Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study evaluates whether marriage creates interdependencies between spouses beyond those related to income and children and whether these interdependencies are related to marital stability. I use data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to test whether men and women report being dependent on their spouses (defined as whether their lives would change if the marriage were to end) in six different areas of their lives. I find that there is evidence that spouses rely on each other for their standard of living, sex life, overall happiness, and parenthood, but not for their social lives or career opportunities. There are few differences between husbands and wives in their reported levels of dependency. However women report higher levels of dependency on their husbands for maintaining their standard of living, while men report higher levels of dependency on their wives for their ability to parent. I then test whether these dependencies lead to greater marital stability. Consistent with previous literature, I find evidence that women’s evaluations are generally more important for predicting marital stability than men’s. Only men’s evaluation of their overall happiness and their ability to parent are related to marital stability. However, when men believe a separation will negatively affect their wives’ happiness or sex life the couple is less likely to separate between waves, while wives’ beliefs about how separation will affect their husbands is unrelated to marital stability. Explanations for these findings are explored.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: ABSTRACT: GREATER SERBIAN, GREATER ALBANIAN NATIONALISM AND KOSOVOSome of greater state nationalisms in the Balkans, as Greater Serbian and Greater Albanian nationalism, are still alive today. It is interesting that almost every Balkan state, or nation, used to have a dream and would like to be greater than it is. Some of them seemed to succeed during the Second World War (creating Greater Bulgaria, Greater Albania), although for very short time. Very often their demands for a greater states are connected with the same territories and therefore infeasible. In 1985, the Serbian Academy of Sciences published a memorandum, that strongly criticized Tito and the Communist state for anti Serb policies. It condemned "genocidal" anti Serb policies in Kosovo, where the Serb minority was said to be oppressed by the Albanian majority. The Academy promoted the idea, soon adopted by Slobodan Milosevic, of a Serbian state as a solution. The amendements to the Serbian Constitution in 1989 significantly limited and actually suspended Kosovo's legal, economic, and educational autonomy. Similar to this Memorandum, the Albanian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the "Platform for Solution of Albanian National Question" of December 1998 deals with the idea of a Greater Albania. Aiming for control of the territories of Kosovo and part of Montenegro (FR Yugoslavia), as well as parts of Macedonia and Greece, as a program for action, this Platform underlined the ultimate goal of "Albanian national movement" as unification of "ethnic territories" with Albania: "Wherever Albanians are, from this or that side of the border," they should finally be "in one country." In conclusion, there is an appeal for "just unification of Albanians in one state, through unification of all ethnics Albanian lands." In fact, a kind of victory for Greater Albanian nationalism in Kosovo appeared as a result of 1999 NATO bombing Yugoslavia. The first step in creating a ?Greater Albania? was reached by changing of legal and political status of Kosovo within Serbia, and the FR of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is counted by Albanian extremists to take upon itself a role of the 19th century Italian Piedmont in a 21st century all-Albanian unification, having in mind its natural, development and demografic resources, as well as its very favorable, epicentral, geostrategic position (?The Fortress of the Balkans?). Greater Serbian nationalism faced a series of defeats during dissolution of former Yugoslavia (in Croatia in 1991-1992 and 1995, in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995, in Kosovo in 1999, ending with Montenegro?s peaceful secession in May 2006). However, it seems that Albanian extremists did not learn the lesson that it is impossible to create ?greater? states in a space as small as the Balkans. However, the status quo in Kosovo can not continue for a long time. Major progress should be done on a future status of Kosovo, that consolidates peace and development, or there is the danger that Kosovo will return to conflict and generate regional instability. It is also important for the Kosovo status that neither Kosovo's return to Belgrade's rule, nor its partition, nor any possible unification of Kosovo with Albania or any neighbouring state or territory will be supported by international community.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will provide an analysis of the Greater Middle East Initiative that is being launched by President Goerge W. Bush. The paper will examine contemporary American foreign policy objectives in the Middle East and discuss the prospects for implementation such an agenda in the next decade.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the reactions of the Arab intelligentsia to the latest US proposals for promoting democracy in the Arab World, as embodied in the March 2004 ?Greater Middle East Initiative.? (Hereafter GMEI). To gauge the opinions of Arab intellectuals, the paper employs a simple and qualitative research method that involves a careful reading of all the editorials that have appeared in four Lebanese (al-Nahar, al-Safir, al-Anwar, al-Mustaqbal) and two London-based, Arabic-language (al-Hayat, al-Sharq al-Awsat) dailies, between mid-February and end of August 2004 (when regional interest in the GMEI dwindled). The publication by al-Hayat newspaper (13 Feb. 2004, p. 10) of the leaked text of the GMEI (in Arabic translation) triggered an avalanche of opinion pieces in the Arab Press that criticized the Initiative, casting doubts over the intensions of the George W. Bush Administration that sponsored it. The reactions of most Arab governments to the GMEI were no more favorable. It is this paper?s contention that Arab intellectuals? hostility towards the GMEI is, by and large, the product of a closed and negative image of the US that particularly affects perceptions of US Middle East policy. Through a qualitative analysis of the contents of hundreds of editorials and opinion pieces written by Arab opinion shapers (university professors, heads of research centers, renowned journalists and politicians) on the subject of the GMEI, this paper identifies three broad themes that dominate the negative image of the US: 1) US foreign policy is guided by interests (national security and access to oil) rather than principles or ideals (promotion of democracy and human rights); 2) US rhetoric about democracy is a mere smoke screen to conceal more sinister plans for exerting hegemony over the Arab and Islamic Worlds; and 3) the real interests of the US (as defined by Arab intellectuals) would not be served by a democratic Middle East. The paper is not interested in the accuracy of the image of the US (all images distort reality); but rather in its origins, resistance to change in the face of dissonant information, and implications for the prospects of democracy in the Middle East region and for US-Arab relations. As for the paper?s organization, part one outlines the background and basic elements of the GMEI, while part two summarizes the criticisms leveled against it by Arab intellectuals, highlighting the three aforementioned themes that characterize the negative image of the US. In order not to portray the Arab intelligentsia as a monolithic anti-American group, part three examines the views of the very few Arab intellectuals who wrote in defense of the GMEI. Painting with a broad brush, part four looks at the backgrounds and belief systems of Arab intellectuals, as well as at US policy towards the region since the twentieth century, in an attempt to understand the origins and persistence of this negative image of the US. The conclusion discusses briefly the prospects for democracy in the Arab World in light of such negative elite views about US global and regional intensions and speculates on what the US can do (if anything) to modify elite perceptions of its Middle East policy as a prelude to changing regional public opinion.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Paper Abstract: About 10 million Mexicans live and work in the United States. Mexicans abroad constitute one of Mexico's most important constituencies, and the Mexican government is trying hard to engage this sector as citizens through the law of dual nationality, proposals for absentee balloting in the US, and programming and services designed to facilitate governance of Mexicans abroad. This paper reviews federal and state government initiatives in Mexico regarding Mexican citizens abroad (mainly in the US). I examine how an entire tier of government has been established to govern over Mexican transnationals, and how transnational citizenship as practiced by this large number of Mexicans in the US is leading to a reformulation of the immigrant rights movement. Finally, I will examine how these changes are related to the complex relationship between newcomer and more established Latino communities in the US.