UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item “THE GREAT QUESTION”: SLAVERY, SECTIONALISM, AND THE U.S. NAVAL OFFICER CORPS, 1820-1861(2021) Bailey, Roger; Bell, Richard; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation analyzes how United States naval officers’ beliefs about race and slavery shaped sectionalism between the North and South in the antebellum era. As agents of the federal government operating far from the capital, naval officers had significant influence on the implementation of American foreign policy. With reputations as respected professionals and travelers, they also shaped national discourse with their reports, speeches, and publications. These traits made officers important public figures as the future of slavery became a pervasive issue that increasingly affected American naval operations. The study examines the US Navy’s suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, support for African colonization in Liberia, policing of unauthorized “filibustering” invasions in Latin America, and exploring expeditions. It argues that up until the secession crisis at the outbreak of the Civil War, the naval officer corps was remarkably resilient to the growing divide between the North and South. Most officers considered themselves to be politically moderate on the issue of slavery, and they tried to curtail the institution’s worst excesses, eliminate threats to the stability of slavery, and promote external, compromise solutions to the nation’s domestic crisis that prioritized rule of law. These solutions sought to unify white Americans around visions of empire and the expatriation of African Americans. In pursuing such goals, officers tried to enact their own version of American foreign policy. Though they had limited material success, their efforts supported political moderatism in the antebellum United States. As more and more Americans took up pro- and antislavery stances, naval officers used federal power and their personal influence to help maintain the belief that compromise could preserve the Union.Item EMERGING FROM THE SHADOWS: A CASE STUDY ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN MONROVIA, LIBERIA(2014) Podzimek, Kimberly; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)People with disabilities are often the last group to be included in development agendas. For children with disabilities, this translates into exclusion in the educational setting with piecemeal agendas created by various governments. In Liberia, children with disabilities are not only excluded from the classroom, but the government's most recent education law singles children with disabilities out as individuals that may be excluded from the classroom. It is difficult to find research on people with disabilities in low-income countries that have experienced recent conflict. In an attempt to better understand the lives of children with disabilities in Liberia, I developed and implemented a case study the examines the lives of families with children with disabilities at an educational center in Monrovia, Liberia called The Alliance Center for Children with Disabilities , hereafter referred to as the Center. I used Schalock and Keith's (2000) Quality of Life (QOL) Framework to gauge the influence the Center has over the lives of the families and Critical Disability Theory as a base for a discussion on societal norms and people with disabilities. Through intense analysis of interview transcripts, documents and observations, this study concludes that the families associated with the Center currently have a better quality of life based on the domains in Schalock and Keith's (2000) Quality of Life framework than those with children with disabilities not attending the Center.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.