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Sahara Occidental: Legal And Political Analysis Of An Ongoing Conflict, August Tupper

Theses & ETDs

The Sahrawi people of Western Sahara have claimed independence since Spanish decolonization in 1975. The Kingdom of Morocco has occupied the Sahrawi homeland for 40 years. Numerous peace plans have failed to bring Morocco and the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi’s negotiating body, any closer to an agreement. Immediately before Spain left the Sahara the United Nations General Assembly requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. The ruling asserted the Sahrawi people’s right to selfdetermination, and required the Spanish, Moroccans, and Mauritanians to guarantee an independence referendum. No such referendum has been held. This study examines the interests …

Ugandan Politics World War Ii (1939-1949), Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

World War II shaped Uganda's postwar politics through local understandings of global war.¹ Individually and collectively Ugandans saw the war as an opportunity rather than simply a crisis. During the War, the acquired wealth and demonstrated loyalty to a stressed British empire, inverting paternalistic imperial relations and investing loyalty and money in ways they expected would be reciprocated with political and economic rewards. For the 77,000 Ugandan enlisted soldiers and for the civilians who grew coffee and cotton, contributed money and organizational skills, and followed the war news, the war was not a desperate struggle for survival. Ideological aspects …

The Politics Of Narrative: Law And The Representation Of Mexican Criminality, Deborah Weissman

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Untold Narratives: Refugee Experiences From Laos To Richmond, California, Laiseng Saechao

Scripps Senior Theses

Untold Narratives: A Refugee Experience from Laos to Richmond, California is focused on the Mien refugee experience from Laos to Richmond, California. This thesis highlights the ways Cold War politics, the Secret War, and heavy industrialization have impacted Mien communities who have been displaced from their homelands into refugee camps, and again through sponsorship into the United States. This thesis looks at political theories that discuss inequalities that exist, particularly through environmental degradation and negative health impacts that Mien refugees are experiencing in their resettlement into Richmond, California. Due to the limited scholarly articles and documented narratives that are available …

Investigating Insurgency And Counter Insurgency And Attaining A Monopoly On Violence, Bryn Lacey

Theses : Honours

This thesis is an investigation of insurgency and counterinsurgency, how actors from within and without a country combat instability and how the security apparatus, coupled with peace building measures, can attain a monopoly on violence. The thesis uses Afghanistan as a case study to carry out this investigation, covering the time period from 2002 – 2011. Ultimately the thesis provides an assessment of the nation building project in Afghanistan in light of the research into insurgency investigating why the efforts of the security actors have, ultimately, failed to attain a monopoly on violence.

The Impact Of Kenya African Soldiers On The Creation And Evolution Of The Pioneer Corps During The Second World War, Meshack Owino

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Narrative: Law And The Representation Of Mexican Criminality, Deborah Weissman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Political Attitudes Towards The Bush Administration By Ethnic And Racial Groups, Amber Elzen, Mai Inoue, Julianna Koomen

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This project analyzes the attitudes towards political statements according to a person’s ethnic and racial groups. The statements relate to the Bush administration and some of its policies. The different responses are categorized by age, gender and location as well. It is hypothesized that Caucasians would have a more positive outlook on the administration and its policies while racial and ethnic minorities would have a less positive response to the questions. Overall, a total of 219 participants were surveyed from Minnesota State University, Mankato and from communities of southeastern Minnesota through questions asking them to indicate their political attitudes. When …

An Ordinary Congressman And An Extraordinary Scandal: Alex Mcmillan And Iran-Contra, Rob Matsick

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The Iran-Contra Affair was an infamous soap opera that pushed the Reagan Administration to the brink of annihilation. The repercussions to the main players of this and other tantalizing political affairs have been regurgitated ad nauseum. However, the effects on the more general political scene are often ignored. This paper is a case study that examines the diversionary political route that Alex McMillan, a Congressman unknown outside of North Carolina, takes to handle the negative effects of a Republican crisis to a Congressman that shares the party, but not the blame, for a national scandal. This case study aims …

Failure Of Democratic Consolidation: The Three Year Interlude Of Military Rule (1958-1962) In Burma, Zaw Thein

Masters Theses

Many scholars believe that the period between 1948 when Burma won Independence and 1962 when the military took over the country from the elected civilian government as the parliamentary democracy era. During this era, there was a three-year interlude where the military leaders ruled the country as the Caretaker Government- a euphemism for the three-year military interlude. My argument is that this interlude happened due to the growing strength of the military as an institution and the decline of political parties in Burma. The strength of the military institution was due to the civil war that broke out just after …

The Governance Of Visibility: Bodies, Information, And The Politics Of Anonymity Across The Us-Mexico Borderlands, Robert Latham

Articles

This article explores the relationship between information and mobility as it is manifest at the Mexico-US border and understands that border to be one, although very important, site of information processing and production. Within the electronic as well as the physical spaces of the Mexico-US borderlands, it is argued that practices of evasion and exposure produce specific forms of politics. These forms bear on the militarization of the border, particular bourgeois anxieties, various instances of violence, the pursuit of survival strategies and recognition, and the emergence of resistance and countertactics. Also considered are possibilities for alternatives to the ways mobility …

