Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2014, International and Comparative Politics

What role does foreign support play when an insurgent group adopts terrorism? Utilizing both quantitative analysis and in-depth case studies, this thesis examines the effects of foreign support among other commonly cited explanations for an insurgency's adoption of terrorism. In addition to observing the effects of foreign support on the adoption of terrorism, the effects of government regime type, insurgent group goal type, insurgent group strength, and foreign benefactor type are analyzed. After executing a multiple logistic regression analysis of 109 intrastate conflicts occurring from 1972 to 2007 and conducting detailed case studies for the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Kurds in Iraq, this thesis concludes that specific types of foreign support from non-state actors not only make insurgent groups significantly stronger but also make them more likely to adopt terrorism thus calling into question the weapon of the weak argument.

Committee: Vaughn Shannon Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Pramod Kantha Ph.D. (Committee Member); R. William Ayres Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; International Relations; Political Science

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Sociology

This study analyzes factors associated with female circumcision in Southern Kurdistan through the feminist lens Kandiyoti (1988) described as ‘bargaining with the patriarchy'. Comparing sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, Kandiyoti (1988, 1998) argues that patriarchal power is spatially and temporally specific and, to deal with gendered patriarchal power women develop different resistance strategies to secure themselves a position. She suggests that while women in the prior context refuse male dominance and resist patriarchal power, the latter show subservience and utilize manipulation of men inside the household. Based on Kandiyoti's theory, it can be expected to see differences among dynamics of FC in the Middle East, such that we can expect women to resist the norms within their familial context, or spousal relationship rather than via resisting publicly to the norms. Building on this framework, this study will test women's bargaining power within their spousal relationship and investigate how it impacts the risk of daughters' FC using Southern Kurdistan as a case. This project uses the 2011 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for Iraq, with an analytical sample focusing on currently married women with daughters who live in Southern Kurdistan. The study employs a multilevel regression with the dependent variable of whether any of the daughters of the respondent had FC. To test for women's spousal bargaining power, I use the independent variables age at first marriage, spousal age difference, consanguineous marriage, and number of sons alive. Additionally, I control for factors associated with modernization and community effects. The results suggest that when women are in relationships in which they can possibly exert their power, they are less likely to carry on circumcising norms. While age-first marriage and consanguineous marriage variables are significantly negatively associated with the daughter's risk of FC, having a younger husband and having more sons' (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sarah Hayford (Advisor); Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira (Committee Member); David Melamed (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

MSARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

Airports serve as gateways to cities or countries. They are symbolic buildings, the first and last impressions and experiences for visitors. In their early days, airports evoked modernity and impressiveness. Then, during a period of frequent hijacking in the 1960s, they transformed into places of security. Later on, they manifested into “non-places,” as Marc Auge observed, as their super-modernity deprived them of those qualities that created and defined the identity of a place or its relation to the city or country it was introducing. Today, successful airport architecture balances between the global and local character representations in their design features. Airport architecture often leans toward localization when airports are part of a nation-building process, and when they ascribe to regional character and culture, they become city portrayers. This thesis explores how an airport can architecturally represent its city, region, culture, nation and metropolitan or national character as opposed to imparting a global, generic, non-place image on the arriving passenger. The research comprises two main points. First, it examines, from an architectural point of view, the consequences of the Iraqi government's shutting down of the Kurdistan region airports as a punishment for the Kurdistan referendum. Then reviews representations of regional character in airports by investigating literature and airport design precedents, thus establishing background and criteria to study the case study of Sulaymaniyah International Airport in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It also analyzes the efficiency of the airport's performance and tackles its architectural design problems.

Committee: Rebecca Williamson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jeffrey Tilman Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2016, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice

The ability of terrorist groups to incur widespread death and destruction has markedly increased with technological advances in the areas of communication, transportation, and weapon capability. Using these new tools and networks, terrorists now seek to inflict mass casualties worldwide by bringing down airplanes and bombing critical infrastructures in urban centers. Given these realities, it is essential to research the factors that underlie a terrorist group's origins, grievances, and demands. Such insights might help to respond more effectively to insurgencies, especially when military campaigns to capture or kill every terrorist have proven unsuccessful. Within this context, this dissertation contributes to the radicalization literature by exploring why so many Kurdish males and females—especially young adults—join the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and conduct terrorist acts. Employing the approach taken by Clifford R. Shaw (1930) in his classic The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy's Own Story, this issue was explored through the life-history method: having a PKK terrorist—or “freedom fighter”—tell his own story. Over five months in Turkey, I interviewed an imprisoned terrorist, Deniz. He proved an insightful subject because of his diverse experiences during his nearly two decades in the PKK. The final product, a detailed life-history of Deniz told in his own words, is presented in this dissertation. This account provides extensive information on the PKK, including the group's recruitment, training, military tactics, organizational procedures, and goals for peace. In turn, using a life-course perspective, the dissertation concludes by examining the factors that led to Deniz's onset into, persistence of, and desistance from his life as a terrorist. The analysis suggests that four factors encouraged Deniz's radicalization and entry into the PKK: (1) a sense of injustice, (2) personality traits, (3) opportunity structures, and (4) a sense of duty a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Francis Cullen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael Benson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Cheryl Lero Jonson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2016, History

