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Corruption And Anti-Corruption Agencies: Assessing Peruvian Agencies' Effectiveness, Kia R. Del Solar

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Corruption has gained attention around the world as a prominent issue. This is because corruption has greatly affected several countries. Following the exploration of various definitions and types of corruption, this thesis focuses on two efforts to rein in “grand corruption”, also known as executive corruption. The thesis is informed by existing theories of corruption as well as anti-corruption agencies and then situates Peru’s experience with corruption in its theoretical context and its broader Latin American context. This work conducts a comparative analysis and follows a process-tracing approach to examine and evaluate Peru’s recent anti-corruption agencies and their effectiveness in …

The Lasting Legacy Of Chemical Weapons In Iraqi Kurdistan, Jenna L. Dovydaitis

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In 1988, the Iraqi regime executed the Anfal Genocide against its Kurdish population, killing a conservative estimate of approximately 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds (Human Rights Watch, 1993). This genocide involved the widespread usage of chemical weapons and marked a highly traumatic moment in modern Kurdish history. As of today, little academic research has been completed on the long-term medical and political consequences of exposure to chemical weapons in the Kurdistan region.

This exploratory research aims to contribute to the body of literature on this topic through interviews with medical professionals, Kurdish politicians, and non-governmental organization employees that have expertise on …

Mao With Smart Phones And Internet? A Comparison Of Classic Guerrilla Warfare With Fourth And Fifth Generation Warfare Using An Agent-Based Model For Simulation, Jerry Taylor Sink

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) theory shares many characteristics of classical guerrilla warfare (CGW) theory in security studies literature. Proponents claim that 4GW is a revolution in war that overturns traditional measures of military power, while critics counter that 4GW is simply CGW in an updated context. Another group posits Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW), which adds additional information-age technologies and uses “any and all means,” (military and extra-military) to attack both the enemy’s will and capability to resist. The irregular subset of 5GW strategies appear to be an extension of 4GW with the addition of advanced information-age technologies: mobile phones and …

Systemic Methodology For Cyber Offense And Defense, C. Ariel Pinto, Matthew Zurasky

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes a systemic method towards standardization of a cyber weapon effectiveness and effectiveness prediction process to promote consistency and improve cyber weapon system evaluation accuracy – for both offensive and defensive postures. The approach included theoretical examination of existing effectiveness prediction processes for kinetic and directed energy weapons, complemented with technical and social aspects of cyber realm. The examination highlighted several paradigm-shifts needed to transition from purely kinetic-based processes and transition into the realm of combined kinetic and cyber weapons. Components of the new method for cyber weapons are cyber payload assessment, effects identification, and target assessment. The …

In Sickness Or In Health: The Impact Of Disease Burdens On The Likelihood Of Violent Conflict, Devyn Escalanti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This paper expands on the relationship between disease burdens and the onset of violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1990-2012. Most studies have focused on conflict as a cause of HIV transmission, while some suggest that HIV infection rates, by substantially reducing life-expectancy, increase the onset of violence by lowering the opportunity cost of rebelling for HIV-positive individuals. This paper argues that to the degree that life expectancy is important to opportunity costs, it is more likely driven by other factors. First, I argue preventable diseases that are less connected to individual decision-making, and the presence of poor health infrastructure …

Department Of Defense Insider Threats: Sharing And Oversight To Protect U.S. Installations, Yokeitha Anita Ramey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The growing threat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other terrorist organizations increases the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) chance of encountering an insider threat, which creates the need for the DoD to develop programs to address this concern and mitigate the risk to national security. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to understand the effectiveness of security education, training, and awareness programs designed to mitigate insider threats within the DoD. Research questions were focused on this purpose as well as understanding why there is an increase in insider threats within the DoD. The theoretical frameworks …

'Massacres', 'Tragedies, ‘Genocide:’ A Critical Analysis Of Differing Perspectives On The Armenian Genocide, Samuel Hugo Willner

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………4

II. Bibliography…………………………………..31

III. Primary Documents and Headnotes………33

IV. Textbook Critique…………………………….43

V. New Textbook Entry…………………………..46

Synchronic Analysis Of Adversarial Attacks In Syria Committed By The Islamic State, Brian C. Montgomery

