Stanford University Press Blog

Pardis Mahdavi and Rhacel Parreñas on Human Trafficking

Across the globe each year there exist an astonishing number of humans who are forced into labor in one way or another. The numbers range from hundreds of thousands to millions upon millions, and yet each year we fail to understand the true process and implications of human trafficking. SUP authors Pardis Mahdavi and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas take us one step further toward understanding this grave phenomenon in their books, which highlight the behind-the-scenes aspect of human trafficking. 

Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo by Rhacel Parreñas has yet to be published and will hit the shelves in September of this year. In the book, Parrenas attempts to unveil the true nature of trafficking in Japan by documenting her experience while working alongside Filipina migrant workers--who accounted for more that 10 percent of the total estimated trafficking victims in 2004.  She addresses both the unknown and the misconceived in the world of trafficking and attempts to uncover the true motives and experiences of the workers themselves. 

Like Parreñas’ forthcoming book, Pardis Mahdavi’s recent Gridlock: Labor, Migration and Human Trafficking in Dubai also addresses the misunderstandings of forced human labor and how they can lead to more harm than good for the workers involved. Gridlock illustrates the true reality and atrocity of the migrant worker’s life in Dubai with an abundance of personal narratives from the workers themselves. 

Mahdavi supplements the workers' stories with exhaustive research into the Western policies for tracking and limiting human trafficking. The US creates a Trafficking in Persons Report each year, categorizing countries into 3 tiers of trafficking conditions. While some believe that the TIP Report is a political tactic for the US, masked in the rosy language of human rights, Mahdavi believes that though the Western policies may be more harmful than helpful in some cases, the TIP is a respectable and viable step to identifying and reducing human trafficking instances around the globe.  You can view the TIP Report as well as the designated 3-Tier chart here. 

In a recent review in Jadaliyya, the relationship between Mahdavi’s research and the TIP Report is examined and excerpts of the compelling worker narratives are explored.  Through these excerpts is a glimpse into how Mahdavi highlights the fact that people enter into forced labor for any number of reasons – force, economic conditions, escape – while still focusing on the fact that Western anti-trafficking policies may serve to make circumstances worse for the trafficked persons and delving into aspects of Western trafficking policy that many may be unfamiliar with.   

To learn more about SUP’s author’s insights into human trafficking, visit the Stanford University Press website for more on Pardis Mahdavi’s Gridlock here and the upcoming Illicit Flirtations by Rhacel Parreñas here.

 

Is Health Care Reform Possible?

Stephen Davidson, author of the upcoming Still Broken, Understanding the U.S. Health Care System lays out the problems of our health care system and asks what changes we need to solve those problems. He goes on to explain, in a political context, what strategy for reform might get us close to a solution. His approach to health care, “intended to be both comprehensive and analytic, attempts to build on the lessons gained from past reform efforts with the goal of helping to make reform a reality of this time.” (p14)

With the health care Summit still fresh on the nation’s political mind, we might ask where health care reform will go from here and if reform really is a reality of our time. The bi-partisan summit yesterday brought many points to light from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, although some say it may have been just more political theater. President Obama began the summit yesterday by saying:

“I'd like to make sure that this discussion is actually a discussion, and not just us trading talking points. I hope that this isn't political theater, where we're just playing to the cameras and criticizing each other, but instead are actually trying to solve the problem.”

Davidson thinks that the solution lies in generating the political momentum to pass one comprehensive bill that encompasses all pertinent areas of reform: increasing access, improving quality, and containing health care expenditure so that all individuals can afford and have access to good health care. While the Obama administration’s current plan, along with the two bills already passed, may not be a silver bullet in Davidson’s mind, he does see them as a historic achievement nonetheless. 

“But will they cross the finish line?” Only one other administration has been able to bring health reform to the floor, and that was Lyndon Johnson 36 years ago. Davidson points out that thus far the Obama administration has succeeded, in some ways, that he hadn’t predicted. However, one area they have lacked in is taking advantage of the bully pulpit. The president has yet to really rally the public and the Democratic Party into reform. At this point, it seems like a do or die situation. If Congress cannot reconcile their views and pass one comprehensive reform, not only will it be a political downfall for the democratic administration but it’s possible that we’ll go another thirty some years without a chance of any reform at all.

     The White House reported that President Obama will make and announcement next week about what the best way forward will be from this point. Will health care reform become a reality?  Will President Obama rally support from the nation and his party? As Steve Benen points out in the Washington Monthly, “The train is leaving the station. If 217 House Dems and 51 Senate Dems are on board, the nation will finally have the health care reform we've been waiting for since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. If not, reform will die, the crisis will worsen, and Democrats will have committed electoral suicide on a grand scale.”