"A New Way Of Doing Politics": The Movement Against Cafta In Costa Rica, Jeremy Rayner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In October of 2007, Costa Ricans voted in a referendum to ratify a Free Trade Agreement with the United States (DR-CAFTA, or CAFTA). The first referendum in their nation's history--and the first referendum ever held on a Free Trade Agreement--marked the culmination of a cycle of contention over liberalization that transformed practices and expectations of politics in a country often considered an exemplar of representative democracy. In this dissertation I provide an account of the opposition to CAFTA (the NO), based on two years of ethnographic research with the Patriotic Committees (Comites Patrioticos), the decentralized, grassroots network at the heart …

The Future Of Human Development: The Right To Survive As A Fundamental Element Of The Right To Development, Upendra Acharya

Denver Journal of International Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Past, Present And Future Of Transnational Conflict In Jordan: A Study Of Syrian Refugees In The Hashemite Kingdom, David F. Becker

Capstone Projects – Politics and Government

In this paper I am considering the numerous effects that hosting refugees can have on a host country. These effects can be seen when examining a host country’s health, economic, educational, and security sectors. In addition, many cases of refugee flows are associated with conflict contagion, which may cause a refugee population to become militarized. After reviewing the relevant literature on these topics, I study how these possible effects unfold in the context of the Syrian refugees currently escaping to Jordan from their civil war. The Kingdom of Jordan and its people are significantly affected by the increased stresses that …

Rusticus: Notes On Class And Culture In Rural New Hampshire, Donald Hall

New England Journal of Public Policy

Old New Hampshire Highway Number Four was incorporated by an act of the New Hampshire legislature in the autumn of 1800. It wound out of Portsmouth, a seaport that once rivaled Boston, drove west through Concord, north past Penacook, through Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, and Wilmot on its way to Lebanon and the Connecticut River. These names string history like beads. The Penacook tribe assembled each year on the banks of the Merrimack at the site of the present town that bears their name. I grew up thinking Boscawen an unusual Indian name; it is Cornish, surname of an admiral victorious …

Philosophers Of War: The Evolution Of History's Greatest Military Thinkers, Daniel Coetzee, Lee Eysturlid

Faculty Publications & Research

The philosophy of war is usually treated in the context of philosophy as a discipline in the same way military justice is compared to justice, and military music to music. That is to say, it is presented as a red-headed stepchild at best or, more likely, as an illegitimate offspring, Carl von Clausewitz, the West's defining military philosopher and its most familiar figure, barely rates a footnote and an index entry in general histories of philosophy—even those with a German emphasis.

The same point can be made about military thought. Theoretical analysis of war is commonly understood in practical contexts: …

This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Art And The Wisconsin Uprising, Kim Cosier

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In February of 2011, an enormous popular political movement came to life in Wisconsin. For many people who were engaged in the month-long occupation of the Capitol in Madison, the Wisconsin Uprising was their first experience with direct political action. For the artists who are the focus of this article, taking part in the Wisconsin Uprising seemed like a natural outgrowth of their many years of socially engaged artmaking. In this article, I offer a brief overview of the Wisconsin Uprising followed by a discussion of the contributions of the artists in the protests in the context of their larger …

Networks, News And Communication: Political Elites And Community Relations In Elizabethan Devon, 1588-1603, Ian David Cooper

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Focusing on the ‘second reign’ of Queen Elizabeth I (1588-1603), this thesis constitutes the first significant socio-political examination of Elizabethan Devon – a geographically peripheral county, yet strategically central in matters pertaining to national defence and security. A complex web of personal associations and informal alliances underpinned politics and governance in Tudor England; but whereas a great deal is now understood about relations between both the political elite and the organs of government at the centre of affairs, many questions still remain unanswered about how networks of political actors functioned at a provincial and neighbourhood level, and how these networks …

State Sponsored Famine: Conceptualizing Politically Induced Famine As A Crime Against Humanity, Jlateh Vincent Jappah Md, Msc, Danielle Taana Smith

Journal of International and Global Studies

This paper argues for the codification of politically induced famine as a crime against humanity. We use the term “state sponsored famine” to reflect the conceptualization of famine as not merely nature-induced but also as a willfully orchestrated state policy. The specification of faminogenic practices as criminal would subject perpetrators to international jurisdiction and provide deterrence to future offenders. We review traditional conceptualizations of famine as a geophysical event. We explore Amartya Sen’s concept of famine as caused by the collapse of individual entitlement and market exchange dynamics; we also discuss commentary on Sen’s approach. Further, we analyze the limits …

A Blueprint For Buddhist Revolution: The Radical Buddhism Of Seno’O Girō (1889–1961) And The Youth League For Revitalizing Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

