Political Science Commons^™

China By The Numbers: The Chinese Professor And The Red Emperor, Charles W. Hayford

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Remember those jailbirds who know all of each others’ jokes? They don’t tell the whole joke, just shout out the number from the jokebook. Our public discourse on China has something of the same quality. Instead of shouting out a number, however, somebody “shouts out” a word or an image which evokes a whole China story. These stories can be persuasive, poetic, or insightful, but when we only “shout out” the number, then we don’t have the chance to examine the whole story. Painful facts or challenges to venerable beliefs can be papered over when the story is a misleading …

On Michael Jackson In Mongolia, Hanging Out At Shanghai’S World’S Fair, And Other Topics: A Quick Q & A With Marketplace’S Rob Schmitz, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Over the summer, there was a changing of the guard in the Shanghai office ofMarketplace, an American radio program that has consistently carried smart reports about China. Scott Tong moved from the PRC back to the US (where he continues to work for the show) and former Peace Corps volunteer Rob Schmitztook his place. I had the pleasure of meeting them both in Shanghai in July andran a post with the former in early August, in which he reflected on his time covering the China beat. Now, as a sequel to that post, comes a quick q and a with …

What I Read On My Summer Vacation (Iv), Ron Javers

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I was booked to give a China talk in August, high season in the Hamptons, as part of the summer series at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton.

Agricultural Biotechnology: The U.S.-Eu Dispute, Charles E. Hanrahan

Congressional Research Service Reports

In May 2003, the United States, Canada, and Argentina initiated a dispute with the European Union concerning the EU’s de facto moratorium on biotechnology product approvals, in place since 1998. Although the EU effectively lifted the moratorium in May 2004 by approving a genetically engineered (GE) corn variety (MON810), the three complainants pursued the case, in part because a number of EU member states continue to block already approved biotech products. Industry estimates are that the moratorium costs U.S. corn growers some $300 million in exports to the EU annually. Corn gluten exports from the United States to the EU …

Analysis Of The Recent Made-In-China Campaign, Hongmei Li

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China has recently launched its first global advertising campaign about products made in China. A 30-second television commercial, sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of China and four Chinese trade associations, has been running on CNN, the Headline News and International Asia TV channels in the United States since November 23, 2009. Costing tens of millions of Yuan, the commercial was scheduled to run for six weeks. The commercial also started to run in some parts of Asia starting in December 2009.

More On Google + China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Now that we’ve all had a few days to think deeply about the Google + China story, lots of commentaries and opinion pieces are coming across the wire. Here’s a sampling of those that caught our attention over the weekend:

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.

Blogging Aas 2010 (2), William Callahan

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the pleasures of going to a conference is seeing what free goodies you can scam from various institutions. Lots of free pens were proffered by various publishers. A Chinese press was giving out some trinkets — but for some reason not to me. The International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) was once again giving out sheer canvas bags loaded with their newsletter and other readable items. UBC Press offered 50-year-old issues of Pacific Affairs for the antiquarians among us, as well as more recent issues.

Identity Construction In Multicultural States: Ethnic Group Mobilization And Public Policy, Christopher G. Anderson, Brent E. Sasley

Political Science Faculty Publications - Archive

Draft copy

Economic Crises And The Changing Influence Of The Irish Congress Of Trade Unions On Public Policy, John Hogan

Books/Book Chapters

This chapter examines the dramatic changes in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ (ICTU) influence over public policy during the latter half of the twentieth century. The chapter focuses upon the impact economic crises have had on the ICTU’s role in policy-making. The chapter concentrates, in particular, upon four periods, the late 1950s, 1970, the early 1980s and 1987, when the ICTU found its influence over public policy radically transformed. By the late 1950s the trade union movement was invited into the policy-making process by a government desperate to revive a sclerotic economy. During the following decade the ICTU played …

Introduction To America's Four Gods: What We Say About God And What That Says About Us, Paul Froese, Christoper Bader

Sociology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Despite all the hype surrounding the "New Atheism," the United States remains one of the most religious nations on Earth. In fact, 95% of Americans believe in God--a level of agreement rarely seen in American life. The greatest divisions in America are not between atheists and believers, or even between people of different faiths. What divides us, this groundbreaking book shows, is how we conceive of God and the role He plays in our daily lives.

