Skip to Main Content

Basic Search

Skip to Search Results
 
 
 

Left Column

Filters

Right Column

Search Results

Search Results

(Total results 16)

Mini-Tools

 
 

Search Report

  • 1. Thomason, Benjamin Making Democracy Safe for Empire: A History and Political Economy of the National Endowment for Democracy, United States Agency for International Development, and Twenty-First Century Media Imperialism

    Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, American Culture Studies

    This dissertation explores the role of democracy promotion in US foreign intervention with a particular focus on the weaponization of media and civil society by two important US democracy promotion institutions, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and US Agency for International Development (USAID). Focusing on these two institutions and building on scholarship that takes a critical Gramscian Marxist perspective on US democracy promotion, this study brings media imperialism and deep political scholarship into the conversation. Delimiting the study to focus on US activities, I trace historical patterns of intellectual warfare and exceptional states of violence and lawlessness pursued by the US government in case studies of foreign intervention in which democracy promotion has played an important part since 1983. I survey the evolution of elite US Cold War conceptions of managed democracy as well as transformations of covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) media and civil society operations into institutionalized, pseudo-overt US democracy promotion that became a foundational pretext and method for US interventionism post-Cold War. Case studies include the Contra War in 1980s Nicaragua, Operation Cyclone in 1980s Afghanistan, the 2000 overthrow of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, the 2002 military coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the 2004 coup against Haitian president Bertrand Aristide, and the 2014 Euromaidan Coup against Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. I dedicate the penultimate chapter to US-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011, demonstrating how USAID provided instrumental monetary, media, and civil society support to primarily sectarian, theocratic, Salafi rebels against the Ba'athist government. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that the NED and USAID represent important engines of intellectual warfare in US foreign intervention, mobilizing communications and organizational resources to reinf (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Cynthia Baron Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Oliver Boyd-Barrett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Ph.D. (Committee Member); Alexis Ostrowski Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: American History; American Studies; East European Studies; History; International Relations; Journalism; Latin American History; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Middle Eastern History; Military History; Military Studies; Modern History; Peace Studies; Political Science; Public Policy; Regional Studies; World History
  • 2. Dunbar, Cameron The Chance of New Greatness: Ted Heath and Britain's Entry Into the European Communities

    Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

    Despite holding office during some of the most fateful years (1970-1974) in Britain's twentieth century history, the government of Prime Minister Edward (Ted) Heath is one of the least studied British governments of the post-Second World War era. This is in large part because the Heath Ministry probably left the fewest policy legacies of any postwar British government. However, while Heath's time in 10 Downing Street has almost universally been deemed by historians as a failure, his one outright success –negotiating Britain's entry into the European Community – singlehandedly makes his one of the most influential and important governments in postwar British history, ending “one thousand years of history” and setting the country on a course that would lead to massive political and economic transformation. As a result, Heath and his government deserve far more attention than they've received from historians of British politics, British diplomacy, and European integration. As such, this dissertation makes two overarching arguments. First, it seeks to re-conceptualize Heath as a successful Prime Minister, if success can be defined by fully achieving the main political goal (British membership of the EC) that he prioritized when entering office. Secondly, it seeks to position Heath as one of the most influential postwar Prime Ministers due to his successful European policy; however, in Heath's case ‘influential' does not equal ‘eminence', as the legacy he bequeathed to his country was far from positive. This dissertation analyzes this legacy by contending that by the end of 1973, Britain's first year of EC membership, Heath's strategy for using the EC to rectify and strengthen Britain's place in the international system and to modernize the British largely lay in ruins. The failure of Heath's overall strategy set the tone for Britain's extended psychodrama with the European Community that had its logical, if not necessarily inevitable, climax in the Brexit vote of 2016. (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Peter John Brobst (Advisor); Steven Miner (Committee Member); Robert Ingram (Committee Member); James Mosher (Committee Member) Subjects: History
  • 3. Mobydeen, Lana Melting Pot Mix or Mosaic Piece? Multiculturalism and Immigration Control: A Comparative Study of Refugee Policies in the United States and Canada

    PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

    Convergence hypothesis argues that there is a growing similarity among industrialized, labor-importing countries in terms of immigration control policy and integration policy (Hollifield, Martin and Orrenius 2014). This hypothesis also applies in the context of refugee policies that are enacted among these countries. Specifically, two of the most prominent industrialized countries that are built as nations of immigrants and that host refugees are the United States and Canada. Following the logic of convergence hypothesis, the United States and Canada should be similar with regard to immigration control and integration policies. However, Canada is considered an outlier with regard to convergence hypothesis. Convergence hypothesis was descriptive of immigration control in the form of racial exclusion in both countries until 1971 with Canada's adoption of a federal multiculturalism policy. This study tests the convergence hypothesis in the areas of immigration control and integration policies from the United States and Canada by examining policy adoption documents using qualitative content analysis from 1971-2019. The data shows there is a difference in both the inclusivity or exclusivity of the language used by the United States and Canada with regard to refugee policies as well as the frequency of their occurrence. The Canadian turn to multiculturalism was positively associated with more inclusive legislation when examining immigration and refugee policy documents while the United States was more inclusionary with regard to refugee policy. The study also finds there is a clear and definite association between adoption of multiculturalism by Canada and its divergence to being more inclusionary than the United States with regard to refugee resettlement and integration policy. These findings confirm that the adoption of multiculturalism as being associated with Canada's outlier status with regard to convergence hypothesis and demonstrates that industrialized nations can (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Christopher Banks (Committee Chair); Daniel Hawes (Committee Co-Chair); Daniel Chand (Committee Member); Kevin Adams (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; International Law; International Relations; Law; Political Science
  • 4. Cunningham, Gideon The State and Cannabis: What is Success? A Comparative Analysis of Cannabis Policy in The United States of America, Uruguay, and Canada

    Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2021, International and Comparative Politics

    Globally, the policies that states engage in concerning the cultivation, production, distribution, and sale of recreational cannabis in the 21st century is changing rapidly. Three countries have now legalized, regulated, and implemented recreational cannabis frameworks, albeit in starkly different ways. These countries are The United States of America, Uruguay, and Canada. This research identifies the contradictory nature of cannabis policy goals and compares the similarities and differences of each countries' recreational cannabis framework. It proposes a theory of understanding the contradictory nature of creating cannabis policies post-legalization and presents a framework from which to analyze the success of individual cannabis frameworks to contribute to furthering policymakers and the broader public's understanding of best practices.

    Committee: Lee Hannah Jr., Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Pramod Kantha Ph.D. (Committee Member); Liam Anderson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science; Public Policy
  • 5. Campbell, Benjamin Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning Strategies for Modeling Military Alliances

    Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

    When modeling interstate military alliances, scholars make simplifying assumptions. However, most recognize these often invoked assumptions are overly simplistic. This dissertation leverages developments in supervised and unsupervised machine learning to assess the validity of these assumptions and examine how they influence our understanding of alliance politics. I uncover a series of findings that help us better understand the causes and consequences of alliances. The first assumption examined holds that states, when confronted by a common external security threat, form alliances to aggregate their military capabilities in an effort to increase their security and ensure their survival. Many within diplomatic history and security studies criticize this widely accepted "Capability Aggregation Model", noting that countries have various motives for forming alliances. In the first of three articles, I introduce an unsupervised machine learning algorithm designed to detect variation in how actors form relationships in longitudinal networks. This allows me to, in the second article, assess the heterogeneous motives countries have for forming alliances. I find that states form alliances to achieve foreign policy objectives beyond capability aggregation, including the consolidation of non-security ties and the pursuit of domestic reform. The second assumption is invoked when scholars model the relationship between alliances and conflict, routinely assuming that the formation of an alliance is exogeneous to the probability that one of the allies is attacked. This stands in stark contrast to the Capability Aggregation Model's expectations, which indicate that an external threat and an ally's expectation of attack by an aggressor influences the decision to form an alliance. In the final article, I examine this assumption and the causal relationship between alliances and conflict. Specifically, I endogenize alliances on the causal path to conflict using supe (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Skyler Cranmer (Committee Chair); Box-Steffensmeier Janet (Committee Member); Braumoeller Bear (Committee Member); Gelpi Christopher (Committee Member) Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Behavioral Sciences; Computer Science; International Relations; Military History; Peace Studies; Political Science; Statistics; World History
  • 6. Dodson, Marianne Framing the Fight: The Creation of Political Role Conceptions by the News Media in Coverage of Israeli Disengagement from the Gaza Strip

    Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2019, Journalism

    Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is widespread and far-reaching. Many international outlets are covering the conflict alongside local media, and the conflict has intense political ramifications that spread far past the Middle East. In this thesis, I examine two points of coverage during the Second Intifada in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and compare coverage amongst three different news outlets. The intifada broke out right after the turn of the century and was covered in a heavily global context. There is a sufficient existing literature examining media coverage of the Second Intifada, but my research focuses on two periods of involving the disengagement plan brought forth by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. My research will examine the connection between politics and journalism in the conflict by taking political role conception theories and applying them to Israeli and U.S. media outlets covering the conflict. I will examine how these media outlets crafted certain political role conceptions in their coverage and also analyze the framing devices through which they were conveyed.

