Search

Nair will approach national security from the perspective of migration policies in Malaysia ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature within conflict studies analyzes the effect of gender inequality on state behavior both internationally and domestically. As this is a relatively new trend in terms of the methodology used to test this relationship, there has been relatively little guidance concerning the best measures of gender inequality. To further complicate matters, most gender variables cover a limited time span. I will survey this literature as represented in top international relations journals to identify the dominant variables used to measure gender equality and examine how they are used. I will then explore the strengths and weaknesses of these measures and identify possible alternatives. Finally, I will examine the association of the variables that are available over a longer time span with those that may be considered ?better? variables but that have limited availability. The aim of this research is to provide systematic guidance and validity for the choice of gender variables. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protagonists in the social sciences as well as in politics repeatedly broach theissue of the future of solidarity in the perspective of decay. If solidarity means"national solidarity", it is well possible that the claimed decline of the nationstateleads to a weakening of certain solidary attitudes. But solidarity exists in avariety of different forms and takes place in many different contexts. Solidaritydoes not necessarily stop at the borders of the nation-state. This is why the term"transnational solidarity" in the last years has been ascribed increasingsignificance. Does solidarity increasingly take place beyond the nation-state?Especially researchers in sociology and social anthropology have discussed thisquestion multifariously and controversially. For the discipline of InternationalRelations this discussion gains importance particularly within the discussionaround the development of a political order beyond the nation-state in thenormative substantive meaning of the term. Yet, empirical studies dealing withthe claimed increase of transnational solidarity are rare until now. The presentpaper exemplarily analyses the claimed increase in transnational solidarity usingthe example of voluntary giving in Germany for humanitarian crisis in distantcountries. I consider as indicators for transnational solidarity the relativeproportion of donations for humanitarian and development aid as well as theincome from donations by a subset of organizations active in this area. Theexplorative analysis supports the claim of an increase of transnational solidarity.However deep fractions characterize this trend and demand further explanation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonproliferation regime today is under siege from many directions. The US as the pre-eminent world power is currently engaged in efforts to modify the regime without striking at its fundamental principles. One such attempt was the July 2005 declaration signed by US President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. While this agreement has mixed implications for the health of the nonproliferation regime, my research suggests that the overall impact is likely to be minimal. This is because states acquire or give up nuclear weapons because of regional and domestic political factors or due to fear of US intervention. I also find that the nonproliferation regime is unable in its present state to accommodate rising powers such as India, which desire to behave responsibly towards the world. In this period of regional power transition, the regime needs to be adjusted accordingly. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization impacts in many ways any aspect of the living in a society. Higher education may be one of the most affected by global trends, and Economics and Business contents seem particularly influenced by them. Otherwise, these fields, as social sciences, are framed by the culture of each region. This work will consist in conducting a study among professors of Economics and Business curriculums in Argentina, to assess the impact of globalization in the contents of their respective courses, the way they teach and their professional skills development. It will be interested to determine if technology played a significant role in global knowledge acquisition. Finally, findings will be analyzed through Hofsteede?s cultural differences dimensions for Argentina. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the appearance in Foreign Affairs of his article ?Ethnic Warfare on the Wane?, Ted Robert Gurr has been theorizing about the emergence of a new international regime or a new global doctrine about the management of ethno-political conflicts . Such a new regime, based on MAR data, ?incorporates five principles about how to promote peace and mitigate violent conflict in divided societies, principles that can be expected to drive international policy during the early decades of the twenty-first century following precedents established during the 1990s: (1)The Human Rights Regime: International Norms about Individual and Group Rights(2)Democratization: Promoting Institutions for Pluralism and Power Sharing(3)Autonomy Solutions for Self-Determination Disputes(4)International Engagement in Containing Ethnic Conflict(5)International Use of Force to Contain Armed Conflicts? The pertinence and relevance of this new global doctrine has so far been discussed in many academic circles and has also been empirically confirmed by the global data of many research centres (decline in the number of ethno-political conflicts and increase in the settlement cases) . However, there have been no systematic efforts to test Gurr?s ideas from a qualitative approach and on a case-by-case comparative perspective. The basic aim of this project is to verify Gurr?s regime ?from the field? through the comparative analysis of four South