Since the initial stages of 1980s, the global world faced the huge shift. Many security scholars try to challenge and review the mainstream security studies that derived from a combination of Anglo-American, statist, militarized, masculinized, methodologically positivist, and philosophically realist thinking. ¡§The Welsh School¡¨ of Critical Security Studies is one of the most important approach. The Welsh School thinks about security as developing in the light of the Frankfurt School, and brings the tradition of ¡§critical¡¨, ¡§epistemology position¡¨, and ¡§emancipation¡¨ to the security studies. The Welsh School separate the core of critical security studies(CSS) into three concepts: security, emancipation, and community, therefore, this study try to explain and review these concepts. Firstly, CSS tried to ¡§deepen¡¨ the concepts of ¡§security¡¨, deconstruct statism and bring the referent to individual, and then ¡§broaden¡¨ the agenda of security to discuss the traditional and non-traditional issues in the globalization world. Secondly, CSS emphasize the relationship of theory and practice, and expect to achieve their goal-¡§emancipatory politics¡¨. Via the construction of emancipatory community, people could released from contingent and structural oppressions, and create a free and equal environment. Despite the states still the major referent in international institution and security environment, and the main concept of The Welsh School still not practice in contemporary politics, but the first task of CSS is to bring a revision of the world, and then create a comprehensive and humanity security thinking.

This project asks the question of how different aerial strategies can affect the characteristics of aerial campaigns in conflict. It begins by developing a new categorization of aerial strategies that distinguishes aerial strategies by how targeted thy are. Data is collected on the type of strategies that were used in aerial campaigns from 1914 to 2003. A preliminary analysis of aerial strategy choice is conducted, studying the effect of military doctrines on strategy choice. The project also takes into consideration the role that ground forces, both those of the state carrying out the aerial attack and of its opponent, will play in determining the effect of aerial strategies on campaign duration and outcome.

This thesis argues that women are increasingly recruited by terrorist organizations because they are perceived as high benefit and low cost perpetrators. Female terrorism is an increasing trend, as it is particularly effective and becoming more effective over time. Its effectiveness results from cross-cultural, deeply imbedded stereotypes of female behavior. Women are seen as nonviolent in the cultures from which female terrorists emerge and in which they perpetrate their attacks, and are therefore given more lenient security measures at security barriers. In addition, security policies reflect these stereotypes, as some only apply to men. The literature on the topic of gender and terrorism often addresses individual motivations for terrorism and misses the practical element of group strategy that is vital to understand in order to effectively defend against the trends of female terrorism. I found that terrorist groups are rational actors and thus choose to deploy women because they are low cost and high benefit. Terrorist groups learn through interactive exchanges with the target population or government and act accordingly. While the goal of gender equality may be used in secular terrorist organizations’ rhetoric, women’s involvement in terrorism does not necessarily equate to western-style feminism or gender equality. I illustrate the racial implications that are upheld and replicated through stereotypes about terrorism. Muslims are portrayed as terrorists to bolster the government’s interest in securing votes for its foreign policy agenda. I argue that stereotypes persist because of the media’s drive for profit as well as the perceived need for narrative fidelity, although this type of reporting benefits terrorist groups and impairs the target state’s security. If understood and addressed properly, this trend of female terrorist lethality can be undermined through policy recommendations. International organizations that adopt these policy recommendations together may effectively reduce female terrorist lethality, terrorism in general, and increase global security.

abstract: This thesis seeks to build upon the empirical use of the Copenhagen School of security studies by evaluating and investigating speech-acts in recent Guatemalan newspaper media as they relate to drug trafficking within the geopolitical borders of Guatemala, particularly induced by Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. The study attempts to engage a critical theoretical framework to study securitization within the country and thereby build upon the theory by conducting real-life analysis. Using a research program that is made up of content and text analysis of national press and presidential speeches, I test several hypotheses that pertain to the processes of Guatemala's current drug trade and drug trafficking securitization. By coding securitizing speech-acts and discursive frames in the national print media, I identify the national elite, the power relations between the national elite and citizenship, and attempts to dramatize the issue of drug trade. Upon analyzing the findings of such securitization, I propose several hypotheses as to why the national elite seeks high politicization of drug trade and the implications that rest on such drastic measures. This thesis itself, then, has important implications: it uses empirical tools to help further the theoretical foundations of the Copenhagen School, it examines the process of securitization study from a real world context outside the developed world, and it presents important information on the possible consequences of securitizing drug trade. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Political Science 2011

