton, a distinguished professor of international relations at SAIS, knows this is a great time to publish a book on Chinese power. As a new administration, which he may play a role in, attempts to craft a balanced and articulate China policy, his newest effort, The Three Faces of Chinese Power; Might, Money and Minds, will be influential and widely read. The book is a comprehensive and largely successful attempt to grasp the motivation, intent and challenges for Chinese international relations as China becomes a global leader and East Asia the center of world economic, political and military power. …

The Problem Of China: A Revisitation, Peter Zarrow

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Even though Dewey and Tagore have gotten more attention lately in scholarly works on Chinese education and ruminations of Chinese interactions with other countries, we at China Beat remain equally interested in the third famous foreign philosopher who gave a high profile set of lectures to audiences in Beijing and other cities during the aftermath of World War I: Bertrand Russell.

We thought about him when running our series on Jonathan Spence’s Reith Lectures, since Russell gave the inaugural ones sixty years before that. And we think of him when perusing the sections of Chinese bookstores devoted to philosophical matters …

Meeting Minutes, Wku Student Government Association

Student Government Association

Meeting regarding banquet, awards, university emergency response team, tennis courts, Alpha Delta Pi and legislation.

2008 Awards

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We are healthily skeptical about the newsworthiness of award recipients — prizes don’t, after all, always go to the right people. But a well-bequeathed award can draw attention to an intriguing book or piece of writing that one might have otherwise missed.

In an attempt at a premature 2008 awards wrap-up, here are a few that you might have overlooked.

1. There was consternation from the Chinese state in August and September over the mention that activist Hu Jia might be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While he didn’t win the Nobel, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the …