VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Weisband, Edward"

Browsing by Author "Weisband, Edward"

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The 1993 North Korean Nuclear Crisis: A Foreign Policy Analysis
Lee, Ergene (Virginia Tech, 2000-05-05)
In this paper I apply the Rational Actor model to the 1993-1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis. I begin with two hypotheses: 1) North Korea attempted nuclear armament because of its perception of threat from South Korea and the United States; 2) North Korea attempted nuclear armament because it wanted to use its nuclear program as leverage to obtain economic assistance from the United States. I conduct a diplomatic historical analysis based on the Rational Actor model to determine which was North Korea's primary objective, and conclude that the primary objective of North Korea was obtaining economic concessions, but that threat perception did seem to play a role in the decision to start the nuclear program. In this process, I show that the Rational Actor model was insufficient in the analysis and that it must be complemented by cultural factors, "thickening" the rationality.
Case Study on World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement: European Communities — Measures Affecting Meat and Meatproducts (Hormones), Complaint by the United States
Cuppett, Bryan Scott (Virginia Tech, 2000-01-31)
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization created to coordinate trading rules among nations. Made up of internationally negotiated trade agreements, the WTO has three main objectives: (1)to assist in the free operation of international trade; (2) to allow continued progress of liberalization of such trade through fair negotiations; and (3) to create a system for the impartial settlement of international trade disputes. A key component of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB). This body, as with the WTO itself, has only been in operation since January of 1995. The WTO, although relatively new, has made significant strides in improving the international trading system and resolving trade disputes. Unlike other international organizations, such as the international Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank, the WTO is not controlled by a board of directors, but instead is governed by its member nations. Given this type of arrangement, it is essential that the member nations abide by the signed agreements that govern the operation of the WTO and its Dispute Settlement Body. Otherwise the WTO cannot function as envisioned. This research argues that the European Union (EU) is presently abusing the system through its actions in the dispute settlement case EC- Hormones, Complaint by the United States. Using tactics designed to delay the resolution of this dispute, the EU has increased the costs ssociated with the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) and threatened the credibility of the WTO.
Civic Culture: Scotland's Struggle for its Political Interests
McCann, Aislinn Bronwyn (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-05)
Politics today is facing a troubling trend towards the empowerment of nationalist movements. With strong historical traditions and a powerful Scottish National Party, Scotland would appear to be a prime candidate for such movements. However, this thesis argues that Scotland represents a nation with a unique civic culture. This thesis seeks to determine which elements of Scottish political and cultural history have led to its modern day civic culture, in the form of a civic nationalism, or patriotism. It asks: why is Scottish nationalism unique, and why does it matter? To answer, I have broken down the thesis into three main chapters that consider the theories of nationalism that are significant to the study of Scottish nationalism, the foundations of Scottish nationalism, and how Scottish nationalism manifests itself in civic contexts. The results reflect that Scottish civic culture deeply permeates the nation's politics. Even when given the opportunity for independence, Scotland chose to remain a part of the United Kingdom in order to maintain its interests with the European Union. And, while political cultures are subject to rapid change, the current state of Scottish culture reflects a civic manifestation.
Combat Drones and International Order: An English School Approach
Daniel, Joseph Christopher (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-15)
The purpose of this work is to examine the effect of the use of combat drones for the practice of targeted killing on international order. The understanding of these effects is critical for if the use of combat drones for targeted killing undermines critical institutions of international society, which serves as the basis for international order, then the international order itself would be undermined. It is a qualitative study of drones and their effect on select primary institutions found within the theoretical framework of the English School (ES) of International Relations. The institutions used in this work are sovereignty, territoriality, international law, great power management, and war. This work builds its case on open source primary and secondary documents from the UN and news outlets to gauge the effect and reaction of states to the use of drones over the last 15 years. It found that drones and targeted killing have indeed had a detrimental effect on the institutions of sovereignty, territoriality, and international law. However, drones have also met positive approval by great power management and have helped change the nature of the institution of war.
Conceptualizing Regional International Societies: Examining the Post-Soviet Space
Manning, Chelsea Alizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-06)
This thesis contributes to the English school's growing literature on regional level international societies. Thus far English school scholars have demonstrated the existence of a post-Soviet regional international society. However, what is lacking is a clear defining of the members and institutions of this society. This paper gives particular attention to three questions: who are the actors, what are the primary and secondary institutions, and what role do these institutions play within the post-Soviet regional international society? Doing so contributes to the growing literature on the post-Soviet sub-global international society. In addition, it may be the case that Russian dominion is reflected through the network of secondary institutions in the post-Soviet international society. This thesis further investigates how the creation of this diplomatic structure allows Russia to contest the global diplomatic structure and project its great power status.
