Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the public opinion on security policy issues in three post-neutral EU member states after the end of the Cold War. In spite of the changed security policy circumstances for Swedish foreign policy after the end of the Cold War, in spite of the EU membership and although that Swedish foreign policy decision makers no more use the term ?neutrality policy? as a label for Swedish foreign policy, neutrality and non-alignment still have a strong support in Swedish public opinion. The same pattern seems to exist among other EU military nonaligned member states, as Austria and Finland. How shall we understand and explain the strong public opinion support for neutrality and non-alignment among EU military nonaligned member states? By the use of historical institutionalism the following hypotheses are formulated and tested: a) there is a connection between whether a state?s neutrality after the World War II was enforced or voluntary, and public opinion on security policy issues after the end of the Cold War; b) there is a connection between whether a state?s neutrality after the World War II was formalized or not, and public opinion on security policy issues after the end of the Cold War. c) there is a connection between to which degree a state continue its policy of military non-alignment and the public opinion on security policy issues after the end of the Cold War; d) there is a connection between a state?s entrance to the EU and the public opinion on security policy issues.The material used in the study is opinion polls and policy documents concerning the states? official position on the issue of neutrality, relations with the Nato and a common European defense.Altogether, the answers on these questions will contribute to a better knowledge of the significance of EU membership on security policy choices and to the development of public opinion on security policy issues. The results will also indicate the usefulness of historical institutionalism as an explaining theory in international politics, and the conditions for building a common foreign- and security policy inside the European Union.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Japan's myth of homogeneous nation is under the threat of cosmopolitan ideas projected by the process of globalization. Koreans who immigrated to Japan before the World War II, those who were bought in during the colonial era and their descendents have formed an ethnic minority in Japan. Koreans constitute the greatest ethnic minority group in Japan and represent a great work force in especially unwanted sectors, however their social, economic and political rights remain limited to the extend that they hold on to their Korean identities. Even Koreans born and raised in Japan are not entitled to Japanese citizenship without neutralization, this is Japan's official stand on the issue of granting citizenship and it is not particular to the Korean community. This article aims to outline the stand of Korean immigrants and the Japanese state, to evaluate their points of view. On the one hand Japan has the legal right to determine to whom to grant citizenship as a sovereign state but on the other hand Koreans who have been living in Japan for generations are not willing to sacrifice their identity, ethnic origin for Japanese citizenship.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Can whites be encouraged to ease their hostility toward black political interests? Here, I present two studies of the impact of race neutrality on white racial-political attitudes. In the first study, based on some question wording experiments conducted in California, I look at white attitudes toward race neutral approaches to affirmative action. I find that race neutrality can be used to diminish white hostility toward black interests. I also find that the attachment to race neutrality is actually genuine, and not just the result of whites seeing race neutral "solutions" as setting up a context that whites will benefit from. In the second study, I look at attitudes toward affirmative action and racial profiling in New Jersey, again with question wording experiments. On affirmative action, a race neutral logic may damage minority interests; on racial profiling, a race neutral logic benefits minorities. I find that group competition considerations are harder to evoke on the latter issue than on the former issue.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper considers the controversy regarding same-sex marriage in the light of religious establishment. I suggest that any political entity establishes some conception of the good. Because many support the institution of marriage even when they disagree about who should be included, the solution is not to disestablish marriage but to make it more inclusive.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Gender plays a significant role in structuring the criminal experience for men and women in streetlife contexts which are shaped by both criminal and non-criminal social networks. Criminal networks are heavily influenced and governed by masculinized social dynamics that preclude or limit participation by women in certain types of crime. Certain types of crime and crime-related activities are strongly gender-stratified not only in terms of the opportunity for women to participate in offenses but also in the perceived appropriateness of their engaging in an offense. Given these limitations, how do these women manage to cross the gender gap in violent offending and go toe-to-toe with other hardcore male offenders? One possibility is that some women are capable of shifting their gender identity on a situational basis. For this to occur, women would have to understand that their behavior was inappropriate or inconsistent and then consciously counteract any psychological conflict produced by their anticipated involvement in the gender-inappropriate transgression. A likely mechanism for such conscious shifts would be the implementation of neutralizations (Sykes and Matza, 1957) to allow female offenders to temporarily abandon cultural proscriptions against involvement in “male” crimes. We gathered data from 24 semi-structured interviews with female street offenders, who engaged in street offenses typically associated with men (e.g., carjacking, strong-arm robbery, drug robbery, retaliatory assault, and burglary). Findings indicate that a key mechanism allowing them to break out of static gender identities is their ability to engage in neutralizations to deal with both gender transgression as well as societal norm transgression.