Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, we find that that journalistic accounts and most expert case studies do not do justice to the complexity of causal forces producing and reproducing vulnerability to disasters. Using raw disaster data compiled by the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), we develop three cross-national measures of climate risk, based on 4,040 climate-related natural disasters between 1980 and 2002. These are population-adjusted rates of the cumulative number of people killed, made homeless, or otherwise affected by climate-related disasters (wind storms, flooding, drought, and heat waves) during the period. The most powerful predictors of vulnerability to climate disasters are a country’s level of urbanization, the security of its property rights regime, its coastal exposure, national income, and levels of domestic inequality. We also find that behind these current “proximate” causes of a country’s ability to cope with climate disasters is the way it is “inserted” into the world economy. Countries with a colonial legacy of extraction of its resources – as measured by the narrowness of its export base – are structurally predisposed toward higher levels of social, economic, and institutional vulnerability. These structural disadvantages, we argue, limit their ability to protect themselves from poverty and environmental degradation, but also the growing frequency and strength of climate-related disasters. Disaster relief and prevention that treats only symptoms and not political and economic structure are doomed to longer-term failure.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Black and Puerto Rican children bang out rhythms on trash cans and empty Pepsi bottles in a Harlem housing project. A Jewish grocer in Manhattan recounts the story of a dying friend whose last words told police “it was white folks that killed me, not colored folks.” A man in Spanish Harlem leans over a jukebox playing a nostalgic lament, translating the words that float past: “I wouldn’t change Puerto Rico by 4,000 New Yorks.” These unique and surprisingly resistant sonic moments are culled from the “sound effects” recordings made by Tony Schwartz on Folkways Records between 1946 and 1958.

Long before the eclectic mixing of the IPOD, Schwartz was splicing diverse snippets of urban life recorded through his wrist microphone on the streets of Manhattan. Schwartz’s audio productions form a rich and indispensable cultural archive that has yet to be mined by American Studies scholars. Linking the insights of the field of Sound Studies with my work on aurality and African American literature, I perform a “close listening” of Schwartz’ key New York recordings, exploring how albums like “New York 19” (1954) and “Nueva York: A Tape Documentary of Puerto Rican New Yorkers” (1955) function to construct New York as a transnational city that is music to white ears.

During the transitional postwar era of urban conflict, increased segregation, and accelerating “white flight,” Schwartz made 19 LPs for Folkways that simultaneously affirm and challenge the notion that music and audio culture function as forces of social cohesion in the United States. On one hand, Schwartz couples swift juxtaposition with seamless editing to present a vibrant, multicultural urban environment where the sounds of a black cab driver singing spirituals can co-exist with a Jewish salesman hawking Parker pens. Through an auditory recreation of the postwar metropolis—complete with rumbling El Trains, honking horns, and jackhammers—Schwartz attempts to reclaim the noisy, ethnically diverse urban streets as the preeminent crucible of American identity in the face of increasing white migration to the quiet, sterile, and secluded suburbs.

However, although invisible, the mechanical ear of the microphone is far from objective. While Schwartz presents his work as typical of what might be experienced on any day in 1950s New York, he is carefully editing the city, re-mixing its sounds primarily for an audience of eavesdropping white ears. Schwartz persuasively uses the sonic medium to make the threatening cultural “noise” of “the Other” recognizable as meaningful sound to the default (white) American ear. I argue that Schwartz’ recordings provide an important insight into an undertheorized aspect of race in America: the presence of an aural equivalent to the “white gaze.” Schwartz’ desire to provide his audience with a cultural exchange that will “enable you to hear the people around you with a new awareness and enjoyment,” attempts to blur the binary of “Us vs. Them,” even as it exposes the ways in which race, urban space, and national identity are powerfully constructed and understood through the ear.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Neighborhood associations in Japan blur the line between state and society. Inextricably local in their orientation, there is tremendous variation across the archipelago in how NHAs are organized and what they do. Unfortunately, scholars do not have a clear picture of this variation due to a lack of comparable data across the nation. The JIGS survey team led by Yutaka Tsujinaka of the University of Tsukuba is conducting the first nation-wide survey of Japan`s 300,000 neighborhood associations (NHAs) ever. Although a limited number of sureys of NHAs in delimited regions do exist, operational difficulties in implementation have prevented scholars from conducting a nationwide survey. The Japanese government has also not conducted any such survey. This paper presents the first results of the survey, discussing the distribution and vitality of NHAs across Japan. Beyond these organizational dimensions, the paper also investigates activities of the groups. Widespread variation is expected in the survey (which will be conducted in winter 2006-07) results. This paper will also present the results of the survey on the relationship between NHAs and the government. Specifically, we investigate variations in the patterns of relationship between NHAs and local governments across different regions in Japan—including the level of cooperation and support, as well as the differences in the scope of activities such as crime prevention, cleaning of the local environment, etc.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For all the concern over the role of
money in American politics, President Clinton’s Legal Expense Trust,
created to ease the burden of Clinton’s legal expenses, has not only
gone unregulated but also uninvestigated. The literature on campaign
finance
confirms that income, solicitation, and a donor’s history are the major
determinants of an individual’s contribution activity. By surveying
contributors to the Clinton Legal Expense Trust we seek to answer four
main questions. Who are these donors? Why did they make a contribution?
How do these donors differ from electoral campaigns donors? And what
are the specific effects of solicitation on the amount donated? In
order to answer these questions, the paper utilizes the technique of
matching with propensity scores. Matching allows researchers to mimic
an experimental setting in which some individuals receive a treatment,
and others do not. By matching individuals in the treatment and control
groups who share other observed traits, we can, for example, isolate
the effects of solicitation on donation level. The contributions of the
paper are two-fold. Substantively, we will learn about the nature of
this unique type of political donation and the citizens who make them.
Methodologically, we can elaborate on the benefits of matching and its
use in reducing the observed differences between treated and nontreated
individuals in our sample.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For all of the concern over the role of money in American politics, President Clinton’s Legal Expense Trust, created to ease the burden of the President’s legal expenses, has not only gone unregulated (its contribution limits and disclosure rules were self imposed) but also uninvestigated. Using original survey data this article seeks to answer three questions. Who are the donors to Clinton's Trust? Why did they make a contribution? And what determines the amount they contributed to the Trust? The final section of the article explores the possible consequences of this loophole and suggests some possible remedies.