Role Expectations and State Socialization: Germany's Rediscovery of the Use of Force 1990-1995

This dissertation engages the question of why German political elites accepted the use of force during the 1990s and started to commit the country's armed forces to multilateral peacekeeping missions. Previous governments of the Federal Republic had opposed foreign deployment of the military and Germany was characterized by a unique strategic culture in which the efficacy of military force was widely regarded as negative. The rediscovery of the use of force constituted a significant reorientation of German security policy with potentially profound implications for international relations. I use social role theory to explain Germany's security policy reorientation. I argue that political elites shared a national role conception of their country as a dependable and reliable ally. Role expectations of the international security environment changed as a result of a general shift to multilateral intervention as means to address emerging security problems after the Cold War. Germany's resistance to the use of force was viewed as inappropriate conduct for a power possessing the economic and military wherewithal of the Federal Republic. Elites from allied countries exerted social pressure to have Germany contribute commensurate with capabilities. German political elites adapted role behavior in response to external expectations in an effort to preserve the national role conception of a dependable and reliable ally. Security policy reorientation to maintain Germany's national role conception was pursued by conservative elites who acted as 'role entrepreneurs'. CDU/CSU politicians initiated a process of role adaptation to include the use of force for non-defensive missions. They persuaded Social Democrats and Alliance 90/Green party politicians that the maintenance of the country's role conception necessitated a reorientation in security policy to accommodate the changes in the security environment.

U.S.-Taiwan Relations: A Study on the Taiwan Relations Act

The relationship between the United States and Taiwan is of great importance to both parties. Taiwan offers certain strategic opportunities for the promotion of American national security interests, and the U.S. accordingly provides Taiwan with support of both a defensive and diplomatic nature. The official U.S. policies regarding relations with Taiwan are enumerated in the Taiwan Relations Act (United States Code Title 22 Chapter 48 Sections 3301 - 3316). The act, approved by the U.S. Congress in 1967, stipulates the terms of the bilateral relationship with regard to national defense and diplomatic relations among other factors. This paper seeks to obtain a more developed picture of sentiments on both sides of this relationship in order to understand better the U.S.'s influence and power in Taiwan and in the region.

Constructing a Neuroscientific Pastoral Theology of Fear and Hope

Contemporary therapeutic circles utilize the concept of anxiety to describe a variety of disorders. Emotional reductionism is a detriment to the therapeutic community and the persons seeking its help. This dissertation proposes that attention to the emotion of fear clarifies our categorization of particular disorders and challenges emotional reductionism. I propose that the emotion of fear, through its theological relationship to hope, is useful in therapeutic practice for persons who experience trauma and PTSD. I explore the differences between fear and anxiety by deconstructing anxiety. Through this process, I develop four categories which help the emotion of fear stand independent of anxiety in therapy. Temporality, behaviors, antidote and objects are categories which distinguish fear from anxiety. Together, they provide the impetus to explore the emotion of fear. Understanding the emotion of fear requires an examination of its neurophysiological embodiment. This includes the brain structures responsible for fear production, its defensive behaviors and the evolutionary retention of fear. Dual inheritance evolutionary theory posits that we evolved physically and culturally, helping us understand the inescapability of fear and the unique threats humans fear. The threats humans react to develop through subjective interpretations of experience. Sometimes threats, through their presence in our memories and imaginations, inhibit a person's ability to live out a preferred identity and experience hope. Understanding fear as embodied and subjective is important. Process theology provides a religious framework through which fear can be interpreted. In this framework, fear is developed as an adaptive human response. Moreover, fear is useful to the divine-human relationship, revealing an undercurrent of hope. In the context of the divine-human relationship fear is understood as an initial aim which protects a person from a threat, but also preserves them for novel future relationships. Utilizing a "double-listening" stance, a therapist hears the traumatic narrative and counternarratives of resistance and resilience. These counternarratives express an orientation towards hopeful futures wherein persons thrive through living out a preferred identity. A therapeutic practice incorporating the emotion of fear will utilize the themes of survival, coping and thriving to enable persons to place their traumatic narrative within their meaning systems.

The Relationships Between Child Maltreatment and Exploratory Behavior Implications for Development.

Findings from the fields of attachment theory, physiology, neurology, neurobiology and cognitive theory, when considered together, enhance understanding of the behavior and development of maltreated children. Each field describes from its own vantage how emotional trauma influences the quality and quantity of exploratory behavior. Development in many spheres is influemced by behavior. There is evidence from the field of neurobiology that experience ultimately influences the anatomy of the brain. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that constricted, overly defensive behavior in childhood ultimately compromises the development of the central nervous system itself. The altered neurobiology may help explain some of the developmental delays and failures seen in some maltreated children. Such developmental disruptions may include lowered intellectual performance, impaired ability to learn from experience, behavioral regressions under stress, and characterological abnormalities. This neurobiologic hypothesis has implications for research, intervention and training of professionals.It encourages 1) the identification of those deficit capacities most vulnerable to becoming neurologically based, 2) identification of ways to help the maltreated child explore and be accessible to developmental experiences, 3) more emphasis on the development of cognitive capacities, and 4) more breadth of training for professionals who work with maltreated children and their families.