Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper address the issue of context in the research agenda of state building. In so doing, this paper argues for relating state building to dynamics that are specific to post Cold War international relations. I contend that contemporary discussion of state building is limited by its attempt to isolate the correct historical lessons from historical or on-going examples of contemporary state building. The problem with this policy-oriented, historical approach, I argue, is that it fails to relate contemporary state building to its proximate cause – namely, the suppression of sovereign state autonomy during the ‘new interventionism’ of the 1990s. I advance the argument that state building needs to be understood not as a reaction to conflict in ‘failed states’, but as flowing from the need to ameliorate the destructive consequences of humanitarian intervention. Rather than merely reviving the shattered institutions of particular states, I argue that state building is an attempt to revivify international relations itself, through re-constructing autonomous sovereign states as the constituent units of world politics. I conclude by suggesting that the category of state building should be understood not merely in terms of post-conflict reconstruction policy, but rather as a paradigm for the operation of North—South relations in the early twenty first century.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic and interview data, this paper examines the work experiences of personal trainers. As an occupation that transcends the traditional categories typically used by sociologists to distinguish between service work and a profession, personal training offers a unique opportunity to explore how individuals in a burgeoning profession negotiate respect on the micro level. I describe how personal trainers, who lack standardization and institutional support in their work, must employ specific interactional strategies with their clients in order to cultivate occupational legitimacy as well as forge both personal and cultural authority. In this paper, I focus on the importance of personal trainers’ presentation of selves, technical knowledge, and credentials. I also explore how trainers negotiated boundaries in their relationships with clients to both foster interpersonal commitment or maintain an authoritative distance. This paper represents a portion of an ongoing project and the preliminary findings are offered in the aim of contributing the existing literature in the sociology of work and professionalization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study explored the dialogic features of corporate Web sites in order to determine the Web site practices of the corporations for building relationships with their publics. Content analysis of 100 Fortune 500 companies’ Web sites revealed that the corporations designed their Web sites to serve important publics (media, customers, investors, and employees) as well as to foster dialogic communication. Still, the corporations could take more advantage of dialogic features of the Web by implementing more interactive strategies (e.g., holding more news forums and discussions, providing explicit statement inviting users to return, and offering a site map). In terms of relationship management, the results suggest that the corporate Web sites attempted to promote control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, openness, and intimacy. However, with respect to conservation of visitors and generation of return visits, the corporations need to maintain repetitive interactions with their publics to enhance trust, commitment, and exchange relationship.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Peace building is but one of many approaches to security issues promoted by a wide range of role players such as donors, policymakers and academics. The international vocabulary is replete with other such developmental neologisms as hunman security and post-conflict, which seek to conceptualise security in a context broader than the military-oriented and realist-based approaches belonging to the Cold War era. Definitions of peace building vary, depending on who is doing the articulating and what their particular motivations may be. In the case of donors, they have become some of the most vocal promoters of the concept, which raises the politically pertinent issues of donor interest and motivatoins in peace building. This paper seeks to theoretically unpack and empirically deconstruct the peace building activities in the Southern African region. The paper proceeds in the following way: first, the origin and development of the peace building approach in the nacro-level context of global politics is considered. Second, the paper explores definitions of peace building by various practitioners and theorists. Third, donors' involvement in peace building at a level of policy and rhetoric is examined. Following this, the paper attempts to analyse the imperatives of donors in adopting a particular form of developmental discourse in order to advance their own interests, such as in this case, the peace building approach

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) have been introduced as a major conflict resolution and peace building strategy in virtually all regions. This was based on the positive record of CBMs in securing peace in East-West relations during the Cold War. In this paper, it is argued that CBMs ahve succeeded in the East-West context under certain conditions. There are the stablization and resoltuion of territorial issues, the establishment of arms control regimes, and the introduction of a package of cooepration baskets.In order for CBMs to be effective, they have to be introduced in contexts more or less similar to those that were present when the Helsinki Accords were reached. It is also argued that CBMs can helf in crisis avoidance, but not in conflict resoltuion, unless certain conditions were present. Further, the debate on CBMs has been limited to the models developed in the East-West context during the Cold War. Different regions may nned different types of CBMs which fit the regional agenda. This paper reviews the origins and context in which CBMs were introduced and the focuses on the Middle Eastern, South Asian regions in order to learn the factors that led to their failure in thse regions comapred with their success in the European theatre.