Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Economic Consequences Of Rapid Population Growth In The U.A.R., Safia Kamel Boulos Hanna

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Organizational Model Design For A Personnel Department In Petroleum Industry In The United Arab Republic, Amir K. Rizk

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

North Korea's Policy Toward The United States: Rappochement To Confrontational Diplomacy In The 1970s And The 1990s, Seongryeol Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This research project challenges the common belief that North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and their related delivery systems in the 1990s was a fundamental shift in its foreign policy objectives toward the United States. It argues instead that North Korea has continued to pursue the rapprochement policy announced by Kim Il Sung in the early 1970s. Its findings demonstrate that the shift from rapprochement in the 1970s to provocation in the 1990s was a tactical rather than a strategic change in North Korea's foreign policy. The U.S.'s indifference to the acute security anxieties caused by exogenous factors associated with …

How Can Local Transitional Justice Mechanisms Work Towards Measures Of Non-Recurrence?, Isaac Bayor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines questions of local agency and inclusion. It develops a conceptual understanding of whether, and if so how, local customary justice mechanisms could serve as guarantees of non-recurrence. It looks at how grassroots practices of “justice” could be utilized at the community level to deter the commission of future abuses and prevent the repetition of violent conflict, especially where the state has been completely absent. It specifically explores Acholi indigenous and customary practices of peacemaking and justice in Northern Uganda to understand how local practices could secure a lasting peace and cement communities’ commitment to peaceful coexistence.

While …

Israeli Settlements In The West Bank And Gaza, Rania El Razazz

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Struggle For Self-Determination: A Comparative Analysis Of East Timor And Western Sahara, Emma Baratta

Honors Theses

Self-determination is accepted as an international right of all people, yet in many cases it still takes decades of struggle to achieve it. Through comparative analysis of the selfdetermination and independence struggles of East Timor and Western Sahara, conclusions can be drawn as to why some former colonies are able to achieve these goals while others do not. In order to better understand the challenges associated with self-determination, I evaluate the two cases based on four overarching factors which influence the process: statehood criteria and imagined community status, colonialism and occupation, presence of natural resources, and international recognition. I argue …

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Nermeen Mohamed El Nawawi

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Right Of Return Of Palestinian Refugees Under International Law, Reem Essam Al-Salem

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Informal Ties, Social Capital And Development: Popular Committees In Egypt, A Case Study Post-25th Of January Revolution, Lamyaa Rayan

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The 25th of January revolution, was the mark of an extraordinary event in the history of Egypt. Mass mobilizations of people in the capital; Cairo, and many big cities such as; Alexandria, and neighboring governorates went down marching in the streets calling for the toppling of the Mubarak regime. Intense struggle between the people and security forces, has left the country with a wide security gap. The security gap as a result made way to a very significant phenomenon all over the country known as; “Al-Legaan Al-Sha’abeya” or “Popular defense committees”. The Popular defense committees resembled informal-ties that brought together …

The Effectiveness Of The United Nations' Use Of Communication To Achieve Development Results: A Genuine Shift From Top-Down To Bottom-Up Development Approach? A Case Study From Egypt, Karim Wafik Ezzeldin

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on â communication for development' concepts and initiatives, in an attempt to, first, investigate the limits of the UN's perceived shift from a top-down to a bottom-up development approach, and secondly, to evaluate the degree and extent of the effectiveness of its communication efforts to achieve development results. The main hypothesis is that communication, as a tool used to achieve development objectives, remains vastly underutilized within the UN system, partly owing to the lack of adopting a genuine people-centred, bottom-up approach in favour of top-down global strategies. The thesis first embarks on a review of the evolution …

Social Capital As A Survival Strategy: The Case Of El Bab Villagers In Syria, Marwa Salaheldin Abdelfattah

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to investigate the impact and externalities of social capital in sixteen villages in El Bab district in Aleppo, Syria. El Bab villages are located in the North Eastern region, which has the largest agricultural sector in Syria, and the highest level of rural poverty. It is part of a region that faces various challenges, primarily due to the occurrence of droughts, depletion of natural resources, and changing state policies. Consequently rural populations developed their own coping strategies through heavily relying on the informal sector to access resources which are otherwise inaccessible through formal channels. This research hence …

The Union For The Mediterranean: Theory, Challenges And Prospects, Estefania Laso Tejero

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The Union for the Mediterranean was designed to be a multifaceted project, the intention of which was to create a framework to manage both bilateral and regional relations among the nations of the Mediterranean. It is based upon the principles of joint ownership, dialogue and cooperation. It seeks to develop the region by focusing on â Political and Security Partnershipâ , â Sustainable Socio-Economic Development and Reformâ , â Educational and Socio-Cultural Exchangesâ , and â Migration, Social Integration, Justice and Securityâ . It is also meant to apply many of the principles of the EU to a different set …

