Author: jsettle

Categories
Study of Studies

What Research says about the Effects of Contact with Immigrants

People possess all kinds of stereotypes and false information about strangers, especially about those outside our “circles.” Until we make personal contact with these outsiders, misperceptions about them are likely to persist. For one, I remember when Americans were surprised when they first learned that not every Chinese person knows Kung Fu.

Just like you’d expect, social scientists have long found that contact with out-group members can reduce prejudices about them from in-group members. Contact generates new information that helps in-group members correct misperceptions, increase empathy, and develop emotional ties (Allport, 1954).

This idea leads to the question: could an increased contact with immigrants reduce xenophobia and stereotypes among Americans? We do have some evidence to support this hypothesis. If one can recall the whole stunt of the caravan “invasion” in 2018, Americans who meet more immigrants are less likely to believe in it (Murray, 2018). More rigorous academic research, however, presents mixed results even when we limit our scope to those studies conducted in the U.S. While some research suggests that contact with immigrants can reduce prejudice, increase the perceived value of immigrants, and yield more support for inclusionary policies, others claim contact actually leads to stronger exclusionary reactions and feelings of threat.

Let’s first consider a study that asks this question: if you commute by train from work to home and suddenly one day an unusually large number of immigrants showed up, would you expect to instantly feel warmer towards them? Enos (2014) conducted such an experiment where he randomly assigned pairs of Spanish-speaking confederates to visit train stations in Boston, a homogeneously Anglo community, for two weeks. Enos found that repeated intergroup contact led to more exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants. Why didn’t contact have positive effects here?

As it turns out, the effects of contact are not universal – who and how condition the effects. One such essential condition is the “friendship potential”: the contact process much present real opportunities for immigrants and natives to become friends, and that typically requires interactions across times and different social contexts (Pettigrew 1998).

In Enos’ study, the demographic change he created only represents a superficial form of contact – seeing more immigrants in the community. Without the potential to develop friendship, the mere presence of outgroups is more likely to induce threats than reducing prejudices. Enos even suspected that repeated exposure can mitigate the initial negative reactions. Surveys of natives sometimes only ask for “casual contact,” which is unlikely to reduce the perception of threat (Gravelle 2016).

Other research that uses a different method also confirmed the “friendship potential” as an essential condition to generate positive effects from contact. Ellison and his colleagues (2011) asked how different aspects of contact with Latinos affect attitudes toward the U.S. Latinos and immigration restrictions. They found that the most consistent predictor of positive views of Latino immigrants and immigration policies is having Latino friends, followed by relatives. 

To become friends, ideally, there should be few cultural and language barriers. A 2012 mixed-method study (Newman, Hartman, and Taber 2012) showed that white Americans who came in contact with non-English speaking immigrants enhanced their perceptions of immigration as threats and expressed more support for exclusionary immigration policies. One interpretation is that natives and immigrants who have higher language skills and cultural exposures are more likely to develop positive viewpoints of one another.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, partisanship also plays a large role in conditioning the effect of contact in the United States. Survey studies found that contact only has threat-reducing effects among voters on the left (Homola and Tavits 2018). Democratic voters who are predisposed to political values like equality and tolerance are more likely to positively update their views of immigrants than Republican voters who tend to oppose social changes. In addition, for positive effects of contact to sustain, in-party members cannot provide contrary messages (Pearson-Merkowitz, Filindra, and Dyck 2016). When individuals are interpreting policy information, partisanship serves as a stronger heuristic that cancels out the positive effect of intergroup contact.

Besides partisanship, other personal traits also play a moderating role. People who have histories of positive contact with immigrants are more likely to report positive ones in the future. We also know prejudiced people less likely to engage in intergroup contact, though it’s unclear if they would report lower levels of both positive and negative contact (Kotzur, Tropp, and Wagner 2018).

The big lesson is that while more contact with immigrants can yield both more positive and negative effects, the positive ones are more common (Kotzur, Tropp, and Wagner 2018). Studies show that contact frequency consistently predicts a higher willingness for U.S.-born to welcome immigrants. Meta-analyses of over 500 studies concluded that intergroup contact typically reduces prejudice (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Pettigrew and Tropp 2008). In short, definitely reach out to immigrants around you, but remember that the effects depend on the quality of the interaction. 

Studies:

Allport, G. W. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Ellison, Christopher G, Heeju Shin, and David L. Leal. 2011. “The Contact Hypothesis and Attitudes Toward Latinos in the United States*.” Social Science Quarterly 92(4): 938–58.

Enos, Ryan D. 2014. “Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(10): 3699–3704.

Gravelle, Timothy B. 2016. “Party Identification, Contact, Contexts, and Public Attitudes toward Illegal Immigration.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80(1): 1–25.

Kotzur, Patrick F, Linda R. Tropp, and Ulrich Wagner. 2018. “Welcoming the Unwelcome: How Contact Shapes Contexts of Reception for New Immigrants in Germany and the United States.” Journal of Social Issues 74(4): 812–32.

Murray, Patrick. 2018. National: Public Divided on Whether Migrant Caravan Poses a Threat. Monmouth University Polling Institute. https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_111918/

Newman, Benjamin J, Todd K. Hartman, and Charles S. Taber. 2012. “Foreign Language Exposure, Cultural Threat, and Opposition to Immigration.” Political Psychology 33(5).

Pearson-Merkowitz, Shanna, Alexandra Filindra, and Joshua J. Dyck. 2016. “When Partisans and Minorities Interact: Interpersonal Contact, Partisanship, and Public Opinion Preferences on Immigration Policy.” Social Science Quarterly 97(2): 311–24.

Pettigrew, Thomas F. 1998. “Intergroup Contact Theory.” Annual Reviews of Psychology 49: 65–85.

Pettigrew, Thomas F. 2006. “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90(5): 751–83.

Pettigrew, Thomas F, and Linda R. Tropp. 2008. “How Does Intergroup Contact Reduce Prejudice? Meta-Analytic Tests of Three Mediators.” European Journal of Social Psychology 38: 922–34.

Tavits, Margit, and Jonathan Homola. 2018. “Contact Reduces Immigration-Related Fears for Leftist but Not for Rightist Voters.” Comparative Political Studies 51(13): 1789–1820.

Tropp, Linda R, Dina G. Okamoto, Helen B. Marrow, and Michael Jones-Correa. 2018. “How Contact Experiences Shape Welcoming: Perspectives from U.S.-Born and Immigrant Groups.” Social Psychology Quarterly 81(1): 23–47.

