Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessment Of Factors Affecting Dropout Intentions During The First Year In A Modeling School, Mauro Echeverri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To date, there has been little research done on student dropout rates in modeling schools. This quantitative study utilizes applied research methods to analyze 138 female students in STAGE, a modeling school, where most students are between the ages of 11 and 18 years old. This study aims to examine why students drop out during their first year of study. The model utilized in this research integrates variables derived from Vincent Tito’s theory of departure, in addition to other variables not included in this theory like the parental support impact on extracurricular activities. Correlations analyses were used to assess the …

International Financial Institutions And Caribbean Development: A Comparison Of Haiti & Jamaica, Alexander Bruno

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The global financial system is based on, and influenced by specific institutions which are controlled by countries in the Global North. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) are two of the institutions whose policies help to shape state behaviors, and reinforce the Global North’s dominance. Thus, the main hypothesis of this study is that institutional policies and programs of the IMF and WB aid and abet the continued underdevelopment of Caribbean island-states. This study examines the impact of IMF and WB policies on the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) measurements in Haiti and Jamaica, and how they …

Longing For The Homeland: The Palestinian American Diaspora And Palestinian Advocacy In The United States, Mohamed Khaled Ghumrawi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how Palestinian Americans in the diaspora connect with Palestine, Palestinian advocacy, and the Palestinian question. It analyzes and synthesizes the interaction of the Palestinian American diaspora and Palestinian advocacy, exploring its domestic and transnational linkages. It also explores the nexus of domestic and transnational aspects relating to Palestinian identity, political life, advocacy, culture, and politics. This project utilizes two main frameworks, the first is the tripartite composite state theory, focusing specifically on the normative-social structure. The second applies a framework of intersectionality, highlighting the interconnectedness of the Palestinian diaspora and the Palestinian question with other social …

Social Media And Public Discourse Participation In Restrictive Environments, Jobany J. Rico

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates citizens' use of social media to participate in public discourse (i.e., access, share, and comment on socio-political content) in restrictive environments: societies ruled by a hegemonic government where users face economic and infrastructure barriers to using digital technologies. Theoretical propositions are built inductively from an interpretive case study of how Cuban citizens use Twitter to participate in socio-political conversations. The case study resulted in the identification of nine affordances (i.e., action potentials) for participating in public discourse that Cubans perceive on Twitter. The findings also showed that the identified affordances enabled Cubans to achieve citizen goals: positive …

The (Cuban-)American Dream Of Post-Soviet Era Cuban Émigrés: Perceptions Vs. Realities, Veronica Diaz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cuban émigrés are among the myriad of immigrants who arrive in the United States hoping to achieve the American Dream—defined as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement” (Adams 1931, 404). However, powerful tropes of the American Dream­ obscure the economic and social barriers that impede economic mobility and the sacrifices that individuals make in its pursuit. Unlike Cuban émigrés of the 1960s-70s, émigrés of the “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” wave (1995-2017) arrived in Miami during more precarious economic …

Rethinking The Functions Of Regional Economic Communities: Why African Small States Join And Remain In Sub-Regional Entities, Cliff Kodero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advances new arguments about regional integration in Africa. It sheds light on the roles of regional economic communities (RECs) for small-economy states in Africa by examining the benefits and drawbacks of participating in such regional groups for both the small states themselves and their ruling regimes. The study suggests that RECs, rather than being agents of economic development, facilitate regime-boosting agendas of neopatrimonial regimes, promote a sense of (false) sovereignty, and entrench the political elite’s capture of the states.

The significance is threefold. First, it suggests that RECs provide an extension of neopatrimonial networks, which expand state-capture by …

The Effects Of Population Diversity On The Economic And Household Welfare Of Metropolitan Areas In The U.S., Liria M. Litano

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper was to understand the impact of population diversity on household and economic welfare in all the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States of America (U.S.). We focused on positive views concerning the relationships between population diversity and factors such as human capital, knowledge, and innovation. We established economic growth factors using the Endogenous Growth Theory, which stated that human capital, innovation, and knowledge were significant contributors to economic growth (Romer, 1994). We argued that population diversity affected these contributors; therefore, it helped to create economic growth.

