Organizational Frames for Professional Claims: Private Military Corporations and the Rise of the Military Paraprofessional

Corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and other organizational forms are major players in the sodal world. Recently, sociological scholarship on organizations has converged with research on the professions to discuss the ways in which professions are shaped or influenced by different organizational forms. In this article, I borrows from the notion of framing within social movement research to argue that organizational forms frame the bids of aspiring professionals. More specifically, I argue that certain organizational forms-such as that of the modern corporation-can aid would-be professionals in making their claims for professional recognition. Organizations do this, I argue, by providing aspiring professionals with a ready-made setting, rationale, and guarantees that make the newcomers more easily recognizable as professionals to outside audiences. I explore this argument by examining how the corporate form has facilitated private military contractors in their attempts to legitimate and develop this highly controversial new industry. The data are drawn from my interviews with private military contractors, state officials, and other interested parties surrounding private military corporations, as well as from archival data that detail the rise of the private military industry.

Nation building in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Cooperation, coordination and collaboration

Cross-sectoral interorganizational relationships in post-conflict situations occur regularly. Whether formal task forces, advisory groups or other ad hoc arrangements, these relations take place in chaotic and dangerous situations with urgent and turbulent political, economic and social environments. Furthermore, they typically involve a large number of players from many different nations, operating across sectors, and between multiple layers of bureaucracy and diplomacy. The organizational complexity staggers many participants and observers, as do the tasks they are charged with completing. Reform efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina starting in 1995 may serve as the archetype model of conflict, transition and development for the 21st century. It wins this honor due not to its particular programmatic successes and failures, rather to the interorganizational complexity of the International Community. From the massive response to the crisis, to the modern nation-building policies it spawned, and the development assistance practices and institutional arrangements it created, the Bosnian development experience has much to offer by way of lessons learned. This manuscript frames the unique Bosnian development situation, and provides lessons learned from the experience of nation building given local realities. Pettigrew (1992) called this "contextualizing." While network and/or organizational structure, strategy and process explain many interorganizational relationship issues, the development variables identified in this manuscript prove equally important, yet elusive and difficult to measure despite their very real and overt presence.

Altered Behavior in Bats Affected by White-Nose Syndrome

WNS-affected bats did so over similar time frames as WNSunaffected bats. The behaviors of bats with WNS did not change as drastically as expected. Thereseems to be little to no effect on their ability to fly/forage until much later stages of the disease when they are likely near death. WNS-affected bats are grooming more which could be altering the way they use energy reserves during hibernation possibly leading tostarvation and eventually death. The decreased likelihood of arousals in response to external cues may be the result of spending more energy during previous and increasingly frequent arousals. While it is clear that WNS does result in changes in behavior whether these changes are directly in response to fungal skin infection or to some other component of the syndrome such as decreased energy availability or loss of homeostasis is unknown. bat behavior, white-nose syndrome, behavior, video surveillance, arousal patterns White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) is a disease of hibernating bats caused by the fungal pathogen Geomyces destructans. The fungus, which was first noted in 2006, invades bats wings and other exposed membranes, eventually resulting in death. Researchers have yet to understand many aspects of this disease, including basic etiology and epidemiology. There is also a lack of information on how fungal infection may change the behavior of healthy bats during hibernation or how changes in behavior may influence disease progression. Based upon the physiological changes that are known to occur in affected bats, and upon anecdotal observations of aberrant behavior in these bats, I hypothesized that WNS would significantly change the behavior of the little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus). My research examined the behavior of hibernating bats during arousals from torpor. I compared WNS-affected and unaffected bats, in the field and incaptivity, using motion-sensitive infrared cameras. Flight maneuverability and echolocation were also tested between WNS-affected and unaffected bats during arousalsfrom hibernation to detect changes in the bats' ability to perform basic locomotion or potentially catch insect prey. Lastly, hibernating bats were artificially disturbed and theirarousal patterns were monitored to examine changes in the response to external stimuli between WNS-affected and unaffected bats.Bats with WNS groomed for longer periods of time after arousing from torpor, both in the field and in captivity. They also engaged in longer periods of any sort of activity during these arousals. There were no changes in acoustical signaling during flight tests and changes in flight maneuverability were only found in bats were seen staging" near the entrance of the mine which is itself a unique behavior exhibited by affected bats. At this point these bats were likely near death and could barely fly at all. In response toexternal stimuli bats with WNS were less likely to arouse than unaffected bats. However when they did arouse WNS-affected bats did so over similar time frames as WNSunaffected bats. The behaviors of bats with WNS did not change as drastically as expected. Thereseems to be little to no effect on their ability to fly/forage until much later stages of the disease when they are likely near death. WNS-affected bats are grooming more which could be altering the way they use energy reserves during hibernation possibly leading tostarvation and eventually death. The decreased likelihood of arousals in response to external cues may be the result of spending more energy during previous and increasingly frequent arousals. While it is clear that WNS does result in changes in behavior whetherthese changes are directly in response to fungal skin infection or to some other component of the syndrome such as decreased energy availability or loss of homeostasis is unknown."

Running in Heels: an Analysis of Advertisements By Female Senate Candidates

Female candidates have become more successful in the political arena, specifically in the United States Senate. Today, females make up twenty percent of the total Senate seats. Despite this increase, females are still underrepresented in Washington. As such, understanding the roadblocks to equality will help us achieve parity. In an attempt to understand various challenges that female senatorial candidates face, this project looks at a specific element of their campaign, TV advertisements. Assessing candidate advertisements will help us understand whether gender affects strategic campaign decisions. Specifically, this project investigates the relationship between candidate gender and casting and setting of TV advertisements. Does gender influence the makeup of political ad spots? In order to understand this relationship more completely, I employ both quantitative data and case study analysis for same-gender and mixed-gender primary and general election contests in 2004 and 2008. Ultimately, candidate gender has little to no effect on casting of senatorial advertisements across both election cycles. Despite this variation in casting, we observe consistent findings across three settings, the political setting, the home setting, and the neighborhood setting. In both 2004 and 2008, female candidates use smaller proportions of ad frames with the political setting in comparison to their male counterparts. Female candidates in both election cycles also employed greater proportions of ad frames with the home and neighborhood setting compared to male candidates. These discrepancies point to a distinction in advertisement strategy depending on gender of the candidate.