America's Four Gods draws on the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and illuminating survey of American's religious beliefs ever conducted to offer a systematic exploration of …

The Religious Divide: Why Religion Seems To Be Thriving In The United States And Waning In Europe, Steven Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In the decades following the Second World War, most social scientists expected convergence among the Western industrial democracies. Modernization was expected to bring prosperity and opportunity, initiating a “culture shift” to posttraditional values and lifestyles.

However, in recent years observers have remarked on a growing divide between Europeans and Americans. This divergence may be nowhere greater than in the religious sphere. While faith is loudly proclaimed and a bustling diversity of religious organizations jostles for attention in all arenas of public life in the United States, the European Union (EU) is described as thoroughly secularized, comprised of societies in which …

Edzia Carvalho On Human Rights: Politics And Practice. Edited By Michael Goodhart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 455pp., Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights: Politics and Practice. Edited by Michael Goodhart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 455pp.

Kurt Mills On Governance, Order, And The International Criminal Court: Between Realpolitik And A Cosmopolitan Court. Edited By Steven C. Roach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 289pp., Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Governance, Order, and the International Criminal Court: Between Realpolitik and a Cosmopolitan Court. Edited by Steven C. Roach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 289pp.

Hidetoshi Hashimoto On International Law (Sixth Edition). By Malcolm Shaw. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 1542pp., Hidetoshi Hashimoto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

International Law (Sixth Edition). By Malcolm Shaw. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 1542pp.

Palestinian Refugees: Protection In Exile, Vivienne Chew

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Palestinian refugee problem is perhaps the most critical and complex of the outstanding issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sixty-two years have now passed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced en masse and rendered stateless. Since then, successive generations of Palestinian refugees have endured discrimination, insecurity, repeated cycles of displacement, and infringement of their basic rights and freedoms.

Amazigh Legitimacy Through Language In Morocco, Sarah R. Fischer

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Contemporary Morocco rests at a geographic and developmental crossroads. Uniquely positioned on the Northwestern tip of Africa, Morocco is a short distance away from continental Europe, cradled between North African tradition and identity, and Western embrace. The landscape is varied: craggy mountains trail into desert oases; cobbled streets of the medina anchor the urban centers; mud homes dot the rural countryside. Obscured from the outside observer, behind the walls of the Imperial cities and between the footpaths of village olive groves, Morocco’s rich and diverse Arab and Amazigh cultures and languages circle one another in a contested dance. Morocco’s identity …

Establishing Governmental Legitimacy In Iraq: The Path To Protecting Human Rights, Matt Mines

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Rule of law is essential for ensuring the protection of human rights in post-conflict societies. Contention and disagreements, however, often arise regarding the best ways to establish rule of law in a reconstructive state. It is a vital prerequisite to rule of law that a government be viewed as legitimate. Following an armed conflict, the restoration of basic services and infrastructure is essential for instilling confidence that the government is legitimate and is capable of providing for the needs of the local populace. The essential services include water, electricity, and security on a consistent basis. In order to ensure ongoing …

Necessary Fictions: Indigenous Claims And The Humanity Of Rights, Peter Fitzpatrick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To begin, not propitiously. When checking whether my title ‘Necessary Fictions’ was being used elsewhere, Google revealed that it was going to be used in a future talk, and by me. It transpired mercifully that this use was going to be quite different to the present which suggested the prospect of a new academic genre: same title, different paper; rather than the standard combination of same paper, different title. Fortuitously, that contrast gave me the leitmotiv for this talk – that things ostensibly the same can be different, and that things ostensibly different can be the same.

© Peter Fitzpatrick. …

Tunisia–The Imprisonment Of Fahem Boukadous (Part One Of A Series), Rob Prince

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To most Americans with the exception of those few who, for whatever reason, have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to "Reporters Without Borders” and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa–deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country’s history in the past quarter century.

