Digital Commons Network^™

Consequences Of U.S. Intervention In Socialist Latin America, William Chao

Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to show the harmful effects of contemporary interventionist attempts by the United States on socialist Latin American countries such as Cuba and Venezuela. The United States continues to meddle with the politics and economies of various countries with the goal of establishing a new government that is favorable to the capitalist practices of the United States. By looking at two key moments: the Covid-19 outbreak in Cuba and the aftermath of the 2018 Venezuelan presidential elections, it becomes clear to see the damage done by harsh embargoes and U.S. support of use for military violence against the …

Weapons Of Mass Migration In The 21st Century: Russia, Belarus, And The European Union, Kia Imazu Fatahi Faz Abad

Senior Theses

In recent years, a debate has arisen about a controversial method of warfare – refugees and migrants who are exploited in multi-dimensional conflicts and humanitarian crises by state actors. The notion of ‘weapons of mass migration’, or a deliberate use of refugees and migrants as leverage against other nation-states, became one of the most prominent yet underappreciated theories in academic literature. But who actually availed themselves of the “weapons of mass migration” during the European migrant crisis, and how does migration fit into the realm of international relations today? My thesis aims to provide a detailed examination of the alleged …

To The Shores Of Tripoli: A Barbary Retrospective, Kathleen J. Brett

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The First and Second Barbary Wars were incredibly influential in shaping the diplomatic and military tactics of the early United States. These wars were fought against the Barbary states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers, located on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. The First Barbary War lasted between the years of 1801 to 1805. The First Barbary War began due to the United States’ desire to no longer pay tribute sums to the Barbary states, along with an increase in the number American merchantmen captured and enslaved by the Barbary states. Tripoli served as the primary aggressor in the …

How And Why Do Great Powers Weaponize Bordering Diasporas In Foreign Policy., Matthew A. Payne

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many ethnic groups found themselves suddenly as a diaspora across the various republics. Most notable among these would be the Russians who radiated out from the Russian SFSR into the periphery states. In two states in particular, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, was there simultaneously an overall large community of these dispersed Russians and in which that community formed a substantial share of the host state’s population. In 2014, in the wake of a pro-European regime change in Ukraine, a civil war erupted as Moscow directed pro-Russian separatists to seek independence.

This paper …

The Contradiction Of The Welfare Dictatorship: The Stasi’S Role In Preserving And Undermining East German Human Rights, Mallory Wooldridge

Honors College Theses

Constructed four years after WWII in a kind of pendulum swing response to the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was an experiment in socialism. Under the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (The Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED) no East German was to go hungry, unemployment would be eradicated, housing guaranteed, women treated as equals, and human rights interwoven into the fabric of this socialist society. However, SED socialism in practice did not conform to this original vision and would eventually represent the disillusionment with the socialist project as a whole.

This project seeks to understand human rights in the …

The International Perception Of The Irish Republican Army And Chechen Insurgency, Henry Forteith

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

This purpose of this project is to examine how the labels used to describe the Irish Republican Army and Chechen insurgency changed after certain acts of violence. This paper begins by describing the history of imperial subjugation of Ireland and Chechnya, as well as examining the similarities between the actions and motivations of the IRA and Chechen insurgency. Then, to study the change in language to describe these groups, two searches were conducted into the New York Times and International Newsstream databases. The first search examined articles about the IRA and Chechen insurgency published between 1998 and 2009, while the …

Homeland Calling: Myths As Mobilizers Of Conflict In The Zapatista Rebellion And The Kosovo War, Catherine E. Williamson

Honors Theses

How do conflict myths mobilize actors in insurgencies? This thesis aims to answer this question by exploring how insurgent leaders engage in revolutionary mythmaking in its messaging to combatants, members of the nation, and the international community, in order to incite and sustain their rebellions. I compare the Zapatista Army of National Liberation of the 1994 Zapatista rebellion and the Kosovo Liberation Army of the 1998 Kosovo war in order to examine the kinds of myths propagated in each case. This study argues that revolutionary mythmaking is not a mere feature of some insurgencies but a necessary condition for an …

