Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations posits that the practice of public relations moves on a continuum from total advocacy for an organization or client to total accommodation of a public. A case study of the Orlando Magic NBA franchise was conducted to understand media relations, community relations and foundation efforts in support of a new or renovated arena, examining how either accommodation or advocacy was used when the franchise was in direct conflict with one (or many) of its publics. The organization was found move along the continuum from advocacy to accommodation in its public relations efforts over the course of the arena issue.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The focus of this paper is on the emergence of a transnational religious coalition – primarily between Catholic and Islamic forces– and its influence on the development of women’s rights internationally. Through an analysis of the documents and commentaries of United Nations conferences at Cairo, Beijing, New York and Rome, the paper illustrates the various ways in which these forces have united to frame an alternative vision of women’s ‘rights’ to that proposed by feminists. The paper argues that the Vatican and a number of Islamic governments have used their religious standing to advance arguments that sit in direct contrast the rights agenda proposed by the transnational feminist movement. They have framed their discussion about gender and equality, sexuality and reproduction and women’s place in the family in ways which commonly appropriate human rights discourse but for conservative, patriarchal ends. While not always capable of influencing the official outcomes of these conferences as it would wish, the coalition has nevertheless been able to stymie developments and keep feminists in a defensive rather than an expansive position in the relation to international women’s rights.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: No abstract available at this time.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper analyzes the anti-dam movement in Brazil, including its initiation, growth and current form. It argues that the anti-dam movement has constructed a new arena of communicative action to contest the construction of hydroelectric dams. The local meetings and organizing conducted by the anti-dam movement build this arena of communicative action to directly oppose governmental and corporate interests. As a result the anti-dam movement in Brazil has successfully halted the construction of many dams, including what would have been the largest dam in Latin America. It has garnered resettlement packages for previously ignored communities, and has altered discourse around dam-planning. Its instigation and success has been strongly shaped by governmental policy, institutions and connections. It has also relied heavily on an organizational form of internal cross-class alliances in the form of professionalized non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups.
This paper argues that the scientization of governmental decision-making has been used to rationalize dam-building and has hence stimulated the movement’s attempt to create new forms of communicative action. It additionally argues that these norms and their supporting governmental structures shape activism. This paper is the first assessment of one of the most important transnational social movements in the world; one that played a critical role in initiating the global anti-dam movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The international monetary power of leading states may be limited by the countervailing strategies of follower states. At least at the core of the contemporary system, follower states appear able to construct and maintain effective political buffers. It is likely that their principal objective is maximize their policy autonomy, their room for maneuver, with regard to external markets from which they seek to benefit but which they cannot control. To illustrate how leader-follower dynamics make such buffers necessary, and to uncover reasons for apparent diversity in the nature of particular buffering mechanisms, brief case histories of post-1945 exchange-rate policymaking in Canada and Austria are presented and compared. The empirical puzzle of why two similarly situated states typically favored very different kinds of exchange rate regimes is addressed.