Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item The Strategy of Civil Conflict: The Determinants of Conflict Intensity and Effect of Intensity on Duration(2019) Plettner, Theodore; Reed, William; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Conflict onset and duration have been studied extensively, however the dynamics of what happens within a conflict have received much less attention. At the center of the issue of conflict dynamics is conflict intensity. Some civil conflicts resemble interstate wars with armies using conventional tactics which kill thousands of people per year, while many others consist of small guerrilla conflicts that kill only dozens. The capabilities of the rebel groups in these conflicts determine the tactics they will adopt, which in turn determines how intensely the conflict will be fought. Foreign intervention into civil conflicts influences the tactical decisions of actors, further increasing conflict intensity. To add to the disastrous effects of high-intensity conflicts, when intensity increases, conflicts also last longer, increasing the period over which the damage from these conflicts is inflicted.Item TRUTH COMMISSIONS IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE. WORKING THROUGH THE PAST IN CHILE AND ROMANIA(2019) Garcia, Andres; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Truth commissions are an active deliberative process. Outgoing and incoming politicians, government and opposition parties, victim’s groups, civil society, human rights organizations, the judiciary, and the media participate in truth commission processes to achieve multiple objectives. What makes them essentially deliberative is that the commissioners and the staff constantly makes choices when they define such basic objectives as truth, reconciliation, justice and memory and decide how those objectives should be met and whose needs should be served. Inevitably, there will be winners and losers in a truth commission process. Thus, assessing the conditions under which truth commissions are likely to emerge is vitally important in order to understand how truth commissions are capable of influencing policy.Item To Campaign, Protest, or Take up Arms: Ethnic Minority Strategies under the Shadow of Ethnic Majority Fragmentation(2018) Hultquist, Agatha Skierkowski; Birnir, Johanna K.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Why do some ethnopolitical minority organizations use violence to achieve their political goals, whereas others eschew force and engage in nonviolence or take part in elections? The literature leads us to expect that the more fragmented the ethnic minority group is, the more likely it is that ethnopolitical minority organizations will use violence against the state. Ethnopolitical minority organizations, however, vary considerably in their strategies. To explain this puzzle, I argue that an under-explored factor - fragmentation within ethnically mobilized groups that control the state - affects how minority organizations select their strategies. Using two original measures of majority fragmentation in combination with existing data on minority strategies in Sri Lanka for 1960-2005, I find that ethnopolitical minority organizations are more likely to use violence when fragmentation within the political majority is relatively low and more likely to engage in nonviolence or to participate in electoral politics when majority fragmentation is relatively high. I also determine that minority organizations are more likely to use mixed strategies of electoral politics and violence and violence and nonviolence as majority fragmentation increases. Finally, I find that majorities are more likely to outbid in positions and policies against minorities when minorities use violence than nonviolence. These results demonstrate that the shadow of majority group fragmentation impacts the nonviolent and violent strategies of ethnic minorities, and introduce a new avenue for research on the role of ethnicity in conflict processes.Item AFTER EXTENDED-IMMEDIATE DETERRENCE: A PROTÉGÉ’S NON-ACCOMMODATION OF ITS DEFENDER’S SECURITY INTERESTS(2018) Chang, Jung-Ming; KASTNER, SCOTT L.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Some countries in the world depend on security assurances provided by other countries to maintain security. It makes sense for these countries to accommodate security interests of their defenders. Then, what makes it puzzling is why do these countries sometimes do not act accordingly. This is the research question that the author attempts to answer in this dissertation. Using qualitative means, the author conducts the research utilizing personal diaries, memoirs, archives, and newspapers with a focus on Taiwan that has been viewed as a flashpoint in East Asia. Among the sources, personal diaries of President Chiang Kai-shek are especially helpful in understanding various attempts to recover mainland China by initiating plans for a counter-offensive, the Kuokuang Plan being the most famous one, which is a form of non-accommodation. The temporal domain of this research is from 1950 to 2008. Four presidents of the Republic of China are examined during this period and they are Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui, and Chen Shui-bian. Other presidents such as Yen Chia-kan and Ma Ying-jeou are also touched on, but with limited coverage. Two theories are utilized in this dissertation: alliance politics and presidential tenure. Alliance politics theory is an established one which stipulates that the weaker ally in an alliance is afraid of being abandoned, while the stronger ally concerns about being entrapped in an unwilling war. Presidential tenure theory is a product of my creation through combining existing theories and it expects that presidents of protégés are likely to become non-accommodative in their second terms. Both theories own explanatory power over the cases during the time span in this research. That is to say, when security assurances are robust, Taiwan leaders are more likely to be non-accommodative. In addition, Taiwan leaders are more likely to adopt non-accommodative actions in their second terms of office.Item ANOTHER EMPTY PROMISE? STATES’ COMMITMENT TO THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT(2018) Chang, Hyo Joon; Kastner, Scott L.