Comparative Politics Commons^™

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …

Consequence Management: Evaluating And Developing International Responses To Nuclear And Radiological Disasters, Timothy Taylor

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Coming In From The Cold: Recommendations For United States Arctic Policy, Aseem Chipalkatti

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this policy report is to elucidate the current Arctic strategies and capabilities of the major Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States – with the aim of identifying American shortcomings in the region and potential policy suggestions to correct these failings. The report first illuminates the potential for resource gain in the Arctic, specifically with respect to oil and natural gas and the potential for commercial growth represented by new Arctic shipping routes. The report also discusses the difficulties associated with reaping the rewards of the Arctic, specifically the lack of maritime infrastructure, …

Pushing The Limits: International Land Acquisitions In Comparative Perspective, Ariane Goetz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The role of investor countries in large-scale land acquisitions is poorly understood in the contemporary “land grab” literature. Orthodox explanations largely build on deductive analyses that deviate from the emerging empirical evidence, and/or face analytical difficulties when trying to capture why large-scale land acquisitions happen. This thesis investigates the global phenomenon of “land grabbing” from the comparative perspective of two major investor countries: the UK and China. The regional focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa, a major target of land-consuming investments since 2000.

The dissertation advances three arguments: Firstly, the specific details of the home country’s industrial set-up, development challenges, ideological …

Violence Without Verdicts: A Comparative Analysis Of Social Movements And Race Relations In The United States And South Africa, Madison Swoy

Senior Independent Study Theses

This paper explores the role that social movements play in weakening the racial hierarchies that continue to persist in contemporary United States and South Africa. A theoretical analysis of the function of social movements is followed by an historical survey of the racial hierarchies within these two countries, with particular attention paid to the countries’ respective eras of institutionalized racism characterized by the Jim Crow and Apartheid periods. After which, police brutality and service delivery are used to exemplify the structural racism that endures in each of these societies. These two issues also serve as the most galvanizing issues for …

'You Are Who We Say You Are': The Politics Of Ethnicity In Post-Genocidal Rwanda And Bosnia-Herzegovina, Stephanie A. Sugars

Senior Independent Study Theses

The establishment of peace in post-genocidal states is vital, as the experience of extreme division and violence can scar a population, contributing to violence and inequality moving forward. Existing literature on post-conflict transition and governance argues that two main systems are typically used: consociationalism and assimilationism. While consociationalism argues for heterogeneity in the state and assimilationism for homogeneity, both of these systems use the institutionalization of identity as a step in post-conflict recovery, through such means as proscribing or privileging particular identities. This study posits that this is inherently flawed, as attempts to institutionalize identity ignore its contextually fluid or …

National Identity Without Intellectual Bases: Israel’S Practical Zionism In Developing A State For The Jews, Syahrul Hidayat

Jurnal Politik

Israel as a state has been existing for almost 70 years. Despite of decades of its pres¬ence, the foundation and its struggle for survival and acknowledgement have been constantly challenged including from its own supposedly the backbone of its Israel national identity: intellectuals. This paper argues that the critics from some of Jew¬ish intellectuals represent the fundamental problem of the effort to build a national identity. If nationalism, especially in European context as its birthplace, was usually supported by the intellectuals as the source of imagination of bounded group, the case of Israel shows different direction, at least problematic. Two …

Stabilization Or Exploitation? Cartelization As Institutional Drift In Romania And The Czech Republic, Daniel J. Muck

Departmental Honors Projects

To prevent private interests from distorting the democratic process, most European countries have implemented public funding schemes to guarantee fair competition among political parties. However, very little research has explored the possibility of institutional corruption in conjunction with state political party funding. Katz and Mair’s cartel party thesis argues state support strengthens ties between political parties and the state at the expense of civil society. Oliveira uses organizational theory to point to institutional corruption as a design problem. This paper serves as a preliminary exploration of whether Oliveira’s institutional corruption model and the cartel party theory can be applied to …