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Book Review: Disposable Futures: The Seduction Of Violence In The Age Of Spectacle, Jack D. Palmer

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Predicting Genocide And Mass Atrocities, Ernesto Verdeja

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article examines several current risk assessment and early warning models to predict genocide and mass atrocities. Risk assessment (RA) concerns a country’s long­-term structural conditions (regime type, state-led discrimination, etc.) that determine overall risk for atrocities. Early warning (EW) focuses on short/midterm dynamics that can serve as triggers. The article evaluates contemporary RA and EW forecast modeling, and asks: How well can we predict mass atrocities and genocide? What are the strengths and limitations to current predictive modeling? Part I examines several quantitative (statistical) RA models and identifies several strengths and limitations in current research. Part II investigates a …

Why The U.S. Government Failed To Anticipate The Rwandan Genocide Of 1994: Lessons For Early Warning And Prevention, Matthew Levinger

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

During the months leading up to the Rwandan genocide of 1994, cognitive biases obstructed the capacity of U.S. government analysts and policymakers to anticipate mass violence against the country’s Tutsi minority. Drawing on recently declassified U.S. government documents and on interviews with key current and former officials, this essay shows that most U.S. government reporting on Rwanda before April 1994 utilized a faulty cognitive frame that failed to differentiate between threats of civil war and genocide. Because U.S. officials framed the crisis in Rwanda as a potential civil war, they underestimated the virulence of the threat to Tutsi civilians and …

Dangerous Speech And Dangerous Ideology: An Integrated Model For Monitoring And Prevention, Jonathan Leader Maynard, Susan Benesch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

There is considerable agreement amongst scholars and international actors that ideologies and speech play a critical role in the path of escalation towards mass atrocity crimes. Speech features prominently in the jurisprudence of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, for example, and in historical accounts of the months and years preceding many other genocides. Nonetheless, this is one of the most underdeveloped components of genocide and atrocity prevention, in both theory and practice. This paper draws together the authors’ independent past work on dangerous speech and the ideological dynamics of mass atrocities by offering a new integrated model to …

More Lessons Learned From The Holocaust - Towards A Complexity-Embracing Approach To Why Genocide Occurs, Timothy Williams

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Why do genocides occur? This paper applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to revisit this question, and analyses 139 cases of genocide and non-genocide. The paper demonstrates the importance of both priming, contextual conditions which provide a political opportunity structure conducive to genocide, as well as triggering, more proximate conditions which constitute immanent motivations. Most centrally, sufficiency is demonstrated for genocide occurrence when an autocratic regime and the salience of an elite's ethnicity are present, and are combined with either an exclusionary ideology or political upheaval. As such, the autocratic nature of the state provides an opportunity structure allowing genocide to …

The Hermeneutics Of International Trade Conflicts: U.S. Punitive Trade Policy Towards China And Japan, Barry F. Murdaco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes punitive trade conflicts between the U.S. and two trading partners: China and Japan. Punitive trade conflicts can be defined as trade wars between two states, retaliatory tariffs, or other forms of conflict, e.g. preventing the acquisition of foreign assets or sanctions for an undervalued exchange rate. I will examine several trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan in the 1980s and several trade conflicts between the U.S. and China from 2001 to the present. This study is situated within a larger debate concerning the resolution of four theoretical "puzzles" in political science. The first concerns the dispute …

The Degree Of Civilian Control And Military Effectiveness In Combating Insurgency: A Case Study Of Turkey And Pakistan, Ahmed Elbohy

Capstone and Graduation Projects

This research studied the relationship between the degree of civilian control, in military dominated political systems, and military effectiveness in combating insurgency using comparative case study analysis of Turkey and Pakistan and their conflict with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and the Taliban Movement in Pakistan (TTP) respectively. In contemporary world, many states e.g. Ukraine, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are involved in irregular warfare with insurgencies which are threatening domestic security and disturbing global peace. On another front, many states, especially in the Middle East and Africa, are facing the problem of disturbed civil-military relations or weak …

The Mysterious Case Of The Islamic State Organization (Iso) Smiling Martyr--Solved, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: For a mere Muslim mortal, Allah’s granting of martyrdom (Shahada) is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement. The martyr (Shahid) is granted unique privileges among which are the right to bypass the moral interrogation meted out to determine after death whether one is spiritually fit; the complete freedom from all anguish, pain, and suffering caused by one’s wounds as one immediately traverses into the highest of seven heavens; the right to intercede and request divine favors on behalf of seventy of one’s loved one’s; the enjoyment of exclusive sexual privileges with seventy-two virgins; and finally, …

The Fallacy Of Nonviolent Economic Sanctions, Andrew Kovach

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

The object of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of economic sanctions as weapons which tend to cause violence without effectively providing national defense or regime change. First, by describing the use of sanctions as a tactic of nonviolence and through a brief description of their historical use, it may be determined that sanctions are not as harmless as it may seem. Furthermore, this paper provides greater detail of two important instances of sanctions in U.S. foreign policy involving Iran and Cuba. Finally, through a synthesis of more modern research on the subject, the misperception of effective economic …

On Self-Declared Caliph Ibrahim’S December 2015 Speech: Further Evidence For Critical Vulnerabilities In The Crumbling Caliphate, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: On December 26, 2015 a 24-minute audio message was released by the Islamic State Organization’s (ISO) official media arm al-Furqan.

