Soft Borders: Rethinking Sovereignty and Democracy
Amidst projects to build higher, longer, and technologically more effective fences against illegal intruders and attempts to quell ethnic conflict by creating walled in enclaves, this work proposes a very different approach to borders. Instead of hardening symbolic, legal, and physical boundaries, the object of this work is to think about softening borders, rethinking notions of sovereignty and democracy for the twenty first century. This soft border approach envisions democratic practices of social cooperation exercised through multiple and overlapping polities by individuals and groups with complex and fluid identities. It re-imagines public spaces through practices of collective action that stretch across existing symbolic and territorial borders and are based on functional interdependencies, intersecting interests and multiple attachments. It draws on my understanding of borders and the politics of national identity developed with respect to Southeastern Europe, but the argument applies far beyond regional borders.
The argument for soft borders and transnational citizenship promotes a reconfiguration of political space and membership linked to an on-going "unbundling" of sovereignty, territoriality, and political power. It imagines the strengthening of sub-national polities through transnational linkages and the emergence of new polities based on economic and political interests, strategic alliances, and functional interdependencies - from the joining of cross-border towns to the enlargement of supranational entities such as the European Union or MERCOSUR. Softening borders, at the same time, means breaking down the physical and symbolic boundaries of inclusion and exclusion that create fixed political identities of minority and majority, assign hierarchically differentiated memberships, and keep people trapped within the hard boundaries of their "homes" states or at the borders of potential "hosts."
The Monroe Doctrine on Crack? Rethinking Our Nation's Response to Global Terrorism
by Herb Shallcross
Is a criminal justice approach effective for combating terrorism, or is it time for our nation to rethink its stance on this issue? Sterling Yale Professor Dr. Ian Shapiro, who recently came to Drexel's 6th floor faculty lounge as part of the Dean's Seminar Series, argued that a criminal justice approach is not only ineffective, but that it actually legitimizes the very terrorists we aim to stop. Promoting his most recently published book, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror, Shapiro argued for reinstating a modified version of the containment approach that was implemented during the Cold War era to combat communism.
Shapiro argued that terrorism is less of a threat today than global communism ever was, because even the most extremist uprisings are actually only defensive Jihads. Terrorists have little interest in taking over—or spreading Islam to—the United States. A criminal justice approach would have been tough to justify according to Shapiro, but the attacks of September 11th changed everything.
"Ideas that had been incubating in conservative think tanks for over a decade were implemented overnight" under the Bush Doctrine; neutrality was no longer an option – you were either with us or against us. The United States' unilateral power in the world was reconfirmed, and it was our duty to wield that power as we saw fit. "The Bush Doctrine really is the Monroe Doctrine on crack, Shapiro said. "Nothing is off-limits."
Shapiro did not point the finger solely at Republicans, though. While there was much criticism of the incompetence in the execution of the Bush Doctrine, there was little discussion of the shortcomings in the underlying ideology. The Democrats, Shapiro lamented, never articulated an alternative solution to dealing with global terrorism.
"The left is afraid to deal with the national security issue because it legitimizes the U.S. in the world. But at the end of the day, if you don't make a doctrine, somebody else will."
Containment, according to Shapiro, is that alternative solution. Shapiro outlined several similarities between our current situation and the one we faced during the Cold War, in which containment worked.
"Containment has worked before; both during the Cold War and post-Cold War. In fact, it worked in Iraq up until [we invaded]."
Shapiro urged the audience to realize that the containment approach we implement should not mirror that of the Cold War era. To make the spread of democracy possible, we must reduce poverty and inequality in developing nations. To achieve this goal, Shapiro suggests creating regional coalitions in each continent to provide short-term support for failed states.
"For long-term change, we must economically rebuild these failed states… However, many failed states there were before we entered Iraq, there's one more now."
After speaking, Shapiro answered questions from the audience and then signed copies of his books, including Death by a Thousand Cuts: the Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth, and The State of Democratic Theory.
How to be Discrete in Complicated Equations
by Ali Cahill
On April 4, the latest installment of the Dean's Seminar Series featured Dr. Jennifer Morse, associate professor of mathematics, who gave a lively presentation on "How to be Discrete in Complicated Equations."
The talk focused on combinatorics, a mathematical way to "count without counting." Morse explained that "you could count the number of people in this room," as she began counting, "or you could say that you know the capacity of this room is 30 people, and it's about half-full." Both methods provide the same answer, but as the number of people in the room becomes larger, the second method becomes faster.
Another example used to illustrate this point is counting social security numbers. Writing down every possible combination of a 10-digit number would be very time-consuming; instead, multiplying the number of possibilities for each digit times the number of digits is much faster. So there are 109 social security numbers, or a billion, minus some special cases.
Morse's specialization within the field of combinatorics is algebraic combinatorics, which deals with polynomials. She presented the audience with two very understandable examples of algebraic combinatorics: Pascal's Triangle, and Ferrers Shapes, explaining that it's possible to multiply a two-term polynomial by another two-term polynomial—(x+y)(a+b)—but when the polynomials become more complicated, this multiplication becomes harder and harder to do; for example, (x+y)8(a+b)5. But multiplying polynomials fits into the pattern for Pascal's Triangle, and thus understanding the pattern is a way to multiply this polynomial without having to actually multiply, or "counting without having to count."