Conditionalizing Conduct: Political Economy and the Limits to Governance in European Union Enlargement
Shelton, Joel Trent (Virginia Tech, 2012-04-23)
This dissertation argues that European Union membership conditionality operates as a modality of political-economic governance directed at securing the conditions of possibility for a harmoniously functioning political economy of Europe. I argue that conditionality can best be understood not as a series of requirements for EU membership, a set of incentives for rule adoption, or a vehicle for the transmission of European norms to candidate states, but as an ensemble of discursive and material practices – fragile, dispersed circuits of governmental activity directed at a particular strategic ambition. I argue that existing accounts of EU membership conditionality are informed by predominantly rationalist understandings of political economy which work to conceal various cultural, social, and subjective sources of disharmony in political-economic life. Thinking about the political economy of conditionality through rationalist lenses privileges the study of bargaining and negotiation and institutional reform and overlooks the ways that conditionality targets the transformation of problematic socio-cultural and subjective elements of political economy – among them particular habits of culture, patterns of sociality, and subjective qualities and capacities of the person deemed essential to securing order and abundance. Re-reading canonical works in classical and critical traditions of political economy by James Steuart, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx makes clear that political economy as a field of knowledge and practice has long been concerned with understanding the political, legislative-legal, institutional, socio-cultural, and subjective conditions of possibility for securing order and abundance and has long reflected on the potential and limits of governance to secure these conditions in a world of shifting circumstance. I argue that a political economy of EU membership conditionality concerned with disharmony should investigate the ways that particular socio-cultural and subjective features of political-economic life are problematized in the discourse of conditionality and subsequently targeted for transformation through the work of instruments and agents of conditionality operating in a variety of institutional contexts. On this basis, I analyze conditionality as practice – tracing the emergence of instruments of conditionality currently at work in the Republic of Macedonia through official documents produced by the EU and the Republic of Macedonia from 2001-2011. I then examine the ambitions and limits of the Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013 (OP-HRD) – a program tasked with translating the aims of conditionality on paper into concrete activities for implementation in the fields of employment, education and training, and social inclusion. I outline some limits to the program derived from personal interviews with officials of the EU and the Republic of Macedonia who work to implement the OP-HRD "on the ground." In reflecting on these limitations, I return to the political economy of disharmony, concluding that constraints on the operation of conditionality in practice are not merely the product of technical and political impediments but are also derived from inherent limits to the old dream of political-economic harmony to which the ambitions of conditionality are ultimately directed.
Crime that is organized: A Case Study on Gangs in Chicago's Impoverished Ghetto
Moore, David M. (Virginia Tech, 2016-12-21)
In this paper, I argue for a paradigm shift against general social groupings of organized criminal groups operating throughout the United States. Using Social Constructionism to drive a literature review conducted by way of Discourse Analysis, I spotlight ways in which broad characterizations of "organized crime" led to a mis-handling of gang issues today. Through relying on federally-originating definitions and characterizations, law enforcement and welfare agencies are unequipped for understanding the origins of and motives behind modern gangs and their agendas. The second half of this paper is a case study highlighting the different ways in which gangs may develop and operate despite, in the case of Chicago's Black Gangster Disciples Nation and its splinters, a shared history. If we are to reduce the hold these groups have over urban societies, we must first seek to understand each group individually, pulling out the root issues that drive their actions and how they identify as a form of modern organized crime, that is, "crime that is organized."
The Development of the Modern Iranian Nation-State: From Qajar Origins to Early Pahlavi Modernization
Hedayat, Hirbohd (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-08)
This thesis focuses on the development of the Iranian nation and state from 1811 to 1941. Both of these developments occurred in response to Iran's encounter with the European powers, specifically Russia and Great Britain. Government-led reforms opened the possibility for the development of Iranian nationalism, as Iranian students were in England and brought back the first printing press with them to Iran in 1815. The introduction of the printing press was significant to the development of the Iranian nation-state, as an increase in journals and periodicals introduced contemporary European political ideas to Iranians. This increased the calls to replicate the customs and norms of European society in Iran, ultimately leading to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. The Constitutional Revolution established a Parliament in Iran that was politically weak and held little power in the provinces outside of Tehran. Tribal authority increased throughout Iran, and the Russians and British eventually occupied Iran from 1911 to 1917. The establishment of Reza Shah's rule in 1921 introduced a new centralized Iranian state that was legitimated by the nation and established its rule over the tribes. It is also during Reza Shah's rule that the conception of the Iranian nation begins to change.
