No description available.

<p>This dissertation examines the (critical) security effects that US Foreign Policy, and in particular the War on Terror (WOT), has had on East and Southeast Asia. This dissertation also articulates an innovative critical security approach that requires a post-structuralism based in Stephen K. White’s notion of “weak ontology,” and further demands a historically and geographically contingent method of immanent critique that allows us to grapple with the politics and ethics of actually occurring security logics. <em>As</em> a form of immanent critique rooted in a weak ontological understanding of critical security, this dissertation asks- and answers- the following question(s): What can a critical security analysis tell us about security/insecurity that a more conventional realist-based security analysis cannot? And more specifically, what can a critical security analysis tell us about the impact that the WOT has had on both state and non-state actors in East and Southeast Asia? In other words, <em>operating as an immanent critique</em> in the context of empirical examples in East and Southeast Asia, this dissertation demonstrates that forms of insecurity were constructed and/or abetted by the WOT itself, understood as a hegemonic security narrative, and that these forms of insecurity occurred in concert with the practice of traditional forms of state-centric security.</p> <p>This dissertation contributes to scholarship in two significant ways. First, it seeks to remedy the relative paucity of <em>critical</em> security analyses focused on East Asia and Southeast Asia. Second, this dissertation demonstrates- using the weak ontological immanent critique approach that it outlines- that a deconstructive critical security analysis based in post-structuralist commitments need not be anathema to engagements with pragmatic problems and security issues, nor should it have to preclude the possibility of enacting the politics and ethics that are required to theorize alternative security logics.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> <b>Background:</b> As the world becomes more urban and slums continue to grow in developing countries, research is needed to measure utilization of health services, health outcomes, and access to health care providers among urban slum residents. Estimating trends in urban health among slum residents relative to other urban inhabitants provides evidence of health disparities for priority-setting by program implementers and policy-makers. Research on the negative effects of slum environments on human health has started to emerge, yet there remains a paucity of evidence on morbidity trends over time and inequalities between slum residents and other urban residents. The goal of this study is to quantify maternal and child health care access, utilization and outcomes among urban slum dwellers in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia over time. These three areas are addressed in three separate dissertation manuscripts. </p><p> <b>Methods:</b> This dissertation offers an in-depth analysis of household and health facility data to measure trends in maternal and child health care utilization and health outcomes among slum residents over time, as well as inequalities in access, utilization and outcomes between other urban and rural populations. Manuscripts 1 and 2 apply a unique spatial inequality approach to existing population-based household data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to identify a sample of slum residents. Manuscript 1 assesses trends in maternal and child health care (MCH) utilization and health outcomes using DHS data in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria and Tanzania between 2003 and 2011. In Manuscript 2, a trend analysis is performed in Kenya to examine diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infection (ARI) in children under-five in both slums and other urban and rural areas during the roll-out of a national slum upgrading program. Manuscript 3 further explores local-level dimensions of health care access from two slums in Kenya, generating evidence on service availability and readiness in slums. In this section, we analyze health facility data collected using a modified version of the World Health Organization&rsquo;s (WHO) Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA). </p><p> <b>Results:</b> Manuscript 1 reports significant disparities between slum dwellers and other urban residents&rsquo; utilization of key maternal health interventions&mdash;appropriate antenatal care (ANC), tetanus toxoid vaccination, and skilled delivery&mdash;in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria. In addition, child health outcomes examined in Manuscript 1 suggest that the prevalence of diarrheal disease in children under-five is declining among other urban and rural residents, but not significantly among slum residents. Nigeria was the only exception, with significant declines in diarrheal disease prevalence in slums over the study period. Because ARI improvements are found across populations, the data suggests this condition is not unique to slum settings. The trend analysis in Manuscript 2 supports these findings&mdash;ARI is declining steadily over time not only among slum residents, but also among other urban and rural residents as well. Diarrheal disease prevalence, on the other hand, has not changed significantly over time, with stable levels among slum dwellers between 1993 and 2014. In Manuscript 3, analysis of general service availability and readiness in two locations&mdash;the Nyalenda slum of Kisumu and the Langas slum of Eldoret&mdash;reveals that slums perform far below recommended benchmarks set by WHO. When we compare service availability and readiness indicators with regional, urban, and national averages, in general slums in Kisumu and Eldoret perform poorly. However, there were some instances&mdash;typically involving standard precautions for infection control&mdash;where Kenyan slums actually performed better than comparison sites. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> This research provides a comprehensive view of health systems dimensions in urban slums in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Manuscript 1 confirms evidence of an urban penalty and emphasizes a need to focus on maternal health care utilization in slums. Manuscript 2 detects little improvement in child health outcomes among slum dwellers in Kenya during the roll-out of the country&rsquo;s national slum upgrading program. An integrated approach to health and urban policy development is recommended based on these results. Manuscript 3 identifies areas of service availability and readiness in two Kenyan slums that fall below global targets and are in need of improvement in order to achieve desired health outcomes. Taken together, this study makes a significant contribution to the crucial demand for research on growing marginalized urban populations in developing countries.</p>

This in-country grounded theory study examined the lived experiences of 24 Chinese returnees who completed advanced degrees in the United States. The study found that the four types of organizations in mainland China determine the social context of the application of Western education of the Chinese returnees. Returnees working in multinational corporations apply their Western education more than the returnees working in the other types of organizations. Themes that revolved around the international educational experiences of the Chinese students, including the development of cultural intelligence and new understanding of the ‘other’, and their realization of the differences between their home and host cultures, are included in the findings of this study. The relationship between these themes has led to the construction of a new concept concerning their self-cultivation that, in the Chinese perspective, is integral to Chinese leadership. This study introduces the concept of the bridger as a role that some Chinese returnees take on within their Chinese organizations and the third space that bridgers occupy.

