International Relations Commons^™

The Treatment Of Ethnic Minorities In Democratizing Muslim Countries: The Securitization Of Kurds In Turkey Versus The Autonomization Of Acehnese In Indonesia, Maurizio Geri

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Samuel Huntington , almost half century ago, explained how the state capacity is fundamental to guarantee order in societies in transition. Francis Fukuyama , recently, recuperated this concept arguing that a strong effective state is fundamental for stability of democratizing countries. But strong institutions are not enough to make democracy and political order compatible: institutions need to be also inclusive, to foster participation and respect the freedom of all parts of society, including ethnic minorities.

The main question this study wants to answer is: what factors explain the differences in how democratizing Muslim countries treat their ethnic minorities? Studies of …

The Nixon Administration And American Foreign Relations, Luke A. Nichter

Presidential Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Assessments of President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy continue to evolve as scholars tap new possibilities for research. Due to the long wait before national security records are declassified by the National Archives and made available to researchers and the public, only in recent decades has the excavation of the Nixon administration’s engagement with the world started to become well documented. As more records are released by the National Archives (including potentially 700 hours of Nixon’s secret White House tapes that remain closed), scholarly understanding of the Nixon presidency is likely to continue changing. Thus far, historians have pointed to four …

Joining By Number: Military Intervention In Civil Wars, Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

Understanding why and when states militarily intervene in civil wars is crucial. Intervention can increase civil wars’ severity and the strategies employed in civil wars are shaped by the possibility of military intervention. This article argues that potential military interveners react to information revealed about warring parties’ intentions and relative power. Without revealed information, potential military interveners are unlikely to reconsider their initial decision to remain out of the war. Revealed information causes non-belligerent states to update their expectations about the trajectory of the civil war causing them, at times, to change their calculus about the benefits of belligerency and …

Building Military Helicopter Capacity: Influences On Process And Effectiveness, Rudy Goff

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In 2016, the National Military Strategy of the United States of America listed building the capacity of partner nations as a key priority. By building military capacity, partner countries can become better equip to fight ongoing insurgencies, transnational terrorist organizations, and other threats to the U.S. themselves, allowing the U.S. to shift focus and resources towards other areas that need attention. In today’s battlefield, mobility and firepower are of the utmost importance. One capability that can address both of these areas is helicopters, which can greatly increase the effectiveness of a military and reduce the required number of ground troops …

Standing Up For Standing Rock: Environmental Racism In Modern America, Lizzy Lebleu

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In this essay, I explore the implications of environmental racism among our national and global neighbors.

Ontario Power Generation's Latest Report On Its Proposed Nuclear Waste Chamber Near Lake Huron Focuses On Science And Geology, Which Leaves A Lot Of Issues Unaddressed, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

Ontario Power Generation’s proposal for an underground nuclear waste repository near Lake Huron has faced criticism for focusing primarily on geological and technical aspects while neglecting key issues. The recent report does not address potential risks related to transporting nuclear waste, including security and environmental impacts, nor does it adequately consider Indigenous land rights or emergency preparedness. It also overlooks long-term challenges, such as the durability of containment and the impact of potential natural disasters. With substantial public opposition and international concerns, there is a call for a more comprehensive and transparent evaluation process involving independent analysis and broader stakeholder …

Cracking The Toughest Nut: Colombia's Endeavour With Amnesty For Political Crimes Under Additional Protocol Ii To The Geneva Conventions, Marie-Claude Jean-Baptiste

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

After years of negotiations, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have reached an unprecedented peace agreement. The agreement, rooted in transitional justice, contains a strong and nuanced focus on political amnesty for rebel forces. The scope and nature of the agreement has garnered international attention and praise. Of particular interest is whether the amnesty provision under the peace agreement is compatible with international law. This legal brief tracks the contours of existing international law on amnesty for political crimes—specifically under Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions—to analyze this compatibility. The conclusion is that all relevant …

The Apocalyptic Imagination And The Fundamentalist Mindset, Charles B. Strozier

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the psychological meanings of the apocalyptic imagination in what I call a fundamentalist mindset. That mindset has its own long history but is newly relevant in the nuclear age. We no longer need God to bring about ultimate destruction. There are many facets of the fundamentalist mindset (for example, its intense literalism), but the focus in the article is on two: its kairotic sense of time and its rampant paranoia. These two facets interact synergistically around violence that is experienced by those who revel in it as moral in a totalistic sense. Killing becomes healing. The evil …

Syrian Civil Society During The Peace Talks In Geneva: Role And Challenges, Zedoun Alzoubi

New England Journal of Public Policy

Syrian civil society witnessed a new birth in 2011 following decades of hibernation due to oppression. The fast growth and maturity of civil society organizations gave them the opportunity to occupy a formal space in the ongoing peace talks in Geneva. The presence of the Women’s Advisory Board, the Civil Society Support Room, and the recently established Experts Room during the peace talks in the Palais de Nations allows them to influence the negotiation process. This article is the first published documentation of the role of civil society in the peace process and the challenges that face these talks.

