The most valuable contribution of the Fulbright Program, at its founding in 1946 and today in 2012, remains its ability to inculcate mutual understanding, which represents a vital component in the success of multilateral cooperation necessary to create a secure and thriving international community. During the Cold War, promoting mutual understanding was valued for its ability to share the ideals and benefits of American democracy and create strong relationships between Americans and foreigners in direct competition with the Soviet Union’s projection of communist ideology. This thesis demonstrates how, through the lenses of leadership, multiculturalism, soft power, and public diplomacy, the Fulbright Program achieves its founding goals by maintaining healthy diplomatic relations, developing competent leadership in political and professional realms, and fostering the perspective and skillset necessary to address the multifaceted challenges that America and the international community face today.

Relationships or connections with caring pro-social others (e.g., parents, teachers, school, friends, neighborhood, religion) serve as pro-resilience assets that may enhance children's abilities to cope with bullying. The purpose of this research study was to explore the roles of connectedness and religiosity as potential factors that could enhance resiliency against bullying among preadolescents in Puerto Rico (PR). This doctoral dissertation also addressed several gaps in the children's bullying, resilience and religiosity research literature. A sample of 426 community-based afterschool program preadolescents (ages 10-12 years old) participated in this exploratory, cross-sectional study, by completing a quantitative questionnaire in paper and pencil format. Data was analyzed overall, by location (i.e., San Juan Metropolitan Area (SJ Metro), Other Municipalities within PR), gender, age, and church attendance. Twenty percent of all participants were victimized by bullying at least 2-3 times per month. On the other hand, 5% of participants said they had been a bully 2-3 times per month. The most frequent type of bullying perpetration and victimization reported was verbal. Participants reported the highest levels of connectedness to school and the community, followed by connectedness to parents, teachers, mothers, religion, fathers, and friends. Most participants (71%) said they attended church regularly, but only 35% did so every week. Statistically significant differences were found by location, gender, age and church attendance. Connectedness and religiosity were correlated significantly to the participants' involvement in bullying at different roles. Surprisingly, having strong prosocial connections do not appear to have a reduction impact on participants' bullying victimization. Connectedness overall, to mothers, teachers and school was positively and significantly correlated to victimization, whereas connectedness to school was negatively correlated to perpetration. Bully-victimization was negatively correlated to connectedness overall, to parents, mothers, friends, teachers, and school. Multiple linear regression analyses found that higher levels in connectedness to mother and connectedness to the community accounted for a 60% decrease and a 45% increase, respectively, in bullying perpetration among non-church attending participants. In terms of religiosity, analyses distinguished between participants' engagement in private and public religiosity practices. Private religiosity was negatively correlated to being a bullying perpetrator, and positively correlated to being a bystander. Public religiosity was positively correlated to bullying victimization. The self-report of religiosity did not affect the odds of being a perpetrator, victim or bully-victim. Specifically among SJ Metro participants, the self-report of private religiosity or the combination of both private and public religiosity reduced the odds of being a bystander. Multiple linear regression analyses found that among non-church attending participants, a 1-unit change in public religiosity acccounted for a 62% increase in bullying perpetration. While the religiosity-related findings from this study's correlation analyses were consistent with the literature, regression analyses' findings were unexpected and warrant additional research. This study goes beyond solely school-based approaches to bullying research and prevention, by utilizing a non-school sample of low-income preadolescents who attend afterschool programs at local community-based organizations. Furthermore, its focus on a younger age group (i.e., preadolescents) is consistent with the resiliency literature and the need to enhance resilience factors earlier in childhood. Findings also consider the multiplicity of actors involved in bullying (i.e., perpetrators, victims, bully/victims, or bystanders), and distinguishes between direct and indirect types of bullying. Consistent with recommendations from previous research, a socio-ecological approach was followed to explore the role of connectedness to others at the individual, family, school, peer, religious and community levels, as well as the role of religiosity as an external asset to enhance resilience in preadolescents. This exploratory study contributes to our understanding of bullying among PR preadolescents, and serve to inform the development of prevention programs, strategies and policies at the school and community level. Research on bullying in PR is limited, making it increasingly challenging for PR schools, community- and faith-based organizations to collaborate in multilevel interventions that specifically address the needs of PR's children.

