Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Regions compete to attract resources, including human energy and capital, a competition widely understood to be increasingly global. Decisions regarding strategy choice and resource mobilization are the key elements of regional governance. This paper analyzes how nine mid-sized regions, of 1-3 million populations, organize across governmental boundaries and sectors with an early assessment of their success. The regions compared are Austin, Texas; Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana,; Kansas City, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and Sacramento, California. There are important differences in structures, resources and apparent results among the regions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The environmental justice movement, as it has emerged out of the United States, has forged a synthesis of research in the academy and activism in communities directed toward the goal of environmental and social change. However, researchers’ and activists’ desire for top-down government implemented policy reforms has led to the privileging of techno-scientific forms of environmental knowledge. Now that the American environmental justice movement is beginning to see results in terms of governmental and mainstream environmental movement recognition of the problems associated with environmental injustices, it is necessary for researchers and activists to critically consider the partiality of techno-scientific forms of environmental knowledge. In this paper, I argue that in order to concurrently strengthen the existing bridge between activism and research and to be open to a broader range of environmental justice objectives, environmental justice researchers need to consider other forms of environmental knowledge, as complements or alternatives to techno-scientific knowledge.
Based on my research in the Toronto community of Mid-Scarborough, I use findings of both quantitative geographical information systems (GIS) analysis and qualitative in-depth face-to-face interviews to explore the potential for environmental justice research, activism, and policy in a newly emerging context. Based on the results of the study, I argue that different forms of environmental knowledge are necessary to serve a range of environmental justice objectives. However, a critical view of dominant forms of knowing, in particular, techno-scientific forms of knowledge, is an important component of the politics and grassroots orientation of the environmental justice movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: No abstract available at this time.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Based on the complementarities of role theory and risk choice theory, a combined theoretical framework is generated by hypothesizing mutually causal relationships among roles, risk choices and foreign policy behavior. Through the lens of systemism, this article argues that roles and risk choices are two key determinants of European foreign policy and their maximum explanatory power occurs in combination. EU trade policy toward China since the mid-1990s illustrates that the role conceptions and prescriptions of the EU primarily explain the choice of its cooperative diplomatic rhetoric. Simultaneously, the risk-taking preferences within the EU account for its inconsistent and less constructive behavior.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the spring of 1965, amid the fallout of the Goldwater defeat, Ray Bliss assumed the chair of the Republican Party. His leadership represented a turning point in the development of the modern Republican Party. At the time of his appointment, Bliss inherited a defeated, demoralized and bitterly divided party. Despite this, Bliss was able to swiftly reorganize the party during his first year in office, concluding with a surprise Republican revival in the 1966 mid-term elections. Bliss’ success, I argue, corresponded to his support for the development of a more centralized and professionally managed national Republican Party structure. Party centralization, coupled with an emphasis on the recruitment and training of professional party staff and candidates, provided the GOP with the institutional means to reduce internal party disputes, rationalize party fundraising and develop new electoral strategies. Taken together, Bliss’ reforms signaled the return, as he had hoped of two-party competition in 1966.