Categories
Data-Driven Analysis

Explaining Conflict in Estonia Through Ethnic and Political Polarization

In my last blog post, I detailed my interest in explaining ethnic conflict in Estonia through a predictive political framework, provided context on Estonia’s repressed Russian minority, and illustrated the importance of researching East Central European affairs. The research paper I discussed in the last post was instrumental in developing my research project. This paper, written by Jeffry Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg (2010), examined the extent to which ethnically mixed communities in interwar Poland were more prone to pogroms than other communities that shared similar ethnic makeups.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, pogroms were organized massacres that targeted specific groups of individuals, typically based on their religious and cultural background. Pogroms against Jewish people were physical manifestations of antisemitism, and occurred throughout East Central Europe and the Russian Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries[1]. They were a significant barrier impeding integration of ethnic minorities in interwar Poland, and resulted in ethnic polarization and partisanship that prevented meaningful communication and interaction between different groups.

Kopstein and Wittenberg crafted their theory using Stathis Kalyvas’s specific definition of polarization, which Kalyvas operationalizes “as the sum of antagonisms between individuals belonging to a small number of groups that simultaneously display high internal homogeneity and high external heterogeneity[2]” . Using this concrete definition, Kopstein and Wittenberg argued that higher rates of polarization —  specifically, political polarization — in a community were positively correlated with that community’s eventual likeliness to suffer a pogrom.

In testing this hypothesis, Kopstein and Wittenberg found that political polarization along ethnic lines had statistically significant impact on predicting pogroms. However, they also found that voting patterns of ethnic minorities in interwar Poland were far more accurate in foreshadowing conflict than voting patterns of the community’s ethnic majority.

In many Polish communities at the time, Catholic Poles were the majority; Jews from Poland and elsewhere in East Central Europe constituted a sizable minority in these communities. During interwar Poland’s brief flirtation with democracy, several political parties emerged to suit the ideologies of the country’s diverse population. Two of these groups were the Bloc of National Minorities (“the Bloc”), which catered primarily to minority citizens, and the Polish National Democrats, who embodied the nationalist views of predominantly Catholic ethnic Poles.

Kopstein and Wittenberg tracked two voting statistics for each community in Poland. First, they determined the percentage of the ethnic majority, Catholic Poles, in the community that voted for the Polish National Democrats. Similarly, they calculated the portion of the community’s minority — in many case, Jewish Poles — that cast ballots in favor of the Bloc. They found that minority voting patterns were more correlated with pogrom outcomes than majority voting patterns were, indicating that political activity among ethnic minorities was more highly correlated to whether or not a pogrom took place than the political activity among Catholic Poles. Whether ethnic Poles voted and who they voted for mattered far less in determining whether a community would suffer a pogrom; the behaviors of ethnic and cultural minorities, including Jews, were far more predictive.

Even more troubling was Kopstein and Wittenberg’s discovery that pogroms were more prevalent in communities where ethnic minorities voted for the Bloc at higher rates. These findings suggest that violence against minority citizens may have been instigated by a perceived threat by ethnic Poles that their minority counterparts were organizing politically.

This research indicates that the ideologies, perspectives, and voting patterns of a community’s ethnic majority are not terribly effective in predicting the likelihood of conflict. Instead, Kopstein and Wittenberg’s paper provides compelling evidence that the voting patterns of minority individuals matter much more and communities with higher degrees of activist voting behavior among ethnic minorities may be the same communities that eventually suffer from violent backlash against those minorities.

I find this paper’s approach intriguing and sought to mimic its research design within my own research. Like interwar Poland, modern Estonia has an indigenous ethnic majority and a sizable ethnic minority — could ethnically-driven conflict between Estonians and Russians be better understood by examining the rate of minority political activity?

First, in line with Kopstein and Wittenburg, I categorized Estonia’s political parties into three groups. One group consisted of parties with largely mixed constituencies where, according to my prior research, ethnicity does not play a primary role in party identification. This cluster of parties was excluded from further analysis, as I am primarily interested in parties that explicitly reference ethnic affiliation in their electoral platforms or consist of disproportionate ethnic membership compared to Estonia’s population as a whole. The second group consisted of Estonian ethno-nationalist parties, the group with support from the ethnic majority. My third cluster was comprised of minority rights parties, which are primarily supported by ethnic Russians — this group most closely resembles the Bloc, which ethnic minorities in Poland supported.

While Kopstein and Wittenberg had extensive data on pogroms throughout Poland, I lacked sufficient data on the prevalence of similar hate crimes against ethnic Russians. How could I hope to mimic this research without having a reliable dependent variable to test voting patterns against?

I eventually decided that using countywide crime rates would be an adequate proxy for this missing dependent variable. Counties with higher rates of civil strife are very likely to be the same ones that suffer most from poor social cohesion. Communities with limited cohesion and unideal safety conditions make it easier for hateful or divisive rhetoric to fester, so using county-level crime rates is an accurate gauge of conflict frequency between different community groups.

Obtaining countywide crime rates was easily done through Estonia’s online statistical records — calculating vote percentages was also a simple process, and soon enough I had developed an Excel spreadsheet with requisite information to run a regression comparing minority voting patterns (denoted here as Percent_EthMinorityParties), majority voting patterns (Percent_EthMajorityParties) and my dependent variable, Crime_Rate. I used a broad crime rate statistic that merely encapsulated the number of recorded legal infractions and incidents per capita in each county in order to prevent incorporating any extraneous information into the calculations.

County Percent_EthMinorityParties Percent_EthMajorityParties Crime_Rate
Harju 30.5 7 0.028379
Hiiu 13.2 12.1 0.010604
Ida-Viru 59.2 3.3 0.042995
Jogeva 27.3 12.2 0.028144
Jarva 21.2 9.2 0.020957
Laane 17.2 15 0.021728
Laane-Viru 24.2 9.9 0.032809
Polva 26.6 8.9 0.029813
Parnu 23.6 19.7 0.029897
Rapla 16.5 10.8 0.022418
Saare 17.8 10.9 0.016464
Tartu 18.55 8.1 0.028155
Valga 26 10.2 0.029822
Viljandi 18.9 8.3 0.020294
Voru 20 11.6 0.027463

The regression output is below. Note that there are two regressions being completed, one for the 2011 Estonian parliamentary elections and another for the 2015 elections):

A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated

Stata output for the 2011 parliamentary elections. Note that percent_russianparties — denoted as Per_EthMinorityParties on the previous table to signify its representation of minority voting patterns —  has a positive influence (and a statistically significant one at that) on crime rates. The positive slope of the coef. and a p-value below 0.05 suggests this result. It is also worth noting that the voting patterns of Estonia’s ethnic majority, encapsulated in percent_estonianparties, does not appear to have a statistically significant impact on crime rates.

Stata output for the 2015 parliamentary elections. Like the 2011 elections, voting patterns of Estonia’s ethnic minority — expressed as percent_russianparties in the Stata regression and as Per_EthMinorityParties in the county data spreadsheet —  appears to have a statistically significant impact on crime rates, whereas the voting patterns of Estonia’s ethnic majority do not.