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Militarized technologies, large support infrastructures, and the unintended consequences of increased violence demonstrate that the current strategies are unsustainable to end modern conflict. However, the potential exists to precisely identify patterns from empirically reduced adversarial behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental synchronic retrospective analysis was to determine the relationship between the distance, fatalities, and time (independent variables) to the hazard force (dependent variable) executed by ISIS in Syria between the years 2007 to 2015. A data set containing 12,326 records for attacks committed by U.S. adversaries in 20 countries between the years of 2007-2015 was analyzed using multiple …

Innovation And Market Leadership In A Technology Industry, Wilson Zehr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

According to the Abernathy-Utterback (A-U) model, firms focus on technological product innovation early in the product lifecycle and then shift to process innovation as markets mature. However, there is no consensus on the forms that non-technological innovation can take. In addition, the A-U model, which guides innovators, does not include forms of non-technological innovation that are generally accepted by experts. In this study, a hybrid e-Delphi technique with an AHP decision model was used to evaluate the forms of innovation used to establish market leadership over the historical lifecycle of the personal computer industry in the United States. In Phase …

Service Members With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Who Face Employment Challenges Postdeployment, Donna Scurlark Sargent

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe Iraq War was the longest war in the history of the United States, involving over 2 million service members. Service members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan experienced a high rate of mental health disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and substance abuse as they returned from deployment. Research is lacking in regard to how Army reservists and National Guardsmen function at home, school, work, and in the community upon their return from service. The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of service members with PTSD who experienced challenges with work …

Correlates Of War And Sino Revisionism, Douglas Sanders

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Some conflict resolution and national security professionals contend there is no shortfall of qualitative research on Asia, China, Realism, or war. That said, this doctoral dissertation has two overarching purposes: first, an empirical study of interstate conflict at the regional and systematic levels. Second, is to examine the extent to which the Correlates of War covariates associated with the People’s Republic of China’s revisionist strategies. Combining these objectives led to the formulation of the main research question: What is the relationship between the correlates of war and China’s revisionist strategy in Asia? Realism contends that strong national capability and displays …

Order To The Universe: A Psychological-Anthropological Analysis Of The Practice Of Mayan Bloodletting And Its Association With The Bat God, Camazutz

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.

Delivering Psychological Services To Military Members, Karen C. Kalmbach, Bret A. Moore

Psychology Faculty Publications (Archived)

Since 2001, less than half of one percent of the American public have volunteered to serve in the United States Armed Forces. With high-tempo repeated deployments and unconventional warfare, the Post 9/11 military has been exposed to unique trauma and stressors during an unprecedented two-decade long conflict. In voluntarily taking on this role, members are immersed in the total institution of military culture and required to make countless personal sacrifices, often experiencing trauma or other stressors that most in a civilian population will never face. Prevalence rates of mental health problems in active duty as well as veteran populations suggest …

Trauma-Informed School Practices In Response To The Impact Of Social-Cultural Trauma (Chapter In How Shall We Then Care? A Christian Educator's Guide To Caring For Self, Learners, Colleagues, And Community), Anna A. Berardi Phd., Brenda Morton

Faculty Publications - Graduate School of Counseling

Excerpt: "In this chapter we present a model for addressing the academic and behavioral challenges of students impacted by unmitigated stress and trauma. Typically, trauma-informed school literature addresses trauma resulting from abusive, or neglectful behaviors that occur in the home (Bailey, 2015; Craig, 2016; Massachusetts Advocates for Children, 2005; Souers & Hall, 2016). Here, the type of trauma we are addressing is threats to the physical and emotional health of students due to social and cultural factors. Perhaps most detrimental and deadly is trauma resulting from war, economic collapse, civil unrest, and social-political attitudes, laws, and customs that exclude, marginalize, …

North Korea Vs United States Of America Relations, Michael Pitts

Communication Senior Capstones

Today we are currently faced with a dilemma between both the United States, and North Korea. It has slowly become increasingly difficult to fix due to many underlining issues such as politics, propaganda, and stereotypes. As we now approach a new decade, however, one may ask if it were possible at all for the two respected countries to actually have a conversation between both their leaders, and their citizens also.

