Political Science Commons^™

European Union Accession To The European Convention On Human Rights: An Institutional “Marriage”, Konstantinos G. Margaritis

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A possible accession of European Union (hereinafter: EU/the Union) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR/the Convention) has been discussed in legal society for more than thirty years. The topic had widely opened after the 1979 Commission Memorandum where the major pros and cons were underlined and practical problems were addressed. This discussion led to an official request to the European Court of Justice (ECJ/the Court) in relation to the legality of such accession; the outcome was included in opinion 2/94 that found such accession incompatible with the European Community (EC/the Community) Treaty.

© Konstantinos G. Margaritis. All rights …

Fifty More Years? Reform And Modernisation Of The Oecd, Richard Woodward

Articles

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is a vital, if frequently unnoticed, cog in the machine of global governance. On the organisation's 50th anniversary, Richard Woodward assesses whether the OECD's reform programme can secure its future in a changing world.

Courageous Peace, Ann Abdoo

Citizens for Peace

Is peace a sign of courage or weakness? This essay addresses the issue. It was published in the Michigan Department of Peace Campaign, Political Action Guide 2009-2010.

The Political Action Guide is published by Citizens for Peace, a grassroots organization from Michigan's 11th Congressional District. The Guide inclues information on the Department of Peace Legislation, historical and current as well as information on ways to become politically active.

Within the Guide, there is also a directory of many Michigan organizations working for a more peaceful world and the websites of national organizations.

To acquire a current edition, contact Colleen …

Ike Was Right, Ann Abdoo

Citizens for Peace

This essay gives an overview of nuclear proliferation, and President Dwight (Ike) D. Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex and his proposal for a more peaceful world. It was published in the Michigan Department of Peace Campaign, Political Action Guide 2011-2013.

The Political Action Guide is published by Citiens for Peace, a grassroots organization from Michigan's 11th Congressional District. The Guide includes information on the Department of Peace Legislation, historical and current as well as information on ways to become politically active.

Within the Guide, there is also a directory of many Michigan organizations working for a more peaceful …

Transforming Atypical Challenges Into Innovative Solutions: A Gendered Analysis Of The Un Interagency Rehabilitation Program In Nepal, Sarabeth Harrelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nearly five years after signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended ten years of civil war in Nepal, key issues are still unresolved and political progress on implementation has been slow at its best. While every disarmament demobilization and reintegration (DDR) operation is unique, Nepal's DDR process has included atypical conditions such as no government support, continued military command over program participants, an unusually long time spent in cantonments prior to discharge, and the absence of an adequate pre-planning phase. This analysis is presented in the form of a case study and examines the United Nations Interagency Rehabilitation Program …

The Impact Of European Monetary Integration On The Labour And Conservative Parties In Britain, 1983–2003, Denise Froning

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines what effect the movement towards deeper economic and political integration in the EU has had on the domestic politics of a member country, Britain. This study argues that this pressure to integrate by joining the single currency, or European Monetary Union (EMU), and its predecessor, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), has exacerbated the cross-cutting cleavages inherent in British party politics, making them potentially dangerous to party unity and to successful governance by making party management more challenging. The pressure imposed by the EU on British parties and governments to follow the path of economic integration to …

Climate Change And Intrastate Conflict In Africa, Eli Samuel Margolese-Malin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Africa has the dubious distinction of being the continent most likely to experience the worst climate change has to offer while having the population most vulnerable to its effects. Many of the continent's sub regions and countries also have recent histories of violence or are currently mired in conflict. Africa's proneness to conflict and its vulnerability to climate change provide the best model for showing how climate change, by the way it interacts with other, better understood drivers of conflict, will likely become an important source of conflict within the region and around the world over the rest of this …

The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

US policy toward failed states should focus on strengthening civil society and social movements so that people are better able to hold their leaders accountable.

The language of “failed states” disassociates foreign policy from international dialogue about human rights. Instead, “failed states” is a contemporary sound bite that connotes a lack of sovereignty, suggesting that intervention would not violate national sovereignty because in a failed state, there is none. Of course, we could have a similar cynicism about the use of human rights concerns to justify invasion. Certainly, states have tried to choose when to reference international human rights norms …

August Roundtable: Re-Thinking State Failure And Human Rights, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Think Again, Failed States ”. By James Traub. Foreign Policy. July/August 2011.

Immobilizing Conceptual Debates, Jonas Claes

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In “Think Again: Failed States,” James Traub argues that “state failure” is a failed concept. Prioritizing efforts to prevent or address state fragility, weakness, or failure may seem impractical given the conceptual breadth of this systemic challenge. Like globalization, human security, or climate change, state failure contains so many aspects that it becomes analytically useless. But the need to rethink this garbage-can concept—everything can be thrown in—does not keep us from addressing the litany of well-understood challenges subsumed within.

The Northern Ireland Conflict Feasibility Of 21st Century Reunification, Robert O'Brien

HIM 1990-2015

The State of Northern Ireland has been home to a significant amount of violence between a minority of Catholic Irish nationalists and a majority of Protestant British unionists. As a result, violence has plagued the region, with the loss of over three thousand five hundred lives during the course of three decades, colloquially known as "the troubles." In 1998, the Belfast or "Good Friday" Agreement was signed by officials from The United Kingdom and The Republic of Ireland to ensure a diplomatic means of cooperation amongst the various political parties of Northern Ireland, and disarmament of paramilitary groups. However, the …

The Dependency Of The International Community On U.S. Foreign Aid And Intervention, Dedrian Jerrell Mcnulty

Master's Theses

Following the end of the Cold War, the United States found itself in an unprecedented situation. The United States emerged victor of the Cold War and the international community's preeminent superpower. As such, the United States has spread its values and policy initiatives throughout the international community. In the years following the end to Cold War, multiple scholars have predicted different paths which the United States should take. Some scholars have predicted that the United States is "bound to lead," while others have predicted that there is a "Coming Anarchy." However, no reasonable scholar can deny the influence the United …

More Questions, Few Answers On State Failure And Human Rights, Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Foreign Policy article under review brings us back to the issues addressed in April's Roundtable, which looked at humanitarian intervention in light of widespread political violence in the Ivory Coast. Much of that discussion centered on the factors that lead states to adopt policies aimed at stopping egregious human rights abuses from being committed in other jurisdictions, either by state agents or non-state actors. This month's Roundtable discussion highlights the myths attached to the concept of “state failure,” which increases the likelihood of such violations occurring. The author of this month's centerpiece, James Traub, comments on a number of …

“Failed States Are Everyone’S Problem”, Devin Joshi

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This article raises interesting issues but cannot answer its own puzzles because it fails to define what constitutes a threat or danger to US national security. As an American citizen, the security of the Central African Republic is in my personal interest. The CAR is a country where it has been reported that one out of every sixteen mothers dies during childbirth. That is a serious problem! Who is to say it is not in Americans’ interest to prevent state failure there? If the US government is not interested in Central Africans' security, obviously, there is a disconnect between the …

Jeopolitik Teoriler Acisindan Kibris'in Onemi (The Importance Of Cyprus Island In Geopolitical Theories), Soylap Tamcelik

Center for Turkish Studies Occasional Paper Series

In this study, Cyprus has been evaluated according to geopolitical strategies as land, sea and air power and rimland theory. By this starting point, the main purpose of this study is to identify the importance of Cyprus according to these strategies. Mainly the geopolitical theories consist of four parts including land, sea, air and rimland theories. The discussion about which one of the air, land and sea powers are the main and which one is the sub power have not reach a definite conclusion yet. For this uncertainty, as an objective presentation a chronological line has been followed. According to …

What Anders Breivik Has In Common With War Criminals, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

From Boom To Doom To Boom: Offshore Financial Centres And Development In Small States, Richard Woodward

Articles

During the 1990s tax havens and offshore financial centres (OFCs) were subject to a string of initiatives designed to raise their tax and regulatory regimes to accepted international standards. Many commentators forecast that this would lead to the demise of OFCs, a worry for the many small states whose economic well being depended heavily on the provision of offshore financial services. Despite this regulatory onslaught many small state OFCs have prospered in the new millennium. This paper seeks to explain this apparent paradox by arguing that (1) international initiatives were riddled with loopholes and exceptions that have been gleefully seized …

Decontextualizing Development: A Critical Examination Of American Popular Discourse On Foreign Aid, Jeffrey Haines

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Humanitarian foreign aid is a controversial topic, subject to much popular debate. Although there is much available polling and survey evidence about public stances on the issue, there have been significantly fewer attempts at more in-depth analyses of the public discourse. This thesis is an attempt to explore the popular discourse on aid in more depth, including its rationales, assumptions, and values.

It concludes that both sides of the American public in the debate often make use of similar types of assumptions regarding international affairs, suggesting often deeper agreement than the debate may indicate. It is argued that the set …

The Principle Of Fairness And States’ Duty To Obey International Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Philosophers and political theorists have developed a number of different justifications for the duty to obey domestic law. The possibility of using one (or more) of these justifications to demonstrate that states have a duty to obey international law seems a natural starting point for an analysis of international political obligation. Amongst the accounts of the duty to obey domestic law, one that appears to have a great deal of intuitive appeal, and that has attracted a significant number of philosophical defenders, is the principle of fairness (or fair play). In this paper, I examine the possibility of using the …

The Absent Empire: The United States And The South American Regional Subsystem, Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixerira

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The United States often acted in Latin America as an empire. Nevertheless, there has been an obvious dissimilarity between US actions in South America and US actions in the rest of Latin America, which is illustrated by the fact that the United States never sent troops to invade a South American country. While geographic distance and strategic considerations may have played a role, they provide at best incomplete explanations for US relative absence south of Panama. The fact that the United States has had a distinct pattern of interactions with South America is thus not captured by the typical concept …

Geopolitics: A Guide To The Issues, Bert Chapman

Libraries Research Publications

Provides overview of how geography influences international relations and international politics including climate change, energy security, international economics, and international security.  Introduces key figures in geopolitics development as a discipline such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford Mackinder, covers the geopolitical interests of individuals countries, describes disciplinary divisions within geopolitics, details international geopolitical crisis areas and provides maps of some of these areas, emphasizes geopolitics information resources, and stresses the critical importance of geography in studying international politics and security.

