Browsing by Subject "International relations"
Now showing items 1-20 of 25
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Amicable Contempt: The Strategic Balance between Dictators and International NGOs
(2017)Over the past decade, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have become increasingly active in authoritarian regimes as they respond to emergencies, assist with development, or advocate for human rights. Though ... -
Between a Hammer and an Anvil: Bottom-Up Organizational Transformation
(2020)When do recruitment windfalls strengthen organizations while threatening their leader’s perception of success? This paper introduces a theory of grassroots-driven organizational change that is broadly applicable when leaders ... -
Carrots or Sticks? Positive Inducements and Sanctions in International Relations
(2021)What is the utility and relative efficacy of positive inducements and sanctions in international politics? Are inducements and sanctions actually different or just the two sides of the same coin? How have inducements and ... -
Constrained Coordination: How Strategic Interests and Bureaucracy Shape Donor Coordination
(2019)Scholars and practitioners recognize the importance of coordination in mitigating the costs of aid proliferation and improving the effectiveness of foreign aid. However, low levels of donor coordination persist. In this ... -
Defeating al-Qaeda in the "Battle of Ideas": The Case for a U.S. Counter-Narrative
(2012)Counterterrorism, much like terrorism itself, is often a "battle of ideas." Yet, in the fight against al-Qaeda, the U.S. is currently losing this battle. This paper argues that the implementation of a counter-narrative strategy ... -
Design and Emergence in the Making of American Grand Strategy
(2013)The main research question of this thesis is how do grand strategies form. Grand strategy is defined as a state's coherent and consistent pattern of behavior over a long period of time in search of an overarching goal. The ... -
Fully Committed? Religiously Committed State Populations and International Conflict
(2018)This dissertation project argues that high levels of religious commitment within a population-that is, high levels of importance attached to religious identities and ideas-can increase a state's propensity for initiating ... -
Global Energy Systems and International Trade
(2020)This dissertation is a collection of studies at the intersection of global energy systems and international trade. In the first study (Chapter 2), we estimate the sensitivities of primary energy exports to disruptions through ... -
Haunted Borderland : The Politics on the Border War against China in post-Cold War Vietnam
(2014)This dissertation deals with the history and memory of the Border War with China in contemporary Vietnam. Due to its particularity as a war between two neighboring socialist countries in Cold War Asia, the Border War has ... -
How the Media Affect U.S. Foreign Aid Allocations? Evidence from the Aid Allocation Pattern to Muslim Countries
(2013)The previous literature fails to reach consensus on the role of media in the foreign aid allocation. My paper attempts to answer following questions by examining Muslim countries: Are there any media effects on the pattern ... -
Leaders, Perceptions, and Reputations for Resolve
(2014)For scholars of international relations, reputation for resolve - the belief that an actor will stand firm in future disputes - has served as a seminal explanation for the outcome of interstate crises. Scholars studying ... -
Modernization, Inequality, and Ethnic Civil Conflicts
(2021)Recent studies have revealed that the inequality between different ethnic groups can better explain and predict the onset of ethnic civil conflicts than traditional inequality indicators do. Based on their findings, this ... -
Nothing Left to Lose: Political Inequality and Conflict Recurrence
(2019)What are the causes of conflict recurrence in states recently coming out of a civil war? Various theories focus on how the conflict ends, the development issues the states faces post-war, or the effect of a third-party ... -
Politics as Usual: Congress and the Intelligence Community
(2021)Intelligence is an integral part of states’ foreign policy formation and implementation. In the American context, the intelligence community is involved in essentially every national security discussion occurring in government, ... -
Re-Thinking Geography and Civil War: Geography and Rebel Identity
(2011)Scholarship on ethnic conflict and civil war has often examined the role of geographic factors, such as rough terrain and exploitable natural resources, in either prolonging or even initiating the conflict. However, many ... -
Rethinking Civil War
(2019)Why do some civil conflicts simmer at low-intensity, while others escalate to war? When and why do some civil conflicts experience cycles of escalation and de-escalation? This dissertation challenges traditional approaches ... -
Strong Horse or Paper Tiger? Assessing the Reputational Effects of War Fighting
(2011)This dissertation examines whether war has reputational consequences by analyzing the conditions under which third party actors are more or less likely to challenge combatants after the war is over. I develop a theory of ... -
The Illusion of Safety: Lawfare and the Democratic Security
(2013)The Democratic Peace Theory notes the reduced incidence of war between democracies. The emerging field of Democratic Security Studies is motivated by this finding, yet the field's future growth is contingent on a further ... -
The Justice Dilemma: International Criminal Accountability, Mass Atrocities, and Civil Conflict
(2015)I argue that the justice cascade--the recent trend toward holding leaders accountable for massive human rights violations--produces both positive and negative effects by influencing the post-tenure fates of leaders. On the ... -
The Politics of Foreign Military Basing
(2020)Foreign military bases are anomalies in a world of sovereign states. Why do major powers station their finite military forces to protect other countries and how does the distribution of these bases relate to a country’s ...