The Discursive Construction of Taiwanese National Identity
Wu, Chengqiu (Virginia Tech, 2007-05-18)
Since the early 1990s, more and more people in Taiwan have come to view Taiwan itself as a country independent of China. They consider themselves Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Drawing on a social constructionist perspective to nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe's theory of discourse, this dissertation attempts to analyze the discursive mechanisms that have constructed this new collective imagination by many people in Taiwan that now regard themselves as members of an independent Taiwanese nation. The research questions of this dissertation are: how has the post-1949 national identity of Taiwan been discursively transformed since the early 1990s? What are the discursive and institutional mechanisms that have reproduced the Taiwanese national identity? What challenges is the Taiwanese national identity facing? To answer these questions, this dissertation outlines three nationalist discourses and five representations that have been derived from them regarding Taiwan's status, its relationship with mainland China, and the national identity of people in Taiwan. It examines the changes in Taiwan's discursive regime and symbolic economy since the early 1990s, showing how the rise of Taiwanese national identity has been closely related to political leaders' identification with Taiwanese nationalism. I argue that the rise of Taiwanese national identity in Taiwan has been an effect of a discursive contestation among the three major nationalist discourses and the polarization of the discursive field. This dissertation also explores the provincial origin issue---which has been closely related to ethnic tension in Taiwan---and the relations between the nationalist discourses and democratization. In addition, to explore the possibility for a deconstruction of the Taiwanese national identity, I examine the challenges that the Taiwanese national identity faces, focusing on democracy, the Democratic Progressive Party's performance as the ruling party, and the cross-Strait economic integration and political interactions.
The Dynamics of Chinese Media Practices and Regulation: Explanations and Interpretations
Chen, Xi (Virginia Tech, 2007-08-21)
Based on the understanding that a country's media system can provide important insights into its politics, this dissertation reexamines the development of Chinese politics in the reform era through the media lens, and television in particular. Given that Chinese media have been a marker of the nation's socio-political developments, the media perspective is believed to be particularly useful in interpreting China's changing political circumstances. By tracing the dynamics of television news reporting practices and government regulation of the news media, this analysis will map out the evolving roles of television in today's China to use them as subtle indications of how Chinese politics are evolving in the reform era. Chinese television adopted a Soviet TASS style from its very beginnings due to the heavy Soviet influence that placed an emphasis on imparting a heavily ideological messages and propagating government policies and rules. This practice, however, has been substantially changed during the reform era. Television news reporting in today's China is moving towards the liberal media style in both format and content. What specific changes have taken places in television industry? To what extent has Chinese media departed from the Soviet style? What are the implications of these media changes for China's politics? To answer these questions, I conducted content analysis of the China Radio and Television Broadcasting Awards news reports and television regulations in the reform era, which revealed that Chinese media was developing towards a hybrid of Soviet and liberal models in which both control and liberalization trends can be identified. While encouraging and authorizing increased managerial, editorial, and programming freedom and autonomy, the Party-State has managed to retain its control over political content through increasingly indirect and sophisticated means. The continued marginalization of alternative political voices confirms that democracy with political pluralism, free flow of information and rule of law has not yet materialized after more than two decades' economic reform. By collaborating with market and technology, the Communist Party of China has actually managed to consolidate its control over both the political and economic power while authorizing increased freedom in individual, cultural, and social domains.
An Empirical Analysis of International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) Annual Surveys
Weisband, Edward; Colvin, Christopher (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000-02)
Ethno-nationalism and the Spanish state: a comparison of three regions in Spain
Albers, Andrew D. (Virginia Tech, 1992-12-05)
Modernization theory hypothesizes that ethnicity and ethnic activism will diffuse and dissipate following industrialization because in industrial economies class will replace ethnicity as the basis for individual and group identity. However, the persistence of ethnic activism, including autonomist and separatist movements in Western European countries. challenges the validity of that hypothesis. Equally significant, many attempts, historical and contemporary, to suppress ethnicity and ethnic activism have failed. Neither class consciousness nor nationalist consciousness has transcended or displaced ethnic and regional identity. Such is the case for Spain. This study attempts to show that suppressive action by the state, not change in the economy, is the independent variable that explains contemporary ethnicity and ethnic activism. Suppressive action is defined as any policy, repression, or other activity by the state aimed at suppressing ethnic identity and autonomy.
