Digital Commons Network^™

U.S. Senate And House Perspectives On Missile Defense Systems Opposed By Russia And China, Constance Valarie Baroudos

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The United States and its allies and partners have deployed three missile defense systems to protect against Iranian and North Korean missile threats: the European Phased Adaptive Approach, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and Ground-based Missile Defense. Russia and China oppose these systems because they view them as undermining their strategic interests. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the perspectives of Senate and House Armed Services Committee HASC members about the three missile defense systems in congressional hearings. The three models of the congressional behavior model, the preference, simple party, and asymmetric categories, and neorealism and …

The Cultural Diplomacy Of U.S. Peace Corps: Understanding The Role Of Peace Corps Volunteers As Strategic Geopolitical Assets, Corey B. Miles

Theses and Dissertations

Beginning in the Summer of 1961, the United States government has deployed volunteer humanitarians around the world to serve the mission of U.S. Peace Corps and has since contributed to communities in 143 partner countries while enjoying widespread popularity. Its mission of promoting world peace and friendship is pursued through three operational goals: technical training, cultural exportation, and cultural importation. Since 2016, with the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, and continuing through the Covid-19 pandemic, which produced the first global service interruption in agency history, the value of the Peace Corps service model has been fundamentally challenged. As a …

Analysis Of The Contributions To The Statement On The War In Ukraine Of The World Council Of Churches 2022, Kia Peränen

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This essay is structured around a review and analysis of the statement "War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region" discussed at the 11th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2022 in Business Session 6. The material for the essay will include both the written statement and the related discussion that took place at the discussion on the topic. My intention is to draw on both the statement and the discussion to highlight strong and useful points, but also to try to bring to the surface the weaker or somewhat flawed arguments …

Radioactive, Internal Colonialism: The Uranium Industry’S Historic And Current Impact On The Navajo Nation, Sophie Arens

Pitzer Senior Theses

The United States withheld information pertaining to the health problems associated with nuclear power, allowing uranium to be extracted, processed, and stored in the Southwest of the United States and more specifically the Navajo Nation. With this, many Diné people who had previously worked in the mines or lived within close vicinity to facilities developed various types of illnesses. This thesis argues that the development of nuclear energy in the United States is a form of radioactive, internal colonialism and that the current waste facility located in Carlsbad, New Mexico is furthering this history into the present day. This thesis …

Chemical Analysis For Phytochemical Residues On Ceramics From Cape Canaveral Archaeological Sites, Jacob Woodard

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study aims to contribute to the field of paleoethnobotany in Florida archaeology by presenting a novel approach to chemical residue analysis using UV-vis spectroscopy. The project's main goals are to develop a spectroscopic method for analyzing ceramics to identify phytochemical residues and present the findings of chemical analysis applied to ceramics from the Cape Canaveral archaeological mitigation project (CCAMP). The study focuses on two sites, the Penny site (8BR158) and Burns site (8BR85) in Florida's Indian River region.

While organic residue analysis (ORA) has been applied to various materials and regions, limited research ORA on has been conducted within …

Chain As A Missing Artifact: Enslavement And Restraint On The Hernando De Soto Expedition, Chester B. Depratter, James B. Legg

Faculty & Staff Publications

The passage of the Hernando de Soto expedition (1539-1543) though the southeastern United States resulted in a scatter of artifacts distributed along the route. These materials were gifted or traded to, or taken by Native Ameri­cans, or were simply lost as Soto and his company moved from place to place. Perishable items such as clothing, fabrics, and wooden objects disappeared long ago. Non-perishable items such as weaponry, chainmail, coins, nails, bells, and a wide array of other metal objects have been recovered by both avocational and professional archae­ologists at scattered sites along the route. One class of non-perishable artifact associated …

From Displaced To Displacers: Scottish Crofters, First Nation Peoples And Commons Enclosure From The 1700s To The 1800s, Anna Herrington

Theses and Dissertations--History

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the enclosure of common systems shaped the displacement of people on a global scale whilst bringing the people---Scottish Highland crofters and Mi’kmaq First Nation Canadians from the margins where they have dwelled for centuries in historical scholarship to of the centre of not just their history, but our collective history. Both populations experienced attacks on their ties to their lands, resources, and culture through enclosure. The enclosure process lasted over two centuries and was interspersed with violent protest, proactive resistance, interspersed with periods of acceptance and determination against their forced removals. Investigating …

Factors Associated With Successful Military-To-Civilian Transition Among Special Forces Veterans, Edward Richter