Conventional wisdom states that, in response to a rising threat, weaker states may choose either to balance against, or to bandwagon with, the threat. However, the states in Southeast Asia, in response to a rising China, exhibit behavior that conforms neither to pure balancing nor bandwagoning. This senior thesis seeks to understand why that is the case, and argues that, in a world of ambiguity, the domestic level of analysis becomes of greater importance in explaining state behavior.

Analysis of the National Sample Survey Data from 2011-2012 shows that a gender-based education gap exists. Women are more likely than men to be illiterate. Some parents continue to view household duties as more important than education in the case of girls, causing some to drop out in primary and middle school, which leads to lower experience accumulation. However, females are almost equally as likely as males to be enrolled in school, and an equal proportion of males and females earn higher education degrees. More importantly, the difference in resource allocation seems to be minimal. Although education has a strong, positive impact on wages, returns to education for women are lower than those for men. This is taken into account by parents when making education decisions for their children. As a result, the wage gap appears to be a cause and effect of the education gap.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is guided by a collection of principles known as the ASEAN Way, which emphasizes sovereignty and consensus. When external pressures have forced ASEAN to face contentious issues, internal divisions have torn at the group’s cohesion, and consensus has proved difficult to reach. When Myanmar’s military dictatorship was put on the fast track to ASEAN membership in the mid-1990s, democratic Thailand and the Philippines objected, and strong Western pressure to delay Burmese accession put the group in a difficult spot. Fifteen years later, territorial disputes in the South China Sea pitted ASEAN claimant states against non-claimant counterparts inclined to support an assertive and wealthy China’s point of view. In the first case, reaction against US attempts to sway ASEAN’s decision united the group in support of Myanmar’s admission; in the second case, China’s economic inducements succeeded in dividing the group, to the extent that a 2012 summit ended in disagreement and rancor. ASEAN will need to revise some aspects of the ASEAN Way, particularly sovereignty norms, and create greater binding force to generate the cohesion necessary to effectively deal with future regional problems.

Having conducted a successful long range ballistic missile test in December 2012 and a third nuclear test in February 2013, North Korea increasingly poses a security threat to Northeast Asia. Given these heightened escalations, the international community has come to depend more and more on China’s potential to influence North Korean behavior. Beijing’s unique leverage is based on the historical bilateral relations between the two countries in addition to China’s sole willingness to support the North Korean regime. Therefore, the following paper seeks to determine whether China’s North Korea policy shifted during the consecutive Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping administrations in response to North Korean provocations. Ascertaining China’s North Korean paradigm is constructive and worthwhile in order to understand the future development and hopeful resolution of the North Korean security dilemma. In order to better examine the two administrations, the paper first defines China’s strategic interests regarding the Korean peninsula. Song Jooyoung’s dual threats model and Taewan Kim’s politico-economic linkage model are then used to assess the different factors that influenced China’s decision-making process when deciding whether to maintain its support after each North Korean provocation. Analysis of the two administrations reveals that Beijing’s underlying foreign policy objective of stability remains unchanged. On the other hand, unyielding North Korean provocations have forced Beijing to reassess its current policy of bolstering the North Korean regime toward the end of the Hu administration and even more so during the current Xi administration. In addition, North Korean actions in defiance of China’s public warnings illustrate a North Korea diverging from its usual subservience to Chinese influence. More importantly, the defining reason for the shift in China’s policy is the fact that North Korean behavior undermines Beijing attempts to posture itself as a responsible global power in addition to fulfilling its own strategic interests. Assessing China’s North Korean paradigm is meaningful due to Beijing’s capacity to resolve the North Korean security dilemma. Although skeptics question whether China will ultimately break from its customary support for North Korea due to fears of damaging instability, increasingly public statements rejecting North Korean provocations signal the Xi administration’s recalibration.

This article seeks to uncover the historical trajectory of the notion of women as repositories of male honor in Indian society and whether there has been a change in the discourse. Through a historically oriented comparative study of two case studies it draws attention to the fact that this perception of women has made them extremely susceptible to sexual attacks from members of opposing communities. At the time of Partition India witnessed large scale religion-based rapes where men of one religion attempted to assert their dominance over another religious community by raping the women of that community. Today the use of rape as a means of power assertion is still prevalent but now it is upper caste men who are seeking to assert their dominance over lower caste communities.This article believes that a combination of legal and social dilemmas is the cause of this discourse that works against the safety of women.

<p> The proposed support group was designed for older Cambodian refugees who suffer from any mental health conditions primarily from the Khmer Rouge regime. Although the genocide occurred three decades ago, many refugees still suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, especially among the older generation. The support group will consist of older Cambodian refugees who had lived through the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979), are 55 year of age or older, are currently residing in the Long Beach community and suffer from any mental health condition diagnosed for more than 1 year. The goal of the proposed group is to strengthen the support and connection among the Cambodian refugee elders. The actual submission and/or funding of the grant were not a requirement for the successful completion of this project.</p>