Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: To what extent to international factors affect domestic conflict processes? How do external conditions affect the state’s repressive capabilities and the opportunities for opposition groups to mobilize, launch, and sustain an insurgency? This paper argues that state strength is limited by international boundaries and that transnationally organized rebel groups can evade repression costs. External bases, refugee communities, and characteristics of neighboring states are expected to increase the likelihood of civil war onset and continuation. These claims are tested through a quantitative analysis of civil conflicts during the 1951-2000 period.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines which factors make states most likely to pass legislation or begin litigation opposing NCLB. It finds that states with larger Hispanic populations, less developped standardized testing systems prior to NCLB's enactment, and fewer residents living in poverty are more likely to resist NCLB

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: To suppress political challengers is to counter-mobilize, primarily an organizational phenomenon that behooves state agents who have some interest in the status quo to give collective answers to a dual problems: to repress the unruly and to simultaneously maintain the state organization. This paper highlights the necessary organizational work that may resolve these dual problems at once. Using the configuration of the state bureaucracy as a proxy to the structure of organizational work that goes into a state’s counter-mobilization effort, I will examine how the Qing bureaucratic structure responded to one of the most powerful social rebellions in the history of the Manchu regime, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64). The state’s initial response to the formidable Taiping force depended generally on a direct-control policy, realized by sending centrally-linked officials and military officers to the provinces. This strategy soon became inefficient because it had, among other reasons, prevented locally rooted officials from upward mobility in provincial administration. A new “local strategy” was developed with an emphasis on positive reward and less direct means of control. Dramatic change in the bureaucratic structure is evidenced, and potential implication of these changes will be discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The concept of framing has been extensively used in the social movements literature. Nevertheless, most framing analysis focuses on social movement actors rather than on the media. In this study, we focus on media framing of forty-three instances of protest by Canadian Aboriginal Peoples. We analyze multiple years of data obtained from seven Canadian newspapers. We find four main framings, each with several themes: 1) political (political unrest and/or political struggle; factionalism; militancy; rebellion; colonial insurgency; warfare; and terrorism; 2) social justice (civil disobedience and defence of rights); 3) racial/psychological (racial tension/backlash; racial stereotyping/bias; and fanaticism); 4) legal (criminalism/deviance; self-defence; and legal) and 5) economic (financial gain; economic cost of protest). We also find considerable variation in the use of these frames across papers and across time- providing a concrete example of the dynamic nature of media framing. We argue that the variation in frames reflects, first, the fact that a large-scale a social movement has yet emerge, and second, the varied nature of the events themselves.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Why is it that some rebel groups in civil wars successfully emerge as political parties in the post-settlement period while others do not? A growing literature on conflict resolution processes in intrastate wars has attempted to identify the dynamics of these processes and under what conditions they are more or less likely to succeed. One such factor that has been argued essential in regards to the successful implementation of peace agreements is the transformation of former warring armies to peaceful political actors. However, no study has examined under what conditions such a transformation is likely to occur and why it is more likely to occur in some cases but not in others. This puzzle is of great relevance to both researchers and policy makers concerned with understanding the factors that facilitate or obstruct a transition to peaceful politics in the aftermath of a protracted armed conflict in a weak state. In this paper, it is suggested that the explanation is to be found in the degree of domestic and international legitimacy that the rebel group is able to acquire and sustain in the transition period. This paper also takes a first empirical look at the case of Renamo in Mozambique and the RUF in Sierra Leone and discusses the preliminary findings from these cases.