East Asia cases: Aceh (Indonesia), West Papua (Indonesia), Mindanao (Philippines) and South Thailand (border with Malaysia). I will focus more specifically on the third item of the new global doctrine: territorial claims and solutions in ethno-political conflicts. As all the cases selected include the independence-autonomy dilemma, some of the outcomes of the project would probably best fit panel 4 (Territorial Conflicts, Separatism, and Ethno-political Conflict). PROJECT DESCRIPTION ?Field research between July and December 2006 in Aceh, Mindanao, West Papua and South Thailand. The selection of the region and the cases obeys the following motivations:- South East Asia is currently one of the regions in the world with more ethno-political conflicts with territorial claims, which has led to a wide variety of experiences in the territorial management of this kind of conflicts. South East Asia is also one of the regions which more clearly show the triangle ethnicity- territoriality- political mobilization. - All the cases selected share some common characteristics: a) active, long and protracted conflicts; b) ethno-political conflicts with territorial claims (independence, autonomy or annexation to other State); c) existence of peace processes (Mindanao and Aceh) or peace initiatives (Papua and South Thailand); d) conflicts with both vertical (armed group versus Government) and horizontal (communal clashes) dimensions; e) high degree of religious mobilization and manipulation, f) States with a long history of minorities military repression, cultural and economic discrimination and demographic colonisation; g) States very close to the ?global war against terrorism?.?Temporary collaboration with the academic staff of some of the universities and research centres working on minorities and ethno-political conflicts issues in every of the selected cases . ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrew Moravcsik's formulation of liberal theory as a coherent paradigmatic alternative to realism has had a tremendous impact on the field of international relations. It has focused attention on the domestic origins of state behavior, raised the question of whether societal preferences should be granted analytic priority over systemic variables, and united several different strands of research under a common banner. However, it has also a produced highly acrimonious and largely unproductive debate over the theoretical progressiveness and coherence of the realist research program. This controversy, which has hurt Moravcsik's cause far more than it has helped, stems from several serious flaws in his original conception of liberalism. To advance the paradigm, it must be recast in a way that retains its essential character but does not overstep its natural boundaries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnopolitical organizations try to reach varied audiences. Some of those audiences aredomestic and some are international. One of the key tools that organizations are using toimpact the political discourse is the internet. One key gatekeeper in the process of usingthe internet is the search engine. Here we examine what factors determine the success oforganizations in generating a high number of websites that mention their organization ingoogle internet hit returns as one way to measure organizational success in reaching outto a wider audience. We explore this question within the context of the Minorities atRisk Organizational Behavior dataset that has information on 98 ethnopoliticalorganizations active in the Middle East. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the mid-1980s, in the absence of directives from the IMF's management or member states, the staff began to encourage the liberalization of capital controls as a norm. This behaviour constitutes a puzzle for the conventional wisdom, which sees the "Wall Street-Treasury Complex" as responsible for the IMF's approach, as well as a blind spot for rationalist approaches, which offer little insight on the processes that shape preference formation "from within" international organizations (IOs). I argue the IMF's consumption of the norm of liberalization was largely shaped by the emergence of internal norm entrepreneurs. Going beyond static conceptions of IO staff as simply reacting to initiatives "from above" or "from below," I offer a dynamic explanation of norm consumption that describes how internal entrepreneurs emerge and how they proactively strategically reconstruct the norms an IO promotes. I show how the IMF's consumption of the norm of liberalization, indicated by changes to formal institutions, policy, and discourse, can be explained by the discursive influence of internal entrepreneurs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions with the public (eyewitnesses, informants, and those detained both briefly and for longer periods) represent a significant component of law-enforcement and homeland security counter-terrorism efforts. During these interactions, law-enforcement and homeland security personnel will need to make assessments of veracity and deceit, with substantial consequences whether right or wrong. Not only is deception detection and unsolved problem in both counter-terrorism specifically and the social sciences more generally, but only recently has social science research begun testing existing (imperfect) methods of deception detection on individuals from foreign cultures, speaking other languages. This is a critical gap, as this scientific knowledge can be directly applied to the operations of law-enforcement and homeland security personnel in a counter-terrorism context (the interactions mentioned above). The most promising set of techniques for deception detection ? that yield the most impact, for the least cost, in the shortest time-frame ? are narrative analysis techniques (e.g., the Reality Monitoring method).This and other existing narrative analysis techniques used in deception detection (such as criteria-based content analysis, or type-token ratio analysis) show