Preliminary findings from these regression analyses support Kopstein and Wittenberg’s theory that the voting behaviors of ethnic minority citizens are better determinants of crimes against minorities than the civic patterns of a community’s ethnic majority. In my next blog post, I will include statistical analysis of Estonia’s recent 2019 parliamentary elections that occurred earlier this month, while also continuing to investigate how ethnic conflict can best be explained and predicted within this post-Soviet state.

[1] “Holocaust Encyclopedia: Pogroms”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms.

[2] Kalyvas, Stathis. (2006). The logic of violence in civil war. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Categories
Aha Moment

Conceputalizing a Russian Minority: A Case Study of Ethnic Conflict in Post-Soviet Estonia

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the international community’s watchful gaze has turned away from Eastern Europe and its Soviet environs. Instead, debacles in the Middle East and South China Sea are among the most highly publicized and hotly contested issues in the world, and Eastern European states are relegated to global obscurity and internal insecurity.

For a region of such geopolitical importance, this relegation is unfair and unproductive. Eastern Europe, physically and culturally, is the crossroads of the East and West. Since dialogue on American-Russian relations is ubiquitous both in the Ivory Tower and at the kitchen table, it is nonsensical that the region placed squarely in between these two global powers is rarely discussed in international discourse. Studying Eastern Europe would aid scholars and laymen alike in understanding Russia, one of the key players on today’s global stage.

Whenever the region does manage to break into international coverage, it’s usually reserved for negative portrayals of its faltering post-socialist regimes. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula made waves in the West, as did Viktor Orbán’s repressive and xenophobic rise to power in Hungary. The international community only appear to care about investigating events in Eastern Europe when the events pose severe and external threats to the region’s stability — it is purely logical for scholars to take time researching, reflecting, and learning about Eastern Europe before conflict erupts, in order to mitigate the costs of conflict once they materialize.

This drive sparked my passion for researching the Baltic states, specifically Estonia. The three states have been comparatively successful since the USSR’s demise in terms of political and economic development, especially when compared to countries in the Balkans that underwent similar transitions in the post-socialist era. But Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia still face an endemic lingering issue in these states on how to properly integrate a sizable Russian ethnic minority into their respective civic societies.

The concept of a Russian minority intrigues me. As someone who grew up entirely in the United States, it is a common cultural motif that the Russians are strong and powerful, and their nation is something to be weary or suspicious of. Take the depictions of Russian President Vladimir Putin that frequent American media outlets: they portray Putin as masculine, strong-willed and exceptionally powerful. It is extremely difficult to conceptualize of Russians as a minority given their seemingly irrepressible dominance, yet the status of ethnic Russians in the Baltics resembles that of a subjugated class much more so than a powerful one.

Images like these show President Vladimir Putin projecting strength and assertive dominance. While clearly staged, their ubiquitous appearances on US media outlets make it difficult to conceptualize a society where Russians are weak or disadvantaged. (Courtesy photo – ABC News)

The fate of ethnic Russians in post-Soviet Baltic states is diametrically opposed to this Western phenomenon of Russian dominance. Once all three states restored their independence in the early 1990s, all made swift moves to re-solidify the superiority of ethnic Balts and disenfranchise Russian ‘occupiers’ who had emigrated to the Baltic states during the Cold War[1]. [MG1] Baltic politicians implemented a series of stringent anti-Russian policies, ranging from the passage of so-called ‘language laws’[2] — which limited the usage of foreign, non-Baltic tongues in civic life and employment — as well as the elimination of citizenship for thousands of ethnic Russians, which remains a severe problem for over 80,000 individuals in Estonia[3].

It is difficult to reconcile the miserable experiences of ethnic Russians in Baltic society with the narratives of dominance portrayed in Western media. Nevertheless, it is imperative that observers recognize the failure of Baltic states to sufficiently integrate Russians into civic society, and that we strive to understand the relationships between poor integration and various societal outcomes.

The aim of understanding this failure drew my attention most closely to Estonia. Estonia is prone to ethnic tension due to the presence of a sizable Russian minority, which consists of about a quarter of its national population. The harsh treatment of ethnic Russians has occasionally led to violent outbursts, most notably in the 2007 Bronze Night Protests that erupted over disagreements regarding a controversial Soviet-era statue in Tallinn. 

This river marks the border between Narva, Estonia and Ivangorod, Russia. The two countries have had a tumultuous relationship since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the treatment of ethnic Russians has only exacerbated tensions. (Courtesy photo – James Hill for The New York Times)

I am interested in determining what structural factors are responsible for driving conflict between ethnic Balts and ethnic Russians. I determined that linguistic differences were a major contributor to tension as the lack of a lingua franca between the two groups prevented meaningful integration, an argument suggested by both ethnic Russians and ethnic Estonians alike[4]. However, I failed to see how this difference could be the primary way of understanding the conflict, as ethnic Russians with little knowledge of the Estonian language express a willingness and desire to learn the language in many research studies — if unique linguistic heritage was the driving force of conflict, I’d expect to see a fierce reluctance to learn Estonian, which does not appear to exist among ethnic Russians.

I developed a hypothesis for what drives ethnic conflict in Estonia. This hypothesis rests on the assumption that ‘ethnic conflict’ can be most effectively condensed into ‘hate crimes’ as a means of statistical observation as it is difficult to gauge an abstract concept like conflict without first determining a concrete measurement.

This determination allowed me to mirror my research off a similar paper that attempted to link ethnic conflict (in the form of hate crimes) and political polarization among ethnic groups in interwar Poland[5]. Using this paper for inspiration, I developed the following research question, which I will discuss more in my next blog post: Does political support for pro-Russian parties among ethnic Russians in Estonia predict higher crime rates on a county-by-county basis?

[1] Kadri Leetmaa, Tiit Tammaru and Daniel Baldwin Hess (2015), “Preferences Toward Neighbor Ethnicity and Affluence: Evidence from an Inherited Dual Ethnic Context in Post-Soviet Tartu, Estonia”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105:1, 162-182.

[2] Jennie Schulze (2009), “Estonia caught between East and West: EU conditionality, Russia’s activism and minority integration,” Nationalities Papers – The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity.

[3] Tacita Vero (2007), “Many ethnic Russians in Estonia have gray passports, live in legal limbo,” Slate Magazine.

[4]  Gerli Nimmerfeldt (2009), “Identificational Integration of Second Generation Russians in Estonia”, Studies of Transition States and Societies.

[5] Jeffry Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, “Deadly Communities: Local Political Milieus and the Persecution of Jews in Occupied Poland” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3, March 2011, pp. 259-83.