An Evaluation of the Impact of InterAction's PVO Standards on Small Member Organizations
Polishuk, Amy Christine (Virginia Tech, 2001-12-07)
InterAction is a coalition of over 160 non-profit organizations that has become the United States' leading advocate of humanitarian aid. To join this influential group, members must demonstrate annually that they are in compliance with InterAction's rigorous PVO Standards. This paper evaluates the impact of these Standards on member organizations, in the areas of organizational effectiveness and organizational learning. This evaluation was completed using a retrospective longitudinal study on an experimental group. Data was collected through person interviews with three member organizations and analyzing secondary data from annual reports. The results of this limited data illustrate that annual compliance with InterAction's PVO Standards provides an opportunity for an organization to learn about itself. It is only when members of an organization take advantage of this opportunity and apply this knowledge that it could increase its level of effectiveness.
An examination of three approaches to the study of the politics of interdependence
Madsen, Scott E. (Virginia Tech, 1991-02-04)
This thesis examines three approaches to the study of the politics of interdependence: realism, holism, and the state-based approach. To facilitate this analysis effort will be directed into three areas. First, the definitional clarity of each theory will be examined to determine if the concept of interdependence and related notions have been fully developed. Definitional clarity is of critical importance before any attempt can be made at applying the concepts. Secondly, the individual ability of each theory to explain the manifestations of conditions of interdependence will be examined. Finally, the specific relationship between the United States and Canada will be examined within the auspices of each approach to determine the ability of each to provide useful insight into the politics within this relationship. From this, it will be demonstrated that the state-based approach, with its concentration on the examination of bilateral relationships and the employment of an extreme method of disaggregation, is by far the most appropriate method to study conditions of interdependence.
Exploring the Political Roles of Chinese Think Tanks: A Case Study of China's Three Gorges Project Decision-Making
Mi, Na (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-29)
Since the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1949, Chinese think tanks have experienced significant development during the transformative process of China's political reform and modernization, and their influence has become more notable than before. However, think tanks historically have been given little attention by the public as well as social scientists in China, so scholarly study on Chinese think tanks is limited. This thesis explores the political roles and characteristics of Chinese think tanks by investigating the transformation and classification of Chinese think tanks from 1949 to the present. Furthermore, through a case study of one of the significant projects in contemporary China—the Three Gorges Project—this thesis examines the performance and influence of three Chinese nonpolitical think tanks—the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) on the process of government policy-making in China. Based on this analysis of Chinese think tanks, I draw the conclusion that professionalism and institutionalization are very urgent requirements for contemporary China's think tanks.
The FAIR Act of 1996: Party, Production and Practicality in the Passage of a Farm Bill
Ferranti, Michael Robert (Virginia Tech, 2007-04-20)
This study extends the research done by Winders (2001) and Orden et al. (1999) on the passage of the 1996 farm bill, the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR). Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I argue that Democrats and Republicans were affected differently by a number of influences. Democratic members of Congress appear to have been influenced most by state or district dependence on federal agriculture payments and the timing of the farm bill debate. Party control, on the other hand, seemed to have had a greater impact on Republicans.
German Nationality: an Illustration of Institutionalized Discrimination
Solari, Sarah Yentl (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-22)
On what normative grounds can the ethnic Turkish minority in Germany be denied political membership? Over 7% of the German population is made up of foreign residents, mostly ethnic Turks, with vague social rights and no political groups. This thesis is an attempt at uncovering the developments that have lead to this situation by examining the history of German citizenship within the context of a large disenfranchised ethnic minority since the end of WWII. Finally, this thesis examines the latest legislation on German Nationality as an example of deepening ethno-cultural self-understanding institutionalized by the state that results in the discrimination of millions of foreign residents based solely on nationality.
