Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In spite of widespread agreement among observers both inside and outside of government circles that information sharing is critical to homeland security, U.S. counter-terrorism agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, and the newly created Terrorist Threat Integration Center, continue to experience considerable difficulty sharing tactical and operational intelligence among relevant stakeholders. Drawing on theories of organizational behavior and the author?s interviews with counter-terrorism officials, this paper examines the institutional and individual constraints that continue to hamper information sharing across federal agencies. These limitations include knowledge-based routines that agencies use to control (and hoard) intelligence, such as ?originator control? (or ORCON, as it is widely known in the intelligence community), inter-agency turf battles that remain alive and well since 9/11, and impact of bounded rationality on government officials working in this dynamic, stressful environment. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of research for homeland security, suggesting that efforts at reforming intelligence agencies should focus less on reorganizing and centralizing existing bureaucracies and more on redesigning incentive structures and knowledge-based routines created during the Cold War.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Invasive species are becoming a pervasive threat to world’s biodiversity. In recent years, several attempts have been made to characterize the underlying factor responsible for invasiveness of a species. Among the various qualities, genetic make-up appears to be an important factor responsible for invasiveness of a species. However, there are very few studies that have validated this. In this study an attempt was made to assess the population genetic diversity of an invasive species, Lantana camara Linn. (native to Jamaica) and compared with its co-occurring, non-invasive Lantana indica Roxb. (Verbinaceae). The study was carried out in Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (B.R.T) Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Ghats, India. The random quadrat data suggested that invasive L. camara (24.6±10.73) possess significantly higher densities than non-invasive L. indica (10.3±5.77). However, the population genetic data obtained from ten RAPD primers indicated that both invasive and non-invasive species did not differ significantly, though there was variation. Further, the results were confirmed by repeating the experiment in another locality within the BRT sanctuary. Our results leads a conclusion that invasiveness of a species is independent of its genetic diversity, perhaps the life-history traits may be more important than merely the genetic composition.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: This paper is intended as an aggressive critique of neoconservative ideology, specifically as it relates to the “war on terror” and its portrayal in the media. Primarily an examination of the relationship South Park has with post 9/11 politics (i.e. “Ladder to Heaven,” “Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants”), the main focus of the paper will be to demonstrate how political discourse as constructed by the Bush administration, as well as its mobilization in the media, can be decentered and denormalized through a humorous, disruptive approach to narrative. A partial rebuttal to Brian Anderson’s South Park Conservatives, it is also meant to demonstrate how dissonant popular culture can be aggressively conceived to operate in what are often considered to be conservative domains. It will also briefly discuss the movie Team America: World Police, one of the examples of “conservative” ideology Anderson celebrates in Parker and Stone’s work as an example of how a disruptive strategy can result in a text that is at once reactionary and progressive. Through a discussion of neoconservative and neoliberal rhetoric surrounding 9/11, drawing primarily on Judith Butler, Susan Willis, and Wendy Brown as well as Slajov Zizek and Stuart Hall, the paper concludes that dissonant visual culture assimilates both types of discourse in order to produce a critical, and perhaps anarchic, sensibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The American contribution to the international War on Terror has yielded mixed results in terms of successes and failures. In large part this is due to the deficiencies of the US intelligence community that have become increasingly apparent as this war continues. The American over reliance on high technology, antiquated methods of domestic and international intelligence gathering and the limitations of Congressional oversight have all contributed significantly to the inability of the United States to achieve key objectives, including the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Recently, anonymous high-level American government officials have either discussed or advocated the construction of a British modeled MI-5 type security apparatus for US domestic use. Although the benefits of such an institution are in dispute there is little doubt that the British intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, have been considerably more successful than their American counterparts since the War on Terror began. Why? Should the United States undergo an intelligence restructuring that is based on the British model? What are the pros and cons of such a restructuring? This paper will examine the similarities and differences between British and American intelligence gathering/operations, the successes and failures of both intelligence communities, an examination of areas that need improvement and conclude with a policy prescription for bridging the two schools of thought to grant greater intelligence independence for the United States while simultaneously increasing the level of interoperability between American intelligence services.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Mexico’s 1886 Law of Foreignness and Nationality explicitly legislated married women’s dependent citizenship: a Mexican woman who married a foreign man became a foreigner herself. Despite this significant legal disincentive, various Mexican women married or formed free unions with Chinese men in the early 1900s, particularly in the northern state of Sonora where the largest group of Chinese immigrants resided. For elite women, class and status often mitigated the potentially negative effects of dependent citizenship rules that would otherwise exclude them from exercising rights afforded only to Mexican nationals. In contrast, Mexican women who married Chinese immigrants for the most part lacked the social status and financial means to counteract their loss of Mexican nationality. The women’s difficult situation as legal foreigners was complicated by Sonora’s out right prohibition against marriages between Mexican women and Chinese men in 1923 and the expulsion of Chinese from the state in 1931.
Exploring women’s dependent citizenship in the context of Mexican-Chinese unions in Sonora underscores the contested and interconnected nature of citizenship, race, and gender. Naturalization as a Mexican citizen did little to ease the racial discrimination Chinese men faced while a Mexican woman’s marriage to a Chinese man both changed her citizenship and made her racial identity suspect, subjecting her to similar discrimination. Marriage was a primary locus for contesting citizenship, race and gender in early 20th century Mexico, both for the government that tried to regulate marriage and free unions between Mexican women and Chinese men and for the individuals who resisted.