Categories
Aha Moment

Making Identity Count with Popular Media and Culture

Introduction

Almost a year and a half ago, I began my research with the Political Psychology and International Relations (PPIR) Lab. I started by looking at Japan and East Asian relations and political apologies, and my project eventually morphed into examining national identity. The path of my research project can be read here on the Social Science Research Methods Center website.[1]

Using the ideas and methods from Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s book, Making Identity Count, I expanded their demographic survey of extant literature to include popular media and culture so that there is more representation of the common people in the analysis of national identity. Although national identity is something that is represented in all aspects of life, where it is represented in the demographic survey can change the interpretation of national identity categories.[2]

Literature Review

My research is based off of a proof of Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s book, Making Identity Count. Professor Holmes and I received a proof of their book earlier this spring, and the book discusses how to create a quantitative method of measuring national identity as well as a brief process on coding national identity. National identity is critical in understanding Constructivism. Constructivism is one of the three mainstream International Relations theories. Constructivist theory is the idea that states act according to their perceived identity, instead of their relation to power. The problem with Constructivism, however, is that it relies heavily on a subjective sense of self. The lack of reliability and validity of Constructivism has been one of the main critiques of the theory. To address this issue, Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley believe that by measuring national identity quantitatively can help produce reliable information to better understand interstate integrations through national identity.

National identity is a network of categories that help creates a definition of what it means to be a member of a nation. This “network of categories” before representing the state, begins on an individual level. However as humans, a part of how we understand ourselves in relation to others is through our identification with a group. Group habits and social norms are strong forces in our day-to-day lives that restrict our range of intentional actions. How an individual feels and decides are reflections of “social stocks of knowledge,” which are the norms they receive and reproduce everyday. These norms are also reflected in institutions, and also can be applied more broadly on the state.

From the norms and social stocks of knowledge groups develop national identity categories, unintentionally, through extant literatures. Demographic surveys create categories that are found in everything that is said or written, because they are deeply integrated in our perception of self. The book is based off of the assumption that because states are ideationally integrated and represent national identity, political leaders act on the socially constructed stocks of knowledge in the society that they represent. The goal for Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research was to survey as many types of texts and create a list of categories that are most representative common stock of knowledge on national identity. By better understanding national identity categories, we can see them as constraints on political leaders and their policies, because represent the state. Their decisions become the actions of the state, which in theory reflects the people and their ideas about the state. By quantitatively understanding national identity, Dr. Allan and Bentley hope build a more comprehensive theory of Constructivism.

In Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research they used public speeches, newspapers, textbooks, novels, and movies as their base texts to gather common knowledge on national identity. This research is heavily interested in interstate interactions within the framework of Constructivism. In other words, how diplomats and state officials interact on their understanding of what the state should do. However, if we are examining national identity we must go beyond how the country’s top officials views of the state and go into more mainstream sources as well. I agree with Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s assumptions that national identity is ideationally integrated within a whole nation and that it is near impossible to extract one’s self from the social constructed categories. However, I find the choice of texts from their research to lack sufficient representation of the common people. Only movies and novels can be interpreted as popular media and culture. But how many people read these books and watch these movies? Do they fully represent the Japanese people? I examined popular media and culture as an extension on the existing demographic survey conducted by Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley to helps better identify how the people view their state.

Methods

Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s method of conducting demographic surveys to reflect national identity is a simple yet complicated process. Instead of having a list of pre-theorized categories and notions, identity categories are created by an analyst based off of three concepts. The three concepts are valence, aspirational versus aversive, and significant others. Valence assess whether or not the identity is a good or bad feature. Aspiration versus aversive is a comparative measure in whether or not the feature is something to strive for or avoid. Lastly, significant other is another comparative assessment in who or what they are measuring up with. Taking these concepts into consideration, an analyst examines the extant literatures, and then decides whether or not certain ideas are significant identity categories. This process can produce a list of fifty to a hundred categories. The top twenty categories are then examined to construct a dominant discourse that later can be used to describe the unique identity of the state. Although the purpose of this method is to create a reliable and objective source of national identity, the book emphasizes on the equifinal product of the research. Variation in may exist during the coding process, but in the end the top categories should remain consistent regardless of who the analyst is.

As a part of my research, I chose to examine popular media and culture as an additional source of material to examine national identity. Specifically I will be examining Japan’s popular media and culture, because I began my research questioning whether Japanese national identity influenced Japan’s foreign policy with East Asian countries. I am fluent in Japanese, and well acquainted with Japan’s popular trends and media. I know from experience that not a lot of my friends and family members read the most popular books or watch movies regularly (which are a part of the extant literature used in demographic survey by Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s study as a source of popular voice). But does that mean they are any less Japanese than people who do? Of course not! I want to examine alternative source of social common knowledge that resonates with the broader Japanese population. If something is popular, that means a wide range of individuals commonly shares these ideas. Why would popular media and culture not have information pertaining national identity?

I examined two TV drama series, two celebrity blogs, two music artists, and an article on trending topics and people from 2010. Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research is based off of information present in 2010, and I wanted to stay consistent with their time frame with my extant literature. The TV series I chose held the highest average viewing rates in Japan.[3] They were “Freeter, Ie wo Kau” and “Rinjō,” which roughly translates to “Part-time worker, buys a house” and “Presence.” The first series a is family drama about a socially withdrawn son’s attempt to buy a house for his depressed mother by finding a stable job. The second series is a mystery drama where a team of coroners works with the police to solve murders. I only watched the season finale for both series, due to time restraints. I looked into celebrity blogs, because blog popularity often comes from of the relatedness of the posts. I examined the most popular celebrity blogs from April of 2010, because I was unable to find a list of top ranking blogs for the year. April was chose arbitrarily.[4] A former reality show participant writes the first place blog, usually on her day-to-day activities and promoting various products. The second place blog is no longer available to view. A former professional wrestler, and television entertainer, writes the third place blog. She often writes about her day-to-day activities with her family. From the blogs I chose, I read the posts on the fifteenth of every other month. If a post for the fifteenth did not exist, I read the next available post of that month.[5] The two music artists I examined, AKB48 and Arashi, sold the top four selling singles in 2010. I examined their music videos and lyrics for theses singles as a part of my analysis.[6] Lastly, I read an article on the top trending people and topics as interpreted by Oricon Chart. Oricon Chart is a trend-collecting site that is often used in Japanese media as a reliable source.[7] The article broadly discusses the trends of 2010, and I read made notes base on these trends.

Data

The raw identity categories are on the table below. Due to the small scale of my research, any category with more than four raw identity counts is presented in the table. Eighteen identity categories were identified. The data presented here is small sample of popular media and culture from 2010, to match the data year presented in Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s book.

