Manhunt Presidency: Obama,race, and the Third World

Abstract

President Obama’s commitment to a creedal narrative of American exceptionalism and his understanding of the Third World as a space of ontological deficit together made for a presidency that could neither mitigate the structural racism of the United States nor deflect a racist foreign policy premised on an unending war against terror. By examining the murders of two American teenagers – Trayvon Martin and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki – this essay argues that the very self-fashioning narratives that propelled Obama to the presidency of the United States rendered him incapable of effecting any substantive changes in the racism than animates its domestic and foreign policies.     

Unstable Antistatism: The Left, the Right, and The Outlaw Josey Wales

This essay is an examination of the diverse origins of modern conservative antistatism in the United States through an analysis of the 1976 film The Outlaw Josey Wales, and the book on which it was based. The consolidation of a conservative politics in the 1970s was achieved in part by the Right's appropriation of New Left antistatism via older forms of racial discourse. This emphasis on New Left influence helps explain the rise of the New Right in a way that is missed in conventional accounts, while demonstrating more generally that political discourse is always contingent and unstable, and open to unintended articulations.     

Self-Efficacy,Religiosity, and Crime: Profiles of African American Youth in Urban Housing Communities

Youth reporting independently elevated levels of religiosity and self-efficacy tend to abstain from externalizing behavior. However, little is known about the ways in which religiosity and self-efficacy interrelate to impact youth externalizing. Drawing from a sample of African American youth from public housing communities (N = 236), we use latent profile analysis to identify subtypes of youth based on self-reported religiosity and self-efficacy and, in turn, examine links with crime. Compared to youth in other subgroups, those classified as both highly religious and highly self-efficacious reported less involvement in minor and severe delinquency, but not violence.     

Routine Activity Theory,Target Congruence,and School Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Teacher Victimization

Teachers at school are typically considered as handlers or guardians of students and managers of classrooms—in roles that foster learning and protect students from harm. Thus, relatively little research attention is given to identifying the risk factors for teacher victimization in comparison with the great deal of work addressing the correlates of student victimization at school. The present study fills this gap in the literature on school violence by examining the individual- and school-level predictors of teacher victimization. The authors’ analysis is framed using a multilevel opportunity theoretical approach, incorporating measures of teacher activities, self-protection, teacher attributes that suggest target vulnerability and target antagonism, school-level norms supportive of delinquency, and school-level guardianship. These various risk and protective factors are examined using hierarchical negative binomial regression models with data from over 4,100 teachers in 98 schools in Kentucky.     

Underdevelopment,Urban Squatting,and The State Bureaucracy: A Case Study of Tanzania

This article investigates a part of the “story of the story” of the 1924 revolution, the first popular anticolonial uprising in Sudan to be framed by a nationalist ideology. Considering that the process that turns a past event into history is neither linear nor predictable, I draw on Trouillot's “catalogue of silences” to compare two sets of sources that correspond to two moments in the making of 1924 as history: first, the judicial records produced by the Sudan government during 1924, and second the Ewart Report, written in 1925, to “seal” the revolution. A comparison of these two sources reveals radical discrepancies in the narrative, as well as the silences imposed on and well-concealed fine-tunings of the various voices of the revolution. Of these two sets of sources, it is the Ewart Report that provides the most influential interpretation of the 1924 revolution.     

Citizen and Open Government: An Empirical Analysis of Antecedents of Open Government Data

Given the lack of empirical research investigating citizens’ use of open government, this study examines the antecedents of citizens’ use of open government data. Based on technology acceptance and motivation theory, this article proposes and empirically tests a research model, applying structural equation modeling to survey data collected from 210 citizens. The findings show that ease of use, usefulness, intrinsic motivation, and Internet competence significantly determine citizens’ intention to use open government data. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of citizens’ attitudes and behavior in the context of open government and offers implications for research and practice.     

Constitutional Dynamics in the European Union: Success,Failure, and Stability of Institutional Treaty Revisions

ABSTRACT

Despite high institutional hurdles for constitutional change, one observes surprisingly many EU treaty revisions. This article takes up the questions of what determines whether a treaty provision is successfully changed and why provisions are renegotiated at subsequent Intergovernmental Conferences. The article presents an institutionalist theory explaining success and renegotiation and tests the theory using all core institutional provisions by means of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The causal analysis shows that low conflict potential of an issue is sufficient for successfully changing the treaties. Furthermore, high conflict potential of an issue and its fundamental change are sufficient for it to be renegotiated.     