© …

Blood In The Wells: The Troubled Past And Perilous Future Of U.S.-Saudi Relations, Maxwell Czerniawski

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Perhaps no region other than the Near East plays a more important role in the shaping of both the foreign and domestic policies of the United States. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent deployment of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the massive budgetary burden placed upon the United States government (and, by extension, its citizens) as a result of the War on Terror, lay heavily upon the consciousness of the media and the concerns of the American people. Much recent focus has also been placed on the impact that the need for …

The Politics Of Higher Education And The Student Presidency, Regina Royan

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The student body president is an advocate, spokesperson, figurehead and leader. The student presidency is a role that few get to experience and many do not understand. I have found that in my four years involved with student government at Eastern Michigan University and my recent interviews with several other student body presidents across the state that the power associated with an administration can vary greatly, but the nature of the office remains intact. Attempts were made to interview each of the student body presidents at the fifteen state sponsored universities in the state of Michigan. These student body presidents …

The Mirage Of Non-State Governance, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I offer three theses, all of which are critical. First, non‑state governance is conceptually unattractive; it is a concept that makes little sense. Second, non‑state governance is empirically unattractive; meaningful non‑state governance rarely exists. Third, meaningful non‑state governance is normatively unattractive; we would rarely want it, and people postulating it usually expect the state to play an important role. However, I also have something constructive: a proposed trajectory. Talk about the state and the non‑state can only be an intermediary stage in a trajectory of a theory of governance that might lead to a new paradigm of …

Can Mature Democracies Be Perfected?, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

One of the more vexing questions about democracy that is often debated among political theorists, political scientists, and legal scholars is whether the democratic character of mature democracies can be improved. From one view, that of democratic realists, mature democracies are perfected as a matter of definition and as a matter of realistic expectations. Because mature democracies are those that respect core democratic principles, variations outside the core are simply policy differences based upon each democratic polity’s willingness to engage in a different set of trade-offs. For democratic realists, variations in democratic practice that are not related to core democratic …

The Blind Leading The Blind: Who Gets Polling Information And Does It Improve Decisions?, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We analyze whether and when polls help citizens to improve their decisions. Specifically, we use experiments to investigate 1) whether and when citizens are willing to obtain polls and 2) whether and when polls help citizens to make better choices than they would have made on their own. We find that citizens are more likely to obtain polls when the decisions they must make are difficult and when they are unsophisticated. Ironically, when the decisions are difficult, the pollees are also uninformed and, therefore, do not provide useful information. We also find that when polls indicate the welfare-improving choice, citizens …

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 …

Paul Okojie On Darfur And The Crisis Of Governance In Sudan: A Critical Reader. Edited By Salah M. Hassan And Carina E. Ray. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. 528pp., Paul Okojie

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan: A Critical Reader. Edited by Salah M. Hassan and Carina E. Ray. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. 528pp.

Arbitrary Arrest And Detention Of Human Rights Defenders In Iran: Subduing The Voices Demanding Rights, Sachchi Karki

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Arbitrary arrest and detention, oftentimes used to curtail the freedom of opinion and expression, as well as the right to association and peaceful assembly, has continued to characterize Iranian regimes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such arrest and detention of human rights defenders (HRD)–who individually or with others act to protect and promote human rights—has demonstrated the repressive nature of the Iranian regime. Human rights lawyers, civil society representatives, journalists, and women’s rights movements and trade union activists are among the most commonly targeted HRD.

Ann Hui’S Films And The Poetics Of Mundane Redemption, Peter Zarrow

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Seen from above, people are ants. As ants are specks in nature, so people—at least Hong Kongers—are specks in the massive infrastructure of forty- and fifty-storey highrises, the limitless concrete of train and highway networks, and the forbiddingly busy shops. Seen up close, however, face-to-face, they become souls. The camera in the masterpiece directed by Ann Hui, “The Way We Are,” switches between these two perspectives. “The Way We Are” (lit. “Day and Night in Tin Shui Wai” 天水圍的日與夜, 2008) simply shows the quotidian, extremely ordinary events in the lives of a few characters, gradually revealing how they came to …

The New Red Guards

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Far out to the East of Beijing, past the city’s fifth ringroad, the Cultural Revolution isn’t over yet.