The year of 1863 proved to be a turning point in the American Civil War, one reason being the faith of Abraham Lincoln and his spiritually based conviction that the young nation of America could no longer ignore the question of slavery. Lincoln's personal beliefs had a definite effect on his presidency as he struggled over why God did not seem to take a hand in either side of the war. Battles were won and lost on both sides, frustrating everyone who thought the war would be short and decisive. Lincoln, feeling that God had instructed him to do so, enacted the Emancipation Proclamation. This ended up changing the tide of the war and showed how powerful the element of faith can be in the life of a president. As his motivation changed from simply wanting to keep the southern states in the union to actually insisting that slavery had to end, the Emancipation Proclamation and the subsequent victory at Gettysburg finally made Lincoln feel as if Providence was taking a hand.

The European Union committed to developing a Common European Asylum System by the year 2012. Having evolved from the desire to allocate responsibility among member states, the burden of asylum policy has now shifted away from focusing on national interests and into the realm of international standards of human rights. While this system is far from a successful example of harmonization at the community level, there has been progress nonetheless. Asylum seekers, those seeking refugee status in another country, are vulnerable to the inadequacies of the country that receives them, which is why efforts to harmonize are so significant. This evolution has been rooted in International law and the opinions of international institutions. European institutions, particularly the High Courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg, have taken initiative to uphold the values of asylum protection under International law. This paper will explore how best practice policy prescriptions from the international level and European case law are working towards a Common European Asylum System that coincides with the minimum standards of international protection.

Since 1986, Bolivia has experienced a wave of International Monetary Fund imposed privatization. The breaking point occurred during the Cochabamba Water War. Over a period of months, citizens of Cochabamba took to the streets to protest the sale of their state water utility, SEMAPA, to international consortium Aguas del Tunari, and the resulting 150-300% rate hikes. This research asks this question: to what degree has indigenous culture helped to shape such anti-privatization movements in Bolivia? This research argues that the anti-water privatization movement fostered a reclamation of indigenous identities by Bolivian indigenous peoples who felt detached from their traditional roots. Indigenous groups such as the Aymara and Quechua historically have been socially, politically, and economically excluded from the Bolivian nation, which has been dominated by a white/Mestizo elite. While Bolivian social movements in the past have been formed along union lines, contemporary movements have seen indigenous groups rally around their unique indigenous identities. This research shows how cultural elements such as collective memory and dance have been used as rallying points for protestors who feel denied full citizenship, giving scholars a better understanding of how social movements achieve success. In Cochabamba, the tradition of the Fiesta, practiced annually by the city's indigenous inhabitants, served as a focal point for collective action which united participants under their own definition of "Bolivian" culture. Bolivian indigenous social movements additionally serve as a model for further reversals of IMF imposed economic policies. Such movements indicate a desire for increased representation of the indigenous majority, as well as alternatives to the capitalist system of economic development. This study is based on analysis of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include: published interviews with activists, media coverage of their actions, and economic reports regarding privatization plans. Secondary sources include multidisciplinary analyses of the movement in question.

This paper examines cooperation between the United Steelworkers and the Mexican ‘Mineros’ Union, a relationship that began in the early 2000s and evolved into a close alliance after 2006. The alliance moved beyond the limitations of prior attempts at international labor solidarity that were constrained by a focus on symbolic gestures, a lack of connection with workers and domination by the Global North. I argue that confronting the corporate private sector through labor organizing is central to contesting the economic and social landscape of NAFTA-era North America. The two unions understand this potential and have proposed integration into a single body, though this brings a new set of challenges. I give a critical overview of the pitfalls of union mergers, particularly issues of member alienation, organizational identity and local autonomy. Flexibilized supply chains, the informalization of work and other corporate schemes have compounded these impediments to building strong unions. This essay contends that joint action, particularly organizing drives and corporate campaigns, effectively fights this erosion of working standards and engenders transnational solidarity as a culture within union membership, thereby facilitating integration. This strategy combines communication between leaders with the tangible mobilization of workers, forming the authentic and multi-layered relations of mutuality needed to rebuild worker power in a neoliberal age. High-profile debates over free trade and globalization sparked an explosion in academic literature in the 1990s that theoretically mapped out a ‘new labor internationalism,’ but the literature’s case studies failed to live up to its expansive proposals. Drawing on union agreements, newsletters and interviews with officials, this paper gives a deeper example of new labor internationalism in which the Steelworkers and Mineros are creatively continuing the long tradition of industrial unionism as a transformative social force that bridges multiple physical and social borders.

In the aftermath of the Cold War an evolving international economy brought about many changes for countries with transitioning economies. The difficult work of properly guiding transitioning economies through the radical changes required of shifting from command to market economies is not easily undertaken and many mistakes are made throughout that process. By untangling the nexus of political and economic reforms that transitioning economies go through we can achieve more accurate understandings of how transitions occur and can in turn attempt to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past. This paper hypothesizes that the greater the liberalization speed of a transitioning economy the more corrupt the economy and associated political system will be. Contrary to prior examinations of corruption, this paper contends that the nature of transition determines to a greater extent the causes of corruption than does historical or institutional factors about the state itself. The guiding theory behind my hypothesis is that reforms implemented over a short period of time are more susceptible to politically turbulent conditions which will cause elites to attempt to consolidate power via illegal means out of fear that they may lose their position of power in the near future. By comparing the speed of liberalization in several transitioning economies to the rates of corruption in those economies I attempt to demonstrate a causal link between the rate of liberalization and corruption.  

The 2007 financial crisis and subsequent recession in the United States has brought the political economy of unsustainable debt to the forefront of the minds of people everywhere in a way not seen in decades.  This paper will delve into the puzzle of why neither dominant political party has been able to institute the recommendations of the four highly regarded debt and deficit reduction commissions in light of their general consensus regarding goals that need to be met in order to avoid a currency crisis.  We ask the question: Why has the Congress of the United States failed to enact measures to reverse the trajectory of the triple deficits of the United States (fiscal, trade, unfunded liabilities) and thereby avoid this crisis?  Our hypothesis is that decades of continued entrenchment of budgetary, trade, and social policies led to gridlock.  We will investigate the coalitions that have formed around the aging baby boomer population, national health care, and national defense.  First, we will discuss the recommendations of the various commissions.  Second, we will review the literature regarding the interests and coalitions within representative bodies contending with looming fiscal imbalances. Third, we will analyze the interest groups, coalitions, and beneficiaries of inaction at this particular time and relate this to the previous literature review.  Finally we speculate as to what would be necessary for congress to act, and what are the likely scenarios if congress fails to act. Having done so, it is our hope that we can provide policy makers and constituents with a deeper understanding of the political-economic problem that the country faces.

This project explores whether steady increases in inequality; the neoliberal retreat of the State from social protection; and the Great Recession of 2008 produce new forms of cross class interaction, identity formation, and action around the themes of poverty and inequality. Specifically, we are interested in studying the production, maintenance, and renegotiation of middle class-ness in the context of rising inequality. Using a variety of qualitative methods including, but not limited to, ethnography, archival research, PAR, and critical GIS, we hope to investigate a series of questions on middle class responses to and involvements with poverty. What are the sites at which these interactions can be studied? What sorts of ideas about poverty and inequality are produced in different 'sites of governance' and 'zones of encounter'? Through this research, we'll investigate potentials for social alliance around poverty in the Seattle region, as well as spaces of increased difference and class-based tensions.