The Passive Side Of Conflict Archaeology: The 2016 To 2019 Excavations Of A Pow Mess Hall In The Honouliuli Internment And Pow Camp, Island Of O‘Ahu, Hawai‘I, William Belcher

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The archaeological investigation of Prisoner of War (POW) camps offers a glimpse into the passive side of conflict archaeology; that is, those parts of conflict related to imprisonment of enemy combatants and not active areas like forts and battlefields. This paper presents the research and field operations conducted at the Honouliuli National Historic Site during the 2016 to 2019 field seasons as part of the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu (UH West Oʻahu) archaeological field schools, particularly focused on the discovery and partial excavation of a mess hall concrete foundation or platform associated with a POW population during World War …

Sin Papeles: The Experiences Of Undocumented Central American Immigrants In The United States, Elizabeth Jarquin

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

In the United States, the topic of immigration represents a source of intense debate, which has escalated in recent years. Research indicates that Latinx immigrants are negatively impacted by current immigration policies— they are feeling afraid, angry, exhausted, defeated, overwhelmed, and concerned about themselves and their family (Castrellón, Rivarola, & López, 2017; Wray-Lake et al., 2018). This research, however, has largely neglected the Central American subgroup and the experiences of undocumented immigrants. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of undocumented Central American immigrants and their families within the current sociopolitical context. I utilized interpretative phenomenological analysis …

“The Policy Of Intimidation Had Been So Successfully Managed That Many Colored Men Kept Away From The Polls”: Violence In The Reconstruction Era South, Marykatherine Klaybor

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the United States entered an era known as Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877. In this postwar period the federal government faced pressure to reincorporate the former Confederate States back into the Union. In addition, Southern political, economic, and social systems needed to be transformed in the wake of emancipation and the country grappled with the question of political rights for newly freed people. Throughout the era, the Republican Party favored policies that secured the rights of black Southerners while facing opposition from many Southern white Democrats. This opposition often manifested in unchecked …

The Tongass Futures Roundtable: Distrust, Inequity, And Collaboration In Southeast Alaska, Hannah M. Wilson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Collaborative processes are increasingly being used to address complex natural resource management challenges, and trust between participants has been highlighted as a key component of successful collaboration. However, little research has focused on why collaboratives fail and the role of distrust in collaboration. This study examined trust and distrust in the Tongass Futures Roundtable, a collaborative group in Southeast Alaska that attempted to address timber, conservation, and Alaska Native land management issues, but was widely perceived to have failed. The history of conflict between timber and conservation interests as well as between Alaska Natives and other stakeholder groups meant that …

Dendroanthropological Applications In Adaptive Management: A Multi-Methodical Approach For Interpreting Cultural Landscape Change At Mvs-Yee-Se’-Ne, Brandy Alexandra Clark

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis combined GIS analysis, archival research, and dendrochronological methods to provide a means for interpreting how the Mvs-yee-se’-ne cultural landscape has changed since the period of European contact circa 1850. By employing dendrochronological methods, a unique stand of Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) was found to be present at Mvs-yee-se’-ne by at least 1809. Since 1850, factors such as American colonization, homesteading, mining, fire suppression, and logging have had an effect on cultural landscapes such as Mvs-yee-se’-ne regionally, but this research localized such effects in a site-specific context. Aerial imagery analysis conducted for this thesis documented extractive …

Vox Et Silentium Dei: A Socio-Cognitive Linguistic Theory Of Religious Violence, Tyler Everett Kibbey

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Contemporary research in the study of language and cognition frequently characterizes religious metaphors as either monoliths of experience or stable synchronic structures, if not both. In addition, by virtue of how the foundational theory of this paper, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, has been situated in the literature, pre-modern theist writing on figurative language has been largely ignored. This has resulted in a general application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to religious language which characterizes religious experience as phenomenologically invalid with the contingent effect of contradicting the basic experiential nature of metaphor. Here, I account for these principal theoretical discrepancies through an exploration …

The Policy State And The Post-Truth Presidency, Philip Rocco

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction: An Unsettled Time From American Political Development And The Trump Presidency, Philip Rocco, Zachary Callen