    Committee: Andrew Alexander (Advisor); Nukhet Sandal (Advisor) Subjects: Journalism; Political Science
  • 7. Rosenberg, Andrew Residual Racism in International Migration: The False Promise of Colorblindness

    Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

    In this project, I measure racial bias in international migration flows, and I theorize how the institution of sovereignty provides cover for states to enact discriminatory policies despite the elimination of formal racial migration quotas after decolonization. In so doing, I argue that the expansion of sovereignty after decolonization was not an unqualified good: this expansion continues to perpetuate international inequalities. To warrant this claim, I develop the first ever method for inferring racial bias in international politics. I focus on measuring racial bias in international migration flows because scholars from all subfields of political science agree that racism and xenophobia affect migration processes. However, they lack a way to measure this prejudice because most states eliminated de jure racial migration policies in the 1960s. To infer racial bias, I rely on a novel measurement strategy. Using this measure, I yield three main findings. First, I show that migrants from the Global South—particularly Sub-Saharan Africa—migrate far less than we would expect under a racially blind model. This descriptive result suggests the existence of a global hierarchy of movement. Second, I find evidence for a "negative incentive effect'' whereby less emigration leads to less human capital accumulation and economic development in source countries. Just as the prospect of emigration can incentivize citizens to acquire education to take advantage of higher wages abroad, less emigration can lead to the opposite. Finally, this effect is unambiguous for the non-white states of the Global South. Not only do would-be migrants from these states move far less than expected, it is in these states where the negative effects on economic development are the most pronounced. Therefore, contrary to expectations, I dismiss the longstanding argument that emigration hampers economic development, via a “brain drain,” in the developing world, and instead can narrow the racial inequality (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Christopher Gelpi (Committee Co-Chair); Alexander Wendt (Committee Co-Chair); Bear Braumoeller (Committee Member); William Minozzi (Committee Member); Inés Valdez (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations
  • 8. Liston-Beck, Annalycia Mobilizing Motherhood: The Symbolic Politics of Motherhood in Transcultural Perspective

    Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2018, Political Science

    Although motherhood is seen as a private issue or concern, it is regularly used by women to frame their political engagement. Women's political role is imbued with social and cultural significance based on the norms and values of a given society, and this allows the social and cultural role of motherhood to become a powerful political symbol. Through a lens of symbolic politics theory that emphasizes their emotional mobilizing potential of symbols, motherhood can be seen as a cloak that provides women's political statements a seemingly apolitical and socially acceptable platform from which to advocate for change. Unlike feminist groups in these regions which risk being called culturally imperialistic, the mobilization of symbolic motherhood avoids these accusations and allows women to be political actors who challenge local political norms without being alienated from their community. The historical politics of motherhood and embedded norms made this process appear natural and make sense; it is simply a response to the normalization of women as mothers in a society. Motherhood's use as a political symbol appears differently in each context, and the cases identified in Argentina and Egypt exemplify some similarities and differences. The impact of women's mobilization seen in Egypt does not look the same and is not as tangibly impactful on policy changes as in Argentina, but a similar symbolic politics of motherhood based on local political, social, cultural, and religious norms has been monumental in providing women political voice in both locations.

    Committee: Andrew Ross PhD (Advisor) Subjects: International Relations; Latin American Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Political Science; Womens Studies
  • 9. Wesbrook, Stephen International power distribution and war : the effects of concentration and dispersion of power on interstate war /

    Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1976, Graduate School

    Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Political Science
  • 10. Gerval, Adam Seeking Autonomy: Comparative Analysis of the Japanese & South Korean Defense Sectors

    Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, East Asian Studies

    The development of defense technologies has blended economic and national security policies in the postwar era. Many countries have invested heavily in defense industries as a means to stimulate economic gain and technological innovation. However, vibrant defense industries are rarely developed through autonomous production alone. They tread a slow path that often follows shortly behind economic and industrial development, and signals rising players in the international community. However, these developments are often nurtured and influenced by key allies that illuminate both partner's international and domestic objectives. In this paper I seek to compare the overall historical development of the Japanese and South Korean defense sectors in the post-World War II era. In doing so, I will reveal their technological capabilities, methods for infusing technology into each nation's defense sector, and finally how these transfers provided the technological foundation for developing defensive autonomy. My findings lead me to argue that the postwar development of both sectors has been path dependent upon the evolution of their diplomatic relationships with the United States. This path has been instrumental in both nations' economic and technological ascent, but has also been determinant of their abilities and limitations to achieve capability in specific defense technologies. This has led both countries to pursue policy objectives that serve to increase their position within their US partnerships to pursue greater economic and diplomatic interests, even sometimes at the peril of their relationship with the United States.

    Committee: Hajime Miyazaki (Committee Member); Philip Brown (Advisor); Hwang Youngbae (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; History; International Relations; Technology
  • 11. Ivanov, Ivan NATO's Transformation in an Imbalanced International System

    PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Arts and Sciences : Political Science

    The dissertation studies the functioning and management of NATO in the post-Cold War distribution of power. The core purpose is the articulation of a framework that enables coherent explanation of NATO's transformation while at the same time binding together the invitation to new allies, the expansion of allied missions, and advancement of new capabilities. I explain these three aspects of NATO's transformation through club goods theory and the concept of complementarities. The club goods framework originates from collective goods literature and is consistent with the theory of intergovernmental bargaining in integration studies. It suggests that NATO has features similar to heterogeneous clubs: voluntarism, sharing, cost-benefit analysis and exclusion mechanisms. Based on club good theory, I conceptualize complementarities as a relationship between military resources and transformational allied capabilities. The military resources considered include military personnel, army, navy, air force and defense spending. The alliance missions in terms of peacekeeping, crisis management and non-proliferation are key intervening variables in my model that shape the development of allied capabilities. Combined Joint Task Forces, NATO Response Force and different non-proliferation teams illustrate the advancement of new capabilities. This framework distinguishes between three groups of nations: the core NATO allies, the new members and the non-NATO nations that are members of the European Union (Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden). The study indicated that a strong relationship between resources and allied capabilities for the old NATO members, while for the new NATO allies this relationship is much less powerful and none of the observed variables is significant in the case of the non-NATO nations. Based on these findings the dissertation makes the argument that the United States as a hegemon has a key role in managing allied relations, while at same time influencing the (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Richard Harknett (Committee Chair); Dinshaw Mistry (Committee Member); Joel Wolfe (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations
  • 12. Buzas, Zoltan Race and International Politics: How Racial Prejudice Can Shape Discord and Cooperation among Great Powers

    Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Political Science

    This dissertation is motivated by the fact that race is understudied in the discipline, despite its historical importance in international politics, its ubiquity in adjacent disciplines, and its importance in the “real” world. It attempts to mitigate this problem by extending the study of race to the hard case of great power politics. The dissertation provides a two-step racial theory of international politics according to which racial prejudices embedded in racial identity can shape patterns of discord and cooperation. In the first step, racial prejudices embedded in different racial identities inflate threat perceptions, while prejudices embedded in shared racial identities deflate them. In the second step, racially shaped threat perceptions generate behavioral dispositions. Inflated threat perceptions predispose racially different agents towards discord, while deflated threat perceptions predispose racially similar agents towards cooperation. The theory works best when states have dominant racial groups, they hold activated threat-relevant racial prejudices, and when threats are ambiguous. Three empirical chapters assess the theory's strengths and probe its limits. The first shows how racial prejudices regarding fundamental difference and aggressive intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japan and, with British cooperation, led to the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923). The second traces how racial prejudices regarding aggressive intentions and irrationality inflated American threat perceptions of Chinese nuclear proliferation and, with Soviet cooperation, resulted in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The last one illustrates how racial prejudices of immorality and aggressive intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japanese foreign direct investment in the 1980s and led to the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of race and the legitimacy of the liberal international system in the cont (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: Alexander Wendt PhD (Committee Chair); Ted Hopf PhD (Committee Member); Randall Schweller PhD (Committee Member); Ismail White PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations
  • 13. Green, Jennifer Collective rape: a cross-national study of mass political sexual violence, 1980-2003

    Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Sociology

    Collective rape has garnered considerable worldwide attention in recent years but systematic documentation and empirical research are still lacking. Basic questions about when and where collective rape has occurred and what factors contribute to this crime remain unanswered. This project addresses those questions through a cross-national cross-time study of collective rape episodes from 1980 to 2003. Collective rape is defined as a pattern of sexual violence perpetrated on civilians by agents of a state or political civil group and measured through two indicators of occurrence or non-occurrence in various countries and years. Data was collected from three news sources—World News Digest Facts on File, The New York Times, and Reuters Business Briefs—and information of the timing, location, perpetrators and victims was recorded. In total 37 episodes of collective rape were identified. Episodes were more prevalent in Africa and Asia, and the 1990s as compared to the 1980s. The perpetrators were most often agents of a government (such as the military), but political civil groups also participated. Collective rape has been perpetrated widely through all segments of the population (women are the overwhelming majority) but, in some episodes, victims were targeted based on their ethnicity or political affiliations. The literature on collective rape, interpersonal rape and political violence suggested seven theoretical models of collective rape occurrence. Analysis found full or partial support for the hypotheses that gender inequality, militarization, armed conflict, ethnic cleavages, economic development and state structure contribute to the presence of collective rape in a country. High levels of state terrorism, or government-sponsored murder, torture, and imprisonment—was the most consistent predictor of collective rape. These results show that collective rape, while pervasive across time and regions, may be more likely to occur in some societies than others. Suggestions (open full item for complete abstract)

    Committee: J Jenkins (Advisor) Subjects:
  • 14. van Wees, Saskia Negotiation and Policy-making in the Climate Regime

    Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2009, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

    In order to understand why the Kyoto Protocol has not been as stringent as many hoped, this paper will seek to answer two main questions. First, why do international treaties on climate change always result in a lowest common denominator of commitment? Negotiations for the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol indicate that the policy goals of proactive parties are deflated by the foot-dragging of even just a few resistant parties. Secondly, this thesis will examine why some states are more progressive about fighting climate change than others. The European Union and the United States—which have displayed vastly different policy preferences throughout the duration of the international climate regime—will be compared to answer this second question. A two-level games approach is employed to examine how the international system, as well as domestic characteristics, affected the EU and US policy preferences.

    Committee: Patricia Weitsman PhD (Committee Chair); Harold Molineu PhD (Committee Member); Nancy Manring PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations
  • 15. Mecum, Mark Solving Alliance Cohesion: NATO Cohesion After the Cold War

    Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

    Why does NATO remain a cohesive alliance in the post-Cold War era? This question, which has bewildered international relations scholars for years, can tell us a lot about institutional dynamics of alliances. Since traditional alliance theory indicates alliances form to counter threat or power, it is challenging to understand how and why NATO continues to exist after its founding threat and power – communism and the USSR – no longer exist. The fluctuation of cohesion in NATO since the end of the Cold War will be examined to determine how cohesion is forged and maintained. To achieve this, alliance theories will be fused into a clear and understandable model to measure cohesion.

    Committee: Patricia Weitsman (Advisor) Subjects:
  • 16. Koch, Luther As the World Turns Out: Economic Growth and Voter Turnout From a Global Perspective

    Master of Public Administration (MPA), Bowling Green State University, 2007, Public Administration

    Low voter turnout has been a characteristic of several recent national-level elections and referenda throughout the world. Scholarly literature has also documented declining turnout as a continuing trend in wealthy, advanced industrial democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Yet, scholarly research using individual-level data has shown that wealthy, better educated people are more likely to vote than those with low income and/or low educational attainment. This study attempts to answer the question: Does economic growth lead to decreased voter turnout? This work uses aggregate-level data for 86 countries to explain voter turnout in lower house elections and employs a hot-deck imputation technique to fill in missing observations. Regression analysis of data from the World Bank, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and the Polity IV project reveals little evidence to support the claim that economic growth affects voter turnout. Only one multiple regression model of countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region gives evidence supporting the principal hypothesis of this study that economic growth produces a decline in voter turnout. The literature review and null findings of this research establish that quantitative, scholarly research on voter turnout is more concerned with explaining voter turnout in industrial democracies than in developing countries. In the current context of globalization, future research must be grounded in a more encompassing theory if voter turnout is to be treated as a universal characteristic of all democratic elections.

    Committee: Melissa Miller (Advisor) Subjects: