Rights at Risk: Refugees in the New South Africa

This thesis seeks to analyze the relationship between public attitudes toward refugees in a refugee receiving state and the realization of the legal rights afforded refugees (de facto rights). I hypothesize that the more negative a host culture is toward refugees, the less refugees are able to realize their rights. Conversely, the more positive a host culture is toward refugees, the more refugees are able to realize their rights. I test the hypothesis through a case study of refugee populations in Cape Town, South Africa, based on research conducted from May to June 2007. The orientation (positive or negative) of the host culture's perceptions toward a refugee group (Independent Variable) is measured through: (1) a coded content analysis of the South African media, (2) a coded content analysis of semi-structured interviews, and (3) an assessment of secondary source public opinion surveys and reports. The realization of refugee rights (Dependent Variable) is operationalized as a function of two rights: (1) the right to personal physical integrity and (2) the right to protection from unlawful detention. These rights are measured by coding (1) media reports and (2) interviews, and by (3) assessing NGO reports and secondary source public opinion surveys. My empirical data shows that the cultural orientation toward refugees is not overwhelmingly negative, and the realization of rights is not conclusively "low." However, the frequency of data coded "negative" and "low" versus "positive" or "high" suggest that South Africans regard refugees somewhat negatively and that rights are not fully realized. This finding is strengthened by the analysis of secondary sources and field notes.

The Devil’s Calculus: Mathematical Models of Civil War

In spite of the movement to turn political science into a real science, various mathematical methods that are now the staples of physics, biology, and even economics are thoroughly uncommon in political science, especially the study of civil war. This study seeks to apply such methods - specifically, ordinary differential equations (ODEs) - to model civil war based on what one might dub the capabilities school of thought, which roughly states that civil wars end only when one side’s ability to make war falls far enough to make peace truly attractive. I construct several different ODE-based models and then test them all to see which best predicts the instantaneous capabilities of both sides of the Sri Lankan civil war in the period from 1990 to 1994 given parameters and initial conditions. The model that the tests declare most accurate gives very accurate predictions of state military capabilities and reasonable short term predictions of cumulative deaths. Analysis of the model reveals the scale of the importance of rebel finances to the sustainability of insurgency, most notably that the number of troops required to put down the Tamil Tigers is reduced by nearly a full order of magnitude when Tiger foreign funding is stopped. The study thus demonstrates that accurate foresight may come of relatively simple dynamical models, and implies the great potential of advanced and currently unconventional non-statistical mathematical methods in political science.

The Treatment Action Campaign's First Decade: Success Achieved?

South Africa is known to have the largest HIV epidemic in the world with 5.7 million people currently living with HIV, according to UNAIDS. In light of the crisis, South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has led the social movement for increased treatment access for people living with HIV through lobbying the government, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and grassroots campaigning. Since it's founding a decade ago, TAC has been highly acclaimed both regionally and internationally for its success. In order to determine the success of this social movement organization, social movement theories, such as mobilization potential, external political opportunity structure, and framing of the social context of issues will be examined. The assessment of TAC's success will be made based on two outcomes: political outcome and social/cultural outcome. The assessment of TAC's success, using this framework has shown that TAC is a successful social movement organization overall.