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

As the words of his inaugural address echoed across a rain- soaked National Mall, Donald Trump cut a hole in time. His presidency, he said, marked a breaking point in American politics. No longer would a “small group” of elites reap the benefits of government while “forgotten Americans” bore the cost. “Now,” Trump suggested, “we are only looking to the future.” Even so, the speech telegraphed a dystopian pre sent; the United States had become a landscape of rusted- out factories, cities teeming with crime, and national borders defenseless against terrorist threats. Gone was the promised land that Trump’s predecessors …

Predicting And Mitigating Civil Conflict: Vertical Grievances And Conflict In Central Africa, Jd Walter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Recent conflict research has relied on proxy variables of horizontal inequality to make causal assumptions, but these do not reveal the root of deprivation in aggrieved populations. However, it is important to continue to explore the greed-grievance dichotomy to explain the persistence of violent civil conflict. The purpose of this quantitative study was to expand this line of inquiry by investigating the relationship between indicators of vertical deprivation and reported civil conflict incidents to determine whether a significant correlation exists. Relative deprivation theory provided the framework for this study, which consisted of 10,779 survey responses regarding lived experience across 7 …

Evidence-Based Diagnosis Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Using Quantitative Electroencephalography, Roger Yoder

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is challenging and is currently, diagnosis through self-administered checklists. Because a diagnosis of PTSD can open up significant benefits to compensation, education, and medical care, people can tailor their responses to the checklist to help ensure a diagnosis of PTSD. The purpose of the study was to examine the utility of the quantitative electroencephalograph for diagnosing PTSD. Frequency and presence of biomarkers and alpha brain wave symmetry in the frontal and parietal lobes were examined. Research questions involved examining the presence of alpha wave imbalance across the frontal lobe and between the right and left …

Strategies For Assisting Refugees: Repatriation Versus Resettlement, Hannah Cottrell

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Computational Propaganda: Targeted Advertising And The Perception Of Truth, Julie Murphy, Anthony Keane, Aurelia Power

Conference Papers

Social media has become an effective medium for the execution of cyberpsychological threats by adopting language to influence perceptions based on personal interests and behaviours. Targeted messages can be refined for maximum effect and have been implicated in changing the outcome of democratic elections and the decreasing uptake of vaccinations. However, computational propaganda and cyberpsychological threats are not well understood within the cybersecurity community. To address this, we adopt the theoretical model of the illusory truth effect to posit that how information is presented online, may solidify views in an 'undecided' group with 'some' knowledge of an argument. We test …

Understanding Terror: A Religiopolitical Analysis Of The Rise Of Isis And The Establishment Of A Caliphate, Alexandra Hansen

Scripps Senior Theses

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has made waves in the international community, stoking global terror, influencing political discourse, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in security response and reconstruction efforts. More importantly, it has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, whether it be from direct combat or attacks, or from the massive refugee crises it sparked. One wonders, how did a small extremist group make such a massive and disastrous impact? Most research done on ISIS and terrorism studies tend to focus on the political, economic, and social factors that lead to the creation and successes of …

Patrons Of Violence : Drivers And Dimensions Of State Support For Rebel Groups, Nakissa Jahanbani

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Why do some states support rebel groups? This area of study has garnered more attention in the aftermath of the Cold War, as states continue to leverage proxy groups against one another. To understand the causes and consequences of state support, this dissertation builds on existing work in the state sponsorship, terrorism, and interstate rivalry literature. The research questions in this dissertation ask: (1) why states provides specific types of sponsorship; (2) what, if any, is the effect of interstate rivalry on the global network of state support; and (3) why are some Islamist rebel groups more violent than others. …

Drug Control Officers' Perception Of Nigeria's Narcotics Control Policy, Olufemi Ajayi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Nigerian government’s cannabis prohibition policy has failed to achieve the suppression of supply and reduction of demand for drugs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the policy implementation experiences of Nigeria’s drug control officers regarding Nigeria’s drug control policies. The theoretical foundation was social construction theory. Data were collected from reviews of public documents and in-depth interviews with 15 active or retired drug control officers. Data were sorted, organized, and coded through directed content analysis to identify themes. The themes that emerged included defective nature and content of the policy, poor policy implementation, and unfavorable …