From a human capital perspective, population diversity …

Cuban Exiles And U.S. Foreign Policy, Caroline Ranawn Mcculloch

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the influence of Cuban-American exiles in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba from the 1980s to the present. The role of Cuban-American interest groups is analyzed within a larger context of U.S. national security objectives, national politics and Cuban politics. Instead of privileging domestic politics or national security politics in explaining Cuban-American influence, as other International Relations theories do, this study argues that Cuban exile politics can best be understood as an expression of subnational interest group power that affects, and is affected by, the shifting dynamics of local, national and global politics. Also, ideological divisions and …

Eu Accession Negotiations In The Shadow Of The Market, Deniss Kaskurs

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At the end of the 20th century, the European Union (EU) had decided to expand into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by extending accession invitations to ten CEE states. During the accession process, each nation had a bargaining committee which was established to negotiate with EU representatives about the entrance requirements. Formally, negotiations revolve around political and economic bargaining between politicians of the incoming member states and the EU representatives. Informally, however, private commercial entities heavily influence the bargaining process, both from the EU and from the member state side. This scholarly work refers to these entities as transnational interest …

Sephardi Identity & Legitimacy In The Age Of Direct-To-Consumer Dna Tests, Caitlyn Rose Campana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, individuals may purchase genetic tests that promise to “reveal” one’s “true self” through ancestry composition reports, health reports, and lists of DNA relatives. Such tests add another dimension to the ongoing debate about what it means to be Jewish, but also what it means to be “legitimately” Sephardi. Through qualitative interviews, this thesis illuminates the experiences of Sephardim who received identity-affirming DNA test results and Sephardim who received identity non-affirming DNA test results. Findings suggest that contemporary Sephardim consider a link to the Iberian Peninsula as indicative of Sephardi identity, despite expanding definitions of the label. They also suggest …

Transformative Constitutionalism And The Adjudication Of Elections In Kenya, Carl Bevelhymer

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The judicialization of politics has been an ongoing and expanding global phenomenon for decades. In Kenya, the record number of cases brought before courts prior to and following the 2017 elections is evidence of the continued growth and spread of the judicialization of politics, and more specifically elections; it is also the result of Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, which introduced a new form of governance, expanded the number of elective seats and mandated judicial and electoral reforms. One of the most remarkable events of the 2017 election period was the Supreme Court’s nullification of the presidential election due to electoral irregularities. …

Turkey-Russia Relations In 2001-2020: Deepening Partnership And Heightening Competition Amid Regional Restructuring, Muhammet Koçak

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explains the evolution of Turkey-Russia relations in 2001 2020. Turkey and Russia are two of the most critical powerhouses of Central Eurasia. In the past, the Russian Empire played a significant role in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey took part in containing the USSR during the Cold War. In 2001 2020, however, Turkey and Russia invested in bilateral trade and established partnerships in the defense and energy sectors. Two countries also worked together to resolve several regional conflicts, including the Syrian Crisis. Despite this trend’s regional and global significance, the literature suffers from an inadequacy …

The Evolution Of United States - Central Asian Security Policy Post-9/11: Military, Terrorism, And Cyber-Security, Shamsuddin Karimi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rudyard Kipling once described and wrote about the Great Game as a way to outline 19^th century great power politics in the struggle for empire in Central Asia. While Kipling’s tale of spy-craft and espionage is fiction, the political philosophy behind the story has never lost relevance. The struggle for political dominance in Central Asia continued through the twentieth century in the Cold War as well as into twenty-first century after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Although the great power players may have changed over the past 120 years, the importance of Central Asia has not.

This …

The Bolivarian Dream: Alba And The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance, Victor Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to answer why the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) has failed to achieve its two major goals: to create a socialist alternative to neoliberalism and foster mutual cooperation among the members. Important constructivist works from Nicolas Onuf and Alexander Wendt were used throughout. Emphasis is given to the debate between social construction and material reality that has hindered ALBA’s goals.

Three reasons led to why ALBA could not achieve its two major goals. First, the successors to the founding leaders of ALBA did not share the same sympathy toward socialism, and instead carved …

Intermedialidad En El Documental Cubano Contemporáneo, Esteban Alfonso Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cuban documentaries, which have experienced dramatic changes in the last two decades, are now more in tune with the most recent global trends in cinema. However, the scarce implementation within the documentary genre of other perspectives and modes of analysis, outside those that are purely cinematographic, has stalled investigations in the field, thus creating a disengagement with the structural and thematic renovation that has been taking place within the discourse of contemporary Cuban documentaries.

