Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This article analyses the growing importance transnational non-statal actors, specifically, tries to clarify the modus operandi of their activities, identifying their potentialities and limitations concerning their ability of establishing a new perception for the environmental cause.

The emergence of non-statal actors responds to a new reconfiguration of the occidental societies, which was caused among other factors by technological development that transformed the political, economical and social spheres. these transformations, still in action, strengthened, in this case, the environmental non-governamental organiztions (NGO), making them relevant characters in the environmental cause. these organizations develop the function of mobilizing, organizing and including the other social actors, generating a new dynamic in the internacional system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the responses of the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) to Iran’s violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), focusing on the stance adopted by members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In February 2006, key NAM members voted to refer Iran to the UN Security Council in a move that stunned Iranian diplomats, and seemed to signal a collapse in NAM solidarity on fundamental non-proliferation issues. This paper assesses the significance of this event, analyzing the extent to which it represents a softening in the ideological divide between NAM and Western approaches to third-party non-compliance, and a convergence in attitudes towards the nuclear non-proliferation regime more generally. It draws on the interlinking concepts of international system, international society and global society to help explain these developments, exploring the hurdles and opportunities associated with any attempt to build on the fragile consensus emerging among the NNWS over the need to respond more decisively to NPT violations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the perspective from which we should select moral principles to guide states as they decide whether or not to engage in humanitarian intervention. I distinguish between first person and legislative perspectives. In the former, agents select principles as the best for them to interpret and apply; in the latter, they select principle for themselves as well as others. I argue that, given the non-ideal world in which we live, a legislative perspective is superior. I suggest how the legislative point of view sheds light on three different "non-ideal facts" about the world (the bias and fallibility of human agents, the lack of correlation between justice and power, and the unpredictable contingency of political outcomes) as they relate to the problem of humanitarian intervention. The legislative point of view can account for the main arguments about how a principle of humanitarian intervention should be articulated. The legislative point of view will generally direct us toward a more cautious principle of intervention.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Asian Americans and Latinos are currently the fastest growing racial minority groups in the United States. Much of their population growth results from immigration. Thus, Asian American and Latino political incorporation faces additional challenges to White or African American political incorporation and involves, for many, ensuring the transition from non-U.S. citizen to U.S. citizen and, then, to voter. This paper explores the effect of immigration on the Asian American and Latino political behavior. Applying DeSipio’s (1996) model of new electorates, we disaggregate each population into four categories: non-naturalized immigrant adults, citizen adults not registered to vote, registered voter adults who did not vote, and voters. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 2000 and 2004, we identify and compare the factors that differentiate the three non-voting categories from those who voted in each community. We find that Asian American and Latino political incorporation cannot be predicted solely on the basis of individual socioeconomic factors and that the factors that predict naturalization are, in some ways, distinct from those that predict voting. A more rigorous model of Asian American and Latino political incorporation must also account for influences related to immigration, state-level social context, and political institutions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper utilizes NCES’s Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:96/01) to examine the factors that contribute to dropout by testing the applicability of existing models of college dropout on separate samples of two-year and four-year college students. The BPS data set is more representative of the heterogeneity of post-secondary students than high school cohort data sets. Findings reveal that traditional mechanisms of social integration may be less salient at community colleges, while students who are enrolled full-time, participate in study groups, and have more frequent interaction with faculty and advisors are much less likely to dropout. These factors help explain why students who attend private two-year colleges are less likely to dropout. While traditional models are useful for explaining why older, non-traditional age students are at-risk of dropping out when they begin at two-year colleges, the models do not explain why older students are more likely to drop out at four-year colleges, even when students’ initial goals, aspirations, and external work and family obligations are taken into account. Furthermore, taking remedial courses has one of the largest influences on the likelihood that students will drop out at two-year but not four-year colleges.