Amlo And Huachicoleo: The Effects And Implications Of The Fuel Theft Crackdown In Mexico, Samuel Starr

Honors Theses

On December 20th, 2018—less than three weeks into new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term—the Mexican federal government initiated a crackdown on fuel theft, or huachicoleo. The crackdown was intensive and nationwide. Its implementation was costly: gas stations throughout the country shut down as fuel pipelines were closed, the newly established National Guard was deployed to protect fuel infrastructure, and cartels threatened acts of terror against the government. The crackdown ended in April of 2019, with the López Obrador administration calling it a success. The overarching goal of this study is to test that assertion empirically by investigating the crackdown’s …

The Latin American Tragedy: A Qualitative Research Of How Culture, Media, And Gender Roles Lead To Femicide, Vanessa Gonzalez

Honors College Theses

This study aims to analyze how Latin American cultural values and popular media perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes that can subsequently contribute to the growing femicide rates happening across the region. Although violence against women is a global issue, Latin American femicide is characterized by cultural, systemic, and political factors that not only allow it to thrive but make it unique in a global context as it relates to the discussion around violence against women. Adherence to honor culture, gender-based stereotypes like that of machismo and marianismo, along with the overt sexualization of Latin women in popular media, create a domino …

Influence Of The Thirty-Six Stratagems On Chinese Strategy In The Diaoyo Islands, Brent Schuliger

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

Democracy And Its Discontents: The Years Of Lead And The Burdens Of History, Sohan Mewada

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Extremist narratives are diffuse, and mistrust of political institutions is ubiquitous in the United States. Extremist ideas espousing violent means to gain recognition and legitimacy are more common in mainstream culture. This is the United States now, but it is also Italy sixty years prior. This project uses various archival materials to explore the two decades from 1960 to 1980 defined by cycles of widespread extremism, social fracturing, and domestic terror known in Italian history as The Years of Lead. Applying this case to the United States’ current circumstances, this project argues that a democracy with the prestige of the …

Monarchism With A Human Face: Balkan Queens And The Social Politics Of Nursing In The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Evguenia Davidova

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

How were monarchy, gender, and nationalism entwined? Through contextualized comparisons of selected case studies (two generations of royal women in four countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Serbia/Yugoslavia), this article explores, in gendered terms, the instrumentalization of nursing as an evolving relationship between state building, warfare, welfare, and voluntary organizations. It argues that certain queens’ interventions in nursing successfully contributed to the “naturalization” of the ruling foreign dynasties in the Balkans and to the militarization of charity. Through such “soft power” they mobilized nursing in different ways to carve out an autonomous space and visibility in wartime as queen-nurses and in …

The Australia, United Kingdom, United States (Aukus) Nuclear Submarine Agreement: Potential Implications, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

The AUKUS Nuclear Submarine Agreement seeks to enhance multinational deterrence against Chinese geopolitical assertiveness by giving Australia nuclear powered submarines.

▶ This agreement will pose considerable cost and technical challenges for the Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

▶ Estimates of when Australia will be able to deploy nuclear submarines range from 2030-2040.

▶ The U.S. and its allies will have to make challenging decisions about where to build AUKUS in Australia.

▶ There is debate as to whether efforts to deter China in the Asia-Pacific should include non-Anglosphere countries in that region.

▶ Consideration should be given …

Maritime Moves: The American Response To The South China Sea Conflict, Joshua Jachlewski

Senior Honors Theses

China is quickly becoming a world power and will soon reach parity with the United States. China has gotten far more aggressive in its expansion, which extends to the islands within the South China Sea. China claims most of this based on the Nine-Dash Line, in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As the current world superpower, the United States must respond to these claims given the geostrategic importance of the region. An analysis of the current Chinese and US positions, as well as those of the other littoral states with competing claims, allows …

The Influence Of The Thirty-Six Stratagems On Chinese Strategy In The Diaoyu Islands, Brent Schuliger