My dissertation “Intermedialidad en el documental cubano contemporáneo” examines a select sample of representative texts and Cuban documentaries, with a view to adapting and/or developing an …

Sino-American Competition In Latin America And The Caribbean, Anthony Russo Orezzoli

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the various ways in which great-power competition between China and the United States will affect regional stability within Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This research will evaluate various theoretical approaches within the study of international relations (neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, constructivism), as well as review foundational works of Robert Koehane, Robert Gilpin, and other major IR theorists. By utilizing these approaches, this thesis seeks to explain an increased Chinese presence in Latin America and the Caribbean through diplomatic, information, military and economic lens (DIME). In doing so, it becomes clear that stable …

Gender Politics And Policies In Post-Communist Democracies, Vera N. Beloshitzkaya

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation investigates why variation exists in gender policies that challenge traditional power hierarchies across central and eastern European (CEE) countries and the role of political parties in this process. I first ask how gender issues get onto party agendas and then test whether parties in government that have campaigned on gender issues ultimately deliver on their promises. I examine three policy domains, marginally affected by the EU and international "soft" norms, affirmative action in the labor market, father's leave, and anti-domestic violence policies.

I argue that parties are least responsive when it comes to altering gender power hierarchies at …

Conservation And Management Of Arapaima Spp. In The Colombian Amazon, Ana A. Rojas

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to conserve megafaunal, charismatic freshwater fish species, an interdisciplinary, translational ecology approach is needed. This thesis explores trends in conservation of the pan-Amazonian Arapaima spp., with two major components. First, I examined research trends on Arapaima over the last 50 years by categorizing articles by theme and geography. My results showed that aquaculture and biology were dominant themes, with most research conducted in the Brazilian Amazon. Second, I conducted field research in the Colombian Amazon to examine perceptions of Arapaima management at various geographic and political scales. One important finding was the crucial role of communities and small-scale …

How Effective Are Current International Laws In Combating Issues Of Global Cyber Security?, Jessica E. Chadwick Cordero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most serious threats or challenges to national and international security that we are facing today is cyber security. Currently, there are no bodies of international law that can be applied in order to hold states accountable for launching cyber-attacks against other states, and thus it is imperative that several obstacles be removed in order for the law to be applicable before we find ourselves in an all-out “World War C” (Segal, 2016). Critical infrastructure systems are at great risk from attacks that could lead to catastrophic events such as total power blackouts, the opening of dams, and …

Understanding The Motivations And Pathways Of Women And Girls' Involvement In Terrorism In Nigeria, Peculiar M. Awa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the experiences of 20 women and girls who lived in the Boko Haram camp in 2014-2018 and had varying levels of engagement in the organization's activities. The study employs a qualitative phenomenological in-depth interview methodology. Semi-structured interviews conducted in Nigeria and the United States yielded data on the experiences of the respondents before, during, and after their lives with Boko Haram. Based on the analysis of interview responses and field notes, several themes emerged. Overall findings suggest that family and community dynamics play a significant role in terrorism in Nigeria. The study found that early child marriage …

Quiet River, Heavy Waters: Un-Silencing Narratives Of Social-Environmental Inequalities In The Cradle Of Soviet Plutonium, Rosibel Roman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In December 1948, the Soviet Union’s first plutonium production facility, Mayak Production Association (PO Mayak), began operation in the Southern Urals region of Russia, at the western edges of Siberia, near the restricted city of Chelyabinsk-40, known in the present day as Ozyorsk. Since then, rural communities located downstream from PO Mayak have experienced health, economic, ecological and social impacts of contamination from high-level radioactive wastes released by the facility into the Techa River and its surrounding ecosystem. My research, drawing from archival research conducted in Russia and the United States, as well as secondary sources in English and Russian, …

Drug Policy In An Era Of Normative Change: Prohibition And Harm Reduction In Uruguay, Ecuador, And Peru, Nicolas A. Beckmann

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present dissertation investigates how the advocacy and contestation of international norms related to the production and use of psychoactive substances affected drug policy decisions in South America since 1971. The goal is to provide a more complete account of why most states in the region are sticking to prohibitionist policy models, despite their evident failure and an international context that has become more favorable to the exploration of alternative policies. At the same time, it seeks to detect some of the factors that enabled countries to move towards a framework of harm reduction, prohibition’s main competitor in international drug …

Uprooting And Rerooting Religious Identities: Understanding The Experience Of Self-Identified Christian Millennial Migrants From South America In Miami, Ernesto M. Fiocchetto

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to understand the social configuration of religious identities of South American millennial migrants who self-identify as Christian in Miami-Dade County. The work entails an extensive description of the context of the study subjects, deep theoretical insight on religion and identity, and a qualitative approach. The narratives of the South American millennial migrants’ process of religious identity configuration and the relationships they establish with religious institutions emerged from in-depth interviews and focus group sessions. The analysis of such narratives grounded middle-range theory that makes sense of the study subjects and can potentially shed light on other experiences in …

