When Humanitarianism Dictates Disarmament Policy: Controversy over the Definition of Antipersonnel Landmines under the 1997 Antipersonnel Landmine Ban
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Program:
Political Science
This research seeks to examine the discursive influence of humanitarian advocacy groups on a government's decision about the balance between military necessity and civilian protection, with the case of the dispute over the definition of anti-personnel (AP) mines under the 1997 AP Mine Ban Treaty. Between the two main disputed definitions, humanitarian advocacy groups have advocated the effect-oriented definition over the design-oriented definition since the former covers and prohibits anti-vehicle (AV) mines with potential AP effects. Based on the recognition of the state's reluctance to accept any external interference in armament policy and the two potential defects of humanitarian advocacy groups, insufficient access to the decision-making process and insufficient availability of military and technological information on weapons, I posit that the humanitarian advocacy discourse, which highlights the cruel impact of such mines on civilians, is more effective than the technological advocacy discourse, which disputes governments' theoretical argument for the functional reliability of controversial AV mines.
`Bootstraps' or `Helping Hand:' An Exploration of the Relationship between Economic Stratification among Black Americans and Their Racial Attitudes toward Merit-Based Opportunities and Affirmative Action
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Program:
Political Science
Over the last thirty years, much has been written about the increasing disparity between Black Americans who have achieved upward mobility and those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. This dissertation utilizes the General Social Survey (GSS) to contribute to this dialogue on stratification within the Black American community. More specifically, it asks the questions: from 1994-2006 - during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations - how did socioeconomic status affect Blacks' racial attitudes about themselves? To answer this question, the racial attitudes of a sample of Black Americans of low socioeconomic status will be compared to the racial attitudes of their higher socioeconomic status counterparts across several demographic, attitudinal, and economic variables. The theoretic framework for this investigation includes stratification theory (Weber), group interest theory (Dawson, Shelton & Wilson), and the theory of opportunities and group consciousness (Chong & Kim).
DOING GOOD BY DOING WELL? THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE MEDICAL BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Political Science
This study is dedicated to the political economy of the medical biotechnology industry in the United States. The study combines interviews with more than 150 biotechnology actors with a historical analysis and evidence from publicly available data bases. The ascent of this new industry took place in the United States first and foremost, because there, scientific advancements coincided with the rise of supply-side economics, a policy shift that was part of a larger, neoliberal, ideological shift. Despite free-market rhetoric, specific clusters within the United States became the world's leading biotechnology clusters because of a history of targeted interventions to stimulate economic competitiveness. And despite much expectation about a `biotechnology revolution', biotechnology became an outsourced sub-industry for research, embedded within the `blockbuster drug' business model of large pharmaceutical companies. This business model benefited from America's healthcare system, whose fragmentation and domination by private health providers proved to be global drug companies' most profitable market. To keep the status quo, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have successfully engaged in political maneuvering. They have helped preventing or watering down U.S. healthcare reform efforts, not in the least the most recent ones under President Obama.
Education in Hope: Critical pedagogies and the ethic of care
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Program:
Political Science
In the last half of the twentieth-century, critical pedagogies developed to challenge dominant educational models. While critical pedagogies have long argued that ethics is at the heart of their endeavors, the details of the ethical models reflected by critical pedagogies has gone largely unexamined. This dissertation argues that the critical pedagogies of John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and a group of scholar/activists working within the fold of feminist pedagogy all reflect an ethic of care. Carol Gilligan first introduced
Community-Level Predictors of Family Homelessness in the United States
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Program:
Political Science
The problem of reducing homelessness in U.S. communities has challenged policymakers and advocates, who have looked to academic research on homelessness to understand its causes and design strategies to prevent and reduce homelessness.
A PARADOX OF PEACEBUILDING AID: INSTITUTIONALIZED EXCLUSION AND VIOLENCE IN POST-CONFLICT STATES
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Program:
Political Science
Exclusion and violence persist in post-conflict states, despite external assistance to the demilitarization of politics, which the literature emphasizes as the primary goal of aid. Through a field-based study of Tajikistan and a survey of an additional three cases (Cambodia, Guatemala, and Sierra Leone), this dissertation finds that aid focuses on economic liberalization in the initial stage of post-war transition. Such an organization of aid empowers a particular group of elites who have privileged access to state assets at the time of civil war settlement, and establishes institutional frameworks that will consolidate the economic control of the incumbent regime elites. As the incumbent regime elites seek to remove wartime commanders and opposition leaders from the state apparatus, thereby nullifying power-sharing and other provisions of peace agreements, violence tends to be instigated by increasingly repressive governments or those facing exclusion from sources of livelihood. Aid thus institutionalizes exclusion and sustains patterns of violence along civil war divisions, rather than transforming existing political and economic structures.
Being All She Can Be: Gender Integration in NATO Military Forces
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Political Science
For centuries national military forces excluded women from their ranks. However, in the last four decades numerous states have passed legislation permanently integrating women into their military services and have dramatically increased their numbers and their role. By examining twenty-four NATO member states, this study will attempt to build the theoretical model that explains why states abandon their policies of exclusion and seek to integrate more women into their military services. It combines both large-N quantitative analysis and case studies of the United States, Italy, Hungary and Poland. The main argument put forth in this dissertation is that civilian policymakers and military leadership no longer surrender to parochial gendered division of the roles, but rather integrate women to meet the recruitment numbers due to military modernization, professionalization and levels of threat to national security; to meet the demands of domestic women's movements and to meet state's responsibilities under international agreements regarding gender equity and gender mainstreaming in the military.
REGIONAL PARTY SYSTEMS IN ETHNOFEDERAL STATES
Author:
Yekaterina Oziashvili
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Program:
Political Science
Scholars of federalism and political parties argue that ethnic federalism leads to the creation of regional and ethnoregional parties at the expense of national parties. Critics of ethnofederalism claim that a regional party system dominated by branches of national parties in ethnofederal states is virtually impossible and argue that ethnoregional parties act as centrifugal forces that threaten the territorial integrity of the state. Using the case of Russia this dissertation shows that the rise of regional parties is not a direct result of ethnofederal institutional structures but a product of specific electoral systems. Then, using the cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, I demonstrate the central role of electoral rules and institutions in shaping party systems in ethnofederal states.
State Structure and Economic Development: The Political Economy of Thailand and the Philippines
Author:
Antoinette Raquiza
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Political Science
This dissertation investigates the factors that account for different economic performance among late developing countries that are vulnerable to external shocks, crony capitalism, and political instability. The dissertation undertakes an historical, comparative analysis of industrializing Thailand and relatively low-performing Philippines, and argues that differences in economic performance are due to variations in the institutional configuration of state power, defined along two dimensions: the embeddedness of governing elites in state institutions, and the relationship between the political leadership and economic technocracy in the development policy process.
Cooperating for fairness: The role of electoral institutions in generating more egalitarian legislation in the sub-Saharan African region
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Program:
Political Science
This dissertation examines the impact of electoral systems on legislation that should produce more socially egalitarian societies in the sub-Saharan African region. Based on a data analysis of 47 sub-Saharan African countries, this dissertation establishes that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are significantly more likely than plurality or absolute majority electoral systems to generate legislation that establishes and protects equal rights and opportunities for vulnerable societal groups, including women, gays, and people most likely to be infected with HIV. The analysis also shows that plurality and absolute majority systems are more likely to generate legislation that threatens the equal rights and opportunities of vulnerable groups.