When knowledge isn’t power – Logan on Criminal Registration

There are over 600,000 registered offenders in the United States today. Most of us see the registry as another protection against repeated offenses – if we know who they are, we can stay away from them. However, as author of Knowledge as Power Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws in America, Wayne A. Logan points out, 600,000 is a lot of people to keep track of. In a recent article by Nina Ayoub in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Logan’s arguments are explained.

The article references a phenomenon happening in Miami, Florida, and around the country. Ghettos of registered sex offenders are forming in odd spots among cities – under overpasses or on the outskirts of town. Because of the constraints on the offenders living choices, they really have no other option. But why should we care?

While it may seem like a good plan, Logan says that registering these people and forcing them into these ghettos really doesn’t provide a solution to the problem for several reasons. Most sexual crimes result from situations where the victim already knows the offender (family, friends…etc), not a stranger. Also, Logan points out that some sexual offenders may even go out of their community to find victims, so the registry is no help when there are tens of thousands of registered criminals across a state and nation.

In the end, it seems, we must learn not to rely on this “hypervigilance” because, as Logan points out, the registry doesn’t provide as much protection as we might think.

Demands for Net Neutrality: What have we been missing?

Most of us like to think that we have control over what we view on the internet, but as recent controversies involving broadband providers and internet search engines suggest -- perhaps we don’t. In an Op-Ed in the Short Stack column of The Washington Post, Dawn Nunziato addresses the issue of protecting free speech in the internet age. Nunziato, author of Virtual Freedom: Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age, draws on her knowledge and research of First Amendment violations on the internet to uncover how internet providers and websites are limiting users’ freedom.

Nunziato explains that the FCC is now working toward requiring broadband providers to be neutral parties within internet communications. But why should the FCC have to take such measures?  Aren’t we already free to express and view whatever we want on the internet? After all, that’s what blogs like this one are for.  But according to Nunziato, not everyone is enjoying the same rights.

In both her book and the Op-Ed, Nunziato references occasions where companies like Verizon, Google, and Comcast have limited the actions of certain users. “In 2007, for example, Comcast blocked access to legal peer-to-peer file-sharing applications and then withheld information from its users (and the FCC) about its actions.” How is it that these sorts of violations to our right to free speech have been going on right before our eyes? 

Nunziato asserts, “The FCC and the EU should act now to require that the handful of powerful companies who serve as the gatekeepers for Internet expression fulfill their obligations to the public free of discrimination and censorship to protect our free speech interests in the digital age.” 

So the next time you’re on the internet, ask yourself: Just how much have I been missing?

Chemerinsky Interviewed on Air Talk with Larry Mantle

Erwin Chemerinsky, author of Enhancing Government (2008), appeared on Air Talk with Larry Mantle to discuss the power struggle between state and federal government that has divided American politics throughout U.S. history. In the interview, Chemerinsky shares his vision of federalism, which would empower rather than limit the federal government's ability to respond to society's needs. Larry also speaks with Chemerinsky about his plans for UC Irvine's new law school of which he is the Founding Dean.

A government report released earlier this week confirmed that the American economy will see a recession in 2008. Families across the country are facing foreclosure on their homes, and the dollar is at record lows.  In an article in The Chronicle Review, David Glenn asks why presidential candidates, especially Republicans, still propose tax cuts based on the now-debunked supply-side economic theory:

The hopes of the supply-side theorists of the 1970s, who proposed that revenue would often rise after tax cuts, have been thoroughly dashed by the last 30 years. Federal revenue fell after Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and again after George W. Bush's 2001 cuts. The vast majority of economists now say that tax cuts must be matched by spending cuts, or deficits will ensue.

For an answer, he turns to The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics, released this week by Stanford University Press. Author Isaac William Martin argues that “Republican political leaders (falsely but successfully) interpreted Proposition 13's success in California in 1978 as a broad mandate for cutting income taxes as well as property taxes,” a policy that has shaped and symbolized the party every since.

Martin’s showcasing of how the Republican Party came to so deeply associate itself with tax cuts helps us understand why President Bush stands so firmly by his economic policies in the face of economic upheaval. 