Senior Honors Theses

The Diaoyu Islands are a small, uninhabited archipelago in the East China Sea which has begun increasing in strategic significance due to its advantageous location near Taiwan and along the First Island Chain. The islands are currently under Japanese administration, but the People’s Republic of China considers them historically Chinese and contests Japan’s claim to the islands. A careful examination of China’s actions in challenging Japan’s rule over the Diaoyus reveals the influence of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, a tome of ancient Chinese military wisdom which provides a framework onto which China’s current strategy corresponds. This thesis examines the historical …

From Green To Gold: Community Along Lines Of Trade Between Dolpo And Mustang, Jack Cantor

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mustang and Dolpo are at a tipping point of connectivity and community change as road development brings the districts closer to Nepal’s economic centers. In this independent study, I document contemporary trade relationships between Mustang’s Sangda and Dolpo’s Chharka, currently separated by three days of unmotorable trail. Through in person interview, archival research, and photography, I document methods of economy and community in three villages- Mustang’s Phelag and Sangda, and Dolpo’s Chharka. I focus upon future community prospects of Sangda and Chharka as road development between the two progresses.

As the two villages exchange goods, develop familiarity, and host traders …

Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations Against The United States: A Playbook For The Current Crisis In Ukraine, Conrad C. Crane

Articles & Editorials

No abstract provided.

Abdul Aziz Said: Peace Educator, Cathedral Builder, Soul Dancer - 1930-2021 - A Tribute And Retrospective, Patricia M. Mische

The Journal of Social Encounters

The life, thought, and spirituality of political scientist and peace educator, Abdul Aziz Said (1930-2021), are explored through: a) first-hand accounts from five decades of professional and personal collaboration between Said and the author; b) themes in his writings, especially in Concepts of International Politics in Global Perspective, Fourth Edition and Bridges, Not Barriers: The American Dream and the Global Community; and c) his conviction that love is a relevant and significant force in international relations and peace building and needs to be strengthened if peace is to be sustained (a conviction shared by Martin Luther King Jr, Sigmund Freud, …

War Over Measure: Latin American Cultural Policy And The Pedagogy Of Neoliberal States, D. Bret Leraul

Faculty Journal Articles

This article recovers the link between cultural and educational policy in Latin America to understand the neoliberal state’s discursive institution of culture as capital. It does so by studying the form and function of Mexican and Chilean cultural bureaucracies. The calculability and accountability of culture in Chilean cultural policy and the incalculability of Mexico’s culture of favor cultural policy are but two sides of one coin issued by the same neoliberal state form. Both depend on the discursive institution (from above) of culture as cultural capital and labor as human capital reflected (from below) in the formation of Latin American …

The Modern Homeland Security Struggle: Divisive Disinformation, Stephen H. Dickerson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research introduces the concepts surrounding disinformation and misinformation campaigns, along with their standing as significant homeland security threats. The piece starts with a brief introduction that focuses in on current examples of how these campaigns are being utilized, to include introductory discussion of theory and strategy. This is followed by a literature review, which explores a wide variety of disinformation related topics, including pieces that help in defining the matter and others that introduce related psychological theories. In addition to the literature that discusses real world examples, current instances are discussed, allowing for a more comprehensive view of not …

Religious Beliefs Of World Boxing Champions As A Factor Of Influence On Ukrainian Society In The Context Of Social Responsibility, Bogdan Synchak, Petro Livak, Olga Kuvaldina

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The issue regarding the influence of mass media on the public consciousness is one of the priorities in the times of the digitalization of the information space. Great sports such as professional boxing are world-famous and have a wide resonance in the media. As a result, scientists are paying attention to the study of factors of influence that arise during the information coverage of sporting events. Religious beliefs are a conditional plane of differentiation of different worldview systems, but in the 21st century, they are harmoniously integrated into the colors of different cultures, nationalities, and states. Celebrities’ religious beliefs can …

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

Domestic Morality, “Traditional Dogma”, And Christianity In A Rural Zambian Community, Bernhard Udelhoven

Zambia Social Science Journal

Hugo Hinfelaar described, for precolonial times, a comprehensive domestic religion and family spirituality which he called “traditional dogma” or “family dogma”. What is left of it in Zambia? When and for what purposes are traditional religious beliefs invoked today and scrutinised in marriage and the domestic sphere? While many say, “We have no culture left!” traditional dogma continues to function as a “moral grammar” that anchors cultural identity. The marital life of a couple becomes scrutinised along traditional beliefs during family crises. When people accept this scrutiny, they (re-)submit themselves under the wider family and thereby reconstitute the family under …

The Developing Global Crisis And Survival Of Human Civilizations, Michael M. Andregg Ph.D.

