Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Japan and South Korea have historically been considered strong and rather autonomous states, particularly in the realms of foreign and defense policy. Recently, however, both governments have faced varying degrees of public criticism concerning the kidnappings of their citizens by North Korea (DPRK) and their policies toward the North. Theories of state autonomy in decision-making predict that the groups articulating such public demands should have minimal influence over policy-making. Yet, particularly since September 2002 when Kim Jong-Il admitted that the DPRK had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, the organization of Japanese abductees’ families has gained significant political influence. Though the analogous association in South Korea represents the bereaved of a much larger group of abductees, that group has not been able to gain equivalent access to and influence over policy-making processes in the South. Why have these groups had such different degrees of success in influencing their governments’ policies concerning the abductees and toward the DPRK?

This paper uses the lens of the abductions issue to shed light on the nature of state-society relations and interest mediation in these two countries. This project analyzes the variations in success among advocacy groups by focusing on a subcategory advocacy groups: victims’ organizations. These are groups of individuals who explicitly blame the deliberate actions or the negligence of their own government or another state for the physical harm they have suffered. By focusing on how changes in domestic political structures have altered the opportunity structure that victims’ family associations face, this paper analyzes what the unusual case of the abductee saga reveals about broader questions of institutional change, victims’ advocacy, and civil society’s role at the intersection of domestic and international politics in Japan and South Korea.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Several highly publicized child abduction murders have created a wave of public panic over the safety of America’s children. Child abduction murders have influenced our laws and formed the rationale for many policies and procedures in social services and law enforcement. Even though the incidences of these occurrences are rare, their impact has a disproportionately large influence on society. The public outcry over concern for the safety of America’s children resulted in inflated and unsubstantiated numbers of missing children. To compound the tragedy, child abduction murders are incredibly difficult to solve and deeply impact the law enforcement officials involved in the investigation.

The historical background of child abduction murders, the social implications of these crimes, their impact on public policy, and their impact on investigators are all important factors in understanding the impact of the victimization of child abduction murders. This paper will review the historical impact of child abduction murders on American laws and public policy and other social implications of the victimization of children by child abduction murderers as well as present empirical evidence on the incidence of child abduction murders.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This content analysis explores the myths that emerged in national and regional newspaper coverage of child abductions before and after September 11, 2001. Clear patterns emerged in the cases that garnered the most newspaper attention: the victim was likely to be a young female from a middle-upper class neighborhood who was abducted from her home by a male, low-class stranger. This portrayal is counter to real crime statistics, which show that such abductions are the rarest type. The types of abductions that recieved the most newspaper coverage reinforce societal myths about female vulnerability and male deviance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Copenhagen School’s concept of securitisation is regarded as one of the most innovative, but also most controversially discussed approaches in IR and security studies. Located within the wider theoretical scheme formulated by the Copenhagen School, it provides a specific analytic in respect of examining security politics and, predicated on this, the evaluation of the prevailing pattern of security interactions on a given regional level. However, several commentators have pointed out a tension within the securitisation approach, which mainly stems from two different possible readings of this concept: one that puts more theoretical emphasis on language and a second that stresses the importance of considering context. By conducting a first-cut, preliminary analysis on one crucial issue of current Japanese foreign policy, the case of abducted Japanese citizens to North Korea, this paper highlights the challenges one encounters in trying to apply the securitisation approach to this specific case.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The theoretical potential of ethnography in analysis of culture is in the surprising finding it is able to generate. To maximize the potential of discovery, the data should be detailed and arranged in form that allows the data to speak. To explicate the this potential, I analyze it the ‘third way’ which is not inductive and not deductive but rather abductive, following the logic of Charles Sanders Pierce. The principle of abduction combines two forms of reasoning, and insight and an explanation which is in the form of rule-following procedure. In ethnography this means arriving at an educated guess and then explicating that insight with theoretical reasoning. The warrant is in the ethnographic detail and the theoretical reasoning which explicates it. This is an open-ended process on knowledge creation so that validity of this combined reasoning is in its lack of closure, that is, its on-going possibility of reinterpretation.