In this dissertation, I argue that transnational elites within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been integrated within a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) economically, militarily and politically through relationships that transcend the boundaries of the nation-state. These relationships exist within the context of a global capitalist structure of accumulation that is dependent on the maintenance of a repressive state apparatus in the GCC. There have been few attempts to analyze the relationships that Middle Eastern political and economic elites have developed with global elite networks. This work fills an important gap in the scholarly literature by linking the political and economic power of the GCC elites to transnational capitalist class actors in the U.S. and Western Europe. The TCC is comprised of actors who derive their wealth and power from ownership of production or financial activities on a global scale. The embeddedness of GCC elites within the TCC came with the de-centralization of capital accumulation occurring from the 1970s through the present that has linked regional and local capitalists to the ownership activities of transnational capitalist firms. The GCC is an important case study for analyzing the structure and consequences the current phase of globalization due to its relative vi importance in providing resources and financing for transnational globalization. Therefore this project contributes to our assessment of the role played by transnational elites in the GCC and the regional and global consequences of their power struggles based in part on a theoretical framework derived from Neo-Gramscianism.

As the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship ended in 1986, the emergence of Mouvement Lavalas out of the grassroots organizations of Haiti's poor majority, and election of charismatic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990, challenged efforts by Haitian political parties and the U.S. foreign policy establishment to contain the parameters of Haiti's democratic transition. This dissertation examines the politics of Lavalas to determine whether it held a particular conception of democracy that explains the movement's antagonistic relationship with the political parties and U.S. democracy promoters. Using the qualitative methodology of process-tracing outlined in the works of Paul F. Steinberg (2004) and Tulia G. Falleti (2006), this study analyzes primary and secondary sources associated with Aristide and the grassroots organizations across the period of contested democratization from 1986 to 1991, with emphasis on four critical junctures: 1) the rule of the Conseil National du Gouvernement; 2) the government of Leslie Manigat; 3) the military regimes of Henri Namphy and Prosper Avril; and 4) Aristide's 8 months in power before being overthrown on September 29, 1991. This study concludes that there were systematic differences in how Lavalas pursued democracy in Haiti, as contrasted to the political parties and U.S. foreign policy-makers. Evidence indicates that while Lavalas placed emphasis on popular mobilization to challenge Haiti's legacy of authoritarianism, the political parties and U.S. democracy promoters emphasized processes of negotiation and compromise with Haiti's anti-democratic forces. Lavalas was rooted in the long historic struggle of the country's poor masses to, not simply establish procedural democracy, what noted political scientist Robert Dahl calls polyarchy, but to expand the parameters of politics to guarantee the right of all Haitians to participate directly in the process of governing, in order to share more equitably in the distribution of national resources, in what critical scholar William I. Robinson calls "popular democracy."

Botswana has recently garnered analytic attention as an anomaly of the “resource curse” phenomenon. Worldwide, countries whose economies are highly skewed towards a dependence on the export of non-renewable natural resources such as oil, diamonds and uranium, have been among the most troubled, authoritarian, poverty-stricken and conflict-prone; a phenomenon widely regarded as the “resource curse". The resource curse explains the varying fortunes of countries based on their resource wealth, with resource-rich countries faring much worse than their resource-poor counterparts. However, Botswana, with diamond exports accounting for 50percent of government revenues and 80percent of total exports, has achieved one of the fastest economic growth rates in the developing world in the last 50 years. Furthermore, the Freedom House ranks it as the safest, most stable, least corrupt and most democratic country on sub-Saharan Africa. In attempting to answer why Botswana apparently escaped the “resource curse”, this research assumes that both formal and informal institutions within the state acted as intermediary variables in determining its fortune. This research thus addresses the deeper question of where Botswana obtained its unique institutional quality that facilitated its apparent escape of the resource curse. It traces Botswana’s history through four lenses: legitimacy and historical continuity, political culture, ethnicity and identity management, and external relations; as having explanatory value in understanding the Botswana exception. The research finds most evidence of Botswana’s institutional quality emanating from the country’s political culture which it found more compatible with the institutions of development and democracy that facilitate both positive economic and political outcomes. It also found evidence of legitimacy and historical continuity facilitating the robustness of both formal and informal institutions in Botswana, and identity management through assimilation as having buffered against the effects of ethnically motivated resource plunder. It however, found the least support for the assertion that external relations contributed to institutional quality.

