The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which community colleges have implemented major post-Virginia Tech campus safety recommendations. In addition to gaining a comprehensive overview of the safety policies and practices in place, this study assessed if campus safety policy implementation levels at the community colleges correlated with institutional characteristics, and the internal and external forces that helped drive the implementation of these policies. Focusing specifically upon the Virginia Community College System, data on the policies and practices in place at each of the 23 Virginia community colleges were collected from institutional websites and through follow-up telephone calls. Interviews were then conducted with a small group of administrators from various Virginia community colleges. Analysis of the data indicated that large variance exists across the community colleges, as some have implemented most of the major campus safety recommendations that currently exist, while other have only implemented far less. The results also revealed potential support for larger community colleges with more resources and more campuses implementing more campus safety recommendations. Interview data detailed that external mandates and internal college leadership are the most important forces driving campus safety policy change among the community colleges. A number of policy implications arose regarding where community colleges need to improve their campus safety and how to best drive campus safety policy changes in the future.

This dissertation analyzed the internal incoherence of China’s grand strategy. To do so, it used the cultural driver of honor to explain the contradictory behavior of China, which ranges from peaceful, responsible international actor to assertive, revisionist rising power with hegemonic ambitions. The central research question asked why China often diverges from Peaceful Development, thus leading to major contradictions as well as possible misperceptions on the part of other nations. Honor was the standard of reference that was utilized and examined in order to establish congruence and coherence between deed and praxis. Accordingly, the first hypothesis of this study posited that if policy diverges from or is incongruent with China’s standard of national honor, then the grand strategy is internally incoherent. Second, two further hypotheses posited that China will tend to use peaceful means if its goal is to enhance external legitimacy, whereas it will tend to use assertive means if its goal is to enhance internal legitimacy. This dissertation began by broadly tracing the cultural driver of honor and the link between honor and legitimacy in Chinese history. The second part of the dissertation looked at the six most salient events within a six-year timeframe (2009-2015) by way of the focused, comparative single-case-study method. For each grand strategy policy input (military strategy, economic policy, and diplomatic policy), the two most salient events were carefully chosen. A fourth grand strategy input, legitimacy (both internal and external), was evaluated for each of these events as well. Methodologically speaking, this study used process tracing in these within-case studies of the single case of China’s grand strategy. Results showed that China’s grand strategy manifestations are by and large legitimacy-driven and that, therefore, peaceful or assertive actions may be differentiated in terms of relation to external or internal legitimacy. In sum, this dissertation advanced an innovative means of inquiry into the grand strategy of a non-Western country, contributed valuable information for the policy community, and offered results that enable a re-evaluation of the debate on the peaceful or violent rise of China.

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s defense policy and politics has gone through significant changes. Throughout the post cold war period, US-Japan alliance managers, politicians with differing visions and preferences, scholars, think tanks, and the actions of foreign governments have all played significant roles in influencing these changes. Along with these actors, the Japanese prime minister has played an important, if sometimes subtle, role in the realm of defense policy and politics. Japanese prime ministers, though significantly weaker than many heads of state, nevertheless play an important role in policy by empowering different actors (bureaucratic actors, independent commissions, or civil actors), through personal diplomacy, through agenda-setting, and through symbolic acts of state. The power of the prime minister to influence policy processes, however, has frequently varied by prime minister. My dissertation investigates how different political strategies and entrepreneurial insights by the prime minister have influenced defense policy and politics since the end of the Cold War. In addition, it seeks to explain how the quality of political strategy and entrepreneurial insight employed by different prime ministers was important in the success of different approaches to defense. My dissertation employs a comparative case study approach to examine how different prime ministerial strategies have mattered in the realm of Japanese defense policy and politics. Three prime ministers have been chosen: Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro (1996-1998); Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro (2001-2006); and Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009-2010). These prime ministers have been chosen to provide maximum contrast on issues of policy preference, cabinet management, choice of partners, and overall strategy. As my dissertation finds, the quality of political strategy has been an important aspect of Japan’s defense transformation. Successful strategies have frequently used the knowledge and accumulated personal networks of bureaucrats, supplemented bureaucratic initiatives with top-down personal diplomacy, and used a revitalized US-Japan strategic relationship as a political resource for a stronger prime ministership. Though alternative approaches, such as those that have looked to displace the influence of bureaucrats and the US in defense policy, have been less successful, this dissertation also finds theoretical evidence that alternatives may exist.