Greening the Cement Industry in Morocco: The Role of Multinational Corporations
Elouardighi, Selma (Virginia Tech, 2018-09-10)
Corporate environmental responsibility is an emerging concept in developing countries, especially ones where environmental legislation regulating business activity is not enforced. In some instances, business actors voluntarily organize a collective action to institute the adoption of environmental best practices within a given industrial sector. This is the case of the cement industry in Morocco. This research aimed to determine why and how Moroccan cement companies chose to green their industrial processes and adopt environmental best practices. Using a process tracing methodology, this research showed how the adoption of environmental best practices was induced in the cement industry. By conducting in-depth interviews with actors involved in the cement environmental program, and analyzing relevant documentation on the global Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), this research identified how the pressure from financial institutions and global NGOs was instrumental in inducing change. The role of governmental institutions was relegated to facilitating and coordinating the activities of these companies. This research also explores the reach of norms and regulations beyond a given country's frontiers, so that they directly influence the organizational fields of other countries. In this research, European institutions were found to be directly influencing the environmental performance of the cement industry in Morocco through the trade relations that existed between organizations in both geographical areas.
The Impacts and Implications of Post-1995 Linkages Between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the World Trade Organization: Politicization, Deadlock, and Dispute
Powell Thomas, Courtney Irene (Virginia Tech, 2006-04-17)
This thesis examines the impacts and implications of post-1995 linkages between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the World Trade Organization. Chapters 1 and 2 provide data on the structures, functions, and procedures of the Codex Commission and the WTO and analyze their institutional approaches to risk, danger, risk management and the precautionary principle. Chapter 3 evaluates three impacts of post-1995 linkages between these institutions (the politicization of the Codex Commission, deadlock in the Codex standard elaboration process, and dispute in the WTO) as well as three implications of that linkage (risk v. danger assessment and management, changed interpretations of "science," and changed interpretations of "consensus"). Finally, Chapter 4 applies these impacts and implications to food safety cases. This chapter establishes a framework for understanding issues of food safety, Codex standard elaboration, and WTO dispute settlements in terms of scientific and political consensus and debate. This thesis argues, first, that the post-1995 linkage between the Codex Commission and the WTO changed Codex member state expectations and behaviors relative to standard elaboration procedures and that these changed expectations impacted both member state governments and the WTO. It further demonstrates that the extent of the Codex Commission's ability to elaborate universal standards and the WTO's responsibility for dispute settlement can be explained in terms of scientific and political dispute and consensus. Finally, it illustrates that risk and danger are different concepts, require different food safety approaches, and generate different institutional and national reactions. This analysis addresses existing critiques of the Codex Commission, the WTO, and their post-1995 linkages, examines the potential of both institutions to simultaneously pursue consumer safety and open trade objectives, and points to avenues for future research.
The Importance of Local Level Actors: A Comparison of Integration Policies for Foreign Migrant Residents in Two Cities in Japan
Oishi, Tyler Keahi Satoshi (Virginia Tech, 2017-03-01)
How do Toyota and Yokkaichi, two cities in Japan, respond to the difficulties faced by their Nikkeijin foreign residents and why do these cities respond differently despite sharing numerous characteristics? Are there key factors that influence different migrant incorporation strategies? How do these factors influence the ways that Brazilian-Nikkeijin might be viewed in each city? This thesis explores the ways that local organizations in Toyota and Yokkaichi assist their Brazilian Nikkeijin migrant populations and the factors that influence these strategies. I hypothesize that the domination of the Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota and Yokkaichi's history of citizen mobilization significantly affect the ways in which these two cities approach migrant incorporation. I also hypothesize that trends in the types of consultation sought by Brazilian Nikkeijin in the two cities will share seasonal patterns. I test these hypotheses through interviews conducted in 2015 with representatives from local organizations in Toyota and Yokkaichi and through the information in the websites of these organizations. My findings support the hypotheses that the dominance of the Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota and the unique characteristics of Yokkaichi's citizens, grounded in citizen mobilization experiences, influences the different approaches each city takes in responding to Brazilian needs. However, they do not indicate visible seasonal patterns on the types of consultation services sought by Nikkeijin. Previous literature frames the challenges Nikkeijin face in Japanese society and how local governments respond to those challenges in the larger picture of ethnicity and ethnically-based state policies. The thesis contributes to discussions of return migration policies aimed at the integration of foreign residents and the patterns of ethnic negotiation and re-negotiation by co-ethnics when faced with problems as a result of unfulfilled cultural expectations.

Browsing by Author "Weisband, Edward"

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