Because of an increase in food insecurity over the past decade, the U.S. and many developing countries are focusing efforts on issues relating to child hunger. School feeding programs have been in existence for roughly 220 years but modifications have been made over the years to improve the quality of food they serve. Little research has been conducted about adult perceptions of school feeding programs and the impact it has on the community in the U.S. as well as developing countries such as Ghana, West Africa. Because of the gap in literature on school feeding programs and adult perceptions about school feeding programs, the purpose of this study was to examine adult perspectives on school feeding programs in the U.S. and Ghana rural, mountainous communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in two communities with similar community characteristics. Semi-structured interviews examined adult perceptions regarding school feeding impact on kindergarten student attendance, learning, behavior and community impact. The sample size for this study was N=41. Grounded theory provided the framework for data analysis from which a paradigm model was developed. This paradigm model provides a visual representation of the relationships among causal conditions, phenomenon, context, intervening conditions, action/interaction strategies and consequences.

In many developing countries, a significant proportion of the population relies on work in the informal sector as a source of income. Some scholars have posed the possibility of integrating the informal sector into the formal sector, in an effort to improve the lives and livelihoods of workers and the productivity of a country’s economy. This paper examines potential steps that could allow for such integration by focusing on a sub-sector of the informal sector that has already begun the process of integration: the informal waste management sector. This paper compares the cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Pune, India in an attempt to explore their processes of integrating the informal waste sector into the formal waste management process. By examining both scholarly works and primary government documents, this study demonstrates that both Buenos Aires and Pune have implemented a number of initiatives to develop laws and programs in order to integrate their informal waste management systems. Consequently, the municipal governments of these cities have been able to provide a more substantial livelihood for previously informal workers and have improved the sanitation of their cities. These findings imply that the governments of other cities with large informal waste sectors could utilize a similar framework to benefit both vulnerable populations and environmental practices.

Since 2011, Egypt has been in a state of chaos and instability. During this time women have suffered disproportionality in comparison to their male counterparts. However, the poor state of affairs for women did not begin after 2011; while women have slowly gained more rights during the last decade, Egypt’s commitment to gender equality has always fallen short. This paper investigates the current state of affairs for women’s rights in Egypt, especially in wake of the 2011 Revolution, and asserts that the poor quality of women’s rights is a result of a battle for power between the military and Islamic politicians, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. It then analyzes the possibility of a better future for Egypt through an examination of Turkey because it is a secular Islamic state, which has recently reduced military power and increased democratic inclusion in politics. Ultimately, the potential for dramatic improvement in women’s rights in Egypt would necessitate a significant cultural shift, as well as greater inclusion in government—both of which are unlikely given the current state of Egyptian culture and politics.

The Kurds are the largest stateless ethnic group in the world, numbering around 30 million globally, and after more than a century of fighting for self-determination the tangible success is minimal. Turkey and Iraq both have significant Kurdish populations that are growing in size respective to the Turkish and Arab communities, and yet the only semi-autonomous territory the Kurds have is the Iraqi province of Kurdistan. With continued instability in the Middle East, and an increasingly powerful, numerous, and ideological Kurdish community present, the recipe for conflict is present. This thesis analyzes the Kurdish claim for self-determination, and the different levels of success the groups in Turkey and Iraq have faced, through secondary literature. A multi-level approach reveals how complex the Kurdish Question really is, and what other minority groups and national governments can learn from the Kurds' experience.

This paper evaluates the differences between U.S. multilateralism within ad hoc coalitions and U.S. multilateralism within permanent institutions – specifically NATO, the only standing defense alliance with which the U.S. is involved – within the context of the war in Afghanistan's COIN operations. Specifically, this work contrasts the strategies of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the portion of the war that was undertaken by U.S. forces and a coalition of allies, and the operations of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which were defined by U.S. cooperation with NATO. Along with contrasting the overarching strategies of OEF and ISAF, this thesis evaluates the tactical differences between the two operations as they presented themselves within two pairs of tactical maneuvers: OEF Operation Red Wings vs. ISAF Operation Siege of Sangin and OEF Operation Eastern Resolve II vs. ISAF Operation Panther’s Claw.

