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This project explores how and why an Americanized form of Zionism became an effective movement in American Jewish life. In the quest for a just and lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most scholarly attention has been focused on the state (and people) of Israel and the people of Palestine, and their efforts to resolve the conflict that has held them in its grip over the past century. As a result, we have focused too little attention on the role of support for U.S. nationalism in the American Jewish community in sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I argue likewise that a critical juncture in this process occurred in the early twentieth century, as the United States emerged as an international power. American Jewish support for Zionism overlaps in many ways with Progressivism. Many of the early leaders of Americanized Zionism, such as Horace M. Kallen and Justice Louis Brandeis, began their careers as Progressive reformers and brought their ideas about social and political action with them into the Zionist movement. Brandeis in particular played a critical role in making Zionism acceptable to American Jews, in no small part by asserting that the Zionism he advocated was required no commitment to emigration. As this Americanized version of Zionism has become normalized in American Jewish life, the principle of Jewish sovereignty has become widely understood among American Jews to be an essential guarantor of Jewish safety. To understand the roots and implications of this stance, I explore the genealogy of the idea of sovereignty, as well as the binary opposition of “Arabs” and “Jews” in Euro-American thought. Americanized Zionism, I conclude, is less a product of Jewish ethnicity or religion than enactment of a commitment to U.S. nationalism as a fundamental aspect of American Jewish identity. / Religion

This study illuminates Dwight D. Eisenhower’s efforts during his first term as President to advance new global norms that would make peace a more enduring aspect of international relations. Between 1945 and 1952, Eisenhower was an engaged supporter of America’s efforts to move the world away from the “war-system” that characterized the early twentieth century. The venture included implementing the Bretton Woods economic agreements, creating the United Nations, adopting the UN Human Rights Convention and supporting collective security organizations, such as NATO. Combined, these efforts mitigated the primary causes of war and advanced new standards of global statecraft. They also competed for influence over US foreign policy and for global support. Eisenhower’s election in 1952 represented a mandate to prevent an early failure of the undertaking. Within months of taking office, Ike implemented a comprehensive grand strategy that included the imaginative use of military and economic power, as well as the addition of moral power to guide US foreign policy. By 1956, this grand strategy had advanced America’s leadership in global affairs through the advocacy of new norms of conduct that produced mutually beneficial norms and standards. However, the Suez Crisis threatened to derail the American project. Eisenhower understood the stakes and decided to oppose the British and French efforts to secure the Suez Canal Zone by force. Throughout the crisis, America upheld the new standards of nation-state conduct agreed to in the United Nations Charter. This decision consolidated the position of the free world and served the nation’s enduring interest of advancing a peaceful world order. / History

My dissertation focuses on a subset of non-lethal violence, particularly the maiming and lasting scars of what I term “communicative violence.” I define communicative violence as non-lethal violence that leaves physical and visible marks with lasting legacy effects (i.e., scars or physical ailments that can serve as signals until the victim’s death). This project builds a theory of communicative violence and offers empirical evidence from 15 months of field research conducted in Peru on the internal armed conflict with Sendero Luminoso from 1980-2000. I argue that a combination of cultural differences, lack of state capacity, and rugged terrain helps to explain the prevalence of communicative violence. A recent development in the study of civil wars is the explosion of micro-level research, which makes an empirical move toward subnational research designs. One of these developments revolves around the conceptual disaggregation of violence and conflict. While this vein of research is primarily focused on the patterns of homicidal violence, as distinct from the logic of conflict in general, the specific issue of communicative violence has gone largely unnoticed in the discipline. Thus, my project seeks to fill that void. / Political Science

<p dir="ltr">What are the local effects of UN PKOs? Prior research examines the violence reducing effects of peacekeepers at a national and yearly level, but that obscures the real-world effects of peacekeepers who operate at a local level. This dissertation theorizes how UN peacekeepers prevent, displace, and sometimes increase violence against civilians by state and rebel actors. "Who Keeps the Peace?" examines the gendered effects of UN peacekeepers, showing that women increase the operational effectiveness of PKOs. "Does Peace Remain After the Peacekeepers Leave?" explores the durability of subnational peace and theorizes how violence may displace upon peacekeeper arrival. "All About That Base... No Troubl" provides the first analysis of peacekeeping bases by theorizing the gravity of peacekeeping bases over time and space. Each chapter utilizes advanced causal inference methods to understand how peacekeeping impacts violence, from logistic regressions, instrumental variables, and difference-in-differences designs. I conclude by tying together each chapter and exploring what the results mean for the UN, policymakers, and future researchers.</p>

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Security Studies / Dale R. Herspring / North Korea and the ruling Kim regime continues to present a unique security dilemma to both East Asia and the international community. The Kim regime's actions, which often include hostile military and diplomatic foreign policy actions, often seem inconsistent with parallel efforts to peacefully engage the international community. This research examines the following question: what has been the historic relationship between North Korea’s domestic conditions and its propensity to engage in “hostile” diplomatic and military activities? I also consider whether the concept of diversionary theory, the idea that leaders pursue external conflict when faced with domestic problems, is an explanation for these actions. The study initially proposes there is a relationship between North Korea’s domestic challenges and its willingness to engage in conflict activities aimed primarily at South Korea and the United States. To test these ideas, I conduct a quantitative analysis of North Korean event data collected from both US and Korean sources from 1960-2011 and a qualitative analysis of three case studies. My findings provide only limited support to the idea that internal conditions faced by the Kim regime influence its conflict behavior. More influential are a select number of external conditions, especially those involving South Korea, which often prompt North Korean responses and heightened conflict levels. This research also finds that the ruling Kim regime has often turned to diversion-type actions as a means to achieve domestic goals, yet diversionary theory itself is insufficient to explain these activities. North Korea represents an ongoing security dilemma for both East Asia and the international community and in this study, I demonstrate how historical and political science methods can be used to examine and explain the actions of this reclusive state.