The Outsourcing of National Defense
Author:
Christopher Weimar
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Program:
Political Science
The outsourcing of military activities and services has grown dramatically in recent decades. My objective is to understand and explain this phenomenon at work in the United States Department of Defense (DoD) using theoretical frameworks of strategic efficiency, political ideology and organizational theory factors. This study seeks to answer the question, why has the DOD outsourced support activities and functions that contribute to larger national security objectives and were traditionally performed by DoD personnel? I'll use a case-study methodology to examine outsourcing in the DoD between 1970 and 2005, to include an in-depth look at the information technology (IT) networks area of the military services.
Enforcing Liberalism: Political Advisory Networks and New Economic Institutions
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Program:
Political Science
This dissertation examines two cases of extreme monetary policies (currency boards or dollarization) in response to inflationary and bank crises. The research asks why, after major currency and banking failures, governments struggle to restructure and reform their bank systems--both public and private--to prevent future crises. The dissertation complements traditional institutional, interest-based, and domestic corruption explanations for stalled or incomplete liberal reforms which have overlooked an important agent in the regulation of the financial sector: the interaction of formal and informal rule-making institutions. Informal rule-making institutions, namely political advisory networks in the domestic and international finance sector, can inform the scope, timing, and legitimacy of changes in both monetary and banking policy attempted by formal rule-making institutions--the executive and legislative powers of government. The research seeks to descriptively model advisory networks and their sources of strength. I compare two cases, Bulgaria and Ecuador, using elite ethnographic interviews that study up and study through levels and processes of economic institutional change. The dissertation has two key findings: 1) that informal advisory networks can originate and execute extreme monetary policy changes with little deliberative advice from national political or international financial institutions, and 2) where liberal advisory networks are strong, the network can dominate the monetary and bank reform agenda, which often results in a stubborn persistence of liberal policies which reject protection mechanisms (credit ceilings, credit bureaus, state supervision) even through partisan changes in subsequent governments.
Diaspora Movements, Social Networks, and Civil Wars: The Irish-American (Dis)connection and the Northern Ireland Troubles
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Program:
Political Science
Armed insurgents often seek material and other forms of support from communities beyond the borders of contested states. Situating long-distance, grassroots financing of rebel groups as a form of social movement, this dissertation examines patterns of transnational radicalism among diasporic populations with regard to "homeland" civil wars. The study is conducted within a dynamic, multilevel framework that analyzes: (1) the nested political opportunity context (i.e., domestic, international, and transnational) within which militants must mobilize for "the cause"; (2) the availability of potential resources, especially socio-organizational ones; and (3) the strategic capacity (skill and social capital endowments) of movement leaders. It devotes significant attention to social network properties and mechanisms that facilitate collective action.
NAVIGATING INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS AND LOCAL POLITICS: SEXUALITY GOVERNANCE IN A POST-COLONIAL SETTING
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Political Science
Feminist theory has demonstrated how boundaries of the political - for example, what is public or private - are themselves political, constructs of power relations in societies. Correspondingly, political theories about sexuality show how it is a political category because sexuality is a site where power is exercised in modern Western societies as well as a way in which people have come to identify themselves in modernity as subjects of rights. The relevance of this question to political science lies in the socio-economic conditions and political institutions that both produce gender or sexual identities and result in inequalities based upon them. I seek to analyze how gender and sexual dissidents develop their own theoretical languages to challenge these inequalities in today's globalizing world. Such identity categories and languages are fields of contestation and cultural hybridity. I suggest that the appropriation of concepts such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) may, first, have different meanings in various parts of the world and, second, be a bridge to developing more local, indigenous terms - including recovering older, pre-colonial histories and traditions. I demonstrate that a public sphere for dissident or non-normative sexualities and genders in post-colonial settings exists, access to which can allow legal reform and political gains. Drawing on postcolonial and queer theory, I argue that we are all part of sexuality governance regimes and that recognizing the utility of human rights standards around gender identity and sexual orientation enables acknowledgment of living in the interstices, between identity categories, as a right as well. I use Lebanon and its political culture as a case study and examine the Lebanese LGBT organizations Helem and Meem. I consider the effect of contemporary media and the Internet on shaping the public sphere and political mobilization. I refer to international documents that address gender and sexuality, and I analyze the impact of religious dictates, all in relation to the rich history of sexual discourses and practices in the Arab/Muslim world. My analysis contributes to expanding the discipline of political science and thereby to framing the possibilities for political advocacy on behalf of sexuality and gender.
Welfare Reform and the Mobilization Power of the Displaced Workers in China, 1994-2004
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Political Science
Welfare Reform and the Mobilization Power of the