In the early decades of the twentieth century, as Japanese society became engulfed in war and increasing nationalism, the majority of Buddhist leaders and institutions capitulated to the status quo. One notable exception to this trend, however, was the Shinkō Bukkyō Seinen Dōmei (Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism), founded on 5 April 1931. Led by Nichiren Buddhist layman Seno’o Girō and made up of young social activists who were critical of capitalism, internationalist in outlook, and committed to a pan-sectarian and humanist form of Buddhism that would work for social justice and world peace, the league’s motto was “carry the …

"It Was Awful, But It Was Politics": Crittenden County And The Demise Of African American Political Participation, Krista Michelle Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast scholarship that exists discussing why Democrats sought restrictive suffrage laws, little attention has been given by historians to examine how concern over local government drove disfranchisement measures. This study examines how the authors of disfranchisement laws were influenced by what was happening in Crittenden County where African Americans, because of their numerical majority, wielded enough political power to determine election outcomes. In the years following the Civil War, African Americans established strong communities, educated themselves, secured independent institutions, and most importantly became active in politics. Because of their numerical majority, Crittenden's African Americans were elected to county …

The Socialist Design: Urban Dilemmas In Postwar Europe And The Soviet Union, Elidor Mehilli

Publications and Research

Taking a cue from two books—Stephen Bittner’s account of the “many lives” of the Soviet Thaw and Greg Castillo’s study of the Cold War as a series of battles in design and the domestic sphere—as well as a recent explosion of interest among historians in the Khrushchev era, “spatial history,” material culture, and East–West exchanges, this article addresses the paradoxes of the Thaw as exemplified in urban form. It argues for the interconnected nature of domestic, international, and Eastern bloc- level dynamics by viewing processes of the Thaw simultaneously from the angles of neighborhood, city, and empire. These angles capture …

Physiological Politics: Stress And Dominance Responses To Political News, Erin Strauts

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Power To Say Who’S Human: Politics Of Dehumanization In The Four-Hundred-Year War Between The White Supremacist Caste System And Afrocentrism, Sam Chernikoff Frunkin

Africana Studies

No abstract provided.

Unsigning The Rome Statute: Examining The Relationship Between The United States And The International Criminal Court, Allison Naylor

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

Presently, 120 states are parties to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). A state that one will not find on the list, however, would be the United States. This project examines the relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United States. The United States took part in the negotiating process, signing the Rome Statute under President Bill Clinton, but was not fully satisfied with the agreement reached. Under President Bush, however, the Rome Statute was unsigned. Presently, the United States remains unsigned on the Rome Statute. The relationship between the Court and the United States …

Latent Crusaders: Narrative Strategies Of Survival In Early Modern Danubian Principalities, 1550-1750, Caius Dobrescu, Sorin Adam Matei

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The essay concentrates on a master narrative strategy presiding over the early emergence of modernity in the area in which contemporary Romania is situated. This narrative strategy richly illustrates the neoByzantine survival strategies of the Greek elites who ruled the Danubian Principalities (Moldova and Valahia) during the earlier stages of Romanian modernization (18th century). Early modem Romanian political and intellectual elites borrowed from the post-Byzantine political theology a set of Gnostic-inflected narrative strategies to explain their subordination to alien powers (Turkish, Ottoman, Russian, Austrian, or Hungarian). These strategies operated a reversal of "real" and "unreal" or of "essential" and "fleeting" …

The New Diplomacy: Devising A Relational Model Of Public Diplomacy, Anne E. Buckle

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Public diplomacy, an open form of international politics, is essential for building state relations and improving the American image in current times, particularly in light of the recent leakage of some 250,000 classified State Department cables. The ways embassy officials conduct diplomacy must be more candid if they are to gain trust from local populations. Contemporary technology and new media have drastically modified the ways states conduct foreign policy, and embassies must cater to this environment by reaching out to mass publics using novel approaches. Additionally, a new kind of public diplomacy is emerging, one involving private sector networks. In …

"Free Homes For Free Men": A Political History Of The Homestead Act, 1774–1863, Benjamin T. Arrington

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Focusing on national politics and America's long road to civil war, this dissertation presents a history of the "free land" idea that culminated with the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. Using primary sources such as the published papers of notable political figures and records of congressional debates, this work presents the full political history of homesteading from before the Revolutionary War to its ultimate approval during the Civil War.

Politicians debated how best to use and distribute public lands for decades before the Civil War. While many took inspiration from Thomas Jefferson and called for the government to …

Taylor, R. W. (Sc 237), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 237. Letter written by R. W. Taylor, a medical student in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Caleb Bryant, a friend back home in Kentucky. Taylor reveals his political views concerning the Civil War and the enlistment of African American soldiers. Also includes undated note from donor.

The Politics Of Slavery And Secession In Antebellum Florida, 1845-1861, Michael Paul Mcconville

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The political history of antebellum Florida has long been overlooked in southern historiography. Florida was a state for just sixteen years before secession set it apart from the rest of the Union, but Florida’s road to secession was as unique as any of its southern counterparts. From the territorial days in the early nineteenth century, Florida’s political culture centered on the development and protection of slavery throughout the state. The bank wars in the pre-statehood and early statehood periods reflected differing views on how best to support the spread of the plantation economy, and the sectional strife of the 1850s …