Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Public Opinion or Powerful Friends: The Motivation of Minor Power Intervention Into External Conflict(2020) McCulloch, Caitlin; Gallagher Cunningham, Kathleen; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When and how do minor power states decide to intervene in external conflicts? When minor power states intervene, what form of intervention do they employ? I argue that particular types of intervention (military, financial, or diplomatic) are determined in part by whether a specific intervention is conducted to appease domestic or international audiences. When intervention is primarily a response to the domestic public, foreign policy elites will first and foremost take high visibility intervention action. If there is no strong domestic public opinion on the intervention but there is pressure from major power allies, foreign policy elites will be more likely to take financially costly intervention action. Previous explanations have not examined the entire menu of possible intervention types, missing important variation in the decision-making calculus around intervention. This study tests this theory with a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis. It uses a national public opinion survey in the Republic of Georgia (2017) to support which external conflicts interest the public, public preferences for diplomatic intervention, and elite interest in public preference. It then follows this with a historical case study of India, Sri Lanka and the Tamils (1980-1990) illustratively demonstrating the exact mobilization mechanism of the public and their impact on intervention. These two chapters show that the public cares about cases with solidarity ties and media attention, and overwhelmingly prefers diplomatic intervention. It also shows a majority of elite policymakers do believe the public impacts foreign security policy. The last empirical chapter turns to the role of major power allies in motivating intervention. This dissertation uses a statistical analysis and data from 1975-2009 to show the importance of major power security incentives and security contexts in motivating minor power military intervention. It shows mixed impacts of major power security incentives and security contexts in motivating economic intervention, and shows that major power-minor power intervention occurs in less than 1% of all diplomatic intervention cases. This supports that major powers play a large role in motivating military intervention, but suggests that major powers have a smaller role in motivating diplomatic intervention.Item Cognitive and Behavioral Biases Toward Close Partners in Conflict with Others(2019) Ryan, Joshua Everett; Lemay, Edward P; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The current research explored whether people exhibited biased perceptions and behavioral responses to conflicts involving close partners relative to more psychologically distant relations. In Study 1, participants read a short vignette describing a conflict between two individuals in which one person (i.e., the perpetrator) upset or hurt another (i.e., the victim). Participants either imagined a close partner filling the role of perpetrator, victim, or neither role, in the conflict scenario. Results indicated that participants both attributed and communicated more blame for individuals who hurt or upset close partners relative to strangers – a “magnification” effect. Participants also communicated less blame for victims who were close partners relative to strangers. In Study 2, participants recalled actual conflicts where either close or distant partners served the role of perpetrator or victims in conflicts with other individuals. Results indicated that participants “magnified” the blame for individuals who hurt or upset close, but not distant, partners. Participants also attributed less blame to close partners that they empathized with, and this reduction in blame predicted biased behavioral responding, which included more favorable portrayals of partners, less favorable portrayals of adversaries, more consolation of close partners, and more validation of partners who were upset by adversaries when partners were close relative to distant. Implications for these results and suggestions for future directions are discussed.Item TAKING CARE OF THEIR OWN: THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOLDIERS IN BUSINESS(2017) Prina, David; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines the causes and consequences of involvement in commercial activities by armed forces with regards to coup risk, development and regime transitions. Utilizing an original dataset on military-owned business enterprises, this dissertation examines the links between armed forces control of business enterprises and finds that military controlled enterprises arise out of strategic resource allocation by leaders to minimize coup risk, and that these economic institutions do indeed work to reduce coup risk, though the effect is mediated by the regime type and wealth of a state.Item The Politics of Insurgency(2015) Gandy, Maegen; Quester, George; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation introduces a new definition of insurgency for academic discourse. It argues that four components of a defined relationship framework must interoperate to satisfy organizational requirements and processes in order for an insurgency to achieve increasing levels of scale. From a systemic perspective, it presents a connective theory of constitutive and destructive mechanisms to assess why certain movements expand or ignite while others degrade or get stuck in a particular phase. The proposed perspective provides improved analytic leverage over existing phasing models. Chapter 1 introduces the scope and definition of the politics of insurgency. Chapter 2 presents academic, military, and legal perspectives of the phenomenon. Chapters 3 and 4 explain the limitations of existing insurgency models within the context of two historic case studies, the Chinese and Algerian Revolutions. Chapter 5 introduces the dissertation’s full phasing model. Chapters 6 and 7 present case studies to further elucidate the proposed relationship framework and composite phasing construct, assessing strengths and weaknesses in light of two comparable cases. The Chechen and Kosovar Albanian insurgencies provide insight and applied examples of the activities that occur within each phase. Chapter 8 then consolidates the findings and analysis from the case studies and assesses the viability of