Comparative Civilizations Review

For over thirty years, we have used a phrase “the Developing Global Crisis” to identify a cluster of recurring causal factors of chaos that are especially difficult to deal with. These are: population pressure (not simply growth), corruptions of governance (hard to study in democracies much less in police-states), authoritarian political systems, and militant religions. The West has failed to control these recurring causes of chaos, often by imperial patterns of behavior instead of more enlightened governance. Civilizational scholars in Japan might be able to find better solutions to these problems for Asia and the world if they try hard. …

Strategy Vs. Humanity? American Corporations May Be Facing A Momentous Paradigm Shift In The Age Of Diversity, Equity And Inclusion, Mark Rennella

Comparative Civilizations Review

The business discipline of strategy was born at Harvard Business School in the America of the 1970s, an era of disorienting economic fluctuations and sometimes naked vulnerability that was punctuated by disturbing events like the OPEC oil embargoes and the Iran hostage crisis. By the end of the decade, strategy claimed the imaginations of business executives and relegated its predecessor, marketing, to a distant second place. Marketing, whose focus was serving customer needs to grow demand, was neither tough enough nor quick enough to deal with the sudden appearance of economic and cultural monsters invading American life.

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Brazilian Alliance Perspectives: Towards A Brics Development–Security Alliance?, Zhen 'Arc' Han, Mihaela Papa

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Scholars studying BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have traditionally argued that it is a development-focused partnership and not a military/security-based alliance. Yet BRICS members have been deepening their security integration, and Russia and China have been creating an alliance in the background. Although BRICS middle powers have traditionally demonstrated an aversion towards alliances, Brazil actively deepened security cooperation among BRICS members during its BRICS presidency in 2019. How does Brazil view alliances in contemporary power competition? This study examines Brazil’s perceptions by introducing and analysing a new data set of Brazilian expert discourses on alliances since 1990 …

The São Paulo Forum’S Armed Forces Agenda: Examining Venezuela And Brazil, David J. Guenni Bravo

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The São Paulo Forum (SPF) is a resilient ideological alliance that provides extremist public policy recommendations to formal political parties, social movements, and insurgent groups throughout the Western Hemisphere. Based on substantial evidence, this research project asserts that the SPF has successfully influenced the national security and defense policies of states in the Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) region. Analysis of two significant cases in South America shows that, after being elected to high office, SPF affiliates and their political parties/platforms sought transformation of their countries’ national security and defense sectors to conform to SPF positions. Given its extensive influence …

Real And Declared Individual Freedom In Legislative Acts On Freedom Of Religion During The Soviet Era, Tetiana Havryliuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines anthropological grounds for the formation of fundamental documents on freedom of conscience and religion in the Soviet Union. It also considers ideological prerequisites for the development of a new type of person—the Soviet man. A comparison is made between the two main ideological struggles with religious consciousness–state-church relations and the sphere of education. The separation of the church from the state and the state from the church, which were enshrined by the relevant decrees of the Soviet government, resulted in a false idea that the Soviet citizen is free in his/her worldview choice. However, a careful analysis …

Development Of The Ukrainian Orthodoxy In The Conditions Of The Revanchist Policy Of The Russian Federation Against Ukraine, Yuriy Figurnyi, Oksana Semenova, Liubov Otroshko, Оlнa Shakurova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article analyzes the development of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the context of the revenge policy of Russia against Ukraine at the turn of the 21st century. It is discovered that almost a quarter of a century of inactivity of the Ukrainian authorities and active anti-Ukrainian and anti-state actions of the Russian Orthodox Church and its Little-Russian branch the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate contributed to their introduction into the Ukrainian humanitarian space of fundamental ideas, dogmas, and postulates of the “Russian World,” which subsequently led to the occupation by Russia of Crimea and parts of Donbas and the …