New Pathways to Fighting Poverty

 Author David Grusky is looking to further strengthen the fight against poverty with the new magazine Pathways. Grusky, a professor of Sociology at Stanford and founding director of its Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, serves as editor of the magazine. This role is not new to Grusky, as he has edited several books for Stanford University Press including Mobility and Inequality: Frontiers of Research in Sociology and Economics with Stephen L. Morgan and Gary S. Fields (2006) and Poverty and Inequality with Ravi Kanbur (2006), in addition to co-authoring Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men with Maria Charles (2004).  All of his titles have been tremendous additions to SUP’s Studies in Social Inequality series.

Describing the goals of Pathways, Grusky says, "It provides new trend data detailing how some types of inequality are taking off, others are declining, and yet others are stable. It describes which interventions are working and which aren't. And it brings to the public new research that is changing how we understand the sources of and solutions to poverty and inequality."

The magazine has had quite the auspicious, and timely, beginning with its inaugural issue featuring essays from this year's top Democratic presidential nominees: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. The candidates discuss their policies on reducing poverty and revitalizing the economy, discussions that dovetail nicely with the upcoming February 5 primary elections.

Pathways has received press in our area with articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and Stanford News Service. The magazine is published four times a year and is free to readers courtesy of the Elfenworks Foundation.

UPK Debate Heats Up as 2008 Election Nears

With the ongoing debate over the feasibility and benefits of universal preschool and now with the spotlight of the upcoming 2008 presidential election, Bruce Fuller’s Standardized Childhood: The Political and Cultural Struggle over Early Education is more of resource than ever. In the past year Fuller, a professor of Education and Public Policy at University of California at Berkeley, has been called upon by numerous media outlets—ranging from the Washington Post to Education Week to KQED’s Forum—to weigh in on issues such as No Child Left Behind and universal Pre-K (UPK) education. Most recently, his book was recommended as a resource for doctors and parents by the prestigious American Academy of Pediatrics.

Last week Fuller appeared in a New York Times article that focused on the significance of the UPK movement as a campaign issue in 2008. Fuller’s pragmatic look at the costs and effectiveness of a “one system for all” preschool program appears alongside the pro-UPK argument of fellow UC Berkeley Public Policy professor David Kirp. Fuller questions the educational benefits of a mass preschool program, while Kirp believes that UPK education is essential to developing brighter students and closing the education gap.

Just as these two policy experts differ in opinion, the 2008 presidential candidates are also decidedly split on the issue, mainly between the Democratic and Republican parties. Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, and Christopher Dodd, support federal funding for universal pre-K education, while most other Democratic candidates at the very least support increased funding for programs such as Head Start. Noticeably absent from the list of vocal UPK supporters are the Republican candidates, who have traditionally supported a limited role for the federal government when it comes to education, and are choosing to focus more on issues such as school choice and vouchers.

As the Bush administration nears its end, presidential candidates must gear up with plans on handling the state of post-NCLB education, an already contentious issue. With its clear analysis of the pros and cons of the universal preschool movement, Standardized Childhood will be especially invaluable as we come upon the 2008 election and decide the fate of our nation’s educational system.

Crime and Punishment

Under the Bush administration, the policing power of the US government has expanded extensively, from warrant-less wiretapping programs to enhanced interrogation techniques. In such an atmosphere, the growing field of police science is gaining attention.

The New Police Science examines the many meanings and components of police, from the preventive actions taken by the state (laws, regulations, etc.) to the enforcement and punishment of criminal justice systems. The editors point out:

it is clear that recent developments in the United States have suddenly made this…highly relevant. Agamben’s theorization of modern life as variations on the theme of ‘camp,’ with the concentration camp regarded not as an exception but as the foundation of law and sovereignty, seemed like one of those radical rants that Italian Marxists are famous for—until Guantánamo.

This collection, recently reviewed in Law & Politics Book Review, provides a valuable perspective for anyone interested in the ways power and justice are changing in modern America.

Bruce Fuller in the Media

Bruce Fuller, author of Standardized Childhood, agrees with presidential candidate Hilary Clinton that we, as a society, need to invest heavily in early childhood education. He takes a firm stance against funding universal preschool, however: studies show that the lasting benefits of preschool are mainly for those coming from low-income families, so that he where Fuller believes we should target our money and attention.

In a recent Op-Ed in the San Jose Mercury News, Fuller analyzes Clinton’s preschool proposal. He believes that “Clinton pinpoints the right problems,” but that her proposals “suffer from the political expediencies and loose thinking that sank Hollywood activist Rob Reiner's universal preschool plan last summer.”

As Virginia works to expand its preschool programs, the Washington Post turned to Fuller to comment upon the issue.

Fuller also expressed his views on the KQED show Forum yesterday, matching wits with David Kirk, author of The Sandbox Investment, who argued in favor of universal preschool.