Categories Total TV Dramas Blogs Music Trends
Finding a Job 6 6 0 0 0
Family 11 5 3 0 1
Parental love 6 5 1 0 0
Goals 6 4 0 1 1
Starting over 4 3 0 1 0
Letting go of the past 4 2 0 2 0
Positive anthem 4 0 1 3 0
Working hard 4 3 0 1 0
Feeling close to others 7 5 1 1 0
Moving forward 4 3 0 1 0
Going to help someone 4 0 4 0 0
Promotional 6 0 5 0 1
Food interests 6 0 5 0 1
Looking up to 6 6 0 0 0
Job purpose 4 4 0 0 0
Kawaii 4 0 1 2 1

 

Family is the most prominent category presented in my research. Interestingly, this category is also present in Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research as “family-orientation” in the chapter on Japan. However in their book, the category is seen as a negative aspect of Japanese identity. In the book they explanation this may be due to the difficulty of raising a child. Families are no longer multi-generational and often isolated. Although government programs, such as cash child allowances, have been implemented to ease some of the burden of raising children, the effectiveness is yet to be determined. On the other hand, in popular media and culture family is portrayed positively, almost as an ideal to be achieved. Celebrities post photos of their children and husbands in a loving environment. TV series depict the dedication of a socially withdrawn son finding a job to support his depressed mother. Whether it is repairing existing relations or building a new family, the Japanese people closely relate to the concept of family. Although the Japanese acknowledge the difficulties of building families, the aspiration of good family relations is still present.

Japanese popular media and culture differs from the data presented in Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research through the presence of positive messages. Prominent categories in their research discuss aging, welfare, self-sacrificial, along with other phrases that are typically negatively associated. However, in my research I found phrases such as goals, starting over, moving forward, and going to help someone as prominent themes that express confidence towards the future. Perhaps it is only in popular media where positivity for the future, whether it is immediate or long term, is expressed explicitly. Something is popular because a demand exists, and if the Japanese people are demanding positive messages I believe it is telling us that they are forward looking nation ready to take on the future.

Disclaimer

There are many shortcomings in my findings, especially when compared to that of Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s. For one, the analysts for Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research consisted of graduate students and junior faculty members trained in qualitative methods. Undergraduate students also participated in their research, but received a two-week of training on how to analyze information to increase reliable results and decrease over-reading of information. Although I kept in mind the three concepts (valence, aspirational versus aversive, and significant other) as I went through my materials, I lack the specific training that the analysts had for this project. As a result my data may be different than I if I had received the same training as the analysts for this project.

In addition, Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s study examines text that is central to the identity of the Japanese people. This means using information well circulated throughout Japan, and works to limit political action through their understanding of Japanese identity. Of the extant literature used by Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley textbooks, public speeches, and newspapers are managed under the supervision of the government. It is understandable that they have the power to limit political actions and represent the state. Popular books and movies, however, are more reflective of the common people who vote for the politicians. Although my choice of extant literature is not related to the government directly, it is an extension of public views on national identity that cannot be fulfilled simply by books and movies.

Conclusion

National identity is how a state understands itself in relation to other states. This understanding is rooted within each individual and manifests in the culture and extant literature of the state. Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s book, Making Identity Count, examines how to quantitatively analyze national identity to build reliability in Constructivist theories. Their methods appear to be replicable, and it provides a quantitative analysis of national identity. In their research they conduct of demographic survey on textbooks, newspapers, public speeches, and popular movies and books. As an extension of the literature used, I examined popular media and culture to examine more of Japan’s grassroots understanding of national identity. Despite the fact that national identity is integrated within the psyche of the nation, depending on the choice of extant literature differences in national identity categories emerge. In my research on popular media and culture, I saw Japanese people responding to positive family relations. Despite of the struggles depicted in the book on “family-orientation,” Japanese people appear to want to achieve good familial relations. Similarly, a general trend of positive views towards the future can be seen in my identity categories. Although I lack the proper training as the analysts for Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s research, I believe that general population based demographic surveys can provide a more nuanced understanding of national identity. The extent in which my categories influence political leaders for state actions is debatable at best. However, including more popular extant literature in addition to that used by Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley may provide a holistic understanding of national identity.

[1] Link: http://ssrmc.wm.edu/research-begins

[2] Ted Hopf and Bentley B. Allan, eds., Making Identity Count: Building a National Identity Database, 1 edition (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[3] Link: http://artv.info/ar10.html

[4] Link: https://www.cyberagent.co.jp/news/press/detail/id=2906

[5] Link: http://ameblo.jp/momo-minbe/

Link: http://profile.ameba.jp/hokuto-akira/

[6] Link: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/js/y/2010/

[7] Link: http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/79081/full/

Categories
Study of Studies

Teams in the Modern American Political Arena

In discussions about the causes and effects of American political polarization, the idea of “sorting,” an increasing correlation over time between characteristics in a group, is likely to play a primary role. In the context of polarization, these characteristics are associated with politics; for example, more Democrats are identifying as liberals over time (and vice versa), and more political party members are relocating to the same places as other party members over time.

Political scientists debate whether polarization is happening at all, or whether it consists entirely of partisan-ideological sorting within both groups of elected officials and the mass electorate [1]. This argument highlights the difference between issue distance, the ideological distance of mean issue positions between political groups, and issue consistency, the variation of issue positions within groups. If there is very little variation in the positions held by group members, that group is considered highly sorted.

Over the last several decades, issue distance between Democrats and Republicans- the two largest political groups- has increased relatively little, while issue consistency in both these groups has increased substantially [2]. Consistency in living areas has also increased in the last twenty years or so, and liberal Democrats are becoming more likely to live near other liberal Democrats, etc [3]. This trend might be surprising to some, as Democrats and Republicans are traditionally portrayed as diametrically-opposed forces. But if polarization is only defined as the difference between group ideological or issue positions, it doesn’t appear to have been occurring in the past several decades in America. Polarization may instead simply be a misnomer for “political sorting.”

However, many people would instinctively disagree with this conclusion. They feel rising tension in our modern political environment and likely attribute it to differences (read: disagreements) between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. Since differences in issue positions can’t explain this tension, some political scientists focus not on issue consistency or other types of sorting to describe polarization but rather on the behavioral effects of that sorting. Sorting of politically associated identities — party, ideology, issue positions, living area, demographics — in individuals has been known to increase their affective polarization, or their active dislike for opposing political groups (and reciprocal loyalty to their own group) [4]. In fact, even the perception of demographic sorting in political parties may increase affective polarization in those who hold that perception [5].

These results hint at how sorting is related to the more tangible aspects of polarization, namely anger, distrust, and stubbornness. As more Democrats become liberal (this does not mean the same thing as “Democrats become more liberal”), more Republicans become conservative. Similarly, if more liberal Democrats move to one place while conservative Republicans move to another, or more people of different races or religions join the same party as other people of their race or religion, people begin to get more angry at the political group that is not their own, and they become more willing to fight for their own group. This does not mean that they hold very different beliefs about the world than members of the other group; it just means that they hold different, heavily sorted group identities. Given these differences in sorted group identities, we shouldn’t be surprised that tension fills our political arena

Categories
Study of Studies

Online and Offline: How Your Friends Affect Your Politics

In an ideal democracy, we would talk about politics all the time. Imagine your friends and co-workers chatting about the latest political controversies, openly disagreeing, but still civilly exchanging ideas and arguments. Rather than debate, with both sides trying to prove each other wrong, it would be a deliberative effort, in search of common ground. Someone might change their mind occasionally after weighing the evidence. Just to be clear, this does not mean the “Can you believe Donald Trump is still ahead in the polls?” kind of political talk, so much as “I believe in policy X because…” or “I support candidate Y because…” If you’re having trouble picturing this, it’s probably because this is not how political deliberation usually plays out, whether in person or online.  Political deliberation has been studied both face-to-face and over social media, and the results diverge unexpectedly.