Collige Et Impera: The United States Reengagement In Libya, Marco Schinella

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

President Biden's "America is back" pledge holds the potential to be put to the test with the ongoing crisis in Libya. The internationalization of the post-Ghaddafi Libyan breakdown, strained by great-power competition (GPC) dynamics, poses nonnegligible threats to the United States (US) national security that extends beyond Libya per se. Reframing the conflict from yet another Middle East and North Africa (MENA) conflict to an urgent multilateral Mediterranean security challenge will help elevate the country's profile on the global stage. This thesis outlines a qualitative, within-case study analysis of the ongoing Libyan crisis from the perspective of US national security …

Horizontal Cultural Inequalities, Grievances, And Civil Conflict: Ethnonationalist Mobilization In Reaction To Assimilationist Educational Language Policies, Burak Demir

Doctoral Dissertations

Studies in the literature on intrastate conflict onset have focused on opportunities and material grievances whereas non-material issues have not been given sufficient attention. The increasing importance of the ethnic dimension of intrastate conflicts since the mid-1970s suggests a growing prominence of ethnonationalist ideologies as a cause. Following constructivist and institutionalist theories on nationalism, this study argues that assimilationist policies, mainly centered around educational languages, induce the spread of minority ethnonationalism to the masses. This spread results from assimilationist policies being perceived as attacks on their dignity by the members of a discriminated minority group who, as a result, feel …

Language And Cultural Identity In Post-Soviet Frozen Conflicts, Irina Paquette

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

How we, as humans, define ourselves and our national and ethnic distinction often centers on visible characteristics—physical features, group traditions, and language. Of those, language is both mutable and plays such a central role in daily life that it is often a hotly contested and manipulated factor in defining national identity. This paper examines the role language has played in the formation of crisis situations in the former Soviet Union. Linguistic identity has been used as a basis to establish the legitimacy of independence for both Soviet republics and separatist groups within those republics. As such, it is a highly …

Who Mediates Matters: The Impact Of Individual Mediator Competency Skills On Individual And Civil Conflict Mediation, Erin V. Rowland

Doctoral Dissertations

Until this point, research in the field of conflict mediation concerning how third-party entities impact mediation outcomes has largely focused on the macrolevel factors of those entities and the disputing parties – geographic proximity of the mediating states to the disputants, the presence of alliances, the existence of enduring rivalries, etc. However, even when macrolevel factors are relatively similar, differences still exist in mediation outcome. This research proposes that some differences in mediation outcome are due to the impact of individual mediator factors, more specifically individual mediator competency skills in the form of Knowledge, Know-how, and Behavioral competencies. Borrowing from …

The Second-Order Impact Of Relative Power On Outcomes Of Crisis Bargaining: A Theory Of Expected Disutility And Resolve, Tatevik Movsisyan

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

How does structure shape behavior and outcomes in crisis bargaining? Formal bargaining models of war rely on expected utility theory to describe first-order effects, whereby the payoffs of war determine actors’ “resolve” to fight as a function of costs and benefits. Value preferences of risk and future discounting are routinely treated as predefined and subjective individual attributes, outside the strategic context of bargaining or independent from expected utility. However, such treatment fails to account for context-conditional preferences sourcing from actors’ expectations of relative gain or loss. Drawing on a wealth of experimental evidence from behavioral economics, but without departing from …

Norm Contestation And Its Effects On Emergence Of A New Norm, Khadijeh Salimi

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this study is to propose a theoretical model to investigate the mechanism by which contesting of a harmful legal norm by powerless individual actors results in the emergence of a new norm. While much work has been done on norm contestation at the “actor level” in the field, the structural conditions under which contesting of harmful norms by powerless individual actors lead to emergence of a new norm have been insufficiently studied, especially in the non-democratic cultural context. I developed a model that combine existing causal theories in one frame to reproduce observe conditions in the real …

Islands In The Sun: Lawfare And Great-Power Competition In The Indo-Pacific, Clayton T. Russo

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis examines the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty and its future considering the recent developments in the international security environment. The 2018 National Defense Strategy brought back an emphasis on Great Power Competition, fundamentally transforming the role of U.S. alliances to address new challenges. In the 2021 budget, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI) has prioritized the People’s Republic of China as the number one pacing threat to theUnited States, drastically shifting international focus away from the Middle East and towards East Asia. In conjunction with funding new capabilities through the PDI, the U.S. will need to conceive new legal doctrines …

Mobilizing Discomfort For Water Security As A Human Right: A Newspaper Analysis Of Social Conflict In South Africa, Madison Gonzalez

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

There are 884 million people globally that do not have access to improved drinking water, while 2.5 billion do not have improved access to sanitation (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2010). Those living in informal settlements and slums—what I call the ‘solidaric disaffiliated’ zones—represent one such location where individuals around the world have found themselves in a situation of neglected crisis as their geographic, economic, and social expulsion pushes them beyond the reach of opportunity and access to basic human rights such as water and sanitation. As individuals feel their dignity deteriorating due to the extreme precarity …