Another method Morse discussed for multiplying polynomials is by using Tableaux, a type of Schur function. Schur functions are different methods for translating polynomials to shapes, like boxes, and simplifying the multiplication involved.
"Schur functions give you the tool to solve problems in other areas like physics, geometry and representation theory," Morse said.
Tableaux is a method that assigns polynomials to a grid of boxes, multiplies the boxes, and then translates the shape of the boxes back to variables. "You can encode the multiplication in terms of boxes, and then the rule for multiplication becomes very simple," Morse clarified.
Alternately put, Tableaux is a "yucky polynomial represented in a beautiful way."
Morse's research involves a new family of polynomials called Affine Schur functions, which has applications in many fields.
Schur functions like Tableaux are special because they give beautiful definitions to combinatorics, and when multiplying, create a simple rule about shapes that works for any system with linear symmetry, Morse said.
Rehabilitating Drug-Involved Offenders
by Charlotte Lenox
In a recent installment of the Dean's Seminar Series, Dr. David DeMatteo lectured about "Effective Strategies for Intervening with Drug-Involved Offenders: Unraveling What Works." DeMatteo is from the Department of Psychology at Drexel, and received his J.D. from Villanova University of Law and has a research interest in psychopathy.
During his lecture, DeMatteo discussed how drugs are very frequently involved in crimes, and said that the statistics for the relationship between the two are "striking."
DeMatteo described two previous approaches for dealing with drug-involved offenders, both of which were unsuccessful: The Public Safety Approach, and the Public Health Approach. According to DeMatteo, researchers are working on a middle-ground approach that will help offenders kick the drug habit and avoid criminal activity.
DeMatteo also discussed drug courts, how they function, and how they help drug-involved offenders. He presented his own research on how these drug courts seem to be working, and left the audience to ponder the seriousness of the relationship between crime and drugs, as well as the complex issue of treatment for offenders.
Dr. Lynn Penn's Polymer Brushes
by Charlotte Lenox
During a recent event in the Dean's Seminar Series, students and faculty were delighted by "The Captivating Polymer Brush: A Structure Associated with Surfaces and Interfaces," a lecture given by Dr. Lynn Penn, Professor and Department Head of Chemistry at Drexel. People slowly filtered into the Faculty Club on the 6th floor of MacAlister Hall for this short but informative lecture.
Dr. Lynn Penn is originally from the University of Kentucky, where she researched topics like chemical adhesion and tethered polymer chains. Her lecture focused on these polymer chains and how they anchor to a complementary surface, bathed in solvent, to form what's known as a "polymer brush." These brushes are filled with polymer chains that extend outward in order to avoid overlapping with each other. For, the basic function of a polymer chain is to repel other chains by means of an envelope that encloses it. It follows that polymer brush surfaces will repel each other and only intermingle through the application of great force.
This is how the formation of a polymer brush works: in a solution, polymer chains are tossed around and bounce against each other since they resist overlap. Each coil, essentially, has its own territory. Polymer brushes form when a surface is derivatized to cause the complementary ends of the polymer chains to "graft" or tie down to the surface. This initial tying forms a "mushroom layer," where coils are tied down but still retain their natural, spherical shape. Many scientists consider this mushroom layer to be a barrier to the addition of more polymer chains, and that brushes are formed very slowly as new chains eventually get through, but Dr. Penn's argument is that this natural property of the coils—the repelling behavior—actually facilitates the addition of new chains to form the polymer brush. There is mutual cooperation, or "assisted tethering," between the tied chains and the incoming coils. The incoming coils cause the extension of the anchored chains as they are repelled out of the way. Experiments confirm that not only are these mushroom layers facilitators, but that the addition of new chains occurs fairly rapidly and not slowly, like theorists originally thought. Dr. Penn emphatically informed the audience that the results of her experimentation were "contrary to the idea of the brush as a barrier" and that "the more free chains in a solution, the more that go on [the surface]." Dr. Penn acknowledged that experiments do differ, and that brush formation is sometimes faster in one experiment than it is in another, depending on the situation. She says "A polymer brush is like a switch," in that it is a barrier to long, inflexible chains and other brushes, but open to shorter chains of the same kind.
So what is the importance of studying polymer chains and brushes? So far, polymer brushes have only been observed in the lab setting. However, Dr. Penn suggested a natural occurrence of a polymer brush. She presented the possibility of polymer brushes explaining the morphology of the pores of the nuclear envelope within our own living cells. These pores have been observed to selectively allow or disallow certain macromolecules into the nucleus; sometimes they allow water and ions in, and other times they keep RNA out. Biologists have been baffled by how these pores make their selections, but Dr. Penn hypothesizes a very interesting scenario. What if the pores function as gateways made up of opposing polymer brush surfaces? These pores are usually closed with tethered polymer chains stretched out on both sides to block the gateway. When letting molecules through, these chains can coil by means of an external stimulus and thereby open. But no one is certain if this hypothesis is truly the case with such nuclear pores.
Dr. Penn concluded her lecture by saying that the behaviors of polymer brushes is varied and can help illuminate how cells function. She continues to research the fascinating possibilities of the captivating polymer brush.