Silenced Bodies: (En)Gendering Syrian Refugee Insecurity In Lebanon, Jessy Abouarab

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While there has been a shift in security studies from the security of states to that of people, realpolitik still takes place under the banner of an emerging discourse of ‘refugee crisis.’ Refugee insecurities are (en)gendered and experienced where their depth and breadth pose significant challenges to asylum seekers, neighboring host-states, and humanitarian agencies. To this end, this research captures the unique dynamics of a South-South refugee crisis in Lebanon, in which Syrians residents make up nearly one-third of its population. It applies a transnational feminist framework to trace how refugee security norms get defined, are managed, and how they …

Japan’S Relations With Muslim Asia: Trans-Continental Normativity And Policy, B. Bryan Barber Iv

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Asō Tarō outlined a new pillar of Japan’s foreign policy across Asia he called the ‘Arc of Freedom and Prosperity.’ The Arc would become the most lucid case for values-based diplomacy elaborated by Tokyo in the postwar era. It is a significant change from what was both a constrained and myopic approach for a state of such global economic influence and substantial diplomatic potential. In practice, however, is Japan’s values-based diplomacy actually working? How is Tokyo grappling with reconceptualizing an Asia inclusive of Muslim societies in a time when the global metanarrative is to protect …

An Alternative Narrative Of Integration In Germany Through An Ethnographic Exploration Of Cuban Immigration, Ana M. Rusch

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study on Cuban immigrants conducted in Germany explored the dynamics of integration through an understudied immigrant population. Most of the research conducted on integration in Germany has overwhelmingly been on Turkish immigrants, which is Germany’s majority immigrant group. To contribute to Integration Studies, this research focused on a minority and lesser studied immigrant group, Cuban immigrants. Cuban immigrants in Germany not only have a different historical and geopolitical relationship with Germany than its majority group but they also subscribe to different cultural and ethnoreligious categories. Because of these varying circumstances, Cubans act as a counter example to the …

Religion And Ethnicity Among Afro-Colombian Muslims In Buenaventura (Colombia), Diego Giovanni Castellanos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the way in which religious beliefs and practices are instrumentalized by a Muslim community in order to strengthen Afro-Colombian ethnic identity, in an urban context of social exclusion. The study aims to examine the relationship between ethnicity and religion, and the role they play in the process of identity construction, particularly the way in which religious concepts and behaviors can be used to fortify ethnic identity. Another aim of this research is to describe and understand the processes of social change in an ethnic-religious minority and, as a final goal, to analyze …

Inheriting Illegality: Race, Statelessness, And Dominico-Haitian Activism In The Dominican Republic, Jacqueline Lyon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2013, the Dominican Republic’s highest court ruled to revoke birthright citizenship for over 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent. Ruling TC 168-13 prompted dialogue about race and racism in the country, breaking the racial silence that accompanies mestizaje (racial mixture). Scholars viewed this ruling through the lens of “Black denial” whereby Dominicans’ failure to adopt Black identities, despite being largely afrodescendant, fuels the racialization of Haitians as Black. Less evident in examinations of Dominican racial politics are anti-racist and anti-xenophobic organizing. Addressing the gap in scholarship on Dominican blackness, this dissertation project adopts an ethnographic approach to examine how Domicans …

Engineering Colonialism: Race, Class, And The Social History Of Flood Control In Guyana, Joshua Mullenite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Overabundance and scarcity of water are global concerns. Across the world’s low-lying coastal plains, flooding brought on by sea level rise acts as an existential threat for a multitude of people and cultures while in desert (and increasingly non-desert) regions intensifying drought cycles do the same. In the decades to come, how people manage these threats will have important implications not only for individual and cultural survival, but also for questions of justice. Recent research on flooding and flood management probes the histories of survival, and adaptation in flood threatened regions for insights into emergent flood-related crises. However, scholars have …

Resource Nationalism And Energy Integration In Latin America: The Paradox Of Populism, Brian Hollingsworth

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between resource nationalism and energy integration, and uses Bolivia and Brazil as a test case. Essentially, does resource nationalism affect energy integration? The findings nest within more expansive questions on international political economy and export-driven models of development. Why do populist regimes, historically operating under an economic nationalist cum protectionist paradigm, simultaneously pursue policies of economic integration? What is the relationship between resource nationalists and open markets, especially in the hydrocarbons sector? What is the relationship between populists, who are typically resource nationalists, and their decision to choose policies of energy integration?

The most common …