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

The purpose of this study was to explore the military-to-civilian transitional experience in a sample of Special Forces veterans. Acknowledging challenges in accessing the veteran population, most existing research on the military-to-civilian transition consolidates military occupations into a single sample. This method fails to address the intricacies that may exist within individual military occupations, especially that of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers. Special Forces qualified soldiers represent the largest portion of all U.S. Military Special Operations Forces and are responsible for the majority of all Special Operations activities, yet their experience in transitioning out of the Army is largely unknown. …

Uninvited Guests In The Backyard: Dangers And Risks Of Terrorist And Anti-American Activity In Latin America, Santiago Spadiliero

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The international security environment has changed. In the last two decades, new challengers to the American liberal order arose, with China being the most defiant one, in political and military terms. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative opened the doors to these extra-continental powers, as their loans provided an alternative source of funding for Latin America, walking these countries away from American-led lending institutions. In this new context, Latin America becomes a desirable piece of land in which these new challengers can safely create trade routes while decreasing American influence. Russia and Iran also want to project power in America’s backyard. …

A Hollow Victory And Unending Problem: The Undying Anti-Russian Insurgency In Ukraine, Abraham Ashley

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis uses quantitative and qualitative research methods to: (1) explore the base causes of insurgency in Ukraine, (2) examine the historical basis for Ukrainian insurgency, (3) provide historical examples of successful and unsuccessful insurgencies to contrast against Ukraine, and (4) provide recommendations for NATO and Ukrainian policy. Collectively, this project demonstrates that current Russian counterinsurgency tactics will not be successful without significant adjustment. This Ukrainian insurgency may also derail the possibility of peace in the region.

Thawing Interests: The Arctic In U.S. Grand Strategy, Benjamin S. Murray

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The thawing Arctic is subject to increasing activity, attention, and a renewal of interests in the region from around the globe. National interests have compelled strategic planning in the Arctic region and are connected to global geopolitics. A concept of grand strategy is distilled from theories of past authors, understood within the modern context. That concept includes a terminological framework consisting of interests and threats to inform an ends, ways, and means design of strategy, composed of all instruments of state power, blending policy with strategy, and across the peace-war continuum. Then fundamental precepts of existing U.S. grand strategy are …

Swerf Necropolitics: Three Sites Of Feminist Mistranslation And The Politics Of Feminist Exclusion, Aaron Hammes

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

The acronym SWERF, or Sex Work(er) Exclusive Radical Feminism, and its attendant ideologies brings up a number of questions and potential schisms for the enterprise of feminist thought more broadly. This inquiry examines what it means for feminism to exclude, what the excluders believe is gained by protecting certain boundaries around which identities and practices are included, and the ideological foundations and consequences of this thinking. SWERF logics are understood as mistranslations of the radical potentialities of feminism, clustered around three sites: exclusion (against bodily autonomy) , equivocation (between sex work and labor trafficking), and misrepresentation (of the sex worker …

John Lewis And The Politics Of Love: Book Review, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Unexpected Wins: Curating Comics And Teaching Manga From The Dark Horse Comics Collection, Elsa Loftis, Jon Holt

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

A familiar staple of entertainment for a wide variety of readers, the comic book has not always held a regular place in the academic library. Concerning themselves with collecting more traditional expressions of scholarship, libraries have not historically dedicated much of their acquisitions budgets to this area. Therefore, the comic book or graphic novel was largely relegated to someone’s personal collection and would more likely be found on the shelves of a comic book store than the shelves of a university library.

Fast-forward to the present day, where library collections more commonly provide access to comic books, either in regular …

Kapori: Researching Local Responses To Sorcery Accusation–Related Violence In Papua New Guinea Through Indigenous Storytelling, Bomai D. Witne, Verena Thomas, Jackie Kauli, Christina Spurgeon

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article explores kapori, an Indigenous form of storytelling to investigate and report experiences, motivations, responses, and challenges of sorcery accusation–related violence (SARV) by the Yuri people, a tribal group from the Papua New Guinea highlands. SARV is attributed to the belief that some people use supernatural powers to cause illness, deaths, or misfortunes to a community and, therefore, become targets of violent accusations. We outline the rationale for incorporating kapori into SARV research and discuss the findings from a storytelling workshop with 14 participants representing 13 clans of Yuri. The findings suggest that key strategies for curbing SARV include …

