Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Recent research shows that in the United States many arrivals to “new” immigrant destinations are actually “secondary” internal migrants, coming from major gateway regions, such as Los Angeles and New York. This pattern means that to understand immigrant settlement in emerging and traditional gateway regions, we must pay more attention to the links that connect these two types of locales, instead of treating each in isolation. This analytical approach would move us away from viewing urban centers as simply spatial containers for immigrant adaptation and, instead, focus attention on the geographic embeddedness of migratory flows, networks, and social capital that link gateway regions with alternative destinations throughout the United States. Such an approach is critical to understanding the dispersion of U.S. immigrant populations now, not only because of the sheer number of immigrants now residing in gateway regions but also because new federal legislation will likely increase the geographic mobility of many immigrants in coming years, as the legal risk of pursuing new opportunities in new places declines.
To investigate these issues, this paper will engage four basic questions. First, how many immigrants are leaving top gateway regions for alternative U.S. destinations? Second, what types of jobs do outmigrants tend to take when they leave these gateway centers: are the jobs similar to those that comprised the ethnic niches they left behind, or are the jobs located in different industrial sectors? Third, why would immigrants move elsewhere to take jobs similar to ones in which they already concentrated in the gateway center: do the jobs pay better, and/or is there evidence of “niche saturation” in the gateway center? Fourth and finally, what are the consequences of these types of outflows for top destinations: are outmigrants from gateway centers contributing to the expansion of existing ethnic niches, the establishment of new ethnic niches, or neither?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Political Science and Mass Communication scholars continue to investigate the positive relationship between exposure and attention to political comedy programs like The Daily Show and political knowledge. One dominant explanation for this relationship suggests that exposure to such programs facilitates the acquisition of political information from hard news sources, particularly among less politically sophisticated comedy viewers, thus serving as a gateway to political attention and knowledge. Previous studies have provided support for this explanation largely through cross-sectional survey data focused on learning from traditional hard news outlets such as television news. This research draws on data from two experimental studies conducted with undergraduates at a major Midwestern university to provide a more direct causal investigation of these processes and also expands the scope of hard news outlets considered to include online sources. Specifically, we test the effects of exposure to political comedy on subsequent attentiveness to particular stories in traditional news content, as well as on the acquisition of recallable knowledge. Our findings provide important support for the general causal claims within the gateway hypothesis, and also suggest that the increasing prevalence of online news consumption may serve to enhance its effects.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Mainstream treatments of the concept of"border town" reflect a narrowly top-down, militaristic understanding of border security. This paper presents an alternative perspective on urban nodes near disputed borders. Historical analysis of urban networks in the border between northeast India and southeast China, complemented by mapping of regional networks, highlights the past and potential gateway functions of these cities. The paper offers an alternative perspective on border dynamics, proposing a shift from the "radial" power structure governing urban function in border regions to a "capillary" structure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The gateway hypothesis posits that the typical sequence of drug use begins with alcohol or cigarettes, followed by the use of marijuana, and finally the use of harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin (Kandel, 2002). Early research focused on prevalence and drug sequencing, omitting important trajectory concepts. More recent research has employing semi-parametric group based modeling procedures permitting the examination of not only prevalence, but also frequency and rates of change in use. This study seeks to build on the more recent literature by employing dual trajectory analysis (see Nagin, 2005). Data for the study come from the largely unexplored retrospective portion of the Boystown Study (see Akers, et al., 1979). Results reveal the probability of marijuana group membership conditional on membership in a given alcohol use trajectory group. The utility of dual-trajectory analysis for the gateway hypothesis is discussed. Limitations and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the “Law and Society in the 21st Century; Berlin,” I wish to present, a specific aspect of my dissertation topic that connects minority identity studies to the disciplines of international law and international relations. In a nutshell, my research looks back into history, at the formative stage of the international legal discipline (time of the Weimar Republic), and asks to what extent and how the identity and cultural (civilizational) affiliation of distinguished scholars affected their careers, work, achievement – and potentially also the intellectual fabric of the field. In more specific terms: through a case study comprising Hans Kelsen, Hans J. Morgenthau; Hersch (Zvi) Lauterpacht and Erich Kaufmann, I investigate how Jewish identity and intellectual ties to Judaic civilisation may – or may not – have influenced the contributions to the study, theory, definitions of issues in international law and the definition of the international legal profession.

In the forthcoming conference, I will focus on how intellectuals, of a Jewish German historical minority group – without a territory of their own – managed to construct and promote their own solution to the issues of international law and international relations. German history in general, and Jewish German history in particular, offers different helpful perspectives to issues of modern international law. My suggested approach shows how groups of intellectuals – especially ones that represent and voice minority group experience – can find innovative solutions to the universality Problematique of the ‘minority’.

To conclude then, in my presentation I would like to show how subjective experiences can be – when conceptualised through the “objective,” or at least, shared disciplinary language of international law and international relations – helpful in finding original solutions to minority issues.