This study is concerned with the particular relationship between the process of nationalism and a group’s salient identity. It proposes that nationalism as the independent variable serves as a principal factor and facilitator for a change of identity, which is seen as the dependent variable. The Bosnian Muslim emergence as an independent nation with the new salient Bosniak identity was used as a case study to test the main proposition. The inquiry was completed through a mixed research method, using grounded theory and the historic process tracing technique, a large survey analysis collected specifically for this study, and a logistic regression as a concluding test. The historic process tracing method describes the Bosnian Muslim group’s development from a distinct Balkan Ottoman religious millet group, through a stage of its own ethno-religious cultural crystallization, another stage of nationality during the Communist era, to an independent nation that now shares the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina with two other nations. Through their struggle to survive and re-assert themselves as an important local political entity, Bosniaks built their nationalism upon three important themes: B-H integrity, Bosnian Islam, and the Bosnian language. A 68-question survey regarding these three themes designed specifically for this study was conducted, and 670 survey responses were collected from the Bosnian Muslim diaspora population living throughout the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. in their Appadurai-type neighborhoods. The data collected from those surveys were manipulated in preparation for a final analysis. The two nationalism indexes measuring intensity and type, and six categories of Bosniak identity, were constructed to observe interactions between nationalism and identity. As the final step, a statistical analysis with multinomial logistic regression confirmed the proposition and showed that the factor which stimulates selection of a new desired salient identity is intensity of nationalism, not type of nationalism . This work contributes to the ongoing discussion on the true role of nationalism as a collective action. At the same time, it provides the field of comparative politics with a comprehensive description of the emergence of Bosnian Muslims as a nation, and with details of their nationalism project and their now salient Bosniak identity.

With the advent of the internet age, the way in which global society interacts with technology has changed dramatically. The instantaneous availability of information and connectivity, signal the rise of a knowledge economy. This is a system in which the most valuable resource, to nations and private enterprise, is knowledge. This thesis argues that value is created through knowledge flows, which result in innovation and technological advancement. This technological advancement is the primary determinant of a nation’s global competitive advantage in a globalized knowledge economy. This thesis then posits that these innovations are fostered by institutional, social, cultural, economic, and governmental factors within a nation. These factors make up a nations’ National Innovation System (NIS). Using case studies of the US, China, India, and the EU, this paper then attempts to deconstruct, compare, and contrast the innovation strategies of each country and what implications they might have for the future. Lastly, an analysis of potential trends attempts to forecast the global innovative landscape in the near future.

Over forty years ago, Hanna Pitkin expressed concern that social scientists were failing to give concepts the attention which they needed (Pitkin 1972, 277). This thesis takes up the same theme, asking how the concept of responsiveness is treated by political scientists. The goal to reveal confusion that surrounds widely used concepts such as responsiveness. The analysis offered in this thesis has significance for the discipline of political science in three ways. First, it highlights confusion surrounding the concept of responsiveness itself. Responsiveness is a widely utilized concept employed throughout the social sciences; however, as this thesis shows, there is wide disagreement in how the concept is understood. This confusion is fueled by the frequent failure of scholars to critically analyze the concept and the assumptions which have been attached to the understanding of responsiveness. Second, by analyzing the related concepts of representation and democracy, this thesis suggests that there is a lack of attention to concepts which are employed for research that extends beyond responsiveness. Many other concepts that are foundational to our discipline warrant increased scrutiny. Third and finally, the thesis highlights the danger of ignoring the ideological commitments of political scientists, commitments that can shape in hidden but consequential ways how we study the world around us.