Walking Journeys Into Everyday Climatic-Affective Atmospheres: The Emotional Labour Of Balancing Grief And Hope, Petra Tschakert, Chantal B. Du Coudray, Pierre Horwitz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The postapocalypse as a mobilising discourse for climate action operates largely out of anger over experienced and anticipated injustices as well as paradoxical hope that fuses loss and grief with freed-up solidarities in support of liveable futures. However, negotiating this emotional tension can be both draining and isolating. Here, we examine how white settler populations in Western Australia balance grief and hope in places they hold dear and the role emotions such as sadness, worry, disappointment, joy, and pride play in relational place making. Through an innovative in situ and mobile methodology we call Walking Journeys, we trace how participants …

Women Leaders In The Baltic States: Untying The Double-Bind, Elena G. Roe

Honors Theses

Across the post-Soviet region, but particularly in the Baltic states, women executives have gained power in greater numbers and at higher rates than many other regions in the world. This defies existing literature, as these states maintain conservative gender stereotypes while also facing a major security threat from Russia close to their borders. This thesis posits that the increase in women within Baltic legislatures across time creates a political pipeline, or a pool of qualified candidates that makes the election of women to executive power more likely. This is not the only factor, however, as the influence of NATO as …

Ghana Dier: An Analysis Of How Availability And Access Impact Food Security In Ghana, Aishat Doyinsola Jimoh

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the different causes of food insecurity, the solutions for them, and how Ghana sits on the scale of global food insecurity. Ghana is located in Africa, where food insecurity is the highest in the world, so it would be reasonable to expect food insecurity to be high in Ghana, too. In comparison to its neighboring countries, Ghana has the best food security, standing at number three in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses data to examine how Ghana has been this successful. Foundational frameworks in Ghanaian history developed the southern urban parts of Ghana, improving food security in …

Land Back And Justice: Examining Indigenous Land And Water Rights In The United States, Matthew Deveaux

Honors Program Theses

This paper evaluates U.S. policies regarding Indigenous land and water rights in the context of changing global climate conditions and a societal shift towards reparative justice models. Theories from the literature on Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection at large, as well as the literature on reparative justice and post-colonial theory, are combined with case studies of environmental personhood in Ecuador and New Zealand to examine how a policy model could be created for the U.S. that strengthens Indigenous rights. It is argued that this colonial capitalist process has resulted in oppressive policies that harm Indigenous populations and negatively impact the …

Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence In Liberia, Nathaniel Benjamin Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The phenomenon of sexual violence against women in Liberia is a disturbing problem. Despite the significant number of individuals who have faced sexual assault in this country, little is known about the roots and long-term implications of this phenomenon within the context of Liberia, as well as the instruments that could be effective in remedying its effects. This study was conducted to understand how conflict-related sexual violence affects women in Liberia and suggest ways to help address it. The research questions addressed the effect of war-related sexual violence against women in Liberia and the strategies that are necessary to remedy …

U.S. Senate And House Perspectives On Missile Defense Systems Opposed By Russia And China, Constance Valarie Baroudos

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The United States and its allies and partners have deployed three missile defense systems to protect against Iranian and North Korean missile threats: the European Phased Adaptive Approach, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and Ground-based Missile Defense. Russia and China oppose these systems because they view them as undermining their strategic interests. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the perspectives of Senate and House Armed Services Committee HASC members about the three missile defense systems in congressional hearings. The three models of the congressional behavior model, the preference, simple party, and asymmetric categories, and neorealism and …

Disruption And Emergence: How To Think About Human Rights Futures, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

This article suggests that humanity may be approaching a critical juncture, since a confluence of macro-historical changes might—individually or collectively—fundamentally transform the field of human rights, and usher in a second human rights era. In particular, it suggests that the confluence of tectonic geopolitical changes, system-wide shifts in climate and energy, and fundamentally new developments in science and technology might lead to a rupture of the same scale as the cluster of events that heralded the onset of the current rights regime. This argument builds on a number of literatures, especially those focused on norms cycles, rights generations, and what …

การศึกษาเครือข่ายนโยบายในการพัฒนาแนวทางการปกป้องโครงสร้างพื้นฐานสำคัญของประเทศจากการก่อวินาศกรรมและการก่อการร้าย, นพฤกษ์ ศรีสุวรรณ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