Michael Pillsbury: The Hundred-Year Marathon Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Terrorist And Insurgent Teleoperated Sniper Rifles And Machine Guns, Robert J. Bunker, Alma Keshavarz

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

This data set consists of twenty-one teleoperated weapons systems used by terrorist and insurgent groups. It is worth noting that there are many more systems’ images available, but no group affiliation could be associated with them, which is why they were not included in this research project. The plethora of videos and photos on social media indicates that terror and insurgent groups are increasingly turning to improvised weaponry use on the battlefield. One class of improvised weapon that is emerging is remote controlled sniper rifles and machine guns. They are being used across Syria, Iraq, and a lone case in …

War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency For War In The United States, Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The obsolescence of war taxes in the United States after 1968 is a product of the state's increased institutional resiliency for war. Historically, war taxes were raised for purposes of revenue generation for contemporaneous war spending or wartime inflation control. The state's development of a robust tax system that provides high and automatically increasing revenues over time, along with monetary mechanisms for price stability, obviate the need for war taxes. In particular, the development of the income tax system and the use of inflation-targeting monetary policy expanded the state's warfighting capacity without reliance on war taxes. These developments suggest a …

Strange Fruit: Race, Terror, And The War On Terror, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This poem examines drone warfare as a form of lynching. “Strange Fruit” links the deaths of Pakistani children Zeerak and Maria Khan to the murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, documented in the most infamous lynching photograph in U.S. history.

A Middle East Quandary: A Comparative Analysis Of State Creation And Political Regime Formation In Egypt, Iraq, And Lebanon, Laura Cianciolo

Government and International Relations Honors Papers

Democracy is at a crossroad. At the start of the twenty-first century analysts noted that though in the 1920s only a very small number of sovereign states were led by regimes that had the basic components necessary to qualify as a democracy, by 1990 that number had increased to 69, and by 2012 to 117. Between the years 2005 and 2013, however, political rights and civil liberties underwent substantial setbacks. Of no less significance, hopes that Middle Eastern states would begin their transitions toward democracy as a result of the spring revolts of 2011 experienced a very short lifespan.

My …

A Clipped Wing: An Assessment Of The Effectiveness Of The B-21, Aidan Thomas Hughes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the effectiveness of the Northrop Grumman B-21 long range strike bomber in advancing the ability of U.S. policy makers to achieve national security objectives. The operational value of the B-21 is assessed through analysing its probable role in four hypothetical combat scenarios, and the relative effectiveness of the B-21 is measured alongside the potential performance of alternative systems. This operational analysis is augmented by a consideration of the shape of recent U.S. national security strategies, as well as the anticipated future security environment, which provides the foundation of an analysis of the ability of the B-21 to …

The Transformation And Demise Of Terrorist Organizations: Causes And Categories, Devyani M. Mehta

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the recent years, the world has experienced devastating losses due to terrorist attacks. Research in the fields of causes of terrorism is abundant, but the amount of research on the end of terrorism does not equally measure up. This paper aims to add to the research focused on analyzing the factors which cause terrorist groups to transition away from violence.

This paper introduces an original categorization of the factors which generate this transition. Factors belong to two categories: internal --decisions made by the terrorist organization, and external--actions or features pertaining to organization outside of non-terrorist organizations. These factors will …

Defining The Republic, William Joseph Nichols

Wayne State University Dissertations

Abstract

DEFINING THE REPUBLIC

by

WILLIAM J. NICHOLS

December 2015

Advisor: Dr. Jeffrey Grynaviski

Major: Political Science (Political Theory)

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The “Great Divergence” between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison is one of the most well-known events in the early history of the United States. Together, Hamilton and Madison wrote most of The Federalist, and each was pivotal in securing the acceptance of the Constitution in their state ratifying conventions. That within just a few years of the establishment of the new form of government each had worked so hard to achieve, they became bitter political enemies, is …

Warfare On The Conceptual Battlespace: Third Cinemas Transformation Of War On Terror Discourse, Kela E. Caldwell

Scripps Senior Theses

American Popular film on the War on Terror plays a powerful role establishing cultural and political discourses surrounding the War on Terror. Furthermore, the attempts of liberal films as a source of critique of American Hollywood conservative War on Terror films are insufficient. I argue that Third Cinema from the Middle East provides a necessary counter-discourse in providing platforms for alternative discussions regarding definitions of terrorism and the production of the Orientalist other.