Besides the common belief that politics is a taboo subject, research has shown that most of us are inclined to discuss politics with people with whom we agree. In fact, we self-select into social circles composed of people who already share our opinions, hindering our exposure to different (cross-cutting) views[1]. However, some scholars think that this is an exaggerated problem. The majority of people know at least one person in their social network with whom they talk politics that holds views different than their own. People in networks with disagreement generally hold less polarized viewpoints[2], and exposure to disagreement breeds political tolerance[3]. Unfortunately, disagreement also makes people less enthusiastic about politics, but the evidence is mixed on whether or not this actually affects participation, such as voting[4].

There’s some debate about whether political discussion has the same effects online, particularly on social media. Research shows that people are most likely to encounter cross-cutting viewpoints in online settings that aren’t centered around politics, but where politics keeps coming up anyway[5] (like Facebook). In fact, there is a correlation between social media use and exposure to differing viewpoints[6]. However, unlike conversations in person, disagreement on social media has been found to result in increased polarization[7] and increased political participation online, such as sharing political content[8]. It is unclear why this difference exists. Are we more biased about the information we see online? Is online communication simply too impersonal for political persuasion? There are many unanswered questions about the role of social media in politics, making it a promising subject area for future research.

 

[1] Mutz, Diana C. “Cross-cutting Social Networks: Testing Democratic Theory in Practice.” American Political Science Review 96.01 (2002): 111-126. Web.

[2] Huckfeldt, Robert, Jeanette Morehouse Mendez, and Tracy Osborn. “Disagreement, Ambivalence, and Engagement: The Political Consequences of Heterogeneous Networks.” Political Psychology 25.1 (2004): 65-95. Web.

[3] Mutz (2002)

[4] Huckfeldt et al., (2002)

[5] Wojcieszak, Magdalena E., and Diana C. Mutz. “Online Groups and Political Discourse: Do Online Discussion Spaces Facilitate Exposure to Political Disagreement?” Journal of Communication 59.1 (2009): 40-56. Web.

[6] Kim, Yonghwan. “The Contribution of Social Network Sites to Exposure to Political Difference: The Relationships among SNSs, Online Political Messaging, and Exposure to Cross-cutting Perspectives.” Computers in Human Behavior 27.2 (2011): 971-77. Web.

[7] Lee, Jae Kook, Jihyang Choi, Cheonsoo Kim, and Yonghwan Kim. “Social Media, Network Heterogeneity, and Opinion Polarization.” Journal of Communication 64.4 (2014): 702-22. Web.

[8] Kim, Yonghwan, and Hsuan-Ting Chen. “Social Media and Online Political Participation: The Mediating Role of Exposure to Cross-cutting and Like-minded Perspectives.” Telematics and Informatics 33.2 (2016): 320-30. Web.

 

Categories
Aha Moment

How Research Begins

This blog post is about how I came to begin, but not quite finish my research.

Let me explain.

Almost a year and a half ago, Professor Marcus Holmes, my Introduction to International Politics professor, asked me if I would be interested in conducting an independent research. As a sophomore and history major, I was reluctant to accept. Since I enjoyed research, I figured I could transfer my passion for history into exploring historical perspectives of international relations. I accepted the invitation.

Before the spring semester of 2014 started, I wrote out a short biography about myself and some of the topics I was interested in researching. When the semester began, I enrolled in the Political Psychology and International Relations Lab, with Professor Holmes as my advisor. Being one of twenty or so student researchers, I was placed into a group of students who wrote similar biographies and research topics. My three initial research topics were on the impact of natural disasters on national confidence, protection of privacy over the Internet, and how students can change the views of national government.

As we discussed with the group about our research ideas, one group member stood out to me. She was interested in researching the politics of an apology between Japan and East Asian relations. Despite being a Japanese-American with an extensive knowledge of Japan, I was unaware of the political climate between Japan and other East Asian countries. Curious, I asked if I could work with her on the project.

We began by researching the politics of apologies (or apologizes), a relatively new area of study in International Relations. In fact, warring countries only began to expect or require an apology from the perpetrators after WWII. During and Second Sino-Japanese War and into WWII, Japan committed various wartime atrocities such as enslaving young women for prostitution (most commonly known as the Comfort Women) and conducting dangerous and unethical experiments on war prisoners. Still, seventy years after the war, China and Korea continue to distrust Japan’s intentions and are demanding an apology for wartime actions. Although my partner and I initially agreed to research together, we soon realized that we wanted to focus on different aspects of the Japan’s international relations. As a result, we decided that it was best to research the topics separately.

Independently, I created an “Idea Conceptual Map,” webbing out topics I believed to be related to Japan’ public apologies. I began to identify the different aspects that a political apology may have in the context of Japan, by looking into different examples of political apologies, cultural understanding of apologies, and the impact of who is communicating the apology.

After creating my conceptual map, I made an annotated bibliography as my first step of my literature review. I knew that literature on the politics of an apology were going to be limited, but I wanted to know broadly the impact of apologies in Japanese culture and how apologies influence people’s perception. I looked at mostly scholarly articles and a few newspapers and government notes. The articles I read ranged from how Eastern and Western cultures interprets apologies differently, to specific reasons for Japanese apologies, and to the different interpretations of wartime memory. All of the articles articulated Japan’s relationship and understanding of a political apology.

The more I researched, the more questions I had about Japan and the implications on the politics of an apology. Why did Japan just not apologize? Who is apologizing and who is receiving the apology? What is the focus of the apology? Realizing that I had more questions than answers, I decided to talk to Professor Holmes about narrowing down my research. As we talked, he suggested looking into Japanese national identity as a way to understand Japan’s reluctance to apologize. We predicted that Japanese national identity correlated to Japan’s reluctance to apologize, so I decided to look into how Japanese national identity changes overtime and measure their willingness to apologize for World War II atrocities. By the end of spring semester, I was committed to looking into the change in Japanese national identity between the nineteenth and twentieth century and how this change influences Japan’s willingness to apologize for past actions. I hoped to see a change or pattern in when the Japanese are more willing to apologize.

When fall semester began, I decided that my plan of looking at two centuries worth of national identity to be too ambitious to complete in a semester. Instead I decided to compare the national identity of Japan between 1995 and 2015. 1995 was the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, and also when the Prime Minister of Japan made the first public apology for wartime atrocities. In 2015, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo made another public apology for the seventieth anniversary.

