<p> Millennia ago, a vital trade route connected the thriving civilizations of ancient Greece, Persia, and China. Through the ancient Silk Road, China was able to influence societies far beyond its national borders. And now, in the twenty-first century, it seeks to do the same. This paper will attempt to develop a new paradigm that more fully explains the rationale and objectives of the One Belt One Road initiative. It argues that nation-building is the most comprehensive way to understand the Chinese government's intentions with OBOR. The following chapters will also demonstrate how OBOR fits into the CCP's larger ethno-nationalist "China Dream" campaign, which crafts a narrative of a unified and rejuvenated China predicated on a single identity.</p>

<p> Ethno-demographic grievances define the conflict between Buddhist and Rohingya-Muslim populations in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Nationalistic Buddhist leaders, such as the controversial monk Ashin Wirathu, maintain that the Rohingya population&rsquo;s rapid growth and high fertility rates threaten to overtake local Buddhist populations, reflecting local Rakhine State sentiments. This study seeks to identify quantitative and qualitative differences between the Rohingya and Buddhist populations in Rakhine State and to elucidate the theoretical and practical implications for Buddhist-Rohingya relations. Due to the government&rsquo;s decision to avoid enumeration of self-identifying Rohingya, this study has relied on several recent local surveys to reconstruct a local demographic description of the Rohingya. The &ldquo;Demographic Security Dilemma&rdquo; theory, which specifies expectations for minority-majority conflicts and their resolution, will be used to discuss the relevant forces that underlie the Buddhist-Rohingya conflict.</p>

<p> This thesis uses articles from Chinese and Indian defense publications to analyze how the Chinese People&rsquo;s Liberation Army-Navy and the Indian Navy view each other&rsquo;s modernization. This thesis argues that the Chinese and Indian Navies view each other&rsquo;s development through defensive realism and will take steps in accordance to their view of development. This thesis predicts that the Indians will focus on developing a navy that can defeat the PLA-N in Indian dominated waters, while the PLA-N will develop anti-submarine assets and refueling assets to counter the Indian nuclear triad, which according my analysis of the Chinese defense press, is the part of the Indian Navy that the Chinese Navy views as the biggest menace of the Indian Navy to Chinese survival.</p>

<p>This study explores the relationship between the People?s Republic of China (PRC) and the international legal system, with empirical focus on the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) regime as codified in the 1982 Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The main pattern explained is China?s practice of international law in its maritime disputes, moving beyond a question of ?compliance? with the relevant rules to instead address how China shapes the underlying legal norms, and vice versa. The analysis demonstrates that the EEZ regime transforms Chinese interests in maritime space, enabling systematic use of legal means of excluding others from disputed space along China?s maritime periphery. Backed up by growing capacity (i.e., ?rising power?) to enforce its claims, China?s purposive interpretation and flexible application of the norms of the EEZ regime manifest as ?creeping? claims to jurisdiction and rights beyond those contemplated in UNCLOS III. These nominally jurisdictional claims enable the PRC?s push toward closure, a broader strategic aim to control vital maritime space that includes political, military and economic components. Using a framework adapted from the transnational legal process theory of international law, the study proceeds to analyze Chinese practice in terms of four linked processes: interaction, interpretation, internalization, and implementation. Tracing these processes from China?s early encounters with Western international law, through its participation in the conference to draft the law of the sea convention, and the subsequent efforts to incorporate EEZ rules into PRC law and policy, the empirical analysis reveals that China?s engagement in transnational legal processes does not result in its obedience to liberal rules and norms. Rather, China?s practice in the EEZ transforms the scope and content of those underlying norms, contributing to wider dysfunction in the law of the sea.

<p> The issue of southern Thailand becoming the next battleground for international <i> jihadist</i> terrorist organizations&mdash;such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Jemaah Islamiyah&mdash;has reemerged as a prominent security concern following the defeats sustained by ISIS in the Middle East and the dispersion of its fighting force. While the prospect was hotly debated a decade ago, the majority of contemporary scholarship contends that <i> jihadism</i> will find little audience with the Malay Muslims in Thailand&rsquo;s Deep South, whose Shafi&rsquo;i population does not espouse the conservative Salafist beliefs underlying global <i>jihad</i>&mdash;a religiously-charged violent campaign against <i>infidels</i> (non-believers), <i> munafik</i> (traitorous Muslims), and bastions of state secularism and Western liberal values. It is furthermore believed that because southern Thailand&rsquo;s armed groups are fighting a nationalist struggle for independence, as opposed to fighting for more ideological reasons, they would not be amenable to <i>jihadist</i> involvement in their conflict. </p><p> Although it is true that Malay-Muslim militants in Thailand have declined offers of foreign fighters from international terrorist organizations, the cooperation between various separatist movements in Mindanao and global <i> jihadist</i> groups reveals that ethno-nationalism and ideological dissonance are insufficient causes for a rejection of <i>jihadism</i>. Rather, I argue that secessionists develop ties with <i>jihadist</i> groups when they are in need of political, financial, or military support they cannot secure from a legal entity, such as a state. This often occurs when one militant faction breaks away from its state-sponsored parent group following the signing of a peace deal it considers unappealing. Insurgent groups in Thailand have been inclined to distance themselves from <i>jihadism</i> because they have already acquired state patronage from Malaysia, and association with terrorist organizations would likely undermine that relationship. Strategic decisions to cooperate with <i>jihadist</i> organizations are thus executed according to a cost-benefit analysis and are not exclusively determined by ideological predilections.</p><p>

