Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Focusing on both Romanian and Hungarian elections and electoral discourses, I will try to show how, as former communist countries get closer to the “gravitational attraction” of the European Union, and communist nomenklatura metamorphoses itself into an economical elite, ethnic and nationalistic discourses move rather rapidly out of fashion. From an instrumentalist perspective, there are three ‘layers’ of explanations to be taken into account - external, internal, and economical.
These results contradict several studies that suggest a direct linear relationship between democracy and political violence, while supporting the ones that report the relationship in an inverted U-shape form such as Ellingsen’s (2000) who also confirmed the inverted U-shape, finding that the highest frequency of conflicts occurs in ‘semi-democracies’. This paper will investigate the reasons for such a dramatic change in popular opinions and why the very political success of UDMR can become the cause for its future failure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper reports findings from a project that examines the extent to which different social groups find their policy preferences reflected in actual government policy and the variation in these patterns across time and policy domains. For example, when Americans with low and high incomes disagree, are policy outcomes more likely to reflect the preferences of affluent Americans? If so, does the advantage of more affluent Americans differ over time (e.g., depending on which party controls the congress and presidency) or across policy domains? Similarly, are Republicans or Democrats in the population more likely to get the policies they prefer when their party is in control of national political institutions? Because my database contains policy preferences broken down by income, education, partisanship, sex, race, region, religion, and union/non-union status, I will be able to address a multitude of questions concerning government responsiveness to public preferences.

In the following pages I use data on public preferences and policy outcomes based on 1,935 national survey questions from 1981 through 2002 and restrict my attention to income as a moderating factor in the preference/policy link. Overall, I find a fairly strong relationship between what the public wants and what the government does, though with a considerable bias toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle income Americans. The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: States faced with coercive pressure face a difficult choice. Compliance with the desires of the coercing state entails acceptance of a policy that is most likely less attractive than the status quo. Resistance to the pressure entails accepting the possible costs the coercing state will impose in its effort to get its way. Frequently, the response of governments faced with foreign coercive pressure is explained as a function of total actual or potential costs imposed by the coercer. These explanations are curiously apolitical, since both the change in state policy and any costs imposed have distributional implications for interests within the target state. In those analyses where political interests within the target state are taken into account, the outcome is explained as a function of the relative importance of the interests affected. This reduces national leaders to puppets operating in an environment of perfect accountability to society, and misses the impact political institutions have upon the ability of societal actors to express their preferences and obtain desired policies. I argue that we can better understand the decision national governments make when faced with coercion as a function of the domestic interests affected and the political institutions of the target that govern the extent to which these interests can hold the national leadership accountable. I support this argument with a large-N analysis of coercion cases involving both military and economic pressure from 1917 to 2000, as well as summaries of illustrative case studies taken from the data set.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The previous papers on this panel outline the causal relationship of human rights violations and the resultant terrorist acts. I believe that violence begets violence-human rights violations, perhaps, create terrorist responses, but terrorist responses are met with human rights violations. This paper is the U.S. case study of the relationship between human rights and terrorism. In an injudicious reaction to the tragedy of September 11, 2001 the Bush Administration initiated its war on terrorism. In an attempt to eradicate a faceless stateless enemy, the United States has violated domestic and international law and its own values of freedom and liberty. The Bush Administration used the war on terrorism to justify violations of human rights. Domestically, these human rights violations include the widespread detention of foreigners, the anticipated use of military tribunals for civilians, the detention of suspects without sufficient evidence, the denial of access to a lawyer, and the holding of citizens incognito (disappearances). Furthermore, the United States contravenes human rights standards by denying legal representations to those Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and through the abuse and lawlessness found in the American controlled prisons in Iraq. Abroad, the United States has not only turned a blind eye to abuses committed by front-line allies in the fight against terrorism, but it has also financed, through its foreign aid programs, the human rights violations in recipient countries. Many political pundits believe that September 11 was, in part, motivated by the United States support of repressive human rights abusing regimes. Unfortunately, the Bush's response to September 11 has been to increases its military assistance to repressive and human rights abusing regimes. For example, the United States has increased its military aid to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Pakistan with complete disregard of the abhorrent human rights violations in these countries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper will analyze the roots of the anti-Us feelings in the Mexican government rhetoric during the last decades and its reproduction by the media. The main hypothesis of the paper sustains that Mexican nationalism, especially the anti-US rhetoric was an invention of the Mexican elites in order to legitimize themselves. This discourse found an echo among some circles, particularly the political elite, the diplomats, the media and many intellectuals who used to repeat it in such a persistent way that it generated the idea that there was such a consensus among the population. The data found in the CIDE-COMEXI-CCFR poll suggests that this is not true and that even when the elites are still nationalistic, the population is much more pragmatic and has no deep anti-US feelings. One logical conclusion of this argument is that the Mexican politicians as well as the media and intellectuals are going to change the discourse they have about the US. However, it is highly probable that this will not take place immediately until there is some cost for them to sustain this rhetoric.