Suicide Terrorism: Performance Violence As Public Plunge, Gregory Saathoff

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the relationship between the social psychology of the individual and the final abyss of suicide terrorism. The boy on the high dive is a metaphor for the fearful pause before the leap. For a young child, the dive is exciting and dangerous: the fearful pause is somewhat analogous to thoughts and feelings before the terrorist’s catastrophically destructive contemplated homicidal/suicidal behavior. If we think about the leap itself, there may be a better analogy. Is there any corollary to a specific group of suicide completers? What can be learned from others who have contemplated and undertaken perhaps the …

Understanding The Appeal Of Isis, Lydia Wilson

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Islamic State, or ISIS, has proven to be persistently successful in attracting people from all over the globe to join in its state-building and state-defending enterprise. This article explores the messages it has crafted, from the utopian to the militarily defensive, and the techniques it uses to propagate these messages (including on social media), which includes some historical comparisons to communism and Nazism. It goes on to provide initial research findings from the field to show how their message is working among (a small percentage of) the target audience, sketching the theory of identity fusion to argue that it …

Why We Have The Center For The Resolution Of Intractable Conflict In Oxford, John, Lord Alderdice

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC) was formally established at Harris Manchester College by a decision of the Governing Body of the College in 2013 to facilitate research, teaching and training, seminars and conferences, and direct engagement in situations of political violence and long-standing community conflict in various parts of the world.

The CRIC is a very young institution, but already it is having an impact out of proportion to its size and modest resources. This is because the issues we are addressing have a heightened public profile and also because of the quality and leading-edge of …

The Growth Of Isis Extremism In Southeast Asia: Its Ideological And Cognitive Features—And Possible Policy Responses, Kumar Ramakrishna

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines the radicalization of young Southeast Asians into the violent extremism that characterizes the notorious Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After situating ISIS within its wider and older Al Qaeda Islamist ideological milieu, the article sketches out the historical landscape of violent Islamist extremism in Southeast Asia. There it focuses on the Al Qaeda-affiliated, Indonesian-based but transnational Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, revealing how the emergence of ISIS has impacted JI’s evolutionary trajectory. The article surveys major explanations of how radicalization into violent extremism (RIVE) occurs, setting the stage for the ensuing discussion of two features of …

Inclusiveness, Foresight, And Decisiveness: The Practical Wisdom Of Barrier-Crossing Leaders, Michael A. Cowan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article previews a study under way to compare and contrast the attitudes, thinking, and action of leaders around the world who manage to bridge social divisions in their respective locales with those who work within their own groups. After briefly describing the planned assessment of their forms of social cohesion and empathy, the article examines the practical wisdom of effective actors in the social world and how it contrasts with academic knowledge for insight into how wise practitioners think about what they are doing. It also looks at the history of the conception of practical wisdom. Finally, examples of …

Editor's Note, Padraig O’Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Such is the unpredictability of Trump’s streaming executive orders that much of what I write may be irrelevant by the time this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy goes to press. But the articles in this issue will not lose their pertinence, no matter what the administration does. Indeed, given its predilection for “alternative facts,” they assume a greater relevance and consequential significance.

This issue of the journal has three parts. The first part had its origins in a conference on extremism held at the Center for Study of Intractable Conflicts (CRIC), Harris Manchester College Oxford in …

A Policy-Oriented Framework For Understanding Violent Extremism, Wael Haddara

New England Journal of Public Policy

Violent extremism represents a serious challenge to open and democratic societies. This article presents a framework for understanding violent extremism in the context of “lone-wolf” attacks in Western societies. The framework combines social, political, and psychological factors and highlights the importance of integrating the available evidence from multiple disciplines to develop cogent, effective policy. Specifically, in addition to a broad survey of motivational factors, the article draws on terror management theory to provide insight into the interaction between religiosity and violence.

Counterextremism programs are most successful at mitigating the risk of violence when they are focused on behavior, rather than …

What Is The Colombian Peace Process Teaching The World?, Andrés Ucrós Maldonado

New England Journal of Public Policy

For more than five decades Colombia has suffered a relentless and devastating war that has taken a greater toll than that of many major wars around the world. For the past four years the Colombian government and the left-wing guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC-EP) have been engaged in peace talks with the aim of putting an end to the armed struggle. During the negotiation, the two parties have developed innovative strategies and techniques that are informing debates on security, human rights, peace making, peace building, and international law at the regional and global levels. The aim of …

Israel And Palestine: The Demise Of The Two-State Solution, Padraig O’Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

A two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with a Palestinian state along the lines of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, the “mandated” settlement for decades, is no longer either a viable outcome or one that can be implemented. In the past fifty years, the “facts on the ground” have changed, but, perhaps more important, so too have “facts in the mind.” The geopolitical landscape in the Middle East bears little resemblance to “facts” back to 1967. The context of negotiations has changed at least four times: first, after Gaza’s spin-off in 2006; second, after the Gaza …