the phasing model as a usable tool to better comprehend insurgency behavior, movement scalability, and associated response options.Item "THERE WILL ALWAYS BE ANOTHER WAR": A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT'S RETROSPECTIVE ON REPORTING FROM AROUND THE WORLD(2014) Behn, Sharon; Chinoy, Ira; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Every day, hundreds of journalists risk their lives to cover news developments in volatile areas of the world. They have been beaten, kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Yet they continue to do their jobs, and new reporters join the fray. Their work as foreign correspondents in challenging environments carries a high price that is not fully recognized by news organizations, the public, and often not even by the correspondents themselves. This thesis helps provide an understanding of that human cost. The methodology is autobiography, which allows for an intimate look at the behind-the- scenes experiences and personal toll during a 30-year career in journalism. Salient themes include employment status - staffer vs. freelancer or stringer - as well as gender, ethics, and fear and its consequences. The need for such understanding has become increasingly relevant as many media organizations, under budgetary pressure, ask reporters to deliver more and ever faster from a dangerous world.Item Leader Incentives and the Termination of Civil War(2013) Prorok, Alyssa; Huth, Paul; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the influence of leaders' incentives on civil conflict termination and outcome. Building upon principal-agent framework and insights from credible commitment theories of civil war, I argue that culpable leaders - those viewed as responsible for the war by their constituencies and opponents - are more likely to be punished following poor war performance than non-culpable leaders, who can more easily avoid responsibility for the war. As a result, culpable leaders will have incentives to `gamble for resurrection', extending a losing war in the hope of turning the tide, achieving victory, and avoiding punishment. The culpable leader's incentive to gamble for resurrection thus influences the dynamics of war termination, making wars less likely to end when culpable leaders are in power. Culpability is also hypothesized to increase the likelihood of extreme war outcomes - total defeat or major victory - and to decrease the likelihood that the leader makes concessions to end the war. These propositions are tested using both quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, using an original dataset of rebel and state leaders of a global random sample of civil wars between 1980 and 2010, I test the influence of leader culpability on civil war termination and outcome. The results provide strong support for my theoretical expectations; culpability decreases the likelihood of conflict termination and concessions, while increasing the likelihood of extreme war outcomes. Additionally, I test the mechanism underlying the theoretical argument using quantitative and qualitative evidence. Original data on each leader's culpability, war performance, and post-tenure fate demonstrate that culpable leaders are, in fact, more likely to be punished following poor war performance than their non-culpable counterparts. Within-case comparative analysis of settlement attempts during the civil war in Angola provides additional support for the theoretical argument, demonstrating that leader vulnerability to punishment played a critical role in undermining settlement attempts in Angola during the 1980s and 1990s.Item Impacts of Conflict on Land Use and Land Cover in the Imatong Mountain Region of South Sudan and Northern Uganda(2012) Gorsevski, Virginia; Kasischke, Eric S; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Imatong Mountain region of South Sudan makes up the northern most part of the Afromontane conservation `biodiversity hotspot' due to the numerous species of plants and animals found here, some of which are endemic. At the same time, this area (including the nearby Dongotana Hills and the Agoro-Agu region of northern Uganda) has witnessed decades of armed conflict resulting from the Sudan Civil War and the presence of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The objective of my research was to investigate the impact of war on land use and land cover using a combination of satellite remote sensing data and semi-structured interviews with local informants. Specifically, I sought to 1) assess and compare changes in forest cover and location during both war and peace; 2) compare trends in fire activity with human population patterns; and 3) investigate the underlying causes influencing land use patterns related to war. I did this by using a Disturbance Index (DI), which isolates un-vegetated spectral signatures associated with deforestation, on Landsat TM and ETM+ data in order to compare changes in forest cover during conflict and post-conflict years, mapping the location and frequency of fires in subsets of the greater study area using MODIS active fire data, and by analyzing and summarizing information derived from interviews with key informants. I found that the rate of forest recovery was significantly higher than the rate of disturbance both during and after wartime in and around the Imatong Central Forest Reserve (ICFR) and that change in net forest cover remained largely unchanged for the two time periods. In contrast, the nearby Dongotana Hills experienced relatively high rates of disturbance during both periods; however, post war period losses were largely offset by gains in forest cover, potentially indicating opposing patterns in human population movements and land use activities within these two areas. For the Agoro-Agu Forest Reserve (AFR) region northern Uganda, the rate of forest recovery was much higher during the second period, coinciding with the time people began leaving overcrowded Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. I also found that fire activity largely corresponded to coarse-scale human population trends on the South Sudan and northern Uganda side of the border in that post-war fire activity decreased for all areas in South Sudan and northern Uganda except for areas near the larger towns and villages of South Sudan, where people have begun to resettle. Fires occurred most frequently in woodlands on the South Sudan side, while the greatest increase in post-war, northern Ugandan fires occurred in croplands and the forested area around the Agoro-Agu reserve, Interviews