This thesis explores the intersection of politics, religious ideology, and gender norms in the context of the Turkish labor market. I aim to shed light on the increasing interplay of these forces under AKP governance and, by extension, provide a rationale for Turkish women’s consistently low labor force participation. Further, I intend to expose that, despite introducing several legal reforms geared towards promoting gender equality, the party continues to frame the traditional family unit as the main pillar of social stability, thereby forcing women into a domestic box from which they have not been able to escape. I hypothesize that several of the AKP’s reforms, which involve various domains of Turkish society—the social security system, the institution of marriage, the family unit (specifically public childcare), and, more indirectly, the education system—have deterred Turkish women from entering and/or remaining in the labor force, as they are predicated on the party’s idealization of domesticity. Ultimately, I grapple with the ways in which the AKP’s policies and ideology have led to Turkish women’s low labor force participation rate—reported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to be 32.37 percent in March 2017.[1] [1] “Labor Force Participation Rate, Female (% of Female Population Ages 15+) (Modeled ILO Estimate): Turkey,” The World Bank, November 2017, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?locations=TR.

Despite their progressive on-the-books environmental legislation, Ecuador and Argentina have hosted increasing amounts of extraction projections in their borders over the last few decades. Beyond increased environmental degradation, the expansion of extraction economies in these countries has drove mass scale social movements orchestrated by disenfranchised peoples. This thesis investigates the link between social movements and environmental law reformation, and whether such social movements are able to strengthen the national legal and institutional framework for environmental management. To evaluate this inquiry, this thesis explores socials movements in Ecuador in the late twentieth century and in Argentina in the early twenty first century.

This thesis seeks to explain, via four key reasons, the shifting role that women have played in the self-determination movement in Kashmir over time. It focuses on the rise of young women in stone-pelting protests, analyzed through the lens of recent events that have triggered protests, the role of Islamism with regards to women in Kashmir, and the role of young women in the conflict generation. More importantly, the author analyzes the protests of women who have lost family members to enforced disappearances at the hands of the state. It is found that these women use a political strategy that upholds the politics of respectability and relies on the visual, which young women in stone pelting protests also rely on to highlight their cause.

This paper examined the probability that the Chinese financial markets have been manipulated prior to the most recent three CPC National Congresses. Based on historical data, it used the Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the probability of the weekly and monthly percentage change of the SSE50 Index and the RMB to USD central parity rate one week and one month prior to the most recent 17th, 18th and 19th CPC National Congress. The results indicate that the weekly and monthly percentage change of both the SSE 50 Index and the RMB to USD central parity rate prior to all three Congresses would be extremely unlikely if both markets have moved in a manner consistent with their previous stochastic movements. It is highly likely that the Chinese financial markets have been manipulated prior to the most recent three CPC National Congress. This study also makes conjectures about manipulators’ motivations behind the market manipulation, assuming the existence of market manipulations.

This thesis examines selections of Appalachian women’s personal narrative as well as Affrilachian Poetry written by Kentuckians Bianca Spriggs and Nikki Finney. This project’s goal lies in resisting oppression and erasure of Appalachian culture’s heterogeneity. Contrary to constructions of Appalachians as lazy, complacent, and white, many Appalachians organize communities of resistance from within the region itself. Challenging these representations, I argue that Appalachian feminists as well as Affrilachian poets create countercultures that disrupt monolithic, colonialist, and unquestioned constructions of Appalachia.

In 1986 Guatemala experienced a transition from authoritarian rule. Many issues affected the democratization process, but I argue that an essential aspect was civil- military relations. Thus, the principal question answered in this thesis is: How have civil-military relations determined the extent and nature of transition towards democracy in Guatemala from 1986-1990? Adopting Alfred Stepan’s model to examine civil-military relations, the prerogatives and contestation of the Guatemalan military were examined. Prerogatives exist when the military assumes the right to control an issue, while contestation involves open articulated conflict with civilian government. High military prerogatives and low contestation indicate a situation of unequal civilian accommodation, where civilians do not effectively control the military. Civil-military relations in Guatemala from 1986-1990 reflect a pattern of unequal civilian accommodation. This illustrates the lack of civilian control over the military and continued military dominance of the political system in Guatemala.

China’s increase in economic and military force projection capability has grown substantially since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This rapid evolution, has in turn, triggered a rush for resources in Least Developed Countries, opened up new markets for Chinese-manufactured products, and has frequently been accompanied by an increased Chinese military presence in those nations in which it maintains an economic or industrial presence. The PRC’s activities in Least Developed Countries, such as those in Africa, have had a direct impact on cultures, regional politics, economies, infrastructure creation, and the environment, yet the complexity of these dynamics has to date precluded an in-depth analysis of their effect on conflict and stability. In order to effectively gauge China’s influence on the continent, localized studies of Chinese operations and activities in different locales were scrutinized. China’s Interest in Africa: Conflict or Stability? examines Chinese infrastructure and financing packages, Chinese-owned extractive and non-extractive industries, Chinese military and defense industrial enterprises, and finally, Chinese military activities on the continent. In order to determine whether Chinese loans, infrastructure creation, and resource extraction operations contribute to development in Africa, this work examines case studies from diverse locales, which include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Angola.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the conditions that promoted mobilization against established authority. The analysis of rural mobilization distinguishes from among longitudinal and immediate conditions, the mobilization process itself and the role of the state. The concept of articulation of modes of production examines the processes of rural transformation by following the changing nature of land ownership and patron-client relations. The evolving patterns of class opposition and alliance reflected directly the state of articulation of capitalist and pre-capitalist modes of production and the process of class formation in the southern Peruvian highlands over the course of the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

This paper analyzes the the past and current security landscape in Northeast Asia with particular emphasis on the Korean Peninsula and the United States' involvement there. The paper assess policy successes and failures and presents several new policy options. The proposals include economic and diplomatic solutions to encourage the normalization of relations on the Korean Peninsula.

The purpose of the research is to study the relationship between international drug interdiction policies and domestic politics in fragile democracies, and to demonstrate how international drug control policies and the use of force fit the rhetoric of war, are legitimized by the principles of a just war, but may also cause collateral damage and negative unintended consequences. The method used is a case study of the Dominican Republic. The research has found that international drug control regimes, primarily led by the U.S. and narrowly focused on interdiction, have influenced an increasingly militarized approach to domestic law enforcement in the Dominican Republic. The collateral damage caused by militarized enforcement comes in the form of negative perceptions of citizen security, loss of respect for the rule of law and due process, and low levels of civil society development. The drug war has exposed the need for significant reform of the institutions charged with carrying out enforcement, the police force and the judicial system in particular. The dissertation concludes that the extent of drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic is beyond the scope of domestic reform efforts alone, but that the programs implemented do show some potential for future success. The dissertation also concludes that the framework of warfare is not the most appropriate for the international problems of drug traffic and abuse. A broader, multipronged approach should be considered by world policy makers in order to address all conditions that allow drugs to flourish without infringing upon democratic and civil rights in the process.