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) was established in 2002 to facilitate implementation of the Convention against Torture. Due to its regular visitations and national preventive mechanisms (NPMs), as well as increasing ratifications, the OPCAT has been regarded as a paradigm shift in the human rights arena. This dissertation study attempts to discover if states’ commitment to the OPCAT is a sign of increased commitment to human rights or another empty promise. Empirical analyses of states’ ratification of and compliance with the OPCAT provide evidence questioning the high expectations surrounding the treaty’s ratification. First of all, the treaty terms of the OPCAT do not incur as high costs of commitment as expected. Human rights-violating countries have not been deterred from ratifying the treaty, indicating that they are not particularly concerned with potential costs of international and domestic monitoring. Neither has states’ commitment to the OPCAT functioned as a costly signaling. The cost-based theories are further challenged by empirical findings for regional clustering of commitment. Moreover, states’ compliant behavior suggests that the treaty ratification does not guarantee compliance. Regarding the NPMs, about one-third of states parties have not complied with their obligation to designate or establish NPMs. Although most states parties have allowed the international monitoring body unhindered access to places of detention, institutional loopholes in the OPCAT permit states parties to offset the negative consequences of the international visiting program. About the half of states parties have not requested their reports by the international monitoring body to be publicly released, nor have they responded to their reports. The case of the Philippines illustrates that states’ selective compliance or non-compliance with the OPCAT could undermine its effectiveness in preventing states’ practice of torture. Overall, the treaty’s innovative measures make states’ commitment to the OPCAT more than another empty promise. However, ratification is not automatic proof of states’ increased commitment to human rights. Therefore, the international community is strongly recommended to develop effective strategies encouraging states parties to implement the OPCAT rather than simply praise its increasing membership.Item Petroagression deconstructed: variational propositions(2018) Ivanchev, Yavor; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)It is widely believed that “petrostates,” or countries whose economies rely heavily on oil exports, are at greater risk from external aggression. This popular view has made frequent recourse to the neo-Malthusian intuition that, in a world of material scarcity, resource predation will be rampant. Recent empirical research, however, has shown that petrostates are neither more common targets of military attack nor particularly peaceful members of the international community. In fact, available statistical analyses overwhelmingly suggest that, in terms of conflict initiation, these states are mostly on the offensive in world politics—a phenomenon often referred to as “petroagression.” Despite this finding, little is known about what accounts for variation in petrostate belligerence. Not all petrostates are international troublemakers, and their propensity to threaten or use military force has varied both across geography and over time. This dissertation attempts to explain this within-group variation, using two conceptual experiments. The first heeds to the internal organization of petrostates, examining how differences in their regime institutions could mediate (strengthen or weaken) the conflict-inducing effects of oil income. It is argued that, because of certain compositional and identity characteristics of their ruling coalitions, petrostates with personalist institutions would be more potent conflict initiators than comparable oil exporters of nonpersonalist institutional makeup. The second conceptual experiment abstracts from petrostates’ internal attributes, exploring potential sources of variation in their external environments. Adopting a system–subsystem perspective, this analysis proposes that, all else equal, exogenous structural variables—in particular, superpower penetration in regional subsystems containing petrostates—could account for differences (spatial and temporal) in those states’ conflict behavior. Although the dissertation’s main thrust is theoretical, empirical evidence providing preliminary support for these variational propositions is also offered.Item AWAKENING ACTIVISM: THE POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS(2018) Braun, Joseph; Reed, William L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Individuals are an integral part of international human rights. While central to our leading theories of human rights change and to the efforts of human rights organizations in the real world, empirical scholarship has not systematically investigated how individuals choose to become advocates. Without the mobilization of individuals, human rights institutions and campaigns are deprived of the energy and material that fuel their success. In this dissertation, I closely evaluate the reasons why individuals choose to become engaged in human rights campaigns, what drives them to advocacy, and what this tells us about the relationship between political psychology and international human rights. In Chapter 1, I consider how incidental emotions influence individuals’ support for child hunger relief and refugee assistance, finding that negative emotions like disgust tend to amplify pre-existing views. In Chapter 2, I evaluate the effects of the negativity bias and loss-aversion bias on support for child hunger relief. I find that the combination of negative imagery and gains-focused messaging had a significant and positive effect on individuals’ support for both personal and government action to help feed and house the hungry. In Chapter 3, I discuss the important effects that political ideology had on the relationships I observed in Chapters 1 and 2. I illustrate how those on the political left and right responded in systematically different ways in each of the experiments, and note how these differences reveal the critical importance of targeted messaging with an emphasis on ideology. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of these dissertation findings as theoretically important and practically useful, with an emphasis on a focused and practically-oriented future research agenda.Item How Rebels' Goals Affect the Provision and Impact of Military Support from Foreign States(2018) Siegel, Daniel; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Virtually all rebel groups fight to either overthrow the central government (center-seekers) or to separate. This dissertation presents three papers examining how these differing goals affect the likelihood and consequences of rebels receiving foreign support. The first paper hypothesizes that center-seekers are most likely to be supported by states that are militarily stronger than their home government, and that separatists are most likely to be supported by states that are militarily competitive with their home government. Center-seekers must fight intense wars against stronger opponents to achieve their goals. Therefore, I argue that only militarily strong states have reasonable chances of using support to center-seekers to accomplish their ultimate sponsorship objectives. Unlike center-seekers, separatists can accomplish their goals by fighting lower intensity wars. Consequently, support only enables separatists to inflict modest additional damage. However, potential supporters that are militarily competitive with separatists’ home governments can benefit by providing long-term support. Long-term support can provide these supporters with coercive military advantages over initially equal competitors. Statistical analysis supports the first paper’s hypotheses. The second paper analyzes how rebels’ goals influence their chances of receiving either high intensity types of support (troops), or solely low intensity support (uniforms). I argue that center-seekers’ are most likely to receive high intensity support from states that are militarily stronger than their home government. I also contend that separatists’ are most likely to receive low intensity support from states that are militarily competitive with their home government. Empirical results support these arguments. Finally, the third paper examines when rebel support prolongs civil war. I argue that support lengthens center-seeking wars when the rebels receive high intensity support from states that are militarily stronger than their home government. I also contend that support prolongs separatist wars when the rebels receive low intensity support from states that are militarily competitive with their home government. Statistical analysis supports these arguments. This dissertation demonstrates that rebels’ goals influence 1) what types of states support them, 2) what types of support they receive, and 3) how different types of rebel support impact civil war duration.Item The Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups: From Democracy to Jihad in the Syrian Civil War(2017) Mironova, Vera; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To be able to affect fighters behavior in Civil Wars one should understand their decision-making step by step. In this dissertation I show that after the initial decision to take up arms, which is based on individual grievances, fighters look at armed groups as institutions and make the decision to join or switch groups by comparing them based on their organizational capabilities. At the same time, when a group becomes popular (meaning its supply of fighters exceeds group demand), it is in danger of decreasing the quality of its manpower and conversion capability. In this case, adopting strict rules grounded in ideology helps the group ensure that only the most dedicated people are in its ranks. Individuals who are considering joining for reasons other than dedication to the goal of the war will think twice before joining such a group because it requires a great deal of individual sacrifices.Item Fight or Flight? Democratic Consolidation and Capital Flight in Latin America(2017) Owens, Daniel Scott; Haufler, Virginia A; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since 1980, developing countries lost US$16.3 trillion dollars as a result of capital flight (Kar 2016) representing a major threat to international development efforts. This dissertation investigates why some democracies in the developing world experience much more capital flight than others. Using the experiences of Latin America democracies, the fundamental reasons for flight lie in the failure of these countries to consolidate their democracies. As a result of their failure to consolidate, they are highly vulnerable to popular mobilization by excluded groups demanding redistribution, which has the effect of increasing perceptions of political risk among asset holders and incurring flight. In an area of the world where wealth, income, and power is chronically unequal, my central argument posits a causal sequence that begins with mass mobilization by social movements directed towards new redistributive public policies and in opposition to pro-market democratically elected governments. Typically, as mass mobilization strengthens, Leftist parties embrace the aims of popular movements whose electoral support subsequently increases to levels that allow them to form governments committed to redistribution. Under these conditions, as mobilization and support for the Left strengthened, asset holders’ perceptions of risk increase significantly, leading to capital flight. Using a mixed methods research design combining quantitative analysis with qualitative case studies I present empirical evidence to support my argument. For the quantitative analysis, regression analysis was applied to a cross-sectional time series dataset for 18 democracies. My results show that when Leftist parties actually form governments - thereby sealing the process of democratic inclusion and triggering more capital flight - the magnitude of capital flight is often mitigated a) if a Leftist party forming a government had been established for some time, in which case it typically moderated its redistributive policies; and b) by the continued electoral strength of pro-capital parties able to defend the interests of asset holders and effectively oppose the Leftist government. I reinforced these findings with two case studies: one, a within-case longitudinal study of the impact of class mobilization on capital flight in El Salvador from 1990 to 2009 when the Left finally won power, and the other a comparative study of two Leftist governments in power, in El Salvador from 2009 onwards and Bolivia after 2006.