Doctor of Philosophy / School of Security Studies / Emizet Kisangani / This dissertation analyzes the role that the international community has played in African states' post-conflict reconstruction. It thus intends to answer three questions: How does the presence or the absence of coordination among international and local actors contribute to the success or failure of post-conflict reconstruction? How does the international community’s coordination influence the architecture of post-conflict state reconstruction in Africa? How do actors, leadership, and power within a coordination network structure affect post-conflict reconstruction? The study argues that lack of coordination between the international and local actors is a critical factor explaining the failure of rebuilding states after civil wars. It develops a new theoretical framework (Hybridized model) that combines market, hierarchical, and network models of coordination. This coordination theory shows how actors, leadership, and power influence coordination network structure to enhance post-conflict reconstruction efforts. This theory postulates that a small number of actors, as well as the presence of a legitimate leadership and a powerful actor in a coordination network tends to enhance post-conflict coordination. The dissertation tests this theory using quantitative method which combines 26 African countries that have experienced repeated state building after civil war from 1970 to 2009 and qualitative method, especially structured focused comparison and process tracing, of four post-conflict countries that include Kenya, Sudan, Namibia, and Rwanda. The findings support the theoretical argument.

Master of Science / Department of Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs / Carla Jones / Study abroad participation has grown throughout the years at a steady pace (Chow & Bhandari, 2011; Fischer, 2011; Rhodes, Biscarra, Loberg, & Roller, 2012). A length of stay can range from a few weeks to a year. A high majority of students who have experienced study abroad have changed in some way throughout their stay, but what about when they return to the United States? What other changes do students go through and experience when they come home? The change simply does not stop once a student comes home from studying abroad. This report discusses the various transitions students go through when they go abroad, but also what student affairs professionals can do to help students get through the process of change and acclimation back in the university. Conversations with students who have studied abroad and professionals in study abroad will be referred to throughout the paper. The students were chosen based on their experiences abroad and their willingness to participate. Personal experiences will also be utilized by the author to provide perspective of the experience of reentry to the readers. Research highlighted the benefits of going abroad are broad (Dwyer & Peters, 2004; Sutton & Rubin, 2010). However, the reentry phase back to the United States is an area yet to be thoroughly studied. Through a review of past literature and conversations with professionals and participants in study abroad, it is clear that a reentry model needs to be implemented so that students can be assisted in a more helpful manner. As part of this report, a reentry model will be discussed and will include specific suggestions to assist students with the reentry process.

Doctor of Philosophy / Security Studies Program / Jeffrey Pickering / Ideas about why US foreign policy actors have turned ever more frequently to private military contractors (PMCs) and private security contractors (PSCs) over the past decade and a half abound. Descriptive accounts of the rise of these corporations have become something of a cottage industry over the past decade or so. The various ideas advanced have yet to be placed under rigorous empirical scrutiny, however. This dissertation builds from the existing descriptive literature to advance a new theoretical framework to explain the rise of private contractors. It analyzes this framework as well as alternative ideas using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, marking the first time this important subject has been systematically examined with both social science methods.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Security Studies Program / David Graff / This dissertation engages the question of what role the Chinese Righteous War Tradition (CRWT) played in the process of Chinese decision-making regarding the decisions to go to war during the period from 1950 to 1979. It asks whether, in their decision-making, the Chinese leaders identified “just cause” through a frame of reference provided by the CRWT; it asks further under what circumstances the identified “just cause” may have exerted influence upon their decision for war. This dissertation presents the first empirical study exploring the application and influence of the traditional Chinese concept of righteous war to China’s modern history. The CRWT is my label for a set of ideas found in the ancient Chinese classics. These ideas suggest that two major standards, righteousness-based justifications and competent authority, were a frame of reference for the Chinese leaders in their assessment of the legitimacy of a decision for war. The justifications of stopping violence, punishing a disobedient state, helping a weaker state against a stronger state’s invasion, and self-defense are regularly defined in the CRWT as righteous causes for going to war. The identification of competent authority is often related to the perception of moral standing, in which a war can be justified by confronting an opponent who is morally inferior to oneself. This dissertation employs the methods of most similar systems and process tracing to explore the role that the CRWT played in successive Chinese leaders’ decision to use force in six cases – the Korean War, the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Sino-Indian War, the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1965, the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. This dissertation also examines the pattern of the Chinese government’s use of wording, presented in the People’s Daily, morally condemning its opponents, which provides supplementary evidence to explore China’s presentation of its own righteous legitimacy. The findings of this research suggest that when the decision for war has been justified within this frame of reference, the Chinese are prone to put that legitimized decision into action. The Chinese concept of righteous war may play a more important role in the decision for war when Chinese leaders encounter an impasse in which two opposite courses of action are suggested by their calculations based on Realpolitik. A sense of the righteous legitimacy of their decision may encourage Chinese leaders to enter a war even when the likely consequence may not appear to favor the Chinese. Furthermore, these findings may well enrich Johnson and Tierney’s theory about the shift of actors’ mind-sets in decision-making because the CRWT may function as a catalyst for the shift. This research also reveals that the CRWT had limited influence when Chinese leaders faced the danger of a possible invasion by a superior opponent or that of nuclear attack. When the need for a decision for war was not open to debate, then, they were not influenced by the consideration of just cause when making their decision.

Doctor of Philosophy / Security Studies Interdepartmental Program / Emizet Kisangani / The goals of this dissertation are two-fold. First is to investigate and explain the key variables responsible for the process whereby political parties form alliances with or create terrorist organizations. Second is to fill an important gap in the literature by offering a more precise conceptualization of the issues and a different theoretical view. Extant literature argues that institutional structural constraints, such as electoral systems, are more likely to lead political parties to create terrorist organizations. However, this dissertation hypothesizes that regime ideology is also an important factor explaining the creation of terrorist organizations by political parties regardless of structural institutional constraints. This dissertation seeks to illuminate existing fears and concerns about alliances between terrorist groups and political parties in states whose ruling party platform is based on leftist, rightist, centrist, or religious ideology. Using empirical methods, which includes both quantitative and case study approaches, this dissertation intends to show that particular kinds of party ideology is positively correlated with the formation of terrorist organizations even after controlling for institutional structural constraints. The implication of these findings is important for policymakers eager to create stable polities.

Masters in Science / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / This case study considers the lessons of Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT initiative for future climate change policy and international conservation and development efforts. A comprehensive post-cancellation history of the initiative and background information regarding key domestic and international actors and institutions is presented in the Literature Review. Documents identified from LexisNexis and Google searches are analyzed to identify seven narratives of the initiative’s failure, which provide a basis for the suggestion of lessons. Questions regarding supply-side climate policy opportunities and challenges are explored. The initiative’s political mismanagement, design omissions and insufficient domestic political efforts, and a lack of contribution incentives are identified as the key causes of failure. The author concludes that the initiative’s supply-side model of shared sacrifices has the potential to align developed and developing country needs in support of greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals while addressing the difficulties posed by an emergent political economy of developing world resource extractivism in Ecuador and elsewhere. Future research regarding supply-side climate policies is suggested.