โครงสร้างพื้นฐานสำคัญของประเทศ (Critical Infrastructure: CI) ถือเป็นปัจจัยสำคัญที่ส่งผลต่อการพัฒนาประเทศทั้งในด้านเศรษฐกิจ สังคม และความมั่นคง รวมถึงยังสามารถเพิ่มขีดความสามารถในการแข่งขันด้วยการดึงดูดการลงทุนและขับเคลื่อนระบบเศรษฐกิจของประเทศ หาก CI ไม่สามารถให้บริการได้อย่างปกติและต่อเนื่องย่อมก่อให้เกิดความไร้เสถียรภาพในการจัดบริการสาธารณะที่ส่งผลกระทบต่อทุกมิติเช่นกัน ด้วยเหตุนี้ CI ถือเป็นพื้นที่สำคัญซึ่งรัฐในฐานะตัวแสดงหลักของสังคมจำเป็นจะต้องปกป้องรักษา ภายใต้สภาวการณ์ที่ตัวแสดงอื่นซึ่งมุ่งหวังที่จะลดทอนคุณค่าของความเป็นรัฐคุกคามพื้นที่ CI ผ่านการก่อวินาศกรรมและการก่อการร้าย ซึ่งถือเป็นภัยคุกคามต่อความมั่นคงของชาติที่ทันสมัยจากการพัฒนากลยุทธ์ในการก่อเหตุที่สามารถสร้างผลกระทบต่อสังคมทั้งในเชิงกายภาพและในเชิงจิตวิทยา อย่างไรก็ดี ผลพวงจากแนวคิดการบริหารจัดการภาครัฐแนวใหม่ได้ผลักดันให้ประเทศต่าง ๆ มีการแปรรูปกิจการของรัฐไปสู่การดำเนินงานในรูปแบบเอกชนมากยิ่งขึ้น นำไปสู่การเพิ่มขึ้นของตัวแสดงที่มีบทบาทในการจัดบริการสาธารณะ ทั้งในฐานะผู้ครอบครองและผู้ขับเคลื่อนโครงสร้างพื้นฐานสำคัญของประเทศที่ไม่ใช่รัฐ ซึ่งการดำเนินการในลักษณะเดียวกันนี้ก็เกิดขึ้นในประเทศไทยเช่นกัน จึงนำมาสู่คำถามวิจัยของสารนิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ว่ารัฐดำเนินการหรือมีแนวทางการปกป้องโครงสร้างพื้นฐานสำคัญของประเทศจากการก่อวินาศกรรมและการก่อการร้ายอย่างไร งานวิจัยชิ้นนี้ระบุตัวแสดงที่มีบทบาทในกระบวนการกำหนดนโยบาย และวิเคราะห์ความสัมพันธ์ในลักษณะเครือข่ายของตัวแสดง โดยหวังว่าผลจากการศึกษาจะสามารถถูกนำไปใช้เป็นข้อมูลประกอบการจัดทำข้อเสนอแนะเชิงนโยบาย และกระบวนการประสานความร่วมมือในการปกป้องโครงสร้างพื้นฐานสำคัญของประเทศต่อไป

บทบาทและความจำเป็นของกองทัพไทยในคาบสมุทรเกาหลีในยุคปัจจุบัน, พิทยาพงษ์ เกษตรผลจำรูญ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

สารนิพนธ์ฉบับนี้มุ่งศึกษาบทบาทของกองทัพไทยในการปฏิบัติภารกิจเพื่อส่งเสริมและธำรงไว้ซึ่งสันติภาพในคาบสมุทรเกาหลีในยุคปัจจุบัน และเหตุผลในการดำรงภารกิจในคาบสมุทรเกาหลีนี้ไว้ โดยใช้วิธีการวิจัยเอกสารเป็นเครื่องมือที่ใช้ในการวิจัยพบว่า กองทัพไทยดำเนินบทบาทเฉพาะที่สำคัญ 2 ประการ ได้แก่ 1) การทำหน้าที่ผู้สังเกตการณ์ทางทหาร ตรวจสอบและยืนยันว่าคู่ขัดแย้งได้ปฏิบัติตามข้อตกลงหยุดยิงทางทหาร และ 2) การมีกำลังพลกองทัพไทยในกองบัญชาการกองกำลังสหประชาชาติที่ทำหน้าที่อยู่ในกองร้อยเกียรติยศ เป็นการแสดงออกเชิงสัญลักษณ์สะท้อนการยึดมั่นในสันติภาพในคาบสมุทรเกาหลี เหตุผลประการสำคัญในการดำรงภารกิจไว้ เนื่องจากประเทศไทยในฐานะรัฐสมาชิกขององค์การสหประชาชาติตระหนักถึงการมีส่วนร่วมในการปฏิบัติการเพื่อส่งเสริมและธำรงไว้ซึ่งสันติภาพ การปฏิบัติตามบรรทัดฐานที่สหประชาชาติกำหนดจะเป็นการสร้างเสริมสถานะและสร้างการยอมรับให้แก่ประเทศไทยในประชาคมโลกและเวทีการเมืองระหว่างประเทศ การคงกำลังทหารของกองทัพไทยในคาบสมุทรเกาหลียังคงมีความจำเป็นต่อประเทศไทยในฐานะสมาชิกขององค์การสหประชาชาติ กองทัพไทยควนดำเนินการด้วยความรอบคอบ ยึดถือนโยบายการรักษาดุลยภาพของความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างประเทศ โดยมีเป้าหมายในการเสริมสร้างความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ การพัฒนาศักยภาพและขีดความสามารถในการปฏิบัติการร่วมกันเพื่อรับมือปัญหาความมั่นคงรูปแบบใหม่และการส่งเสริมสันติภาพในทุกระดับ

