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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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International Relations

Theses/Dissertations

2020

Iran

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Thank You For Considering Me Such A Huge Threat: A Critical Analysis Of Iran's Foreign Policy, Liza Boyer May 2020

Thank You For Considering Me Such A Huge Threat: A Critical Analysis Of Iran's Foreign Policy, Liza Boyer

Honors Theses

The United States has long held the idea that Iran poses a threat to our interests as well as global stability, implying that Iran is irrational and makes decisions rooted purely in ideology. After creating an independent framework based on rational choice theory, descriptive decision theory, and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I determined four possible ways to describe Iran’s foreign policy: rational-constitutional, irrational-constitutional, rational-unconstitutional, and irrational-unconstitutional. I then apply this framework to six cases which I have identified to be vital to understanding Iran’s foreign policy: Iraq, Israel, United States of America, China, the nuclear program, …


Torture Under The Regime Of Bashar Al-Assad: Two Decades Of Failed Human Rights Campaigns And Foreign Interference In Syria, Olivia Giles Jan 2020

Torture Under The Regime Of Bashar Al-Assad: Two Decades Of Failed Human Rights Campaigns And Foreign Interference In Syria, Olivia Giles

Honors Projects

This honors thesis analyzes human rights campaigns to end the practice of state-sponsored torture in Syria during the presidency of Bashar al-Assad. It compares the 2000 Damascus Spring and the 2011 Arab Spring using the concept of the “contentious spiral model.” The model is based on the elements of the original “spiral model” introduced in The Power of Human Rights (1999) and the factors of contentious politics discussed in Dynamics of Contention (2001). It suggests that human rights movements that emerge from uprisings need effective mobilization by domestic and international actors. Sustained pressure from both sources should gradually force the …