From stability to insurgency: The root and proximate causes of the September 2002 civil war in Côte d'Ivoire

This dissertation was an analysis of the root and proximate causes of the September 2002 civil war in Côte d’Ivoire. The central question of this study was: Why did Côte d’Ivoire, which was relatively stable under President Houphouët-Boigny, suddenly begin to experience political violence in the 1990s and an explosion in 2002? Côte d’Ivoire was an interesting case because it was stable for a long period of time, apparently making it an infertile ground for conflict. It was also interesting for comparative purposes because of the fact that several states in West Africa (for instance, Benin, Togo, and Ghana) have experienced military coups but not have civil wars. Finally, this case was an opportunity to revisit the debate on the causes of civil wars in the African context. Chapter one has outlined the entire dissertation project and contextualized the analysis that follows in the subsequent chapters. Chapter two has reviewed the literature on civil wars in general, identified the different types of civil wars, and the type the Ivoiran war is. Chapter three has examined the domestic and international political economy as a source of the civil violence in Côte d’Ivoire. Chapter four has examined the role of ethnicity and region as identities of the war, while chapter five has analyzed the role of the foreign relations in the civil war, as well as the regional political context. Chapter six has distinguished between the root and proximate causes of the Ivoirian civil war, made judgments about the relative weight of the various causes, and the extent to which the weight of the causes can be measured. The study found that the “Ivoirité” was the most important trigger of the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire. The overall conclusion of my dissertation was that the September 2002 crisis in that country was a political crisis which occured in the context of a political reform. It first started with succession problems in 1993 followed by the controversial elections in 1995 and 2000. Later, this electoral politics spread beyond electoral issues, namely citizenship matters.

The electoral geography of the Slovak Republic: A comparison of the 1994, 1998, and 2002 parliamentary elections

In what can rightly be said to be one of the most dramatic geopolitical shifts in modern times, the collapse of communist regimes in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union brought about dramatic changes in the entire region. As a consequence, wide ranging political, economic, and social transformations have occurred in almost all of these countries since 1989. The Slovak Republic, as a newly democratic country, went through the establishment of the electoral and party systems that are the central mechanisms to the formation of almost all modern democratic governments. The primary research purpose of this dissertation was to describe and explain regional variations in party support during Slovakia’s ten years of democratic transformation. A secondary purpose was to relate these spatial variations to the evolution of political parties in the post-independence period in light of the literature on transitional electoral systems. Research questions were analyzed using both aggregate and survey data. Specifically, the study utilized electoral data from 1994, 1998, and 2002 Slovak parliamentary elections and socio-economic data of the population within Slovak regions which were eventually correlated with the voting results by party in the 79 Slovak districts. The results of this study demonstrate that there is a tendency among voters in certain regions to provide continuous support to the same political parties/movements over time. In addition, the socio-economic characteristics of the Slovak population (gender, age, education, religion, nationality, unemployment, work force distribution, wages, urban-rural variable, and population density) in different regions tend to influence voting preferences in the parliamentary elections. Finally, there is an evident correlation between party preference and the party’s position on integration into European Union, as measured by perceived attitudes regarding the benefits of EU membership.

The absence of race in democratic politics: The case of the Dominican Republic

This dissertation explores the relationship between race and democratization. Through the examination of the case of the Dominican Republic, this study challenges mainstream explanations of democratic transitions. At its core, this dissertation aims at calling attention to the absence of race and ethnic allegiances as explanatory variables of the democratic processes and debates in the region. By focusing on structural variables, the analysis shies away from elite and actor-centered explanations that fall short in predicting the developments and outcomes of transitions. The central research questions of this study are: Why is there an absence of the treatment of race and ethnic allegiances during the democratic transitions in Latin America and the Caribbean? How has the absence of ethnic identities affected the nature and depth of democratic transitions? Unlike previous explanations of democratic transitions, this dissertation argues that the absence of race in democratic transitions has been a deliberate attempt to perpetuate limited citizenship by political and economic elites. Findings reveal a difficulty to overcome nationalist discourses where limited citizenship has affected the quality of democracy. Original field research data for the study has been gathered through semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted from October 2008 to December 2009 in the Dominican Republic.

Politics at the water's edge: The presidency, Congress, and the North Korea policy of the United States

For all their efforts to avoid a nuclear North Korea, the Clinton and Bush administrations failed to achieve this goal, the most important policy objective of the United States in its relations with North Korea for decades, mainly because of inconsistencies in U.S. policy. This dissertation seeks to explain why both administrations ultimately failed to prevent North Korea from going nuclear. It finds the origins of this failure in the implementation of different U.S. policy options toward North Korea during the Clinton and Bush administrations. To explain the lack of policy consistency, the dissertation investigates how the relations between the executive and the legislative branches and, more specifically, different government types—unified government and divided government—have affected U.S. policy toward North Korea. It particularly emphasizes the role of Congress and partisan politics in the making of U.S. policy toward North Korea. This study finds that divided government played a pivotal role. Partisan politics are also central to the explanation: politics did not stop at the water’s edge. A divided U.S. government produced more status quo policies toward North Korea than a unified U.S. government, while a unified government produced more active policies than a divided government. Moreover, a unified government with a Republican President produced more aggressive policies toward North Korea, whereas a unified government with a Democratic President produced more conciliatory policies. This study concludes that the different government types and intensified partisan politics were the main causes of the inconsistencies in the United States’ North Korea policy that led to a nuclear North Korea.