The Prison Reentry Experience Of Justice-Involved Veterans, Latta Roosevelt Thomas Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prison reentry programs attempt to equip justice-involved veterans with life skills necessary for their transition out of prison. This qualitative study addressed the scant understanding of the impact pre-released prison reentry programs have on justice-involved veterans’ transition and reintegration back to the community. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the perceptions of justice-involved veterans regarding prison reentry programs that have impacted their transition out of prison. The well-being development model and Castro’s military-to-civilian transition model provided the conceptual framework for this qualitative study, using semistructured questions to interview 11 justice-involved veterans regarding their participation in prison reentry …

Anti-American Stance In Turkey: A Twitter Case Study, Gowri Prathap, Alex Korb, Luke Palmieri, Ekrem Kaya, Saltuk Karahan, Hamdi Kavak

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

The availability of social media and biased actors exacerbated Anti-American and Anti-Western views to extremes. In this paper, we report our efforts in analyzing anti-American views on Twitter. We have collected over three years of Turkish tweets related to the US, translated them into English, and analyzed these tweets using various computational social science tools. We found that Turkish tweets related to the US are significantly negative, and emotions reflect disgust and anger. Furthermore, we found that the source of the negative views stems from political actors like Trump or Biden rather than general hatred. Our results shed light on …

Public Service Motivation: African American Senior Military Officers Transitioning To Civilian Service, Ansara Todd Burgess

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Motivation plays a crucial role in public organizations in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as moral obligation. While considerable efforts over the past several decades have led to vast improvements in federal workforce diversification, significant problems still exist involving diversity management and racial representation across all levels of federal government employment. The theoretical framework guiding this study was public service motivation. The purpose of this study was to explore the U.S. federal government’s inability to attract and retain senior executive service African Americans through lived experiences of retired African American military officers who currently work for the …

Underwater Communication Acoustic Transducers: A Technology Review, Laila Shams, Tian-Bing Xu, Zhongqing Su (Ed.), Branko Glisic (Ed.), Maria Pina Limongelli (Ed.)

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper provides a comprehensive review on transducer technologies for underwater communications. The popularly used communication transducers, such as piezoelectric acoustic transducers, electromagnetic acoustic transducers, and acousto-optic devices are reviewed in detail. The reasons that common air communication technologies are invalid die to the differences between the media of air and water are addresses. Because of the abilities to overcome challenges the complexity of marine environments, piezoelectric acoustic transducers are playing the major underwater communication roles for science, surveillance, and Naval missions. The configuration and material properties of piezoelectric transducers effects on signal output power, beamwidth, amplitude, and other properties …

The Conceptual "New Cold War": A Comparative Analysis Of Great Power Competition, Annie Goodman

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The Cold War was a decades-long competition between the US and the Soviet Union marked mainly by an existential nuclear arms race, the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, and the dire opposition of democracy and communism worldwide. Today, however, the concept of a ‘Cold War,’ a frozen conflict, has expanded to include other forms of competition, and perhaps even new conflicts based in a state’s desire for hegemonic power. In this project, I sought to perform a comparative, qualitative analysis of the US/Soviet Cold War and the ongoing competitions between the US and China to determine if the US/China conflict …

(Re)Constructing National Memory In Neoliberal Chile Through Patricio Guzman's The Cordillera Of Dreams (2019), Mica Barrett

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the most renowned Chilean exile filmmakers is Patricio Guzmán. Best known for his documentary work regarding the Allende years, Guzmán has continued to make films regarding his homeland in the decades following his initial exile.

The Cordillera of Dreams is the concluding film in a trilogy exploring the natural lands of Chile and their relationship to physical remnants of the human past. The initial and most renowned film in the series, Nostalgia for the Light, centers the Atacama Desert and Chileans’ relationship to the geography as a gateway to revealing artifacts of Chile’s recent history of genocide …