Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper addresses the relationship between combat and war. Whereas combat is frequently experienced as a sublime and existential experience by soldiers, warfare is increasingly instrumentalised by technology and bureaucracy. The sublime and existential dimension of combat follows from the life and death stakes, the hard work and suffering involved, and the climactic separation between those who can handle the experience and thus repeat it, and those who can not. The instrumentalization of warfare, on the other hand is a product of social and economic developments which put a premium on instrumental rationality and an increasing respect for individual lives. We pursue strategy and try to reduce casualties through using technology. We are also less ruthlessness in pursuing political objectives, both in terms of the destruction wrought on the enemy, and in terms of the willingness to sacrifice Western lives, than was the case a few decades ago. Frontline soldiers experience tension between the experience of combat versus the relatively businesslike manner in which war is perceived by the general public. Since war is now perceived to be almost safe, soldiers do not receive the recognition and moral support they have in previous times, despite still experiencing existential hardship. This is ironic because at the same time casualty aversion and technology offers better physical protection to the soldiers, suggesting to society that war is now almost safe. The problem is that recognition and social support are much more critical to sustain combat motivation and assuage sacrifices than the benefits technology can bring.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: One of the primary justifications for collecting racial statistics is the need to monitor racial inequalities and discrimination. However, research increasingly shows a divergence between the internal and observed components of race for many of the groups that are most likely to experience discrimination. The shift of the U.S. Census from interviewer-enumeration to self-completion in the last few decades has therefore moved race data away from this primary monitoring function. This paper uses qualitative interviews with Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants in New York to illustrate discrepancies between the distinct components of race and how Census statistics fail to measure the social mechanisms associated with discrimination. Several recommendations are made for ways to improve the measurement of race to better fulfill its purpose of monitoring racial inequalities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since the publication of Richard Sander's 2005 article on law school affirmative action, a series of prominent economists -- including Princeton's Jesse Rothstein and Yale's Ian Ayres -- have written econometric responses that find the effects of law school policies to be relatively benign. It is difficult for the average reader to assess this literature, partly because the pieces are highly technical but also because each of these economists has used different techniques to test sometimes very different theories, and the authors generally do not vary their models enough to test the robustness of their findings. In this paper, I explain the techniques of each of these earlier papers and synthesize them into a common theoretical framework. I then subject each theory to a series of tests, varying a number of assumptions and comparison groups to assess the strength of each set of findings. The results are surprisingly consistent and provide a coherent assessment of what we currently know, and don't know, about law school mismatch effects.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A legislative chamber may make changes in the rules of operation for several different reasons, such as an increase in its workload, a change in the electoral environment, or a change in the relations between the executive and legislative branches. In this paper, I focus on how electoral rules (specifically a change in size and shape of constituency or chamber size) affect the organization of the legislature. Research on electoral rules in democratizing Latin American nations suggests that electoral design contributes to whom can win elections and the form of political ambition members of a legislature will exhibit. Assuming legislators want a political career, they have an incentive to change the organizational rules and procedures of their chamber if the existing rules make it harder to have a career. Additionally, parties may have the ability to control electoral futures of backbenchers; therefore, the question that arises is whether the existing organizational rules make it difficult for parties to achieve their election goals (or for backbenchers to do their parts to help their party to achieve electoral goals). If yes, leaders of affected parties will want to change rules. If no, parties will not want to change rules, even if some of the backbenchers want to change the rules. Using the cases of Colombia and Peru, where electoral laws were modified resulting in a change in the size and the shape of constituency and a size in the assembly, I consider how the effective number of political parties, level of party discipline, level of party system institutionalization, the nature of legislator ambition, and turnover in the assembly affect the likelihood that congressional organizational reform resulted following the modification of the electoral law. I also examine whether party leadership and/ or individual backbenchers supported reform to the congressional organization following the change in the electoral law.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper I look at the upcoming accession of east European new EU members to the Schengen Convention with particular attention to the Hungarian context. The privilege of being part of the ?border-free? area of the EU is reserved for old members only until 2007. In 2007 new members will have their first chance of becoming part of the Schengenland if they are able to meet all criteria on enforcing the new eastern external borders of the enlarged EU. My paper looks at what new EU members has already done and what is left to do until they can join the border-free land in 2007. I identify three areas that make this issue particularly sensitive to both new and old EU members. The first includes a discussion on the actual costs connected to the technicalities of lifting border checks on the new internal and reinforcing control on the new external borders of the enlarged EU. The second area concerns the conceptual mismatches that unintentionally emerge when a set of regulations originally designed for west European states is applied in a different context, in eastern Europe. The third area entails the quiet, yet visible, political tensions among old EU members, new EU members and the eastern neighbors of the enlarging EU with regard to ?the price? they are paying for letting the Schengenland expand. The aim of the paper is to shed some lights on the shortcomings of current EU border control policy extension practices and also to come up with some practical policy suggestions, which may be usefully considered in subsequent waves of EU eastward expansions.