Social Norms Theory,Enforcement, and Management Concepts: An Analysis of Local Smoking Ban Ordinances

Although there is substantial research on the consequences of smoking and the economic loss resulting from tobacco use, there is a scarcity of work on the enforcement of smoking ordinances at the local level. As municipalities around the country pass ordinances restricting smoking in public places, research should be conducted to understand enforcement outcomes. This article examines the management concepts being employed by managers in the enforcement of smoking ordinances. This article shows that management concepts are salient in policy enforcement and are employed to manage smoking enforcement ordinances. The theory of social norms is used to explain this phenomenon.     

Analysis of Ethical Leadership and Integrity Development in Local Government: The United States,The Netherlands,Montenegro, and Serbia

This research seeks to understand influences on local government integrity development as a control of corruption. Using survey data from public managers in local governments in The Netherlands, Serbia, Montenegro, and the United States, we examined three main areas: integrity policy, leadership, and organizational ethical climate. An important finding was that integrity policy comes from an indirect leadership effect that remains focused on a structural response as the primary source of ethical reasoning more than normative control. Clarity of decisions, consistency in the process of decision-making, and support for anticorruption efforts can be enhanced with a balanced approach to corruption control.     

On Being Black,Muslim, and a Refugee: Stories of Somalis in Chicago

Abstract

Somali refugees are considered one of the largest African refugee populations in the United States and the fourth largest refugee population globally. Yet, there is limited scholarship on their overall migration paths and the ways in which their intersectional identities may impact their resettlement and integration in the United States. Study findings are from a qualitative study on the migration and integration experiences of 15 Somali Americans in Chicago. Findings illustrate the complexities associated with the Somali refugee narrative and how this population is often positioned at the intersections of anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee racism and discrimination in the United States.     

Inter-municipal cooperation,economies of scale and cost efficiency: an application of stochastic frontier analysis to Dutch municipal tax departments

Inter-municipal cooperation is increasingly popular in European countries. Saving cost is a key motivation. This paper analyses the relation between inter-municipal cooperation and cost efficiency among Dutch municipal tax departments between 2005 and 2012. Motivated by the notion that cost savings are ascribed to scale economies, the relation between cooperation and cost is modelled explicitly through scale. The size of the cooperation is incorporated as a determinant of cost efficiency. The results indicate that inter-municipal cooperation can contribute to reducing cost and that the relation can be explained by scale. Municipalities or cooperations sized around 10,000 inhabitants are estimated up to 30% inefficient. At 60,000 inhabitants, the benefits of scaling are largely exhausted. Other than through scale, municipalities that cooperate are not estimated to operate significantly more or less efficient.     

Ethnonational identity,security and the implosion of Yugoslavia: the case of Montenegro and the relationship with Serbia

For 60 years, the international community has limited the right of territories to gain independence without the permission of the “parent state.” Such limits were, however, challenged when Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, in February 2008. As a result, Belgrade referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On 22 July 2010, it came back with its long-awaited decision. Taking a narrow view of the question, the majority argued that, in general, declarations of independence, as mere statements, do not violate international law unless stated otherwise by the Security Council. Thus, Kosovo's declaration of independence cannot be considered as being wholly “unique” – as those states that supported its statehood have claimed. On the key questions of whether Kosovo's secession is legal, or if it is even a state, they chose to avoid controversy. On these points, the international community is no clearer now than it was before the case.     

A Comparative Analysis of SME Friendly Public Procurement: Results from Canada,Hungary and Italy

This paper studies SMEs’ participation in public procurement in light of perceived barriers and expected benefits of accessing the public marketplace. It presents a comparative analysis of SMEs’ participation in three countries that share similar approaches to SME-friendly public procurement. A common survey protocol was developed to be administered to SMEs in the three countries. Data collected were then analysed using regression methods. Findings suggest that some issues that are typically considered critical barriers, namely administrative requirements and award based on lowest price do not hinder participation. However, findings also suggest that firms’ characteristics associated with size are still relevant hindrances, and that SMEs’ involvement are affected by a shortage of tangible (human and financial) and intangible resources (experience). These findings provide guidance to fine-tune public procurement policies directed to SMEs.     

The Croatian Diaspora in North America: Identity, Ethnic Solidarity, and the Formation of a “Transnational National Community”

As I attempt to reveal in this article, Croatian Diaspora's press in North America plays a crucial role in ethnic mobilization and formation of attitudes among members of Croatian Diaspora community toward their home society—Croatia and construction of transnational national community. Discourse analysis employed when examining writings published between 1980–1995 in the most influential Croatian Diaspora's journal—the Fraternalist—builds on the idea that not only news from both the host and home countries are provided, but they are also used to constantly reproduce elements of group identity among Diaspora's community. This study explores the main trends in different stages of ethnic homogenization and mobilization of Croatian Diaspora in North America, which progressed in response to political changes in the home country, reaching its peak with the commencement of the war in Croatia in 1991.     