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Master's Thesis Kristýna Čermáková Abstract This master's thesis explores the topic of the securitization of migration in the Czech Republic and the gender dimension of the discourse on migration. After a theoretical exploration of the migratory process and the specificities of its female face, a discourse analysis of the Czech media will present the main epistemological core of the work. The primary research question attempts to identify the ways in which the Czech media contributes to the shifting perception of migration as belonging to the sphere of politics, even presenting migration as a threat to security. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter provides a theoretical insight into migration studies, the motives to migrate and the phenomenon of forced migration. Despite the general assumption of mainstream academics that migrants are mainly men, the second chapter shows that women's experiences with migration differ greatly from those of men. Based on the Copenhagen stream of thought, the discourse analysis of the Czech media carried out in the third chapter points to the construction of perceptions about migration within Czech society. The absence of gender in the public discourse on migration is further analyzed in the last chapter. The missing gender dimension proved to be...

Maritime boundaries are man-made constructs which are critical to resources like oil and gas, fisheries as well as trade. Recently, these delimitations in the sea have also gained importance in the environmental discourse because the role of the sea has become scientifically more significant in the field of climate change. Drawing upon the disciplines of international law of the sea and political science, this study scrutinizes the causes that underpin the peaceful settlement of a maritime delimitation dispute between two states. This thesis delves into maritime border disputes in Africa. It aims to examine the question “why do some states resolve their marine border disputes while others do not” by opting for a qualitative approach to compare two cases: Ghana--Ivory Coast and Somalia--Kenya. It outlines how the governance of the sea through UNCLOS is important, differences as well as similarities between land and sea border issues, and then delves into wider political connotations that impact the resolution of maritime borders issues between countries. Using the issues framework, it tests the hypothesis: the more the number of security issues between two states, the less the likelihood of the resolution of maritime border issue between them.

Research about women in the military helps to address the ongoing concerns about the lack of inclusion of female perspectives, which contributes to oppressive power dynamics and lack of women’s representation in practice, policy, and procedures. The problem this dissertation addressed is the lack of representation and inclusion of female perspectives regarding power and privilege that affect military practices, policies, and procedures. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand female Navy veterans’ experiences with representation and inclusion in military practices, policies, and procedures. Applying a larger conceptual framing using radical feminism, liberal feminism, and critical theory helped to situate their experiences within a broader social critique. Seven Navy servicewomen answered open-ended questions in audio-recorded semi-structured interviews. Transcribed data were analyzed, leading to five major themes: (a) perceptions of racial and gender bias; (b) lack of mentorship and leadership support; (c) fears of assault, retaliation, shaming, and transitioning; (d) position and colleagues’ effects on inclusivity, and (e) pride in service experience despite challenges.

[pt] A presente tese visa analisar como questões relacionadas ao meio ambiente - em especial, às mudanças climáticas - interagem com os entendimentos locais acerca da segurança, em comunidades que se mostram profundamente afetadas por esses problemas e que, ao mesmo tempo, encontram-se profundamente excluídas dos debates teóricos de segurança. Em meio aos Estudos de Segurança Internacional (ESI), a crise climática persiste em ser analisada a partir de uma dinâmica estadocêntrica, militarizada e de nós x outros. Quando não é esse o caso, os desafios ambientais são enquadrados a partir de uma lógica de segurança humana, animada por um entendimento moderno e liberal acerca do que a segurança deveria ser e, portanto, desconsiderando entendimentos e necessidades locais. (Shani, 2017). Ao focar em narrativas não-científicas sobre segurança, esta tese visa expor as contingências dos discursos hegemônicos verificados em meios aos ESI que, longe de se mostrarem racionais e fundamentados em uma descrição autêntica da realidade, contribuem para agravar os desafios enfrentados por alguns indivíduos, como os Marshalleses. Animados pelos discursos racionais promovidos por pensadores realistas e dos estudos estratégicos, durante a Guerra Fria, as Ilhas Marshall se tornaram palco de testes de 67 armas termonucleares. Tais armas – consideradas pelos teóricos e pelos policy-makers como fonte de poder e como meio legítimo de se obter segurança – vaporizaram ilhas, forçaram a evacuação permanente de comunidades, romperam com a organização social matriarcal e baseada na posse de terras característica das Ilhas Marshall e com os laços ancestrais entre indivíduos e seus atóis. Mais recentemente, o arquipélago e seus habitantes se mostram novamente em risco, dessa vez, não pelas práticas de segurança das superpotências, mas por uma ameaça não intencional e despersonalizada. As mudanças climáticas se caracterizam como a mais recente forma de intervenção, sendo precedidas por uma longa lista de práticas coloniais e violentas direcionadas ao arquipélago. Como uma nação constituída por atóis, é muito provável que, como resultado dos efeitos climáticos, as Ilhas Marshall se tornem inabitáveis ainda ao longo deste século. Para os Marshalleses, tal cenário significaria uma perda incomensurável em termos territoriais, espirituais e culturais. Ao analisar casos como o das Ilhas Marshall, a tese busca explorar quais novos significados e racionalidades de segurança podem emergir, ou se tornar mais proeminentes, face aos desafios trazidos pela mudança do clima. Desta forma, a teoria da segurança ontológica é apresentada como um marco teórico fértil para analisar casos em que o que parece em risco não é apenas a segurança física de estados nacionais, indivíduos e ecossistemas, mas também a preservação de espaços sociais e materiais e de um senso de continuidade biográfica. (Giddens, 1990) A partir deste movimento crítico, busca-se enfatizar outros modos de se refletir e de se vivenciar a (in)segurança, de modo a lançar luzes sobre como o significado deste conceito mostra-se indissociável dos contextos políticos, culturais e emocionais em meio aos quais os discursos de segurança emergem. / [en] This thesis seeks to analyze the ways through which issues related to the environment, especially climate change, interact with local conceptualizations of security in communities which are severely threatened by these problems and, at the same time, profoundly excluded from security studies debates. Within International Security Studies (ISS), the climate crisis persists in being analyzed through state-centered, militarized and us x others dynamics. When this is not the case, environmental challenges are placed within a human security logics, animated by a modern and liberal understanding of what is supposed to be secure and thus, disregarding the role of local understandings and needs. (Shani, 2017) By focusing on non-scientific security narratives, I expect to unveil the contingencies of the hegemonic discourses within ISS that, rather than being rational and based on an authentic description of reality, contribute to aggravating the security challenges faced by some individuals, such as the Marshallese. Animated by rational security discourses promoted by realist and strategist thinkers, during the Cold War, the Marshall Islands was turned into a testing ground for 67 thermonuclear weapons. The bombs - considered by security theorists and policy-makers both as a source of power and as a legitimate way to obtain security – vaporized islands, forced the permanent evacuation of entire communities, disrupted the Marshallese land-based matrilineal organization and their ancestral ties to their atolls. Nowadays, the Marshallese archipelago and its inhabitants are once again being challenged: not by the military security goals of superpowers, but by an unintended and depersonalized threat. Climate change is the latest form of intervention, being preceded by a long list of other colonial and violent practices. As a low-lying atoll nation, it is very likely that the Marshall Islands will become inhospitable until the middle of the century as a result of the deteriorating climate effects. For the islanders, it will represent an immeasurable loss of territorial, spiritual and cultural references. In relying on cases such as the Marshallese, I aim to explore what new meanings and rationalities of security can emerge, or become more prominent, in the face of the challenges brought on by climate change. With this aim, the ontological security theory is presented as an insightful framework for the analysis of these cases where, what seams at risk is not only a physical survival of states, individuals and ecosystems, but also the preservation of a stable social and material environment of action and a sense of biographical continuity. (Giddens, 1990) With this critical move, I seek to emphasize other ways of thinking and experiencing (in)security; thus, enlightening how the meaning of this concept is undissociated from the political, cultural and emotional contexts from which security discourses emerge.