Language In The Name Of National Security: The Transformation Of Arabic Language Instruction In U.S. Institutions Of Higher Education, Evelyn Daugherty

Sociology Honors Projects

Government designation of Arabic as a “strategic language” following WWII transformed Arabic language instruction in U.S. institutions of higher education. Funding from the government created a shift away from teaching students to read and translate classical Arabic for academic purposes and toward teaching modern varieties of the language for communication.  I employ a three-pronged institutional analysis that takes into account the role of government, the role of professional associations, and the role of individual instructors in the redefinition of norms governing Arabic language instruction during the past seventy years. I find that coercive pressure stemming from government interest affected Arabic …

From The Body Of The Faithful To The Invention Of Religion: The Long Reformation For International Relations, Sarah Bania-Dobyns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses how traditions associated with canon law of late medieval international society granted authority to myriad polities in fifteenth and sixteenth century questions of societal governance. In international relations, the late medieval period has rarely been given much attention; scholars have argued that the late medieval period is too "local" of an event to be considered within broader historical discussions of international societies and systems. This, however, is highly ironic considering that late medieval international society saw itself in universalist terms. It is precisely because late medieval international society was founded upon universalism, but organized on the basis …

Nuclear Dependence: The Russian Federation's Future Reliance On Nuclear Weapons For National Security, Adam J. Lukszo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Russian Federation‘s reliance on nuclear weapons for national security will steadily increase over time. Based on current evidence and historical data, the Russian state will be unable to recruit, arm, train, equip, reform, and fund their conventional forces well enough to match up with capabilities of what it views to be its potential adversaries. Russia‘s historic experience with invasion and vulnerable geographic position reinforce the need for a powerful weapon with which to maintain the current regime and ensure its territorial integrity. Declining demographics and persistent social illnesses will reduce the number of eligible male candidates able to serve …

The Use Of English-Language Internet Propaganda By The Taliban Insurgency In Afghanistan, 2007–2010, Matthew T. Calvin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan, military and government officials have described the propaganda efforts of the Taliban insurgency as increasingly sophisticated and effective. These statements fail to distinguish between insurgent propaganda efforts at the local level and those carried out online and targeted at Western populations. This research investigates the effectiveness of the Taliban's use of English-language media to reach Western populations and shape their own image in a way that furthers their strategic objectives. An analytical approach that combines quantitative analysis performed on a set of Taliban messages from 2007 to 2010 and a deeper, qualitative …

Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem Sirin, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy domains across varying policy conditions. We also consider how party compatibility affects people’s attribution judgments. Our findings provide a new contribution to the literature on political attributions, executive accountability, and public perceptions …

Power And Humiliation In Foreign Policy: The Effects Of Economic Sanctions, Rebecca A. G. Liftman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the use and unintended outcomes of power in international politics through an examination of economic sanctions in selected countries. A theoretical argument is derived from punishment theories and analyzes the effects of punishment on the target, including subjugation, humiliation and resistance. Seven cases of economic sanctions are studied: Cuba, Burma, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Iran where the United States, either unilaterally or as the leader of a coalition, sought to influence political outcomes in the target state, such as regime change or curbing WMD proliferation. Economic sanctions were generally unsuccessful in achieving the expected outcomes and …

Pace 9/11 Oral History Project, Maria T. Iacullo-Bird (Principal Investigator), Ellen Sowchek (Co-Principal Investigator), Jennifer Thomas (Co-Principal Investigator)

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

No abstract provided.

Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem Sirin, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy domains across varying policy conditions. We also consider how party compatibility affects people’s attribution judgments. Our findings provide a new contribution to the literature on political attributions, executive accountability, and public perceptions …

A Centrist Solution To Central American Violence And Inequality, Devin Joshi

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The northern triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) has experienced horrific violence, poverty, and a vicious cycle of human rights violations for decades. Repeated natural disasters and the re-routing of the drug trade through Central America are not helping the situation. On the other hand, nearby Costa Rica has achieved a much higher standard of human rights, public safety, and political stability. Why? Costa Rica has put in place four pillars of development and stability lacking in most other countries in the region: a stronger state, an educated population, inter-racial cooperation, and a more inclusive democracy. For …