Actions by Political Officials Have Weakened the Federal Government Workplace: Downsizing Has Cut Lower Level Workers the Most and Replacing Federal Employees with Private Corporations Costs Much More,Creating the Need for Immediate Reform

Abstract

The authors of this paper are four practitioners each of whom has many years of experience working in the Federal government and also has pursued doctoral studies in public or business administration. Three ideas developed in this paper are that: (1) the Federal civil service has been changed from being a model workplace to a much less desirable one; (2) although downsizing has been touted as an efficiency and economy measure, lower level employees experienced the most cuts and (3) the current practice of replacing Federal employees with private corporations costs much more. Over the past two decades private sector workplaces in the United States, and now the Federal government workplace, have experienced so much change that previous theories, concepts, models, and expectations no longer hold. Just as private industry workplaces have been changed by downsizing, reorganizations, mergers, elimination of middle management, and outsourcing, so, too, has the Federal government workplace been fundamentally altered. Reducing the number of government workers, replacing Federal employees with private firms, increasing the number of officials with political agendas, and using harsh personnel management practices have transfigured the Federal workplace. Examples of factors that have contributed to a changed workplace include: the Civil Service Reform Act which replaced the Civil Service Commission with the Office of Personnel Management; importing private sector approaches into the government, e.g., the Grace Commission; replacing the Civil Service Retirement System with the Federal Employees Retirement System; pressure to downsize and privatize; and many elements of the National Performance Review and Government Performance and Results Act. Now that the metamorphosis away from the traditional Civil Service borne of the Pendleton Act is nearly complete (although the new paradigm is not entirely clear), questions about the effects of a changed government workplace are being raised. Some people believe the metamorphosis is from a caterpillar to a butterfly, while others think the opposite. Whether the changed Federal government is a thing of beauty or a distasteful organism will be determined over time by observations and assessments of the effects of the change. These effects will be both internal to the government workplace, itself, and external to it, involving the products, services, outputs, and outcomes it produces. This paper begins by describing some of the politically mandated changes that have altered the very foundation of the Federal government workplace over the past 20 years and made it a much less desirable place to work. Next, some of the effects of two politically mandated changes are examined: (1) downsizing or reducing the number of Americans who can work for their government and (2) contracting out or replacing government workers with private corporations. Political officials have told the media and the American public that these changes were needed to improve the government's efficiency, effectiveness, and economy. It has been suggested that these initiatives will reduce costs. However, an examination of downsizing and contracting out shows the opposite effect. While overall the Federal government has fewer employees now than in 1961, the statistics indicate that lower level employees have been cut the most:

• The number of secretaries decreased by 39% between 1992 and 1998.

• The blue collar workforce is down 40% since 1982, e.g., Supply Clerical and Technician (?35%), Accounting Technician (?24%), and Electronics Mechanic (?41%).

• Between 1993 and 1998 the number of GS‐1 to GS‐10 employees fell from 767,000 to 594,000.

• In 1983 the number of GS‐1 to GS‐10 workers exceeded GS‐11 to GS‐15 by nearly 300,000, while in 1997 GS‐11 to GS‐15 outnumbered the lower level workers by 44,000.

Although authoritative cost comparison studies are difficult to conduct because top officials have made little provision to collect information on the cost of contracting with private firms or the number of contract employees, available information indicates that it is much more expensive than using government employees. The contracting out we are talking about is not the usual kind—building ships or planes, or acquiring computer systems or special expertise not available in the government. Rather, it is contracting with private firms to do jobs that are currently being performed by Federal employees. Not satisfied with the level at which firms are being substituted for Federal employees, actions by political officials have created an environment which now favors private corporations and where they can be given work at top management's discretion, often regardless of cost. In fact, today most contracting out is done without the use of Circular A‐76 Cost Comparison Studies. There is empirical and logical evidence that shows that replacing government employees with private corporations is more expensive. For example, a study by the Department of the Army documents what people close to contracting have always known—that it is far more expensive to contract with a private firm for work than to have Federal employees do it. Logically, the government incurs additional items of cost when replacing Federal employees with private corporations. First, there is the profit that goes to the firm. Second, there is the firm's overhead which pays for corporate offices, staffs, and CEOs. Third, there are the costs of the contracting and award process and of contract administration and management. Although the worker on a government contract may be paid a little less than a government worker, the cost of the worker is only a third to a half of what the government pays the firm. Thus, replacing government workers with private firms usually costs far more and it is not unusual for it to cost two to three times as much. This paper partly is based on the authors' long experience in the Federal government. It is not based on the organizations in which they are currently employed.