Geographies Of Absence: Radicalization And The Shaping Of The New Syrian Territoriality, Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj

New England Journal of Public Policy

In November 2015, the United States and the Russian Federation convened the main international stakeholders engaged in the Syrian conflict to broker the Vienna Accords. The unfolding political process culminated in the issuing of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Since then the situation has evolved rapidly, ushering in a new outlook for the resolution of the six-year-old civil war. The conflicting parties in Syria have not yet fathomed the momentum of this deal. Some progress has been made as part of successive attempts to establish a “cessation of hostilities,” but there have not yet been any major breakthroughs because the …

Diplomatic Remedies For Thaad Madness: The Us, China And The Two Koreas, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This commentary assesses the geopolitical implications for war and peace in Northeast Asia of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile system that the US seeks to install in South Korea at a time of deep tensions in Northeast Asia.

The East China Sea In Dod China Military Power Reports, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 saw Congress require the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare an annual report on Chinese military power. This report contains classified and unclassified editions. Documenting Chinese military developments, strategy, and trends are critical parts of these reports. Beijing’s military activities in the East China Sea (ECS) are important report components. This work explains the importance of these and other DOD reports for those studying ECS developments, examines how DOD has documented Beijing’s military activities within these publicly accessible reports, and describes how members of Congress have reacted to ECS developments during the Obama …

The Courts And Foreign Affairs At The Founding, Kevin Arlyck

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vu Khoan [Vietnam, Deputy Prime Minister], Vu Khoan

Digital Narratives of Asia

Vu Khoan, former Deputy Prime Minister for Vietnam, shares with DNA how he joined the foreign services, and then took charge of economic reform, where every assignment was a challenge that caused him to grow. He led Vietnam from political isolation to normalizing her international relations, especially with ASEAN countries. Interview and transcript in English and Vietnamese.

The Lander College Update Vol. 2 Issue 1, Lander College For Women

Yearbooks and Newsletters

"The Trump Presidency"

An Examination Of John Burton’S Method Of Conflict Resolution And Its Applicability To The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, John Kenneth Steinmeyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper argues that the interactive problem-solving workshops created by political scientist John Burton and applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by social psychologist Herbert Kelman, while not, as yet, resulting in a just and permanent peace agreement, are effective in resolving intractable conflict, and, if persistently used, can significantly help to produce such an agreement. This is done by closely examining two books of Burton and a series of articles by Kelman to describe their process; the characteristics of intractable conflict are also reviewed from the work of social psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal. It is then argued that the psychological elements …

The Al-Qaeda Organization And The Islamic State Organization: History, Doctrine, Modus, Operandi, And U.S Policy To Degrade And Defeat Terrorism Conducted In The Name Of Sunni Islam, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Authors Bookshelf

The al-Qaeda Organization (AQO) and the Islamic State Organization (ISO) are transnational adversaries that conduct terrorism in the name of Sunni Islam. It is declared U.S. Government (USG) policy to degrade, defeat, and destroy them. The present book has been written to assist policymakers, military planners, strategists, and professional military educators whose mission demands a deep understanding of strategically-relevant differences between these two transnational terrorist entities. In it, one shall find a careful comparative analysis across three key strategically relevant dimensions: essential doctrine, beliefs, and worldview; strategic concept, including terrorist modus operandi; and specific implications and recommendations for current USG …

Measuring Integration Achievement In The Americas, Gaspare Genna

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Measuring Integration Achievement In The Americas, Gaspare Genna

Departmental Papers (PS)

No abstract provided.

Pengaruh Institusi Regional Terhadap Konvergensi Kebijakan Antarnegara: Studi Kasus Asean Open Skies, Dea Malinda Azalia

Jurnal Politik

This article analyzes the effect of regional economic integration on cross-national policy through the ASEAN Open Skies treaty, particularly in Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore. This qualitative research applies the concepts of intergovernmentalist-supranationalist regional institution and causal-mechanism that lead to cross-national policy convergence. I argue that ASEAN regionalism as an intergovernmentalist institution affects the process of policymaking, the implementation of ASEAN Open Skies in the regional level, and the adoption of it in the domestic level. The process of international harmonization and transnational communication (transnational problem solving) during the arrangement of the air transport cooperation frameworks in ASEAN has made the …

The Legitimacy Of Global Legal Governance: Institutional Power And Human Rights Bias In International Criminal Justice, Martin J. Burke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As global legal governance institutions exercise increasing coercive power, including through the prosecution and incarceration of individuals, such institutions require greater legitimacy. An essential but often overlooked source is the right of the accused in mass-atrocity trials to effective legal protection, which constitutes a “legal legitimacy” based on liberal norms of criminal justice. The two most important sources of legal legitimacy are: “legality,” that is, the non-retroactive enforcement of crimes and punishment; and “defense parity,” institutional and procedural guarantees of substantive equality between the defense and prosecution before and during trial. The dissertation argues that the implementation of defendant rights …