Tightening Your Grip : The Unintended Consequences Of Export Control Policies, Keon C. Weigold

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the effects that policies instituted to restrict the diffusion of technology between countries have on the development of technology and international relations. Diffusion restrictions such as export controls or strategic trade controls are often instituted for the purpose of increasing the national security of the implementing country. However, this project theorizes that these types of restrictions can have unforeseen effects on the level of technological development in the implementing country and other countries around the world. The implementing country will see a decrease in their relative level of technological development while other countries around the world will …

Economic Sanctions And Opportunism, Keith A. Preble

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sanctions busting refers to instances where third-party states increase their material support for states targeted by economic sanctions by increasing trade as well as foreign aid and investment, which, in turn, minimize the economic costs that sanctions imposed on target states. This concept privileges the sender and contributes to the “sender bias” inherent in the literature on economic sanctions. My dissertation instead argues that the terms sanctions opportunism may better reflect the nature of the processes at work when third-party states engage in sanctions busting either for commercial profit or as a “black knight” (or a combination of them both). …

Behind Every Successful Diplomat Is Their Spouse: The Buffer Role Of Indian And Pakistani Diplomatic Spouses, Sania Shahid

Undergraduate Honors Theses

How do political dynamics between countries and the individual characteristics of diplomatic spouses affect their ability to take on a “buffer” role—that is, make interactions less contentious? The existing literature on diplomatic spouses focuses on gendered advantages that allow spouses to access unique information. Building on this body of literature, this study investigates the ideal setting for spouses to contribute to the diplomatic process. A content analysis was conducted of three memoirs written by diplomatic spouses, and this data was supplemented with semi-structured interviews of spouses of former or current bureaucratic elites from India and Pakistan. The analysis shows that …

Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: The Failure Of A Concept: "How Did The Change In Israel's Strategic Context Affect The Usefulness Of The Israeli Nuclear Deterrent?", Amr Nasr El-Din

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This study will aim at examining how the changes in Israelâ s security environment affected the strategic usefulness of its nuclear deterrent. The Israeli nuclear deterrent was developed during the 1950s and the 1960s when Israelâ s strategic setting was, mainly, dominated by state-centered security threats. Consequently, Israel, at the time, was mainly concerned with the possible symmetrical military confrontations with its Arab neighbors; something that would have created strategic value for the Israeli nuclear deterrent. Yet, a closer examination of the evolution of the Israeli security environment since 1982 will reveal that Non-State Actors (NSAs) and asymmetrical forms of …

The Military And The Akp: A New Confrontation Line In Turkey's Bid For Democratic Consolidation, Samy Asfour

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The power struggle between the Justice Development Party (AKP) and the military in Turkey has been crucial in Turkey's bid for democratic consolidation. In the past, the military as a guardian of the Kemalist establishment has intervened four times in Turkey's domestic politics ousting elected civilian governments with the justification of safeguarding the secular and unitary nature of the Turkish Republic. After each intervention, the military reshaped the political system and expanded its legal-constitutional prerogatives at the expense of the civilian authorities' in decision-making autonomy- halting the establishment of a fully-fledged democracy based on complete civilian control over the military. …

Sovereignty And Integration Across The Taiwan Strait: A View From Taiwan, Thomas S. Misenti

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the policy of cross-strait rapprochement and negotiation that the administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has pursued with mainland China in relation to Taiwan's de facto sovereign independent status. The initial focus of this thesis will be on the evolution of Taiwan's political identity in the broader historical context of its relationship with China and the One China principle. This will include an analysis of the US-Taiwan relationship and Taiwan's position in international institutions. I will then analyze the Ma administration's China policies, dialogues, and agreements. I will specifically focus on the negotiations for and establishment …

From A Weak State To A "Rogue" State: The Emergence And Phases Of State Decay In Afghanistan (1978-2001), Abdullah Chenzaie

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Nuclear Proliferation In The Middle East And South Asia: The Case Of Israel And India, Kareem Mahmoud Kamel

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Crisis, Cooperation, And Coercion: Migration Diplomacy In Europe, 2014-2017, Jessica L. Jones

Political Science ETDs

In this dissertation I ask when and how states employ migration diplomacy – and its coercive and cooperative variants – during the European Migration Crisis, 2014-2017. I argue that states use migration diplomacy to minimize the costs of migration crises and are more likely to use migration diplomacy when either the incurred or anticipated costs of migration crises are greater, when they are less powerful, and when anti-migrant domestic political pressures are higher. I use a multimethod approach to answer my questions. Results from my multivariate logistic regressions support my expectation that states are more likely to engage in migration …

Israel's Colonial Settlement Complex And It's Ethnic Cleansing Of The Palestinian People, Philip Rizk

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.