This thesis predominantly seeks to explore the entanglements of class, patriarchy and global capital embedded within North Indian domestic work. The thesis firstly examines how the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 90s shattered village economies and brought about the mass displacement of tribals and landless farmers, forced to leave the land they have cultivated for generations in pursuit of employment in India’s urban centers. While male migrants often find work in the informal sector and settle in slum communities, female rural migrants constitute the immense population of domestic workers within the confines of urban middle class homes. This thesis explores the histories, past and present, of Indian cultures of servitude that have brought migrant motherhood to a crisis point. The interdisciplinary analyses of the political economy of intimate labor are supplemented by a micro-level analysis of my own positionality within a middle class urban home in Jaipur, Rajasthan to bring an alternative perspective to the multiplicity of dialogues about ethical relationships with domestic workers. This thesis ultimately aims to open lines of inquiry about the inequalities embedded within domestic work in order to bring about a radical re-imagining of one’s own participation in the layers and chains of exploitative labor.

Commercial fisheries in the Florida Keys have experienced a significant decline in participation and harvest over the past two decades, with over half of the fishers exiting the fishery since 1990 and a 50-70% decline in annual landings compared to previous decades. The conventional narrative of fisheries management identifies overfishing and overcapacity as the malaise endemic to open-access fisheries systems, for which the remedy offered is technocratic management. Technocratic management, which seeks to restore ecological integrity and economic efficiency, has been increasingly employed in the Florida Keys, in the form of limited access and property rights measures. I contend that the technocratic management approach is flawed and in a large part responsible for the decline of Florida Keys fisheries because the approach has ignored social sustainability, leading to a significant reduction in fisher participation, the fragmentation of fishing communities, and erosion of social capital. Technocratic management has also underestimated the importance of non-fishery factors, unique to place, and these factors – including population, tourism, and globalization factors – have exacerbated the impacts of management measures. The net result has been the opening up of scarce and valuable coastal space, which was previously occupied by fishers, fish houses and processors, and other fisheries infrastructure, to conversion for non-working waterfront uses. While measures have been undertaken to foster fisher participation and slow down waterfront conversion, these have largely failed due to the measures’ inability to address the core problem, which is the flawed management approach that undermines social sustainability. I provide a revised, comprehensive fisheries management framework that, if implemented, can at least address some of the technocratic management’s shortcomings and prevent further decline in fisher participation and fisheries decline.

Why and under what conditions have the Kurds become agents of change in the Middle East in terms of democratization? Why did the Kurds’ role as democratic agents become particularly visible in the 1990s? How does the Kurdish movement’s turn to democratic discourse affect the political systems of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria? What are the implications of the Kurds’ adoption of “democratic discourse” for the transnational aspect of the Kurdish movement? Since the early 1990s, Kurdish national movements in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria have undergone important political and ideological transformations. As a result of the Kurds’ growing role in shaping the debates on human rights and democratization in these four countries, the Kurdish national movement has acquired a dual character: an ethno-cultural struggle for the recognition of Kurdish identity, and a democratization movement that seeks to redefine the concepts of governance and citizenship in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The process transformation has affected relations between the Kurdish movements and their respective central governments in significant ways. On the basis of face-to-face interviews and archival research conducted in Turkey, Iraq and parts of Europe, the present work challenges the current narrative of Kurdish nationalism, which is predominantly drawn from a statist interpretation of Kurdish nationalist goals, and argues instead that the Kurdish question is no longer a problem of statelessness but a problem of democracy in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The main contributions of this work are three fold. First, the research unfolds the reasons behind the growing emphasis of the Kurdish movement on the concepts of democracy, human rights, and political participation, which started in the early 1990s. Second, the findings challenge the existing scholarship that explains Kurdish nationalism as a problem of statelessness and shifts the focus to the transformative potentials of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria through a comparative lens. Third, this work explores the complex transnational coordination and negotiations between the Kurdish movements across borders and explains the regional repercussions of this process.