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The sting operation is a mainstay of FBI counterterrorism strategy. Critics charge that this practice, in which an informant lures vulnerable individuals into a plot by promising money and more, amounts to entrapment. Detailing contemporary terrorism discourse and the mediation of the war on terror, legal and media scholars contend that the racial formations marking Muslims as predisposed to “radicalization” therein effectively preclude a successful entrapment defense. Building on these critiques, this paper addresses the function of mediation in counterterrorism beyond and in relation to representation. Utilizing the trial transcripts and available government surveillance evidence in the Newburgh Four case, this paper reconstructs the sting operation, remapping the medial work of the informant: how he established, cultivated and elicited the links that constituted the “cell” and its tie to global jihad. I argue that the induced linkages are the stuff of premediation; they constitute not actual ties to terrorism, but those that might have materialized had the informant been a real recruiter. Nevertheless, they act as proxies in lieu of conventional markers of predisposition and help secure conviction. Ultimately, this paper illustrates the function of (pre)mediation in counterterrorism and its relation to mediated representations of terror. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rhetorical scholars have consistently demonstrated the value of engaging with difference in processes of public deliberation, yet publics still regularly make arguments on the basis of neutrality. Using a case study of advocacy for homeless bills of rights, I employ rhetorical field methods to assess vernacular responses to counterpublic rights claims. By attending to neutrality’s rhetorical force in practice, I examine how it enables publics to deny counterpublic assertions of inequality and obstruct counterpublic rights claims. I argue that neutrality allows publics to deny counterpublics’ needs, define counterpublics’ identities, and disguise their own self-interest. The theory of neutrality I offer here pushes rhetoricians beyond questions of its (un)desirability and (im)possibility to an understanding of how it operates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay examines a set of memoranda, speeches, and other official discourse issued during the Global War on Terrorism that transformed the legal paradigm under which the enemy was defined and authorized new norms of conduct previously prohibited by law. It argues that these texts employ “deconstitutive rhetoric,” defined as discursive action that undermines the existing legal status of those to whom it refers and produces a disarticulate, destitute subject by denying the individual access to the civic forums in which rhetorical agency may be exercised. The essay begins with an analysis of the use of deconstitutive rhetoric in the decision to legally re-define Afghanistan as a “failed state” in order to absolve the United States of treaty obligations with that nation. It then addresses the emergence of “unlawful enemy combatant status,” a new legal category not recognized under the international laws of war. The essay concludes with a discussion the Obama administration’s detention and drone strike policies, which have continued to use deconstitutive rhetoric to undermine the legal status of those captured and killed in the Global War on Terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When do citizens rely on party cues, and when do they incorporate policy-relevant information into their political attitudes? Recent research suggests that members of the public, when they possess some policy-relevant information, use that information as much as they use party cues when forming political attitudes. We aim to advance this research by specifying conditions that motivate people to use content over cues and vice versa. Specifically, we believe that increased issue salience motivates people to go beyond heuristics and engage in the systematic processing of policy-relevant information. Using data from a survey experiment that isolates the effects of policy-relevant information, party cues, and issue salience, we find that people are more likely to incorporate policy-relevant information when thinking about hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a relatively high-salience issue. When thinking about storm-water management, a relatively low-salience issue, people are more likely to rely on party cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean immigrants in the USA rely heavily on ethnic resources to start up small businesses. Ethnic resources include business networks and knowledge, start-up capital and access to labour power, which are embedded in networks of family, friends and co-ethnics. This paper shows how Korean dry-cleaners in Southern California used ethnic resources to mobilize in response to an environmental policy initiated by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). While Korean immigrants used ethnic resources to start up dry-cleaning businesses, they found themselves working with a toxic chemical. In 2002, the AQMD required dry-cleaners in Southern California to convert to costly alternative machines by 2020. Korean dry-cleaners used ethnic-based collective action, particularly the Korean Dry Cleaning Association, as a means of fighting for regulatory concessions. They also used ethnic resources to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers to facilitate the adoption of alternative cleaning machines in compliance with the regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a result of US immigration and enforcement policies, Mexico has experienced the arrival of mixed-status families coming from the USA. We examine these families’ experiences of return to central Mexico through the lens of a ‘context of return’, by focusing on how the Mexican government, particularly schools, has received returned migrants. Based on in-depth interviews with thirteen mixed-status families who returned to Mexico in 2005–2010, we show how the citizenship and legal status of the various family members determine their incorporation in Mexico. As these legal statuses are shaped by both the US context of reception and the Mexican context of return, we argue that the two contexts are intimately related and shape the contours of the families and their incorporation upon their return. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although immigrant hometown associations (HTAs) are most often recognized as important for sustaining transnational ties to sending societies, Chicago HTAs took a leadership role in the 2006 marches for US immigrant rights. Employing a binational historical framework focused on the influence of political opportunities and threats on social movement activism, we argue that the involvement of Chicago HTAs in US-oriented mobilization resulted from an evolving series of organizational responses to state actors in both Mexico and the USA. We find that these interactions conferred growing levels of organizational capacity and political legitimacy upon CONFEMEX, the Chicago-based HTA confederation, and played a key role in its embrace of US-centred strategies of popular mobilization in 2006. These findings suggest the utility of a long-term, binational focus on multiple state actors in order to understand the complex political evolution of HTAs and the emergence of the US immigrant rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the November midterm congressional elections in 2010 and U.S. public opinion on the leadership of U.S. President Barack Obama and the majority of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The author reflects on economic recession and public dissatisfaction with the economic stimulus package implemented by Obama. Emphasis is given to the belief of independent voters that government is doing too much to address social problems. The article concludes by exploring potential congressional losses for the Democrats and gains for Republicans.

Poverty cause attribution research has sporadically explored social stratification beliefs for over three decades with mixed results. Explanations given for why there are poor people in America may reveal much about underlying structured inequality legitimating mechanisms. Using multiple regression, one-way ANOVA, and frequency distribution analyses, I uncover a conservative-liberal continuum underlying American poverty cause attributions. Past explanations for the mostly mixed nature of American attributions toward poverty are questioned. I suggest a more simple and straightforward explanation: mixed attribution styles, situated on a conservative-liberal continuum, may arise from American's distinguishing between at least two groups of poor people—“deserving” and “undeserving”—suggesting policy and future research agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]