Fighting for Status investigates how status concerns affect states’ decisions in the domain of international security. Ironically, while there is widespread agreement within the political science discipline and the foreign policy community that status matters, there exists relatively little in the way of focused research on how and when it does so. Thus, our understanding of status in international politics has been guided so far by intuition, not by evidence, and this has left us with a significant gap in our understanding of how status affects foreign policy behavior and international outcomes. Relying on the assumption that ‘status matters’ has left us with no extant theory of variation in states’ concern for status and little understanding of its specific implications for foreign policy or international conflict. What is needed –and what my research is designed to provide –is a systematic investigation into the ways in which the desire to increase or prevent the loss of status affects the behavior of states and leaders, especially as these concerns relate to the propensity for violent conflict. Using a diverse array of methods and data, I provide evidence on the relationship between status concerns and conflict. I use a large-n, cross-national analysis to investigate the effects of status dissatisfaction on international conflict at several degrees of intensity. I find that states that are attributed less status than they are due based on material capabilities are overwhelmingly more likely (than satisfied states) to initiate militarized disputes at almost every level of intensity. Two case studies –focusing on Germany and Russia in the World War One era –corroborate these patterns in historical cases of great importance and help to form a more complete picture of how status concerns affect political decision-making. Finally, I use a laboratory experiment and a unique sample of real-world political and military leaders to shed light on the causal pathways through which status concerns affect escalation behavior. Here I find that negative emotions are a key pathway through which concerns over relative status impair judgment and decision-making. / Government

In its approach to the Palestinian-Jordanians’ issue, this dissertation employs a security-based theory and technique, which deal with the issue as a securitization case-study. It employs a modified version of the securitization theory offered by the Copenhagen School to evaluate the classical Jordanian national security strategy toward Palestinian-Jordanians. It addresses, reviews, weighs and evaluates the four strategies and tools of the Jordanian securitization model toward Palestinian-Jordanians: exclusionism, tribalism, cooptation and ideologization, which present the independent variables of this study. This evaluation process is based on a multi-standard strategy, which discusses the goals, the evidence, the outputs and the structure of the Jordanian securitization model since Black September 1970. In terms of methodology, the dissertation adopted a multi-method strategy, which used field research, participant observation and elite interviewing as primary methods for data acquisition. In its security-based re-reading of the modern Jordanian history and its evaluation of the Jordanian national security strategy, the dissertation concludes that the Jordanian securitization model has led to a number of dangerous adverse reactions and hazards, which threaten Jordanian national security. The awakening of the extreme versions of nationalism, the rise of social/tribal violence and the emergence of the radical Islamist Salafi-Jihadi movement are examples of the hazardous outputs of the classical Jordanian national security strategy. Although the classical strategy has succeeded in maintaining the physical survival of the state/regime in Jordan since 1921, it has failed to cure the structural crises of statehood and nationhood, which the Jordanian state suffers from. Also, the classical strategy has failed to decisively answer the strategic questions of "what is Jordan?" and "who are Jordanians?". This strategic failure of the classical Jordanian national security strategy toward Palestinian-Jordanians rings alarm bells about the strategic and urgent need for an alternative national security strategy based on egalitarianism, modernism, populism and democratization.

The spread of disinformation on social media platforms has in the last few years gained much scholarly attention, in particular its ability to alter democratic processes. The focus of this thesis has however been on the discourse surrounding disinformation rather than disinformation itself, more precisely, the construction and perception of disinformation as a security threat. Disinformation is an issue which is rapidly evolving with the creation of new technologies and opportunities. The aim of this thesis has been to investigate if this has led to a shift in the perception of disinformation as a threat and therefore a change of policy for the EU. This was realised through the utilisation of Carol Bacchi's WPR approach toolkits, in combination with the foundational principles derived from securitization theory. The thesis shows that the EU’s perception of disinformation as a threat has evolved from mainly focus on the decline of public trust and democratic processes. To also include and recognise a more multifaced view of the issue with a larger focus on manipulation, technology driven threats and media literacy deficiency.

