Search

Begin New Search Topic Legislation Political Geography North America

31. Diversity in International Relations, Volume XXI, Number 1

Author:
Sushant Naidu, Harold Kent Heredia, Luka Biong Deng Kuol, Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes, Kristina Sehlin MacNeil, Westmin R. A. James, Priscila Ribeiro Barros, and Erica Neeganagwedgin
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:
Diversity and Inclusion are terms that are commonplace across various industries, including the hiring practices of corporations and in representation at educational institutions. We see diversity and representation play an important role in the democratic nomination race for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, sometimes mentioned only to gain political advantage. Diversity, in terms of whose story gets told and whose doesn’t, is a theme that is woven throughout a variety of global issues, but often takes a backseat to the bigger news stories that tend to dominate media outlets. Yet, diversity or lack thereof is often implicated upon closer examination of global issues. Climate change, development, violent conflict, terrorism, human rights violations, reform of global governance, and problems of democratic representation throughout the globe are closely tied to issues of diversity. Increasingly, questions of diversity and inclusion present a pathway to solutions to many of these problems. For the 21st volume of the Journal, we wished to showcase and champion diversity and representation in academia by bringing the voices of diverse writers and less familiar topics to our readers. This issue features three articles on indigenous rights. Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes and Kristina Sehlin MacNeil write on the concept of diplomacy, focusing primarily on the lesser recognized diplomacies of First Peoples in Australia and Sweden. Priscila Ribeiro Prado Barros posits that the growing involvement of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, in the defense of their own affairs, have triggered the emergence of a new organizing logic, which considers rights as more important than territorial authority. Finally, Erica Neeganagwedgin examines the Canadian federal government’s 1969 Statement of the Government on Indian Policy and the recent Indigenous Rights Framework that the Canadian government introduced in 2018. The remaining three articles discuss diversity in employment at the UN, the issue of ethnic diversity in the two Sudans, and how international law affects refugees in the Caribbean. Harold Heredia discusses the importance of diversity at the UN as stated in the organization’s charter in Article 101. Luka Kuol examines the case of the two Sudans to argue that ethnic diversity can become a curse when there is a governance deficit that is manifested in social contracts and systems of government that abhor and detest diversity. Westmin James’ article asserts that both international treaty law and customary international law may appropriately aid constitutional interpretation and can protect asylum seekers or refugees from being repatriated to their home country. Our strong desire to provide a platform for less familiar topics was the driving force behind the creation of this issue. We hope you enjoy this issue and the diverse topics that it touches on.
Topic:
Diplomacy, United Nations, Political Activism, Refugees, Ethnicity, Diversity, Legislation, Assimilation, Indigenous, Sustainability, Geography, and Self-Determination
Political Geography:
Sudan, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Caribbean, North America, Sweden, and Africa

32. Australia’s Gun Laws Can’t Work in America – For Now

Author:
Philip Alpers
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Thirteen mass shootings in 18 years, 112 victims shot dead. While this may seem to describe contemporary America, it actually describes a late 20th-century period in Australia. The country’s final slaughter occurred in Tasmania in 1996 – the Port Arthur massacre. A lone, “pathetic social misfit” – as described by the judge – killed 35 people. The first 29 bullets from this young man’s AR-15 rifle ended the lives of 20 innocents in just 90 seconds.
Topic:
Government, Weapons, Legislation, Public Health, and Mass Shootings
Political Geography:
Australia, Australia/Pacific, North America, and United States of America

33. Preventing Endless War Requires Real Congressional Oversight—Not New War Authority

Author:
Ken Gude and Kate Martin
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
Congress needs to do real oversight about how and whether the current wars should continue before considering any new AUMF.
Topic:
Defense Policy, War, Military Strategy, Legislation, Federalism, and Civil-Military Relations
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

34. Ten Legislative Proposals to Defend America against Foreign Influence Operations

Author:
David Salvo and Brittany Beaulieu
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s February 16 indictment of the Internet Research Agency, along with 13 key individuals and two related entities, was another reminder for Americans of the coordinated attack mounted on our country’s democracy. In addition to the use of information operations outlined in the indictment, the U.S. intelligence community has documented Russia’s use of hacks on campaign related entities, with stolen information weaponized and released via Wikileaks and other outlets, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that at least 21 states had parts of their electoral infrastructure probed in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The Internet Research Agency purchased political advertisements and sponsored organic content on social media platforms aimed at amplifying socially divisive issues. This content reached over a hundred million Americans, and the trend of exacerbating social divisions has continued on Twitter, in particular, over the past year and a half. Meanwhile, Russia and China are investing in advanced technology companies in the United States, acquiring both technical know-how and vast amounts of data that could facilitate the targeting of Americans. Director of National Intelligence Coats recently testified, “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.” And other governments like China are learning lessons from Russia’s success. Americans were caught off guard by Russia’s actions, but now that we know the breadth and scope of their malign influence operations, we must plug vulnerabilities that Russia and other foreign actors will continue to exploit if we are to defend our democracy against foreign interference. Yet, more than a year after the 2016 presidential election, and with midterm elections looming on the horizon, Congress and the Trump administration have not taken any clear action to increase U.S. defenses against the foreign interference threat. Many Americans remain unwilling to even admit that this interference occurred and many members of Congress have decided to use this issue for partisan attacks instead of uniting to secure our democracy. There are important steps we can, and must, take to defend our institutions against adversaries who seek to undermine them. Many of Russia’s tactics have exploited vulnerabilities in our societies and technologies, and loopholes in our laws. Some of the steps necessary to defend ourselves will involve long-term work to reduce polarization. Others will require clear action by the Executive Branch — including strategic messaging to ensure Americans are united against the threat we face, and steps to both deter and raise the costs on such actions. Congress does not have to wait for action by the Trump administration. Many of these steps are ones that Congress has the power to take. And particularly in the face of President Trump’s failure to lead an effort to counter this threat, Congress must step up and take steps within its power to patch the holes that congressional investigations and the intelligence and law enforcement communities have revealed. The good news is a number of legislative steps have already been proposed in both chambers on a bipartisan basis to improve the United States’ ability to defend against and deter these external threats, and there are other measures that could be added to those to close gaps in our defenses. These steps would close loopholes in current law and strengthen our institutional capacity to defend against foreign influence campaigns. We believe these are common sense steps that every member of Congress — on both sides of the aisle — should support.
Topic:
National Security, Elections, Internet, Legislation, Foreign Interference, and Influence
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