with key informants revealed that while some people fled the area during the war, many others remained in the forest to hide; however, their impact on the forests during and after the conflict has been minimal; in contrast, those interviewed believed that wildlife has been largely depleted due to the widespread access to firearms and lack of regulations and enforcement. This study demonstrates the utility of using a multi-disciplinary approach to examine aspects of forest dynamics and fire activity related to human activities and conflict and as such contributes to the nascent but growing body of research on armed conflict and the environment.Item Teachers' Ratings of Relationships with Students: Links to Student and Teacher Characteristics(2012) Buhl, Sara J.; Rosenfield, Sylvia; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This exploratory study examined the associations between teacher-student relationship ratings and characteristics of students and teachers. A sample of fifth grade teachers (N = 115) and their students (N = 2070) were studied. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to explore the associations between variables while taking both individual characteristics and classroom context into account. An investigation of within-teacher variation indicated that males, Asian students, Hispanic students, FARM eligible students, and students with high prior internalizing scores generally received lower closeness scores. A between-teacher (level-2) model was created to gain a better understanding of the influence of classroom context on teacher reports of closeness with their students. Classroom context was found to play a significant role in relationship ratings for students in general and also for subpopulations of students (i.e., male, high prior externalizing, or high prior internalizing). Teacher self efficacy was positively associated with relationship closeness. Longitudinal data were used to explore the association between the ratings that teachers had provided during previous years (with prior students) and ratings of closeness with their current students. Results indicated that teacher ratings of their previous students during prior years were a significant positive predictor of how their current relationships were rated. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.Item LET'S GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: HOW DIFFERENT TOPICS AFFECT CONFLICT COMMUNICATION BEHAVIOR(2011) Lowe, Adam Glenn; Epstein, Norman B; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Past research suggests it is not what a conflict is about or how much conflict exists between two people, but rather how the parties interact regarding their conflicting preferences that determines whether the conflict has negative effects on their relationship. The current study examined the degrees to which couples' communication behavior in specific situations in which they discuss a conflict-related topic is influenced by the conflict topic theme that they discuss and by their general communication patterns. Conflict topics were assessed with the Relationship Issues Survey, general communication patterns with the Communication Patterns Questionnaire, and specific communication behavior during discussions with the Marital Interaction Coding System - Global. Findings indicated several significant effects of both content area and general communication style on communication behavior. Post-hoc analyses indicated that couples discussing conflicts regarding basic life values, priorities, and consideration for one's partner exhibited more negative communication behavior than those discussing issues regarding closeness, relationship commitment, emotional connectivity, and expressiveness. Possible implications of the findings are discussed.Item Power Sharing or Power Hoarding? Conflict and Democratic Breakdown in Nigeria and Lebanon(2010) Milligan, Margaret (Maren); Lichbach, Mark I; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Power-sharing institutions--organized around the principle of group representation--have re-emerged in recent decades throughout the world. From Iraq to Afghanistan, "power-sharing" has again become a preeminent solution to ethnic and/or electoral conflict. This approach--including the variant of "consociationalism"--has long been critiqued for either strengthening inter-elite ties at the expense of mass-level linkages or working only in societies already committed to inter-group cooperation or conciliation. What these critiques miss--and dangerously so for the countries now undergoing the power-sharing treatment--is that the organization of politics around group representation is inherently unstable. This dissertation traces the impact of institutionalized group representation in two very different staples of the power-sharing literature: Nigeria and Lebanon. Although these mixed Muslim-Christian countries differ in nearly every respect considered relevant in the institutional design literature (electoral system, de/centralized government, party law regulation, size, colonial power, and region) they experience strikingly similar cycles of conflict and democratic breakdown. The dissertation argues that, rather than being a conflict resolution technique of relatively recent provenance, power-sharing is rooted in the exigencies of imperial rule. In doing so, it examines the emergence of ethnic federalism and confessionalism in colonialism in Nigeria and Lebanon. The dissertation then models how institutionalized group representation leads to conflict and democratic breakdown. Drawing on sociology, the dissertation draws on Charles Tilly's model of "Democracy." He argues that democracy operates in a self-reinforcing virtuous circle through three interlocking mechanisms: integration of trust networks, reduction in categorical inequalities and removal or autonomous bases of power. This dissertation argues that, by definition, power sharing promotes the opposite mechanisms: "opportunity hoarding," "category formation," and "certification." The operation of these three mechanisms leads to vicious cycles of conflict and democratic breakdown. The dissertation traces the operation of these three mechanisms focusing on two nested clusters of "groups" since the early 1990s: North/Middle Belt/Jasawa in Nigeria and Muslim/Shi'a/Alawi in Lebanon. Based on this examination of Nigeria and Lebanon, the dissertation argues that "group representation" regimes will lead to cycles of conflict and democratic breakdown and should not be viewed as a conflict panacea.