However, these two apologies were met with very different national and international reactions. Comparing these two years appeared to be more manageable than looking at a broader time period. At this time, I also began emailing Professor Ted Hopf of the National University of Singapore and Bentley Allan of Johns Hopkins University to better understand how to measure national identity. These two academics were researching how to quantify national identity to help Constructivist theories ground their framework in quantitative data. In international relations theory, Constructivism rests on qualitative rather than quantitative understandings. By quantify national identity, a sound basis is produced for constructivist arguments. This processing of contacting Dr. Allan and Dr. Hopf slowed down my initial attempt to understand how to approach understanding national identity. In addition, this semester’s course work kept me overwhelmed, limiting the time I had to spend the time to complete my research.

In hopes to better understand Japan’s history and political climate, I took a class in the fall semester on Modern Japanese History and Politics of China and Japan, . I learned a lot about specific Japanese ideologies and approaches to political topics, especially when it came to international relations. These two classes, however, clarified my original question to me as to why Japan refused to apologize for World War II atrocities. As it turns out, the differing wartime memory and thawing of the Cold War, resulted in the re-emergence of unresolved issues between Japan and East Asia in political disputes. The largest problem between Japan and East Asia appears to be Japan’s interpretation of the war. Due to the complex nature of Japan’s fascist military regime and disconnect with the people, the Japanese government has chosen to gloss over Japan’s wartime action in East Asia and emphasize Japan’s victimization by the atomic bomb in their history textbooks. To publicly apologize for wartime atrocities committed during the war, Japan will then also have to change their national historical understanding of the war, which they are not willing to do. In the end, I realized that national identity has nothing to do with Japan’s willingness to apologize, but rather historical understanding of wartime action and the politics surrounding this understanding limits Japan’s willingness to apologize.

With this newfound understanding of Japan and the politics surrounding their apology, I talked to Professor Holmes about what the next step would be for me to take. Since we were both still curious about Dr. Hopf and Dr. Allan’s work on national identity, we decided to continue working on that aspect of my research. Instead of comparing Japan’s national identity, we hoped that we could at least learn to code Japanese national identity using the method Dr. Hopf and Dr. Bentley created.

Making Identity CountThis brings us to this semester, spring of 2016. Professor Holmes and I were lucky enough to receive a proof of Dr. Allan and Dr. Bentley’s upcoming book on national identity. In the proof, they listed a brief process of coding national identity and a chapter on their analysis of Japanese national identity. Their method of coding does not consist of a list of categories but rather three ways to approach topics: valence, aspirational versus aversive, and significant others. Valence assess whether or not the identity is a good or bad feature. Aspiration versus aversive is a comparative measure in whether or not the feature is something to strive for or avoid. Lastly, significant other is another comparative assessment in who or what they are measuring up with. All three of these topics can be used together to create a national identity category.

This method uses a mix of state documents and speeches, newspapers, popular books and movies, as well as textbooks. Once a list of codes is made, the top twenty are used as a basis of analysis. Although this method is subjective to the individual coder, the final product is largely an averaged understanding of national identity. Using this method of coding, the chapter on Japan addressed twenty-three national identity categories. There were four major topic categories, economic identity, state power, social identity, and other identities. The coder was able to conclude that the Japanese national identity consists of pride and the public prioritizes social issues over economic issues.

From the methods of coding and categorizing national identity in Dr. Hopf and Dr. Allan’s book, Professor Holmes and I agreed to continue looking at how to expand on their findings. I noticed that, despite the fact that the coding material consisted of material from 2010, most of the sources were not popular online media or television shows. As one of the most technologically advanced state, I assumed that there is a wealth of information that can help identify Japanese national identity online. I believe by further investigating online media sources, perhaps there is more to be learned about Japanese national identity. Therefore, I plan on looking into popular blogs and television programs such as anime, drama, and variety shows to expand on the national identity found in Dr. Hopf and Dr. Allan’s book.

Categories
Aha Moment

Land, Law, and (Eventually) a Research Question

In several of the recent Republican debates of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and other candidates bickered mercilessly over a politically charged but often overlooked issue: eminent domain. Basically, the idea of eminent domain is the right of a government to expropriate private property (usually land) for public use.1 Really gets your heart rate going, doesn’t it?

… Hardly. This issue is really important since it carries implications for human rights, development, and environmentalism, but it doesn’t often incite interesting debates or passionate discussions in our domestic political arena. However, for indigenous groups and embittered peasants shut out of historical homelands in the name of resource extraction for the public good, this is a major issue.2 3 It’s an everyday reality, not just an abstract political concept, which inspires protest and sometimes violence. For me, it’s a fascinating topic that entails questions about land and loss, power and marginalization, privilege and ‘otherness’. It’s a topic that thousands are forced to question every day, and the reason I started a research project last year.

I study the evolution of land titling in Peru, and specifically its effect on indigenous peoples and its relationship to social conflict. I started this project a year ago without a specific goal in mind; I just knew I was interested in indigenous peoples and human rights, related political and legal institutions, and related social tension and conflict. I started my project playing with ArcGIS online, comparing map layers with data on poverty, health, and social ascension to the geographic boundaries of Native American territory, and found shocking correlations between these layers. These geographic boundaries made me start to think about land as a way of defining and studying groups of people.

So I had the first major component of my research: land. Specifically, indigenous people’s land. I continued my work by reading Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth, which describes the ways in which land creates or can express law and order. I realized that land is not static or neutral as upon first consideration; land is dynamic. It does not only have to capacity for law-making and enforcing, but it is the most basic form of sovereignty and way of identifying a nation.4

My new perspective on land created an interest in studying indigenous land titling. How do indigenous groups defend historical homelands? How do they secure legal recognition for inhabited but informally held places? Systems of granting indigenous land titles vary widely across the world, but one particularly interesting and unique case I soon found was Peru.

Unlike many of its South American neighbors, indigenous land holdings in Peru are small and scattered sparsely across millions of acres of jungle and mountain terrain. The map below shows the contrast between Peru’s sparse land reserves and the larger swaths of land reserved for indigenous peoples in Brazil, Colombia and elsewhere. This is not because all of that untitled terrain is uninhabited; it’s because the evolution of land titling in Peru has created a system that does not give priority to indigenous ownership.

Map of Brasil

http://raisg.socioambiental.org/system/files/ENGLISH-reduzido.jpg

Today, land titling in Peru places an emphasis on individual rather than collective ownership as a result of neoliberal development practices, and in situations where communities do seek titles, the approval of a high percentage of community general assemblies is needed to make claims.5 6 Lands that may be traditionally or historically significant to indigenous communities but are not directly inhabited are not up for indigenous titling; they are instead under the agency of the state and may be auctioned off and zoned for resource extraction.7

The federal land titling system is harmful to indigenous communities in that it impedes access to not only a place to live and vital resources, but also a source of identity. Historian Ward Stavig wrote: “communal lands were vital to indigenous peoples’ social and biological reproduction, and little, if anything, was more important to them.” 8 After a violent historical legacy of taking land away from indigenous peoples in the name of various types of paternalistic, capitalist economics and land systems, the continuity of disrespect for indigenous land traditions today is a radical abuse.