My dissertation is a world history project that offers an historical perspective for understanding the existence and meaning of honor crimes. I focus on the history of honor-related violence in Turkey, which I contend can only be understood within the international context of twentieth-century modernization, state-formation, and nationalist projects. The Turkish nationalist state initiated an intensive process of modernization beginning in the late 1920s and lasting through the majority of the 20th century. My project examines the impact the nationalist modernization project had on the culture of honor and the existence of honor-related gendered violence, and argues against the ahistorical portrayal of Middle Eastern societies as “backward” bastions of patriarchy. Instead, I propose that honor-related violence has a very specific, yet complex recent history that has as much to do with “modernization” as it does with tradition. Although my project focuses on Turkey, I include a case study of honor crimes as discussed in Brazilian legal codes that were created or preserved by nationalist “modernizing” regimes. This study offers a nuanced historical explanation, on the one hand, of the ways in which the culture of honor and the nationalist state overlapped and often supported one another, and on the other hand, of how nationalist modernizing projects created the environments in which honor crimes tended to proliferate, such as during periods of civil war and in communities that are marginalized due to institutionalized racial, gendered, and ethno-nationalist discrimination.

Committee: Janet Klein Dr. (Advisor); Tracey Jean Boisseau Dr. (Committee Member); Martha Santos Dr. (Committee Member); Richard Steigmann-Gall Dr. (Committee Member); Maria Alejandra Zanetta Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; Gender Studies; History; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies; World History

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2016, Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology

The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and their tributaries form the arteries of life in the central part of the Middle East, where climate change and anthropogenic disturbance have been evident in recent decades. While the Tigris River has a long history of human use, the conservation status for the majority of its basin is poorly known. In addition, planning for conservation, given limited time, funds, and prior information, has remained a challenge. In my dissertation research, I sampled 53 randomly selected sites in the Kurdistan Region (the KR) of northern Iraq, a poorly studied region of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates freshwater ecoregion, for water quality bioindicators, mayflies (Insecta, Ephemeroptera), stoneflies (Plecoptera), and caddisflies (Trichoptera) (a.k.a. EPT). I identified the mayflies to the finest possible taxonomic level and created the first Iraqi checklist and larval key to nine families, nine subfamilies, 19 genera, and 13 subgenera, and supported it with 117 state-of-the-art scientific illustrations using fresh specimens collected during my study (Chapter 1). I performed an initial species morphological identification for mayflies and stoneflies, then identified them genetically after sequencing the full-length of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene (658 base pairs). I introduced Genetic Similarity Blocks (GSBs), a genetic-based analysis which was used along with morphology and other genetic-based analyses to overcome the taxonomic impediment and accelerate species identification. I delineated Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) using genetic-based analyses, then matched OTUs to delineate Species-Like Units (SpLUs). I compared and contrasted SpLUs morphologically and found five stonefly and more than 55 mayfly taxa, the majority of them being new records for Iraq, and many of them potentially new to science (Chapter 2). I identified 76 planning units within aquatic ecosystems in the KR and prioritized a subset of them for EP (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Berg (Advisor); Bruce Cochrane (Committee Member); John Morse (Committee Member); Michael Vanni (Committee Member); Thomas Crist (Committee Member); Mary Henry (Committee Member) Subjects: Animal Sciences; Aquatic Sciences; Biology; Conservation; Ecology; Environmental Studies; Wildlife Conservation; Zoology

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Arts and Sciences: Sociology

The purpose of this research study is to learn how Kurdish men immigrants in the United States navigate an environment that is both considerably more health conscious than the one they came from and guided by a different set of masculine values and expectations. It investigates Kurdish immigrant men's health behaviors along with their masculine values as a minority group in the United States. It addresses how immigrant men make sense of and adjust to, on the one hand, a widespread emphasis on health that compels them to exercise and watch what they eat and, on the other hand, a culture defined by cars and fast food. The study is qualitative and based on interviews with 17 Kurdish men immigrants. The findings show that Kurdish men immigrants express their new-found ambition for health and general wellbeing through exercise and prevention. But they do so in ways that seek to smooth over the evident gap in the role of health practices in the expression of masculinity in Kurdistan compared with the United States.

Committee: Annulla Linders Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Steven Carlton-Ford Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology