The Undergraduate Journal of Social Studies

The Amputee Factor: An Abundance of Caution is Required to Effectively Combat Child Soldiering

Jacob Eichengreen — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:20:17 PST

Children are employed as effective tools of war across the globe. As war has almost ceased to be a viable means of national conflict, modern conflicts usually involve poorly equipped, "criminal" forces that benefit greatly from the use of children in combat. Current international assistance programs to curb the use child soldiers focus on direct interventions in conflict areas to reduce poverty - a primary driver of voluntary child enlistment - and to bring the leaders of such "criminal" organizations to justice. However, many of the resources committed to alleviating the burdens of conflict are often appropriated by combatants and their respective organizations, bolstering their efforts. The moral insult of child soldiering attracts increased western interest and resources; often the additional aid resources committed become a motivation for continued conflict.

The Cold War and Heated Divides: Religious Proliferation

Maxwell Bevilacqua — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:20:16 PST

Whereas religion, in its most general sense, is typically understood to be a secondary, tertiary, or even a non-factor in the realm of international relations, this piece explores the potential primacy of it’s impact in the Cold War. Specifically, America’s fanatical and concerted efforts to rally the world against the fanaticism of communism underscore not only the universal appeal of ”spiritual forces”, but also the historical reframing of American soft power. Further, this piece investigates how we may have come to understood the Cold War as a battle of “good” against “evil” in pursuit of peace and yet how religiously entrenched, in its most literal sense, this truly was.

Progress and Liberty: Friends and/or Foes

Jesse A. Ross-Silverman — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:20:15 PST

In his Road to Serfdom, Friedrich von Hayek seeks to explain why societies ought not impose limitations on individual freedom in order to further collective goals, claiming that “a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.” This paper will argue that Hayek's emphasis on the state's relationship with the individual is myopic, that he inadequately examines both what social progress actually entails and the efficacy of classical liberalism as a means to achieve it.

From Outcasts to Overlords: The Legitimation of the Yakuza in Japanese Society

Eliza Fisher — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:15:15 PST

The yakuza, or the Japanese mob, grew from largely ignoble roots, but have come to wield an enormous amount of power. From their origins—which date to the Tokugawa shogunate—as highwaymen, fighters, snake oil salesmen, and even those who were considered to be “nonhuman,” the heterogeneous yet organized gangs of Japan have come to attain a striking amount of both political and social capital. This resulted from a combination of moral assertions, economic adaptations, and political manipulations. These gangs capitalized on traditional ethical codes, vulnerabilities in security, and ultranationalist sentiments in order to gain pervasive prestige in modern Japanese society.

Who’s Afraid of Government Regulation?

Gabriel Rossman — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:20:46 PST

The media, advertising, and consumerism are rampant in our culture. In recent decades, conflicting views concerning the consequences of the above-mentioned phenomena have emerged. Some, such as Milton Friedman, believe that an unregulated market produces social utility; he argues that the government’s role should be limited to ensuring an environment in which the market can freely operate. However, other thinkers, ranging from sociologists to economists to environmentalists, maintain that the unregulated market does not produce socially advantageous outcomes. These thinkers thus argue for government regulation of certain industries in order to guard against what they consider to be the market’s more problematic tendencies. This article discusses these respective positions, and recommends strategic government regulation in certain industries in order to protect consumers, the environment, and the American psyche from the dangers of the unregulated market.

Neo-liberalism and Its Discontents: Assessing the Aftermath of the Soviet Collapse

Scott Elias — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:46:55 PST

According to conventional Western narratives, the collapse of the Soviet Union brought with it economic prosperity, social progress, and greater European unity. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Soviet collapse, and is therefore an occasion reflect on the significance of this event. This paper rejects the conventional narrative of Soviet collapse and posits an alternative, darker narrative: the Soviet collapse was a geopolitical disaster in which durable authoritarianism persisted alongside neoliberal policies that dismantled the former Communist social safety nets and contributed to the rise of jungle capitalism. I argue that the Cold War was not simply a geopolitical rivalry, but a competition over how best to organize society.

Contextualizing Fanon in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

Justin Pottle — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:37:58 PST

Writing in the throws of the throws of the Algerian war, Martiniquan political theorist Frantz Fanon offered a revolutionary solution to the colonial problem: only through the violent elimination of the colonizer could the colonized individual come to realize itself as liberated and self-sufficient, as well as part of a broader national community. The prescription was vicious and uncompromising, but its manifestations long after decolonization would prove even more bloody and disturbing. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was prefaced upon this very notion of liberation through ethnic violence. The Bahutu government, faced with war against Batutsi militants, an economic tailspin, and a slipping grip on power, turned to the same identity-building rhetoric Fanon offered several decades earlier. By constructing an oppressive, colonial Batutsi identity, the Bahutu government pushed citizens to ruthlessly slaughter thousands of their neighbors and countrymen in the name of liberation and national sovereignty. Fanon envisioned violence as a way to overcome entrenched racial inequalities, yet, what made the Rwandan genocide most tragic was its inherent arbitrariness—the colonial divisions, the oppressive inequality, the need for ethnic solidarity, were wholly constructed for the instrumental gain of an increasingly authoritarian regime.