The repercussions of this disastrous treatment of indigenous lands and ignorance of indigenous opinion are very present in Peru today, where protest, violence, and environmental degradation are increasingly prevalent.9 This social conflict, which almost always precipitates from opposition to resource extraction, led me to my research question today: How does a government decide how to distribute sovereign territory people? How do people respond to those decisions, and under what conditions do decisions about land lead to conflict?

My goal for this project is to study abroad to conduct research and to then produce a publishable research paper as a senior honors thesis. Designing my research method has proved difficult; how can I generate data as a representation of indigenous sentiment? How do I know that sentiment, and the protests and violence possibly accompanying it, is a response to land titling and not other specific injustices? Additionally, would it be more effective to conduct a small-N analysis with interviews and in-depth case studies to more deeply understand indigenous sentiment, or a large-N analysis with a survey or archival work that gathers basic information from a wider range of time and space?

In the coming weeks I’ll be working on study abroad plans and a concrete research design. Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I’ll address all these questions and share my thoughts and plans regarding methodology!

 

1U.S. Constitution. Ann. 14, amend. V.

2Rosette, Diego. 8 November 2014. “Tensions rise in Peru as indigenous groups protest new land concessions.” La Opinión.

3Hill, David. 2 February 2015. “Peru’s indigenous people protest against relicensing of oil concession.” The Guardian.

4Schmitt, Carl. 1950. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum.Candor, NY: Telos Press Publishing.

5Plant, Roger, and Soren Hvalkof. Land titling and indigenous peoples. Inter-American Development Bank, 2001.

6Plant, Roger, and Soren Hvalkof. Land titling and indigenous peoples. Inter-American Development Bank, 2001.

7Plant, Roger, and Soren Hvalkof. Land titling and indigenous peoples. Inter-American Development Bank, 2001.

8Stavig, Ward. “Ambiguous visions: Nature, law, and culture in indigenous-Spanish land relations in colonial Peru.” Hispanic American Historical Review 80.1 (2000): 77-111.

9Hughes, Neil. “Indigenous Protest in Peru: The ‘Orchard Dog’ Bites Back.” Social Movement Studies 9(1) (2010): 85-90.

Categories
Aha Moment

A View To A Kill: How Differences In Data-Sharing May Strain US-EU Relations

In a world that continues to become more integrated and connected through the internet and globalization, how does one maintain privacy? On the individual level, that is a much easier question to address than on the state and global level. The European Union approached this topic with the 1995 Data Protection Directive and, very recently, the General Data Protection Directive (GDPR). They both discusses topics such as the exportation of citizens’ data outside the EU and the right to be forgotten, which enables citizens to wipe links and information from the internet about themselves that meet certain qualifications dictated within the legislation.

Press release and comparison of GDPR and the 1995 Data Protection Directive:

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/brussels-regulatory-brief-february-2016-30511/

The EU’s massive privacy legislation has sparked the growth of privacy legislation throughout the world, serving as a model for this new wave. It has increasingly become a globalized topic, leading to a more homogenous privacy approach throughout the globe. However, the United States, especially since 9/11, has strongly protested against such privacy legislation, writing legislation such as the Patriot Act. In order to avoid the EU influence, the United States created the Safe Harbor agreement with the EU. The private sector has also rebelled. Google limited the power of the right to be forgotten beyond the borders of the EU in a 2015 court case, citing its right to free speech, the jurisdiction of the EU legislation, and the potential major economic impacts of dealing with the right to be forgotten. This stance has created a divide in the privacy world between the EU and US regimes.

I am researching whether or not it is possible for this divide to be overcome. If this divide were to be overcome, the EU would most likely be the victor with the amount of existing dominance it has in such matters. I want to study the potential implications of the creation of an international privacy law based on EU policy. Going further, I want to explore how that policy would potentially impact legal and economical relationships between states. I would be interested to determine whether EU privacy law could truly become the globalized privacy regime, which was once led by the United States.

 

http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertrust/2014/05/22/protecting-data-and-privacy-in-the-cloud-part-1/

As a member of the generation that has grown up with social media and the internet, I have lived in a world that appears to have little privacy and even idealizes openness.

The Millennial Generation and Online Privacy:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2014/07/24/why-online-privacy-should-be-the-defining-cause-of-the-millennial-generation/#6671c2cb5919

The idea of being able to remove information that myself and/or others post from the internet forever is quite intriguing to me. We are constantly being reminded that every post can be seen for eternity, even after it has been removed. I am fascinated with the potential of the right to be forgotten, especially within the United States. I was raised in a NSA and CIA household, so the idea and importance of privacy is something regularly discussed. This includes privacy law; however, it has always had the bias of the US perspective. Growing up in Europe, exposed me to different cultures that value different things. In the US, citizens are willing to compromise privacy for security and freedom of speech, while, in Europe, citizens are much more concerned with maintaining privacy, which is also true for other countries and regions in the world, such as Canada and Latin America whose policies closely mimic those of the EU. My experiences sparked the idea of studying the global privacy regime, leading me to see if I could determine whether one regime could truly become the dominate one in a world with competing priorities.

But one may ask: why is this important? Why does it matter if the EU regime becomes the dominant privacy regime? The effects of such legislation would be colossal. First of all, there are major economic implications. It would dramatically affect the functioning and structure for search engines, especially major ones such as Google.

Latest in the Google versus EU case on the “right to be forgotten”:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/technology/google-will-further-block-some-european-search-results.html?_r=0

New departments would need to be created in order to process and deal with just the right to be forgotten requests, access to certain information and activities of citizens would be restricted, and the sharing of data within search engines would change. Additionally, it would impact databases as citizens could remove their data whenever they desire. Governments, especially the United States, would have to restructure major parts of the government. The key US agencies affected would include NSA, CIA, Homeland Security, FBI, and any others that deal with the intelligence community. It would also realign the priorities that exist within the United States, thereby revolutionizing the post-9/11 era that has been governed by fears of security threats. The United States would pivot into an entirely different direction in intelligence, security, economics, and state-to-state relations throughout the globe, but, most of all, it would completely change the culture.

Furthermore, it would affect how much and which data is shared between states. Currently, the EU only shares information of its citizens with states that meet their security standards, which the United States does not. The only reason the United States has had access to EU citizens’ information is because of the Safe Harbor agreement, which expired this past year. A universal privacy regime would dramatically change the data sharing relationships between states as it would increase the emphasis on security and restricted access. A globalized policy regime would create ease and greater security, but there would also be difficulty in adapting it: economically, bureaucratically, and culturally.