<p> The South China Sea has long been a region of competition and tension. In the Spratly Islands alone, Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam maintain disputing claims to the region&rsquo;s land features and surrounding maritime territories. Some argue that ongoing negotiations between China and the Philippines toward joint explorations of one of these disputed regions could be the key to promoting greater cooperation amongst the other claimants. These arguments, however, do not consider other elements of the international system that drive states to compete. Looking specifically at China, the Philippines, and the United States, this thesis analyzes joint explorations within the framework of motivational realism to understand the interaction of relevant historical elements, state objectives, and state estimations of one another&rsquo;s power, offense-defense balance, and motives&mdash;greedy or security-seeking. The thesis then examines the specific case of joint explorations to understand historical, domestic, and international legal components restricting the pathways within which the two states could reach an agreement. Finally, this thesis concludes that, due to domestic constraints, international legal developments, state objectives, and the way in which China, the Philippines, and the United States assess one another&rsquo;s motives, the South China Sea will likely remain a region of long-term competition and tension.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation is a case study of the Islamic Republic of Iran&rsquo;s approach to soft power with a focus on Iran&rsquo;s use of soft power in Afghanistan. This dissertation is unique as it a delves into the diverse conceptual prescriptions on soft power, especially from a non-Western perspective. Studies of soft power in the current International Relations discipline ignore the implicit widespread liberal democratic bias in the current understanding of the concept. This dissertation argues that there are certain ontological assumptions lying deep within the soft power model first proposed by Joseph Nye (1990) that make it difficult to use as a model for studying non-Western states. This stems from Nye&rsquo;s consideration that sources of attraction, essential in wielding soft power, as universal and equivalent to Western liberal values. Nye does not consider how the sources of attraction that he identifies are biased towards a Western notion of values, culture, policies and institutions. This has led to a disregard of the use of soft power by non-Western states. Thus, the aim of this study is to address the western-centric limitation of Nye&rsquo;s concept by offering a reconceptualization that can be applied in studying the soft power of states that do not necessarily adhere to the same universal norms. </p><p> By applying Laclau and Mouffe&rsquo;s discourse analysis framework, this dissertation examines Iran&rsquo;s soft power strategy in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2017, in order to enhance its influence. Iran&rsquo;s soft power application relies on what that the author calls &lsquo;affinity&rsquo;, whereby audience-oriented and localized resources of attraction are identified in the target population and are subsequently discursively cultivated. Attraction build through the &lsquo;affinity&rsquo; process is different than Western states&rsquo; use of attraction and application of soft power. </p><p> This dissertation highlights how Iran has created an affinity node centered on a &lsquo;<i>sense of brotherhood</i>&rsquo; with its Afghanistan audience. It also shows that the strength of this narrative is in Iran&rsquo;s ability to create an emotional connection that is embedded in commonalities between the two countries&rsquo; in terms of culture, historical legacy, and common language. The analysis presented shows the affinity node of brotherhood appears in over 20 speeches and statements targeted at the Afghan population by the Iranian supreme leader and successive Iranian presidents in recent decades. The notion of brotherhood provides Iran the emotional linkage, the affinity node, to connect with its Afghan audience. </p><p> The affinity that Iran establishes with Afghanistan allows Iran to articulate its foreign policy objectives by showing how Iranian influence benefits the Afghan population and appeals to existing Afghan values. In addition, this dissertation finds that Iran devotes considerable resources to the development of these discourses in Afghanistan through the various institutions that in charge of Iran&rsquo;s public diplomacy activities. The focus of these activities is mainly in the realm of culture, education, and language, leveraging the common ties between Iran and their Afghan audience. </p><p> Lastly, the findings of this study indicate that Iran&rsquo;s approach to soft power is strategically calculated. Iran makes explicit use of soft power that is different from the original notion of soft power as it was formulated by Nye. Iran&rsquo;s actions show that sources of attraction do not have to be universal, attraction is contextual in its appeal, based on each target audience and can be constructed through discourses. Thus, as Laclau and Mouffe (1985) would say, Iran&rsquo;s articulation of an antagonistic discourse challenges the hegemonic discourses that are associated with the Western evaluation of soft power.</p><p>