Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper is a descriptive analysis of the uses of the concept social capital in sociological research over a fifteen-year period. Our data consist of three parts. First, we identify 651 articles searching for ‘social capital’ in the Sociological Abstracts database as a keyword from 1988 through 2002. Second we analyze definitions of social capital in the top five sociological journals, identified using the criterion of the Social Science Citation Index impact factor. There were 38 total articles that used social capital in either the title or abstract within these five journals over the 15 years. Finally, from the universe of 651 articles we identify the sociological specialty areas most frequently using social capital: complex organizations, sociology of education, social change and economic development, political sociology, sociology of health and medicine, the family and socialization, and social differentiation (stratification). From this we analyze definitions from a stratified random sample of these specialties. Mainstream definitions are then compared to the specialty area definitions to identify similarities and differences. Conclusions are drawn about areas of agreement in the definition of social capital.

Publication Type: Works in Progress
Abstract: Technology is central to our lives today. It helps deconstruct our identity. In “Chocolat” (1988), Claire Denis argues that cinema makes a great intervention in capturing characters secrets and inner lives and transcribing their desire for the audience. She uses film technology to recreate important moments and events of her childhood in Cameroon. She turns her camera to investigate her family history and the patriarchal colonial ideology that sustained it, structured the behavior and feelings of its members and marked their personality for life. She also challenges the simplistic idea that colonial power only enforced its hegemony through force. She demonstrates how the search for sexual love and intimacy is a powerful driving force that can either oppress the individual or free him .
Through her memory, Denis debate taboos, sexual desire and power relation as mediated through technology to argue that these emotions can be traced at the level of the visual, through movements and gestures. She provides a visual field of racialized gaze to complicate the participants’ longing, desire and sex with their notions of self-worth and integrity. The movie is a visual metaphor to discuss colonization, taboos, desire and racism, the place of women and their desire in patriarchal society, individual agency and the role of children in a society that considers them invisible. The movie moves forward from memories of colonization to meditate on its legacy by inferring the taboos that still between France and Cameroon to this day.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the conflicting hypotheses of ethnic hatreds and elite persuasion as causes of ethnic nationalist conflict. These theories essentially differ on the acceptance of culture as a factor in the ethnic nationalist conflict that arises with democratization. The ethnic hatreds theory, that nationalist conflict is caused by ancient culture-based hatreds, has tended to be discredited among scholars who argue that culture is not an adequate explanatory feature in examining conflict. It places its sole emphasis on culture, thus making it insufficient in explaining the causes of nationalist conflict. The elite persuasion theory proposes that leaders orchestrate nationalist conflict for political purposes. In Jack Snyder's formulation (in his work From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict), as a state democratizes, elites, those in control of government or society, begin to lose power. In an attempt to regain power, they control the press and make nationalist appeals. As people divide into ethnic nationalist groups, this either intentionally or unintentionally causes conflict. However, this theory focuses on WHY elites persuade, rather than HOW they persuade. Its proponents argue that culture is not a factor and conflict is instead provoked by leaders. Because the elite persuasion theory discredits culture as a cause, it also is an inadequate theory. This study thus synthesizes the two theories and incorporates culture as a cause by introducing the idea of elite manipulation to explain the causes of nationalist conflict. Using the case of Serbia from 1988 to 1999, this study will focus on HOW elites persuade, specifically concentrating on elite manipulation of ethnic nationalism through an examination of political speeches, government documents, and media sources. Culture is a tool elites use to gain power. It will be shown that elites do in fact make appeals to a common history and culture at certain key points. In this case study, this was at the point when leaders were gaining power. Key speeches increased power by mobilizing mass support. Once elites gained power, explicit appeals to a shared history decreased, and they maintained power through control of the media. Nonetheless, culture continued to play a role. What past studies emphasizing elite persuasion have failed to consider is that not only are elites appealing to one ethnic group, but they are also suppressing competing ethnic groups to gain and maintain power. Competing groups were culturally suppressed in Serbia as elites attempted to influence every aspect of life from language to education. Therefore, in place of the elite persuasion theory, which sidelines culture and focuses on populist appeals to one ethno-nationalist group, this study suggests that a more complete theory includes the aspect of culture. Ethnic nationalist conflict is not only caused by elite persuasion but by elite MANIPULATION, including both cultural appeals and cultural suppression. This concept best explains the case of Serbia from 1988 to 1999 by synthesizing the competing theories explaining the ethnic nationalist conflict that occurs as a result of democratization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I explain why disaggregating measures of political conflict generated from news-sources helps explain changes in frequency rates of protest and repression before, during, and after democratization in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In response to recent claims in the popular press that we are witnessing the “death of participatory politics” in non-battleground states, this paper uses National Elections Study data to assess whether an Electoral College engagement gap is in fact emerging in the country. The study finds that some differences in political participation did begin to emerge between battleground and non-battleground states in 1996 and were still apparent in the 2000 and 2004 election cycles. Yet, there is evidence that this trend has been stymied as voters in so-called “spectator” states actually exhibited higher levels of certain forms of participation than battleground state respondents in 2004. The author provides some evidence that this may be due to the candidates’ use of the Internet to engage voters and enlist volunteers in non-battleground states. It is also clear that the notion of a “battleground state” has become a much more salient concept for the public. Thus, the author suggests that people in uncompetitive states have become more aware of what living in a non-battleground state means for their voting power and—at least in the most recent election—have begun to compensate through other forms of participation.