<p> Two co-constructed trends threaten to complicate global efforts to manage climate change. Electric power in developing countries is becoming more coal-intensive, while the international institutions capable of assisting lower-carbon growth paths are having their authority challenged by an emergent set of institutions under China&rsquo;s leadership. In the last decade Chinese firms and state banks have become central players in power sector development across the developing world; China has been involved in over sixty percent of Africa&rsquo;s hydropower capacity and is the single largest exporter of coal power plants globally. Statistical and qualitative evidence suggests that China&rsquo;s growing role in these power markets has contributed to re-prioritization of the power sector in U.S. bilateral development assistance, complicated negotiation and implementation of coal power finance rules among OECD export credit agencies, and influenced where the World Bank chooses to build hydropower projects. The thesis establishes a framework for understanding responses to discord in development governance by drawing inductively on these contemporary cases. Competition between established and emerging actors increases with two variables: 1) conflicting ideological, commercial and diplomatic goals (difference in interests); and 2) the degree to which the emerging actor challenges rules and norms upheld by the established actor (contested authority). Competitive policy adjustment &ndash; one actor seeking to undermine or diminish the other&rsquo;s pursuit of its objectives &ndash; has been historically commonplace when an emerging actor challenged an established actor in the regime for development assistance. China&rsquo;s growing authority in global power sector assistance has prompted competitive policy adjustment among established donors while also enabling recipient countries to leverage donors and better direct their own development pathways. The thesis shows that although contested authority increases development sovereignty among recipients, it can cause backsliding on safeguards and rules among established donors with consequences for power sector outcomes, making fragile movement away from carbon-intensive development even more tenuous. By characterizing this new and uncertain landscape of power sector governance, the thesis contributes to theorization on discord in international governance and to policy development for mitigating climate change.</p>

<p> The popular coined term "state failure," has been used in a variety of ways to explain states that may have not lived up to the Western model of statehood. Many theorists have concluded a variety of reasons for this occurrence, but have usually looked at it through one lens and failed to acknowledge others. This paper proposes that one lens is sufficient in analyzing state failure, that of constructivism. Iraq is a country frequently considered synonymous with state failure. This paper analyzes the history of Iraq based on constructivist ideas of identity and institutions to explain state failure and determine solutions that could benefit the state.</p>

This study is concerned with the United States policy on restriction of travel to China and its effects on national and international politics.

No description available.

<p> Since the Great Famine of the mid-1990s, the the Democratic People&rsquo;s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has experienced significant socioeconomic and political changes. Most importantly, the ways in which North Koreans produce, distribute, and consume food, which shed light on food security, has changed in a great deal. Scholars have sought to understand whether and how food security has improved and why the regime stayed in power despite predictions of its likely demise. The paper examines trends among indicators of food security&mdash;food availability and nutritional status in the DPRK&mdash;that show overall improvement, while acknowledging that the DPRK still suffers from food insecurity in absolute terms. This paper argues that three factors account for this improved food security: unexpected acceptance of international food assistance, marketization from below, and a series of government policies adjusting to marketization. Based on the analysis of the literature investigating the three factors and their effects, the paper claims that international food assistance was necessary for pulling the country out of the Famine, but food assistance alone did not explain improved food security in the longer term. The paper found that the combination of marketization and government policies was the primary contribution to improved food security. The paper deepens the understandings of policymakers on why the DPRK is not collapsing despite the ongoing food shortages. It also suggests a need for studies of food security to theorize the interaction between state policies and individual agency or coping behaviors.</p>

This thesis examines the adoption of a multiethnic liberal democratic model of governance in post-independence Kosovo and the dual task of statebuilding to secure unity and accommodate diversity through the development of an extensive institutional and legal framework of minority rights. It defines the management of plurality as a fundamental element of contemporary statebuilding that seeks to build social cohesion and gain the obedience of all its constituent peoples. This thesis explains why in post-conflict and postindependence Kosovo, its domestic sovereignty and legitimisation have become conditioned by the integration, accommodation and protection of minorities. In the context of the international involvement in Kosovo and its highly contested statehood, the existing literature highlights the imposing and exogenous character of statebuilding as largely responsible for its shortcomings. This research challenges this predominant view and draws attention to endogenous factors that may offer a more accurate analysis of how the state model designed for Kosovo has been transformed and limited by local idiosyncrasies. Through a collection of in-depth personal interviews and extensive analysis of laws, reports and official documents, this work answers the question of how successful Kosovo has been in managing diversity. These data reveals the legislation implementation gap and the variation in the de facto levels of integration, depending on the will and capacity of each community to assume their rights and on their socio-economic, demographic and political particularities. The tensions and unintended consequences arising from the priority to address the situation of Kosovo Serbs through power-sharing and farreaching provisions are highlighted in their asymmetrical impact on different communities and the enhanced risk of segregation and marginalization. Overall, this thesis shows that the adoption of a multiethnic state model is crucially limited by endogenous conditions and the state-society relationship in Kosovo remains largely undefined.

Governments often fund foreign nationals to live, work and study in their countries, creating specialist programmes tasked with promoting international mobility. In this thesis I establish that much of this funding is intended to serve a public diplomacy agenda, improving international relations to the benefit of the sponsor. Expectations about how offering funding to foreigners affects international relations have come to centre on what I label the ‘symmetric public diplomacy model’, which suggests that governments intend to influence other countries’ behaviour by influencing their citizens. I tested this model using a combination of panel surveys and interviews with students who took part in these programmes. Although mobility programmes do bring many educational and personal benefits to participants, my results do not support the expectation that they endow most visiting foreigners with more helpful attitudes than they would have developed had they not taken part in the programmes. While other studies have come to different conclusions on this issue, the research design employed in this thesis is better-suited to the task than most others. Mobility programmes may bring diplomatic benefits by other means. One possibility is that the act of creating, for example, scholarships for foreign nationals sends signals to foreign governments. The histories of major British scholarship programmes suggest that they were originally created to signal goodwill or distract attention from potentially-embarrassing policies. Despite this, administrators now present these programmes as tools of public diplomacy. The symmetric public diplomacy model has been applied to these programmes long after they were initially created, and I suggest that the model may have been adopted because it is useful for attracting funding to continue and expand mobility programmes.

<p> There is an extreme underrepresentation of indigenous peoples within American study abroad programs, and student participants rarely gain an authentic experience, awareness, and intercultural sensitivity towards such groups. This case study seeks to address this disparity through the creation of a new geography short-term study abroad program titled, &ldquo;Resources and Indigenous Peoples of Oceania&rdquo;, at the University of Missouri. This program is based on providing geographic opportunities for students to experience the diverse physical landscapes of New Zealand and interact with the local Maori indigenous people and their culture. The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) is used both before and after the study abroad program to measure changes in student participants&rsquo; indigenous intercultural sensitivity, as well as student program journal entries and final papers. The goal of this case study is to discover whether or not a study abroad program with a focus on elements of indigenous culture can actually improve students&rsquo; intercultural sensitivity towards such groups.</p><p>

No description available.

No description available.