Arendtian Action and the Camp: Understanding the connection between totalitarianism and politics

Corey Dethier — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:38:23 PST

This paper argues for a reconceptualization of Arendt's concept of action based on her account of and experience with totalitarianism. Using Origins of Totalitarianism as a guide to what Arendt sees as the breakdown of a functioning society, it reconstructs her conception of politics found inThe Human Condition and On Revolution to show that what Arendt aims for is a form of government that can prevent the spread of totalitarianism and its characteristics. From this perspective, it argues that Arendt's concepts of politics and action are designed to create a public aware of its plurality and primarily concerned with protecting that plurality.

Rediscovering Old Roots: Bulgaria and Agricultural Possibilities

Miranda S. Becker — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:01:57 PDT

Bulgaria’s domestic industry in agriculture has gone through a fast series of shifts over the past sixty years. In 1947, like other East European states, it began to break ties with the Western world by refusing Marshall Plan aid following World War II, and by joining the Communist Information Bureau. From this point until 1989, Bulgaria was steeped in a centrally-planned Soviet-styled economy marked by an emphasis upon output production, urbanisation, and industrialisation. With 1989 came the fall of Bulgaria’s communist regime and the beginning of a transition to a market economy. In 1991, Bulgaria began negotiations with the European Community to discuss possible future accession and the signing of the Europe Agreement, and in 2007 joined the European Union. Each of these dates has marked a turning point in Bulgaria’s relationship with its agricultural sector. Since the fall of communism, Bulgaria has been regaining an old comparative advantage in agriculture, which along with a newly developed service sector provides for the bulk of its employment and GDP. Bulgaria now stands locked into a system of polarised farm structures, though it has successfully reoriented its trade outward and is receiving the benefits of admittance into the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. This paper will investigate the transition of Bulgaria’s agricultural sector from the pre-communist and communist periods to contemporary European Union membership. Ultimately, Bulgaria is benefiting from the discovery of a trading bloc to replace old Soviet networks, and from opportunities provided by the strong protection of agriculture in the EU.

The Inevitability of Identity: Lebanon, Nationalism and the Failure of an Idea

Connor P. Larkin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:01:56 PDT

More than any other Middle Eastern state, Lebanon represents an idea: that disparate peoples of differing religious and ethnic lineages, with histories of constant conflict, might democratically coexist in a single nation-state. Lebanon's unique parliamentary system of 'confessional politics'- split along Maronite Christian, Orthodox Christian, Sunni, Druze and Shia lines- seemed for much of the 20th century to achieve this ideal, if in an often-fragile fashion. Sadly, with the outbreak of civil war in 1975, this ultimately-misleading vision was drowned in an outpouring of inter-communal blood. To understand how this occur in a country that was once the diamond of the Mediterranean, we must comprehend how identity is constructed, and how it could be so disastrous in the Lebanese context. Lebanon's future itself depends on such an understanding.

Authorities in Transition: Agency, Power and Social Cohesion in Relationships of Dependency: Thoughts from Nakivale Refugee Settlement and Orom Sub-County Uganda

Jeremy Isard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:01:54 PDT

This research study focuses on the relationship between individual agency toward economic betterment and sources of external authority that provide social cohesion in transitioning societies. Participants are selected from different dependency structures and all are male. Test groups include partially aid-dependent individuals in Nakivale refugee camp and group-subsistence farmers from Orom Sub Country in Northern Uganda. To understand the social mechanisms that foster group solidarity and economic cooperation, this project seeks to correlate economic agency with external authority structures which then dictate the channels through which persons address their needs. The author argues that the nature of dependency strongly affects to where individuals turn to for authority and that common sources of victimization, religious experience, and access to instrumental freedoms are three primary forces that engender economic interdependency.

The Promise of Perfectibility: Can Education Save Us from a Malthusian Trap?

Jacob A. Eichengreen — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:01:52 PDT

In popular culture, there seems to be a consensus regarding the certain existence of a population carrying capacity for humans. However, in economics, there is much less certainty. In his 18th century work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Thomas Malthus presented evidence for what he saw as inevitible limitations to human growth. Many of Malthus' contemporaries, however, held the opposite view: that human inginuity will allow for limitless growth and progress. The two arguments seem to be irreconcilable. Even now, there are still subscribers to both arguments, although the concept of a carrying capacity is much more widely held than it was 200 years ago. Between these two arguments, however, there is some common ground. Without a concerted effort towards global education, supporters of both arguments agree we will not be able to maintain any semblence of our current quality of life.

Our Jewish Pilgrim Fathers: Louis Brandeis, “Armchair Zionism,” and the Politics of Identity in American Jewry in the Early Zionist Period

Yannick LeJacq — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:01:50 PDT

This paper investigates the historical origins of American Zionism through the lens ofone of its most influential founders, the progressive “people’s lawyer” Louis Brandeis.Historical studies of Zionism have often focused on its European underpinnings, with aparticular emphasis on the role of Holocaust in fomenting Zionist zeal for many Jews.Here I attempt to shed more light on the roots of American Zionism that, due to itsorigin in a more assimilated multinational context, differed from the brands of Europeannationalism that influenced other Zionists. By contextualizing Brandeis’s Zionist careerwithin the changing character of American Jewry, we can begin to understand how,facing ethnic, religious, and ideological conflicts, it ultimately coalesced around a typeof synthetic Jewish identity. Pejoratively referred to as “armchair Zionism” by some ofits critics (most notably Golda Meir), the Brandeisian synthesis transformed AmericanJewish identity into a cohesive form of proto-Zionism.