greater potential effectiveness than most other instruments (e.g., the polygraph, facial expression analysis... see DePaulo et al, 2003; NRC Report, 2003); these techniques can be used on a wide range of communications, from first-person interviews to remote communications (such as emails or essays). However, the studies and applications of narrative analysis techniques for deception detection have been almost exclusively amongst English speakers. There are good reasons to believe that significant differences exist between English narratives and those constructed in other languages by non-Western persons (particularly Chinese and Arabic speakers). The author is studying Arabic and Chinese deceptive narratives, to test the effectiveness of narrative analysis techniques in those languages, as well as in English spoken as a second language by native Arabic or Chinese speakers. Further, the author is developing new narrative analysis techniques to suit those tongues where existing methods are inadequate. Finally, the author is adapting existing software for automated natural language processing in order to take advantage of the new cross-cultural/cross-language narrative analysis techniques developed. This will take the form of a prototype to demonstrate the efficacy of the techniques. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of a CMC-based ?policy collaboratory? on a transnational NGO network participating in the UN World Summit on the Information Society. We developed a conceptual framework based on based on an interdisciplinary literature, ranging from political science and international relations to communication and information studies, but drawing primarily on Roger?s (1995) diffusion of innovation thesis and taking a social network approach (Wasserman and Faust, 1994; Borgatti and Foster 2003). To explore the conceptual framework, we asked four ?grand tour? research questions: (1) How is a policy collaboratory introduced into a transnational policy network?; (2) how is the collaboratory used?; (3) what impact does it have on participants?; and (4) to what degree can it be institutionalized? Using the second phase of WSIS as the setting for this longitudinal mixed-methods study, we purposefully selected the participants from the active WSIS civil society networks. After collecting baseline data in December 2003, we designed and implemented the collaboratory in January 2004, continuing to collect multi-modal data (surveys, interviews, email, computer logs) until shortly after the Tunis WSIS in November 2005. Key findings include: (1) training and a visionary change-agent are critical to successful diffusion; (2) participants may not utilize the full potential of the collaboratory; (3) even with limited use, the collaboratory can help to empower network members, especially those from developing countries, (4) institutionalization of the collaboratory requires at least medium-term commitment and financial support. The study provides an example of the challenges and opportunities of the Internet and CMC tools to enhance global deliberative democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his writings, Fareed Zakaria distinguishes between democracy (in terms of free and fair elections) and constitutional liberalism (that is, the rule of law and basic human rights). He emphasizes that today there is clearly more democracy than liberalism in the world. Using an original data set with five key components - and treating the right to vote as a separate dimension - it is shown that this is not empirically true: if one considers suffrage as a third dimension, then globally the world shows a bit more liberalism than it does democracy. However, what is true is that the recent surge of electoral democracies has meant that there are now more illiberal democracies; that said, illiberal democracies are not new; indeed, the contrasting reality of a fully liberal democracy has only been around since the late 1800s. Finally, Zakaria's notion of liberal autocracies are discussed, and it is argued that almost all of these should really be called "semi-liberal" autocracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European origins of contemporary international society have been well documented. A key component of this multifaceted genealogy is the outward expansion of European political authority. This is traditionally held to have begun with the Iberian conquests of the fifteenth century, and would eventually culminate in the global imperial order of the early twentieth century. Existing accounts of European expansion primarily concentrate upon cases where European power was predominant, and thereby downplay or otherwise disregard situations where European agents were forced to work within indigenous models of political authority. This can lead to a misleading, one-sided image of a complex process of cross-cultural engagement. By the eighteenth century, European Powers had developed extensive commercial networks in many parts of the globe, but often found it difficult to dictate terms to various partners. In west Africa, vulnerable trading posts were dependent upon local elites, as trading networks developed around gold and slaves, yet Europeans consistently found themselves beholden to local political forces. This can be seen as a fragile, yet nonetheless identifiable international order, with non-European models of political authority enjoying international parity and/or preponderence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Relations (IR) deals with international political and economic organization, global issues of conflict, governance, development, the environment, and so on. In spite of the wide breadth of the discipline, there is a growing trend of separating Global Studies from International Relations, since -nation? in its various manifestations remains at the centre of IR analysis, thereby limiting the analytical perspective for some. The ongoing debates around IR epistemology, methodology and pedagogy, have not yet settled. The constantly