[pt] O presente trabalho tem como objetivo geral desvendar os termos nos quais a segurança física e ontológica (pensada tal como prática e disciplina) deve ser articulada no debate das Relações Internacionais para responder às demandas de mulheres indígenas. A partir de uma discussão teórica decolonial e anticolonial, busca-se preencher a lacuna disciplinar nas Relações Internacionais sobre as diferentes formas da violência inscritas nos corpos de mulheres indígenas como parte do legado colonial no Estado moderno. Para isso, esse trabalho articula o conceito de corpo-território de Célia Xakriabá (2018) como eixo central para análise das fronteiras de vida e morte criadas pelo Estado e o Internacional sobre os corpos e territórios indígenas. A discussão teórica é empiricamente ilustrada com o caso das mulheres do povo Guarani-Kaiowá e suas demandas por autonomia territoriais e corporais com o fim de elucidar como os efeitos perversos da colonialidade atuam sobre os corpos e territórios indígenas. Desta maneira, a argumentação central se desenvolve a partir de duas perguntas que se desdobram: como as mulheres indígenas articulam a relação entre corpo, território e segurança? E como essa forma de articulação nos permite ressignificar a abordagem sobre o corpo e território na literatura de segurança crítica feminista nas Relações Internacionais? Ao responder essas questões, este trabalho demonstra que não é possível pensar as dinâmicas de (in)segurança das mulheres indígenas sem considerar as dimensões corpoterritoriais de sua resistência. / [en] The present work aims to unveil the terms in which the physical and ontological security (thought as practice and discipline) must be articulated on International Relations scholarship to respond to the demands of indigenous women. Departing from a decolonial and anti-colonial theoretical discussion, I seek to fill the existing disciplinary gap regarding the discussion of the different forms of violence inscribed on the bodies of indigenous women as part of the colonial legacy in the modern state. To this end, this work articulates Célia Xakriabá s concept of corpo-território (2018) as a central axis for understanding the ways in which the State and the International act in the creation of frontiers between life and death over indigenous bodies and territories. Based on a feminist and decolonial methodology, the theoretical discussion is empirically illustrated with the case of women from the Guarani-Kaiowá people and their territorial and bodily autonomy demands. In this sense, this work unfolds from two related questions: how do indigenous women articulate the relationship between body, territory and security? And how does this form of articulation allow us to reframe the approach about the body and territory in the feminist critical security literature in International Relations? By answering these questions, this work demonstrates that it is not possible to think about indigenous women s dynamics of (in)security without considering the corporeal-territorial dimensions of their resistance.

[pt] Esta dissertação investiga a construção de negros radicais como ameaça à ordem política global/local, focando-se em dois períodos históricos em que um discurso sobre extremismo negro emergiu nos Estados Unidos. O primeiro corresponde ao final dos anos 1960 e início dos anos 1970, quando o Partido Panteras Negras foi construído como a maior ameaça doméstica à segurança estadunidense; e o segundo, ao final dos anos 2000 e ao decorrer dos anos 2010, quando ativistas e movimentos sociais engajados no combate à violência policial reentraram na lista de ameaças domésticas aos Estados Unidos. Em ambos os contextos históricos, tal processo de construção de ameaça foi, também, informado por discursos sobre outras ameaças racializadas e globais aos Estados Unidos. A segunda metade do século XX foi marcada pela construção do radicalismo negro como ameaça intrinsicamente conectada ao anticomunismo voltado, particularmente, para movimentos de libertação nacional em ex-colônias. No século XXI, a ameaça de radicais negros foi rearticulada de modo a conectá-la com o Terrorismo islâmico. Tais pontuações baseiam-se em uma análise discursivogenealógica que explora registros históricos sobre o extremismo negro feitos por agências policiai. A dissertação aponta para a persistência do enquadramento do radicalismo negro como problema de segurança nos Estados Unidos, ainda que os termos que constroem essa ameaça são transformados globalmente. Assim, o discurso de extremismo negro refere-se à uma ameaça racializadas ao ordenamento político global e local na parte da arquitetura de policiamento estadunidense. / [en] This dissertation investigates the making of black radicals as a threat to the global/local political order, focusing on two historical periods in which a discourse on black extremism emerged in the United States. The first corresponds to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Black Panther Party was constructed as the leading domestic threat to the U.S. security; the second, to the late 2000s and 2010s, when activists and social movements engaged in anti-police brutality re-entered the realm of concrete domestic threats to the U.S. In both historical contexts such threat-making processes were also infused with discourses concerning other racialized global threats to the U.S. The second half of the 20th century was marked by the construction of black radicals as a threat intrinsically connected with anticommunism and invested toward national liberation movements in former colonies. In the 21st century, the threat of black radicals is re-articulated into one intimately linked to Islamic terrorism. These claims are based on a discursive genealogical analysis that explores historical records made by policing agencies regarding black extremism. The dissertation points to the persistence of the framing of black radicals as a security problem; within the United States, while the terms for these threat-making processes have been globally re-articulated. Hence, the black extremism discourse simultaneously refers to a racialized threat to the global and local political orders in the perception of the United States policing architecture.