Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The paper argues NATO's eastern enlargement can be explained by the interaction of realist and liberal variables. First of all, there is a necessity for democratic governance, which includes political freedom, as well as overall political criteria for membership. Once the countries are able to successfully pass this test, there should be complementarities between their attractiveness and their contributions to the overall power aggregation, specifically geographic location and capacity to project hegemon’s power. Ultimately, the logic of the enlargement expects that these members will form a community where conflict is no longer an issue.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the question of whether blogs are an "echo chamber" (meaning they merely repeat media messages) or a "fifth estate" (meaning they criticize and fact-check media sources) in the context of an analysis of blogging on the war in Iraq.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I examine financial reports and vote returns from multiple elections in four states, and engage the question of whether partial funding, full funding, or both are sufficiently powerful to overcome business, labor, and issue advocacy group influence in state legislative elections. I find strong evidence that while PACs remain key players in partially-funded states, full funding such as that in the so-called Clean Elections programs of Arizona and Maine attenuates the effect of PAC money on candidates’ general election vote share.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: One of the under-studied effects of global migration has been an increase in transnational marriages. This phenomenon has greatly impacted Taiwan as women from Southeast Asian nations and mainland China, through professional marriage brokers or personal contacts, enter into marriages with Taiwanese men. How well these women adapt to Taiwan’s culture and learn its local languages is studied through the lens of two theories of intercultural communication, Kim’s theory of cross-cultural adaptation and Kramer’s theory of cultural fusion. Based upon in-depth interviews with twenty-seven women, results show greater support for Kramer’s theory. Learning is an additive process, long-term association with co-ethnics appears to correlate with greater satisfaction and adaptation, and women’s negotiated identities follow a range of outcomes. These demonstrate the explanatory power of cultural fusion in this context of intercultural communication.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper examines the framing of the Russian minorities issue by the Estonian and Latvian officials during the European Union 2004 enlargement process. It looks at the impacts the framing had on the negotiations regarding the Copenhagen criteria, more particularly in regard to the protection of minorities, during that period as well as the unintended constraining effects it created for the European Union (EU) to deal with the issue after accession. The paper argues that the ability of the two candidate countries to strategically frame the Russian issue as an immigration issue rather than an issue of protection of minorities during the negotiations gave them leverage in shaping EU conditionality to their interests. More precisely, this paper is looking at the influence candidate countries can have on the EU during the negotiations despite their weak position. The strategies employed by the two countries to achieve this will be reviewed in the paper through a process-tracing method. Furthermore, interviews have been conducted with public officials in EU institutions, in Estonia and in Latvia. The Annual Progress Reports made by the European Commission during the years prior to accession will be used to determine what the EU’s interests were in regard to the Russian population, as well as the policy outcomes taking place in both candidate countries.