Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL LOGIC OF CHINESE AND RUSSIAN HISTORICAL MYTHMAKING OF WWII(2024) Gao, Kainan; Pearson, Margaret; Kastner, Scott; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Both President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin are waging wars on “historical nihilism” to eradicate rival interpretations of important historical events to enhance regime survival and to advance geopolitical ambitions. In contrast to the political significance and the far-reaching policy implications of historical issues in China and Russia, the politics of historical mythmaking is a disproportionately undertheorized and understudied area in political science. My dissertation addresses this gap by unpacking the political logic of Chinese and Russian official historical mythmaking. What the Chinese and Russian states gain from manipulating historical discourse? Under what conditions do the Chinese and Russian states intensify their historical mythmaking? What are the implications of their historical mythmaking, both in domestic politics and in international relations? These are the questions I seek to answer in this dissertation. I argue that perceived Chinese and Russian past righteousness offers powerful normative justifications for the paternalistic states and for the geopolitical ambitions of both nations. Through in-depth case studies using congruence analysis approach, this dissertation shows that Chinese and Russian states are more confident in exploiting the nation-building utilities of historical narratives when their rivals with strong claims over the past righteousness become weakened; meanwhile, Chinese and Russian perception of western deviation from orthodox interpretation of Yalta-Potsdam framework constitutes the essence of Chinese and Russian dissatisfactions towards the West in post-Cold War period; lastly, Chinese and Russian states’ mythmaking of WWII experiences, as a pushback against perceived “historical nihilism”, become intensified when they expect weakening future bargaining leverage. For practical implications, based on the insights from this dissertation I contend that lasting peace is not attainable without achieving historical synthesis among the world’s major great powers. Both Chinese and Russian obsession with historical truth and western ahistoricism are detrimental to a truly just international order.Item Civic nationalism in postcolonial states: A comparative analysis of civic nationalism in Mauritus, India and Sri Lanka(2014) Singh, Ila; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Civic Nationalism is the development of national identity for a state, rooted in egalitarian post enlightenment concepts emphasizing humanity and individual rights. Post colonialism, many developing states embarked on the path of civic nation creation, while implementing democracy in order to govern successfully. This dissertation, it is an extension of nationalism studies into the process of post-colonial nation-state building. The question is of why some post-colonial states developed civic nationalism while others developed ethnic or religious nationalism. Upon independence from Britain, former colonies Mauritius, India and Sri Lanka each had multinational populations, which they intended to govern with the creation of civic nationalism and liberal democratic principles. Instead, today each of the three states can clearly be placed in a progression from most civic to least civic. Mauritius is a liberal democracy bound by civic nationalism, India is working on civic nation creation, and Sri Lanka abandoned the civic nation creation project. This dissertation traces why these three nations evolved so differently when each started out in similar circumstances. Why was Mauritius successful in creating a civic nation, while India is still struggling and Sri Lanka devolved into ethnic nationalism? Addressing, whether an attempt was made during the process of nation-state building to create a civic nation and whether the founding fathers were successful in creating the desired civic nation bound by civic nationalism and a liberal democratic state. If a civic state was created by the founding fathers did subsequent political generations work to maintain and perpetuate the civic nation or did civic nationalism die, thus yielding way for illiberal nationalisms? The purpose of this dissertation is to draw out variables that are held in common across either success or failure in state consolidation of a common civic national identity. The dissertation has led to support for the following hypothesis that, the more committed to a civic nation the political and intellectual elite, and the better established the state’s civic, intellectual and educational institutions are at the time of independence and over subsequent generations; the more likely a liberal democratic state will be to establish and maintain civic nationalism.Item Autocephaly as a Function of Institutional Stability and Organizational Change in the Eastern Orthodox Church(2005-02-01) Sanderson, Charles; Pearson, Margaret; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The ecclesiastical organization uniquely characteristic of the Christian East is the autocephalous ("self-headed," or self-governing) church, which in the modern states of Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Balkans are truly national churches, whose boundaries, administrative structures, and identities closely mirror those of the state. Conventional wisdom attributes autocephaly to nationalism: Christianity inevitably becomes closely associated with national identity in those states whose churches are of Byzantine political patrimony, and autocephaly is the organizational manifestation of that association. This study argues that a better explanation for the prevalence of autocephaly lies with the church's institutional framework. Formal and informal institutions, or "rules of the game," structure the relationships between groups of local churches and provide incentives to observe constraints upon actions that restructure those relationships. A restructuring of ecclesiastical relationships implies that an alteration in incentives changed the equilibrium. In the Christian East, enforcement of the equilibrium historically has been carried out by the state. This study explores the institutional framework of the Orthodox Church, outlining the formal (canon law) and informal (conventions and tradition) rules governing organizational change. These rules are then examined in light of historical evidence of how autocephalous churches have come into being throughout the two millennia of the church's existence. The study concludes that the institutional framework of the Orthodox Church, formed within the political context of the Roman and later East Roman (Byzantine) Empire, became increasingly incongruent both with the changing political geography of Eastern Europe and with the enforcing role afforded to secular political authority as imperial structures gave way to modern nation-states. Since the formal institutional rules have proved resistant to change and unable to keep pace with the changing political geography, the Orthodox Church has relied increasingly upon flexible informal rules which has resulted in a proliferation of autocephalous churches. In addition to locating a more compelling explanation for autocephaly within institutional theory, this study argues that the Orthodox Church provides a compelling area for exploration of some of the more vexing analytical problems in institutional theory, such as why institutions change slowly or even appear not to change at all.