A Sliding Scale: Nuclear Proliferation Among States, Jessica Liu

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Why do states engage in nuclear proliferation? Nuclear proliferation is a major security issue affecting the international arena. Existing studies debate both the strength and direction of determinants of nuclear proliferation and the effect of domestic and international circumstances on proliferation. A clear understanding of why states choose to pursue nuclear arms is critical to promoting and maintaining international security. By analyzing what factors may make a state less prone to proliferation, the international community may incentivize disarmament. My research question considers membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a potential correlate of nuclear proliferation. Are countries that …

Rivalry-Prone Dyads? Interstate Religious Differences And Military Conflict, Manar Elkhaldi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The link between religion and interstate military conflict has attracted a lot of attention among scholars of international relations and also foreign policy makers and religious organizations. This study examines whether religious differences between states in a dyad may partly affect various types of militarized conflict. It is argued in the literature that religion promotes stronger loyalty and sense of obligation than other cultural identities (Juergensmeyer, 1993); I argue that religious identity may be used by states effectively to mobilize people by means of rhetoric to generate and sustain popular support for conflict with other states. Thus I expect that …

The Us And The Syrian Security Dilemma, Marlee Pittman

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Three Dimensionality Model Of State Security And Armed Conflict: Internal And External Dimensions And Lessons From The Middle East, Juri Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this research is to explore the dynamics in the development of civil conflict. Specifically, I attempt to explain the reasons for the occurrence of full-scale internal armed conflicts and the variation in intensity of those conflicts. Given that a substantial portion of previous studies in the field have taken rebel-centric and aggregate cross-country approaches, this research focuses on the state side and how the internal-external environments within which the ruling regime is situated affect its security decisions on rebellion.

The main argument is that internal armed conflict is a serious security problem of incumbent governments in …

Examining The Legality Of The Guantánamo Bay Detention Center According To International Humanitarian Law And International Human Rights Law, Sydney T. Winchester

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this research paper is to examine how international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) are applied to the Guantánamo Bay detention center. This paper was completed through the research of international treaties, court cases, and secondary sources that thoroughly discussed issues pertaining to Guantánamo and international law.

This paper first examines the differences between the two laws by looking at the particular roles each is meant to play in the subject of international law, as well as how the two have been applied thus far to the situation at Guantánamo. Second, the paper discusses …

Ideas, Beliefs, Strategic Culture, And Foreign Policy: Understanding Brazil's Geopolitical Thought, Marcos Rosas Degaut Pontes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Brazil is an important player both at regional and global levels, figuring prominently in almost all lists of emerging states and regional powers. It is one of the world's largest democracies, the fifth most populous country in the world, the world's seventh-largest economy, and Latin America's largest economy, accounting for approximately 60% of South America's GDP, 47% of South America's territory and 49% of South American population, a G20 member, and an active contributor to United Nations peacekeeping operations. However, despite being usually depicted as a "monster country" which would help shape global affairs, Brazil has never been able to …

The Aesthetics Of Propaganda: Modern Design At The 1959 American National Exhibition In Moscow, Charlotte Hecht

American Studies Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Waging Wars In Cyberspace: How International Law On Aggression And Self-Defense Falls Short Of Addressing Cyber Warfare. Could Iran Legally Retaliate For The Stuxnet Attack?, Willa Rubin

Honors Papers

The technical capabilities of the Stuxnet worms-launched by the US and Israel against Iran's nuclear facility-prove that the operation could be considered an act of aggression, as defined in the Rome Statute. Further, this paper asserts that Article 51 of the UN Charter is insufficient to addressing malignant cyber operations.

The paper is organized as following: 1) Introduction, 2) Research Limitations, 3) Context: International Relations Theory and Types of International Law, 4) Understanding “Cyber” Within The Scope Of This Paper, 5) The Stuxnet Operation, 6) Historical and Legal Roots of “Aggression” and “Self-Defense”, 7) Stuxnet as an act of aggression, …

Cyberwar, International Politics, And Institutional Design, Daniel Abebe

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, the breadth of the president’s warmaking authority has been governed by the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, and, over time, historical practice; in short, the president’s powers are constrained by a well-developed body of US foreign relations law. But the prospect of a new kind of conflict — cyberwar — potentially challenges the existing regulatory regime, which rests on assumptions that are common to traditional, conventional war. For some, the complexities of cyberwar generate new foreign relations–law questions about the president’s authority to engage in offensive cyberoperations, and they thus necessitate a new regulatory framework. For …

Their Brothers' Keepers? Ethnicity, Rebel Diplomacy, And State Support For Insurgency, Connor Somgynari

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to contribute to the filling of a theoretical lacuna by asking: what role do ethnic ties play in rebel groups' efforts to lobby for state support? Researchers have examined many facets of state support for armed rebel groups. Most literature on this topic has been dedicated to decision calculi of states choosing to support rebel groups. However, comparatively little has been said about the other side of this relationship: the demand for these goods and services by rebel groups themselves. Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham (2011) introduce the concept of the demand side into the literature, maintaining that …

Robert D. Kaplan: Asia's Cauldron, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.