Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item THE CONTRASTING EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PERU(2020) CORONADO-CASTELLANOS, PAVEL; Birnir, Johanna; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation develops a model to understand the joint role of social capital and nonviolent resistance campaigns to obtain concessions and changes in public goods provision in new democracies and in democracies with weak party systems. The factors that explain variation in effectiveness among nonviolent campaigns have been understudied. By adding social capital to the analysis, this dissertation contributes to filling this theoretical and empirical void. I use data from Perú to provide empirical support to my theory. In Chapter 2, a micro-level theory of nonviolent campaigns is developed. This theory argues that by making cooperation easier, social capital increases the levels of participation in nonviolent campaigns, thereby making concessions more likely. A novel result of this theory is that it shows that social capital is a key feature of social life that can help to generate disruptive collective actions but also to prevent the use of such disruptive means. Thus, under some circumstances, social capital can help to reduce the observed disruptive actions. Chapters 3 and 4 test the theoretical propositions derived in Chapter 2 using Peruvian data. Chapter 3 finds that social capital has a negative statistically significant effect on some types of nonviolent campaigns but positive effects on other types of nonviolent campaigns. Chapter 3 also provides evidence that peasant communities’ organizations in the first half of the 20th century were product of persistence effects of early colonial extractive institutions (i.e. the mining mita) with colonial revolts as important channels of persistence. Chapter 4 shows that nonviolent campaigns and social capital form a positive interactive relationship to affect the provision of public goods at the local level. Social capital makes more likely nonviolent campaign’s success. Chapter 5 summarizes the main conclusions of this dissertation.Item Raising Hope in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Youth, Education, and Peacebuilding in the Post-war State(2018) Schneider, Mary Kate; Soltan, Karol; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) ended the Bosnian War, a conflict fought along ethnic lines that claimed nearly 100,000 lives. The DPA created a new Bosnian government based on a power-sharing model that allocates political power according to the ethnic composition of the population. Although this arrangement has preserved an uneasy peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), it has also produced a political system in which ethnic politics prevail and social divisions are institutionally reinforced, particularly at the local level. Since 1995, institutions such as education have trended toward ‘separate but equal’ models. I argue that this poses a threat to the reconciliation process in BiH. Therefore, the question that this dissertation seeks to address is: what is the effect of ethnically divided education on the post-war generation of Bosnians? To answer this question, the dissertation traces the relationship between the extreme consociationalism first articulated at Dayton and the Bosnian education system, in which 14 education ministries—appointed through an entrenched local tradition of (ethnic) party patronage—have created the competing and often contradictory policies that currently govern Bosnian education. These policies include ethnically separating students into “two schools under one roof,” and adopting curricula and textbooks that favor one ethnic group over another. Because education is integral to identity formation, it stands to reason that education can therefore shape national identity as well as civic and social attitudes. Drawing from original survey data, focus groups, and interviews, I measure the attitudes of third- and fourth-year Bosnian high school students toward other ethnic groups, exploring whether or not there exists a pattern of intolerance that can be traced to school type. Although students across BiH reported largely tolerant attitudes toward other ethnic groups, patterns in the data also suggest that the notion of a codified Bosnian civic national identity is lacking. This lack of civic national identity is problematic because it means that not only is the post-war Bosnian state built upon a foundation of separateness rather than unity, but that little progress on national unity has been made in the twenty-two years since the DPA ended the war.Item Sustaining Peace? Environmental and Natural Resource Governance in Liberia and Sierra Leone(2011) Beevers, Michael David; Conca, Ken; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the last decade environmental and natural resources governance has received a growing share of attention on the international peacebuilding agenda. Few studies have scrutinized in detail the role of international peacebuilders or whether reforms and policies help or hinder peacebuilding outcomes. This dissertation examines international efforts to shape the governance of forests in Liberia and diamonds and minerals in Sierra Leone. I find that international peacebuilding organizations frame the challenge in both cases as transforming conflict resources into peace resources for the purpose of reducing the propensity for violence. To accomplish this transformation, international peacebuilders promote and establish governance reforms and policies designed to securitize and marketize the environment and natural resources. I find that, despite producing the potential peace enhancing benefits of increased stability and revenue, rapidly pushing such a transformation strategy comes with significant linked pathologies that run the risk of recreating pre-war political arrangements, provoking societal competition, undermining environmental management and sustainable livelihoods, and creating unrealistic expectations. These effects can produce contention, foster resistance and increase the likelihood of violence in ways that undermine the conditions essential for achieving a long-term peace. An alternative approach would be to mitigate the effects of securitization and marketization by first addressing issues that have historically led to violence and contention in the environmental and natural resources sector, including land ownership and tenure issues, genuine public participation, government corruption and a lack of sustainable livelihoods.Item Ten Years of Dealing with Kim Jong Il: Can Negotiations Ensure Conflict Resolution?(2006-08-07) Grzelczyk, Virginie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates the tumultuous negotiation relationship between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States, from Kim Jong Il's accession to power in 1994 to the historic but short-lived September 19, 2005 agreement. The purpose of this work is to gain understanding regarding North Korea's negotiation strategies, in order to bring contributions to the literature on negotiation, rogue states, and Northeast Asia. The literature lacks a clear understanding of how North Korea has been operating since 1994, at which time Kim Il Sung passed away and power was assumed by his son, Kim Jong Il. Gaining a clear understanding of what has happened under the Kim Jong Il Administration leads to the construction of a comprehensive analysis of all the different bilateral and multilateral negotiation episodes that have occurred between the United States and North Korea from 1994 to 2005. Those episodes range from such diverse issues as two weeks of bilateral talks to free an American pilot who crashed by accident on North Korea territory in December 1994 to years of nuclear talks). This research is qualitative in nature and based on archival and media resources, as well as interviews conducted with those who served under several different administrations in the United States and in Korea, Japan, and China, as well as scholars, politicians and negotiators. The study concludes that there is a distinctive North Korean negotiation strategy, but that this strategy is increasing in complexity and is highly dependent on the United States' position in the world. North Korea is also revealed as a strategic, non-random player that will only rarely compromise on its red line.