This study analyzes the US sanction regime imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. This single case study assesses its weaknesses and shortcomings in order to present a preliminary conclusion of the character of Iranian policies to bust the US sanctions regime. In charting the evolution of the US sanction regime through three distinct "waves" of sanctions the study highlighted the general shortcomings of the regime. First, the US sanction regime has failed to impose significant costs on Iran. Second, the slow pace of unveiling each new wave of sanctions failed to bring the necessary immediate pressure on Iran. Third, the inability of the US to gain sufficient multilateral support has limited the scope of the sanctions. These failures has allowed the Iranian leadership to construct a viable counterstrategy to bust US sanctions and continue the stalemate over the conflict of an Iranian foreign policy based on supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and the continued secrecy of its nuclear program. The Iranian counterstrategy has been centered on a domestic economic policy of autonomy, the courting of states outside the US sanction regime through the use of its valuable energy resources and the procurement of sanctioned goods through regional third party states.

Since the fall of September, 2011, there has been a major increase in awareness and study of global terrorism. Academia, the media, politicians, and the average citizen all have varying definitions, ideas, and concerns about terrorism. The focus has mainly been on international terrorism. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda have permeated the discussion. However, there is a growing concern of the "lone wolf terrorist." A lone wolf terrorist acts without a terrorist organization and is capable of having his/her own radical agenda with the audacity and simplicity to carry it out solely and enact great damage. The focus in the United States and globally has been on international lone wolf terrorists. This is important, but a longstanding concern (that often goes without much conversation) is the domestic lone wolf terrorist. Using Gustav Freytag’s Triangle and Rational Choice theory, it is shown that lone wolf terrorism must be examined by the United States government to ensure safety of its citizens. A lone wolf terrorist is characterized as a United States citizen who enacts a terrorist action without being part of an organization or terror group. His motives are extremist in nature. This thesis examines the iii growing phenomena of the domestic lone wolf terrorist. In doing so, the primary function is to look at an even starker reality: that some lone wolf terrorists have served in the military, and during service have shown to portray radical thoughts and actions. Furthermore, these lone wolf terrorists used their military training and weapon insight to enact their catastrophic aims. This thesis uses a case study methodology to examine three lone wolf actors. From the Oklahoma City Bombing, to the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta and on to the Ft. Hood shootings the studies find that in all cases the actors did have radical beliefs, military training and used that training in concert with their attacks. This thesis can be used as a discussion about lone wolf terrorism, but also about governance. The findings show an increased need for the Department of Defense to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security and seek greater advice from organizations like the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to conduct better psychological studies and examinations of military personnel. A disclaimer must be made that this thesis does not, in any way, seek to disparage the amazing amount of work and sacrifice of United States government personnel and agencies. This thesis aims to provide research towards improved understanding and combating of lone wolf terrorism.

Following the 2022 Swedish general election, all three of the Scandinavian countries have had right-wing populist parties either within the government or in cooperation with one. This thesis will review the origins and developments of the major, national, right-wing populist parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It will further focus on the respective party’s development of relationship with other, mainstream parties, as well as the progression of cooperations and advancement towards influence of governmental politics. With the Scandinavian states’ high level of similarities across various areas, this thesis aims to review and analyse similarities and differences from the three examples connected to the theories. This methodology is based as a qualitative, comparative study, focusing on gathered text materials such as academic works, political statements and news. The empirical material gathered will be analysed and connected to theories like convergence, political strategy and party ideology among others, with the aim to observe what aspects these theories have had regarding both the emergence of the right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia, as well as in connection to their development of cooperation with other parties. Central conclusions from the thesis’s discussion and analysis shows how political convergence through various acts and happenings, have supported the achievements of the right-wing populist parties’ goals of entering governmental cooperation. Moreover, comparisons between the countries show similarities such as these parties being shunned by the mainstream ones for example, while some differences include the societal statuses at the point of the parties’ origins.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan followed Germany’s blueprint in fashioning a universal health coverage system. Comparisons to Germany’s welfare state during this same time period reveal markedly different social and mental health policy practices, as Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party cooperated toward progressive policies while the Liberal Democratic Party largely neglected social welfare expansion. The effect of these practices is reflected in budgetary provisions, institutionalization practices, and mental health epidemiology. This research finds that a favorable economic climate allowed the Liberal Democratic Party to politically isolate the Social Democratic Party and focus on economic productivity as opposed to welfare expansion. In contrast, West Germany’s competition with East Germany forced cooperation of its two largest political parties to balance economic policy and social progress, which is today reflected in mental health outcomes and policies markedly more favorable than those of Japan.