Why victimize civilians during civil war? Inspired by my survival of two civil wars in Liberia, I offer a theory of violence against noncombatants during armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Civil wars in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa have a typical pattern that can be distinguished with three distinct stages: the "onset" period at the start of conflicts; the "intervention" period, marked by third-party involvement and negotiations; and the "settlement" stage, marked by an interim government with cabinet positions rationed among belligerents. I argue that the causes and motives for violence against civilians vary across these three stages of civil war. In the first "onset" stage, violence against civilians is mainly perpetuated by foreign recruits who lack ties with local populations. Principle-agent and moral hazard problems emerge as foreign recruits, young of age and disconnected from local populations, want to loot and rape civilian populations. In contrast, commanders responsible for these populations have difficulty monitoring and controlling these recruits. The second stage of "intervention" changes the calculus for combating groups, as the bargaining power of each depends on its control of strategic territory, such as ports and airports. Groups with minor territories and weak capacities are incentivized to attack the soft targets of noncombatants, who are sometimes forced to take sides at this stage. At the third "settlement" stage, the distribution of cabinet positions creates rivalries within groups, with disgruntled factions breaking away and resuming conflict. Civilians are caught in the middle, frequently accused of collaborating with the other side, leading to violence against noncombatants, including hostage-taking, as part of the bargaining process. To examine the stage theory of civilian victimization in sub-Saharan Africa's civil wars, I surveyed Liberia's two civil wars that occurred from 1989 to 1996 and 1999 to 2003. I drew on three sources of data to triangulate the causes and motives of violence against civilians: (a) archives, (b) intensive interviews of combatants and civilian victims of these wars, and (c) witnesses' testimonies from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. These data are used to qualitatively study Liberia's two civil wars, which may be generalizable to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It is found that foreign recruits, strategic territories, and political positions in a power-sharing government may have contributed to violence against civilians during the onset, intervention, and settlement phases of Liberia's two civil wars. The research contributes to the general literature regarding violence against civilians during armed conflicts. According to popular opinion, violence against noncombatants is a natural outcome, but this research points out that the causes and motives of violence against civilians can vary in identifiable ways. It shows how civil wars in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa have a unique pattern associated with foreign intervention and settlements, and these phases may account for varying motives for violence against civilians. Knowing the motivating factors for violence against civilians can help protect vulnerable populations during armed conflicts, including refugees, internally displaced persons, migrants, and victims of human trafficking. Intervening governments can make more significant efforts to protect civilian populations during the intervention phases and be more sensitive to the dangers sub-group actors pose in distributing government positions during the settlement phases of these wars.

Analyzing four congressional hearings that publicly discuss the CIA’s ‘secret’ drone program, this thesis considers the interaction between publicity and secrecy in facilitating practices of later-modern warfare. Specifically, I examine the content of these drone hearings within the broader context of leaks, Obama administration speeches, and public interest in CIA drones to better understand how open secrecy engages with public oversight. I argue these hearings are deceptively productive. While they largely fail as oversight events, the hearings facilitate numerous unexpected outcomes—including the normalization and entrenchment of the CIA drone program. Paradoxically then, publicity proves essential to the maintenance and acceptance of secret programs. This project concludes by raising questions about the geopolitical implications of the changing spatiality of war when traditional means of oversight and accountability may no longer prove effective.

Master of Arts / Department of Security Studies / Carla Martinez Machain / BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Recent studies regarding war termination and the bargaining model of war focus on how belligerents use coercion to reach a war settlement, but neglect the importance of tactical decisions. Although strategies are the principal tool used to conduct war, only significant tactical achievements lead to significant strategic achievements. METHOD: In this paper I analyze the tactics employed in two case studies, the Second Boer War between Great Britain and the South African Boers and the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland. Using the bargaining model of war, I discuss two categories of tactics. Targeted tactics focus on destroying the enemy’s critical vulnerabilities and dislocating their strengths while minimizing one’s own vulnerabilities. Nontargeted tactics focus on centers of gravity, employing military strength in an effort to overwhelm enemy forces with superior resources and technology. RESULTS: I demonstrate that tactics have a marked impact on the duration and outcome of warfare and targeted tactics minimize the cost of fighting in order to achieve strategic objectives and increase the bargaining advantage. CONCLUSION: Targeted tactics are a significant tool in warfare that affect war termination and hold the potential to increase the bargaining advantage at a lesser cost.