changing realities of our globalizing era continue to redefine the boundaries of this border-defying discipline. Some would still argue whether IR is a discipline or just a field of enquiry. Indeed significant number of universities do not have free standing departments of IR but treat it as a sub-field of political science. The near total privatization of international capital, the growing role of transnational corporations, as well as transnational regimes, amongst other things, are constantly challenging the most fundamental definitions of IR. Amidst all these uncertainties, is there a field or discipline of Global Studies emerging? If so, why, and how? Instead of looking for answers in scholarship or the Great Debates alone, I would suggest that we take into account the application of this understanding and then engage with the ideological debate. How have different regions of the world conceptualized Global Studies and International Relations? What is the implication of this perceived trend on IR as a discipline? A wide selection of programmes in Global studies and/or International Relations offered at tertiary level in a representative cross section of different regions of the world, with their inherent political, economic and cultural diversity, will be used to find answers to some of the questions posed above, as well as to predict the future of GS and IR. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that emotions, and in particular negative emotions, play a key role in public reactions to events of international terror. Though, little attention has been directed towards unpacking these negative emotions, despite current findings that specific emotions such as sadness, fear, hate and anger may have different effects on how people process and interpret information. The primary objective of this study is therefore to explore what components of the international terror event trigger one or more of these emotions. The conceptual framework we propose suggests that a combination of several variables, which mark the ?psychological distance? of the event from the respondents, affects the specific nature of the emotional response. Among the dominant factors in this framework are the similarity in identity of the victims and the respondents, and the geographic proximity of the event to the respondents. This study employs an experimental design to investigate the impacts of fictional terror events that vary in the identity of victims and in their location on the predominant emotional reaction of the participants. In addition, this study will be conducted cross-nationally in the U.S. and Israel to explore the mediating effects of societal exposure to terror on the emotional responses. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, there are two approaches to theorizing global justice—one statist and the other cosmopolitan, and scholars debating over this subject often have to choose between the two extreme approaches. In this article, I argue that we need to move beyond the debate by advancing a middle way approach, and Rawls’s the Law of Peoples represents such an alternative. In his theory of global justice, Rawls insists that the Law of Peoples must be worked out by adopting a two-stage approach to the use of original position, and because of this approach, the difference principle that he advances in A Theory of Justice does not apply in global context. Rawls’s approach to global justice has drawn much criticism from scholars who favor a more egalitarian or cosmopolitan approach. From their point of view, Rawls’s Law of Peoples comes close to what Allen Buchanan caricatures “rules for a vanished Westphalian world”. Against these cosmopolitan critics, I argue that Rawls’s two-stage approach better fits the global context for two reason: first, because Rawls’s political liberalism is more reasonable than comprehensive liberalism favored by cosmopolitan liberals; second, the moral standing of the state cannot be easily dismissed as cosmopolitan liberals often do. At the level of substantive issues, cosmopolitan liberals justify applying the difference principle at the global level by employing various arguments, most notable of which are: first, the argument from interdependence and circumstances of justice; and, second, inequality of bargaining power and the erosion of background fairness. Against these arguments, I argue that the difference principle cannot be applied directly to the global context because the global context is qualitatively different from the domestic context in that the international society does not constitute a social union of social unions. In addition, I argue that cosmopolitan liberals must embrace the idea of a world state if they are to realize their ideal. The fact that they are hesitant to embrace such an institutional arrangement gives us one more reason to prefer a middle way approach. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the ?faces of power? debate may be utilized to draw together coercive, raw uses of power with more diffuse, normative conceptions. Specifically, the ways that cultures and elites utilize the concept of honor can provide important insights into the nature of power. In power?s third face, honor is utilized by elites to motivate behavior. But of primary ontological importance is the fourth or Foucauldian face of power, which involves cultural habituation. The presence of honor as part of a national or cultural value system precedes the possibility of indoctrination by a prospective elite manipulator, by providing the conditions under which the manipulator can act. For all involved, the presence of honor in a culture creates structural rules, and implies that real costs are incurred by deviating from such norms. Diffuse Foucauldian power manifested as honor plays an integral role in such extreme cases as suicide bombings and kamikaze pilots; it is also apparent in everyday behavior such as trade negotiation and rules of engagement. By combining these diffuse explanations of honor-as-power with more traditional explanations for motivating behavior (such as strategy or economics), we may yield results that are not only very theoretically interesting, but also very relevant to contemporary policy-makers. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realist IR scholars have become increasingly committed to the canons of positivist social science. Contemporary realist theorizing largely presupposes a strict separation of subject and object, emphasizing ?theory testing? and ?prediction? as touchstones of social science. For example, Stephen Walt noted with satisfaction that security studies (which ?fits comfortably within the realist paradigm?) ?adopted the norms and objectives of social science,? including the development of theories and ?the testing [of} their predictions against a scientifically selected body of evidence.? And John Mearsheimer urged scholars to ?use their theories to make predictions about the future . . . The world can be used as a laboratory to decide which theories best explain international politics.? If the world is a laboratory, it is incumbent upon realist theorists to detach themselves from the political events anticipated by their theories in the same manner that, say, a chemist avoids intervening in the experimental processes underway in his lab. In practice, however, realist IR scholars often intervene in political reality. They consult national security agencies, whisper in the ears of decision makers, write op-ed pieces, give interviews, and sign petitions in an attempt to influence policy and shape political events. For example, in recent months realists of all stripes have engaged in an overt political campaign against U.S. policy in Iraq. In their actual practices, then, realist scholars attempt to construct and re-construct political reality without realizing that the very act of their political intervention subverts the neat subject-object separation presupposed by their theories. By abandoning positivist presuppositions and drawing instead on constructivist approaches that regard purpose and analysis as ?part and parcel of a single process? (E. H. Carr), realists could greatly reduce the dissonance between their epistemological principles and their actual practices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After determining a desired end state and national objectives for a conflict, the most difficult issue for practitioner-scholars to tackle is determining the ground truth of the situation, and how that truth varies among players. Military planners, especially when the planners are from multiple countries, national leaders (again, from multiple countries), international organizations, and private contractors all must know and understand several key issues. The first is the nature of the conflict. If they cannot all agree that they are in a conflict, or the type of conflict they are working to end, they will not be able to affect a reconstruction. Second, they need to know the ground truth on population demographics. In many countries, there is no valid census data, which makes settling competing claims difficult at best. Third, planners need to know whether the course of action they are following has been tried before; if so, what were those outcomes. Finally, they need to establish whether or not they must be 100% successful everywhere in order to achieve the desired end states. Even the best plans are doomed to failure if they are implemented in the wrong situations. Knowing the ground truth must necessarily precede planning for post-conflict reconstruction. Panelist is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force with a doctorate in Political Science and teaches at the Air Command and Staff College. Personal experience in Baghdad working for the Multi-National Force, Iraq and with multiple diplomatic missions brought to light the fact that the ground truth in the country of interest is different from the perceived truth back home and even different between parties within the country itself. Such differences amplify any incoherence national political and military leaders might have in the direction operations take in attempting to achieve desired end states and reconstruct a country. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America's history, culture, politics and geography are unique to its global niche. Any understanding of Latin America's major issues - economic development, the drug trade, political authoritarianism cycling with democracy -- requires an interdisciplinary analysis. Today's Latin American realities must take into account elements of all the major social science disciplines, from pre-Columbian history to modern neoliberal economics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether policy makers learn from past experience is both a central and a vexing to students of foreign policy analysis. As Levy (1994) has noted, it is the latter because it is fraught with conceptual and methodological problems, but it is central because establishing the presence of learning would legitimate the idea that leadersÂ’ beliefs, cognitions and attitudes mattered when predicting the behavior of states in the international system. While some attempts have been made to systematically assess the impact of prior success or failure on foreign policy choices, most of these have focused on behavioral indicators of learning (i.e. change in strategy over time) rather than systematically assessing changes in the mental states of the decision makers. This analysis of the belief systems of US Presidents in response to crisis outcomes attempts to fill this void. The International Crisis Behavior project dataset provides a subset of crises for which we examine US behavior, target behavior and crisis outcomes. We use using the Verbs in Context system of content analysis to generate operational code indicators for the relevant US President before and after the crisis in order to establish whether congruence or disparity between each PresidentsÂ’ subjective representation of the situation and his anticipated behavior of the opponent interacts with outcome quality to reinforce or change his belief structures. We then determine whether Presidents exhibiting belief change are more likely to demonstrate learning by acting differently in the next crisis. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The greatest shift in the global balance of power from 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989 occurred when China moved from being the Soviet Union's closest ally to its most hostile adversary. Realisms and liberalisms cannot account for this event. A constructivist account is offered. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waiting for the abstract.

Our study explores how marginalized groups at the university read and utilize academic knowledge in locating themselves in relation to the dominant collective. It regards the university as an sociocultural and political arena that hosts different ethnic groups, who are differently positioned in relation to its social and cultural ethos and national narratives. The students’ processes of location are triggered especially in the encounter with Social Sciences and Humanities -- subject areas that are shaped by cultural and social power relations. Our main postulation is that within higher educational institutions, social power relations hierarchize the positioning of minority and majority groups. Learning and the experience of university life are organized by power relations, and students construct identities within and against this power structure. To understand how different minority groups construct identity, position themselves as educated but also as distinct collectives, we must take into account how power relations order academic learning and how groups react/act within it. Our case study probes into the situation of marginalized groups at the Hebrew University, a university based on a strong national ethos. Founded both on the basis of the European model and emphasizing full Jewish life in the Land of Israel, the Hebrew University combines a desire for the pursuit of universal knowledge with a project of strengthening the particular Jewish nation. Among the groups hosted by the Hebrew University are not only indigenous and immigrant Jews and visiting Jews from the Diaspora, but also foreign non-Jews and local Palestinian Israeli citizens. Our study focuses on two noticeable, contrasting marginal groups, each located differently in relation to the national ethos and who bring with them different cultural capital regarding knowledge and academic learning. Palestinian Israeli women that are not part of the nation building project. These women also enter the university with cultural models of ways of knowing that are different from their Jewish Israeli counterparts. The second group is of Russian Jewish students, who are invited to join the Jewish collective and be part of the homeland. They enter the university with Western, appropriate cultural models of ways of knowing that largely correspond the dominant model at the university. For them, university studies are part and parcel of their welcomed immigration process. The aim of this research is to compare how students of two different minority groups locate themselves as educated elites in society. We try to understand how pre-university social positioning guides the ways in which cultural minority groups use knowledge. The comparison between these two minority groups helps highlight the different ways academic knowledge can be used to reframe and rework identities as minority educated elites. Embarking from the literacy approach to reading as a subjective practice of identity construction, we use personal narratives to reveal how meaning and collective national identity are constructed in the postcolonial context of institutionally represented power relations. Particularly, we study how members of the two groups read and utilize academic knowledge to locate themselves in relation to the Israeli-Jewish collective. Facing the unknown and the non-familiar sharpens the student’s reflexivity and obliges her to read and reflect on newly encountered knowledge. Immigrant groups often use academic knowledge as an arena for cultural reading and the inclusion in collective identity, yet when a group is excluded by the knowledge itself, as in the case of Palestinian-Israelis, their reading of it will bear different fruits. Through juxtaposing the groups of Palestinian and Russian students at the Hebrew University, we study how the two groups differently interpret national and cultural messages transmitted in the classroom to re-design their marginality in relation to the collective. The Russians take for granted the zionist messages in academic knowledge and utilize the knowledge to join hegemonic groups in Israeli society and culture. Resisting these same messages, the Palestinians utilize the same academic knowledge to elaborate themselves as part of a Palestinian ethno-national collective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secularization theory has long held sway in the social sciences. If nowhere else, the secularization thesis seems to hold true in Western Europe. This study looks at one of the mechanisms behind the transformation of religious groups into secular nations, arguing that the universal nature of western religions (Catholicism, Protestantism) and their related goals of proselytism erode any religious foundation for nation-building. In other words, national identity is based on the unique characteristics of a given group. As such, the universal goals of the Catholic Church (i.e. a message for all mankind) and its related acceptance throughout many states in Europe means that Catholicism is of little use in building an Italian identity in contrast to a French or Spanish one. The result is nationalism built on other unique characteristics (language, history, culture) and a de-emphasis on religion (at least in terms of national identity). Examples from Western Europe are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]