35. Unusual Bedfellows? PRI– PVEM Electoral Alliances in Mexican Legislative Elections

Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
We examine the electoral alliances between two Mexican political parties – the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM). Despite the PRI’s electoral dominance, it has entered into preelection agreements with the PVEM since 2003. These electoral pacts are unusual for several reasons: the parties do not share an ideology; their bases of support come from different social sectors; and the PRI’s survival as a party does not depend on these pacts. Using electoral data from 2006 to 2015, we examine the electoral districts in which the PRI and the PVEM ran joint candidates in federal legislative elections. We find that the ultimate goals of each party, their past electoral performances at the legislative district level, and the presence of PRI–PVEM alliances in gubernatorial elections explain the parties’ choices to collaborate in certain districts. Our findings have important implications for understanding the behavior of parties in newer democracies.
Topic:
Elections, Legislation, Local, Domestic Policy, and Party System
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

36. Morgan Lecture: The Americans with Disabilities Act: Civil Rights Then, Now, and in the Future

Author:
Lennard Davis
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
Abstract:
The Americans with Disabilities Act recently reached its 25th year anniversary. This lecture looks at the history of how the most encompassing civil rights act of the 20th century, affecting the largest US minority, came to be passed; what its effects were and are; and what more work remains to be done.
Topic:
Human Rights, Social Justice, Disability, Civil Rights, and Legislation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

37. How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers

Author:
William Lazonick, Philip Moss, and Joshua Weitz
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
On June 2, 1965, under a mandate established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. Congress created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws related to employment. The expectation was that African Americans would be prime beneficiaries of the EEOC. There was no assumption that the EEOC, on its own, could reverse deep-rooted employment discrimination against blacks. But in the late 1960s there was optimism that, in combination with equal educational opportunity and the strong demand for unionized workers in the well-paid manufacturing jobs that marked the post-World War II decades, the EEOC could help to ensure that an ever-increasing number of blacks would ascend to the American middle class. African Americans as a group are better educated than they were in the 1960s, and, as discriminatory norms and practices have lessened, large numbers of college-educated blacks have experienced upward employment mobility into professional, technical, and administrative occupations. But the promise of a large-scale ascendancy of blacks to middle-class status, characterized by secure and well-paid employment, has not been fulfilled. Our basic thesis is that, in combination with the institutions of racism which remain widespread in American society, the erosion of secure and well-paid employment opportunities is a major reason for the persistence since the 1980s of African Americans as disproportionately disadvantaged. Our contribution to the larger debate on the economics of race is to focus on the role of corporate resource allocation as the prime determinant of the quantity and quality of employment opportunities in the economy. The decline of middle-class employment opportunities has adversely affected the majority of the U.S. labor force of all races, ethnicities, and genders. African Americans, however, have been more vulnerable than other demographic groups to this decline. U.S. institutions of corporate governance vest power over major resource-allocation decisions in the hands of senior executives, supported by their hand-picked corporate boards. Given the enormous size of the major business corporations and their centrality to economic activity, the resource-allocation decisions made by senior executives of major U.S. corporations profoundly influence the operation and performance of the economy as a whole—including the availability, or not, of secure and well-paid employment opportunities. The failure to include an analysis of corporate resource allocation and how it has changed over the past half century in the policy debate on income inequality is what we call the “equal employment opportunity omission.”
Topic:
Race, Employment, Inequality, Civil Rights, Legislation, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

38. Decision-Making in Endangered Species Management

Author:
Jonathan C. Borck
Publication Date:
05-2005
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
This paper examines decisions made by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, to protect species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and to fund their recovery. Using a data set that includes scientific, economic, and political variables on vertebrates from 1989 to 1997, this paper estimates a variety of regression models of the listing and funding decisions. Although required by law to consider only scientific factors such as species’ vulnerability in its decision-making, FWS appears instead to favor visceral characteristics, such as species’ taxonomic class and size. Both criteria are defensible. Nonetheless, the paper recommends that FWS and its partner agencies acknowledge and try to resolve the inconsistencies between their legal obligations and their actual behavior to ensure more effective implementation of this important piece of environmental legislation.
Topic:
Environment, Legislation, Animals, Decision-Making, Biodiversity, and Endangered Species
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America