The ineffectiveness of multilateral sanctions regimes under globalization: The case of Iraq

This dissertation examines the effectiveness and limits of multilateral sanctions regimes as instruments of foreign policy, particularly when trying to prevent the acquisition, development and proliferation of weapons of mass destructions. I hypothesize that globalization undermines the overall effectiveness of sanctions regimes. I analyze the agents and means of globalization. Agents are nation-states, corporations, non-state actors and organizations, and individuals. Means are the global import-export industry, global banking and investment, global corporate models, and global manufacturing industries. They all have contributed to vast increases in transnational economic activity and, furthermore, to more political tensions between nation-states, all of which jeopardize the implementation and enforcement of multilateral sanctions regimes. ^ To test this thesis, I examine how those factors impacted the multilateral sanctions regime imposed against Iraq from 1991 to 2002. This multilateral sanctions regime was conceived, approved and enforced by most nations in the United Nations. ^ Indeed, evidence collected for this dissertation suggests that Iraq did manage to consistently circumvent the UN sanctions regime, and that it did it by astutely utilizing the agents and means of globalization. Evidence also indicates that Iraq managed to rebuild parts of its military infrastructure, and that Iraq was on its way to rebuild its missile capability, for which it purchased large quantities of parts, components, technologies and manpower in the global market.^

Determinants and effects of electoral party coalitions: The case of Brazil

Since the 1985 return to democracy, Brazilian politicians have resorted to vote-pooling arrangements to elect representatives. A puzzle thus presents itself: What drives parties to join these electoral cartels? The dissertation unraveled the incentives party elites have to participate in coalitions under a presidencialist system of government. I also investigated the effect of electoral coalitions on congressional representation. I applied a model of binary outcomes and relied on standard deviations to assess the ideological homogeneity/heterogeneity of electoral coalitions. I also calculated the Index of Disproportionality to measure the gaps between the proportion of votes and seats received by all parties in Brazil with and without electoral coalitions. Finally, I assessed the effects of the electoral formula on proportionality. An unexpected exogenous factor resulted crucial in explaining proportional electoral coalition building: The district's majoritarian election for governor. In each district, political actors often synchronize coalition partners to maximize winning results while minimizing electoral efforts.

Para subsistir dignamente: Alberto Yarini and the search for Cubanidad, 1882-1910

This study looks at the broader transformations in Cuban history through the case study of a single, yet symbolic, man, and proposes a new paradigm for understanding the dynamics of Cuban society and culture. It also examines the implications for Cuba’s aspiring national identity at the turn of the twentieth century, by detailing the interplay between fact and fiction in the story of Alberto Yarini: elite born; well-educated; politically and socially well-connected; powerful; and celebrated Cuban racketeer and chulo (pimp). Yarini was described as vibrant and triumphant at a time when other nation-building forces in Cuba were weak and ambivalent. A century after his dramatic death, Yarini became the quintessential public man in Cuban lore who symbolized a cubanidad (Cuban national identity) not defined in terms of the ideological hegemony of class, race, or gender, and who through his actions dispelled the ambivalence that plagued Cuban nationalism. Using archival documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, court records, memoirs, and published works, this study analyzes the confluence of national events and individual action in the formation of Cuban national identity. It contends that for Cuba, the failure of nation-building experiments resulted in an ambivalent national identity based on failed philosophical and political ideals of equality and prosperity. These ideals played out within the context of the realities of racial discrimination, political dissonance, and class and gender barriers. Instead of a cohesive sense of national character, for Cubans the result was a competing set of identities including a populist version that was defined through identification with antitypes and pseudo-heroes such as Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León (1882-1910), a rising politician and celebrated chulo of the early republic. The telling and retelling of his story has given rise to what has been termed the island nation’s first national myth – one that continues to evolve and grow in the twenty-first century. For many Cubans, the Yarini antitype provided an idealized national identity which in many ways was—and many argue continues to be— the expression of an elusive and ambivalent cubanidad.

European integration and democratic consolidation: Spain, Poland and Turkey in comparative perspective

The study explored when, under what conditions, and to what extent did European integration, particularly the European Union’s requirement for democratic conditionality, contribute to democratic consolidation in Spain, Poland, and Turkey? On the basis of a four-part definition, the dissertation examined the democratizing impact of European integration process on each of the following four components of consolidation: (i) holding of fair, free and competitive elections, (ii) protection of fundamental rights, including human and minority rights, (iii) high prospects of regime survival and civilian control of the military, and (iv) legitimacy, elite consensus, and stateness. To assess the relative significance of EU’s democratizing leverage, the thesis also examined domestic and non-EU international dynamics of democratic consolidation in the three countries. By employing two qualitative methods (case study and process-tracing), the study focused on three specific time frames: 1977–1986 for Spain, 1994–2004 for Poland, and 1999–present for Turkey. In addition to official documents, newspapers, and secondary sources, face-to-face interviews made with politicians, academics, experts, bureaucrats, and journalists in the three countries were utilized. The thesis generated several conclusions. First of all, the EU’s democratizing impact is not uniform across different components of democratic consolidation. Moreover, the EU’s democratizing leverage in Spain, Poland, and Turkey involved variations over time for three major reasons: (i) the changing nature of EU’s democratic conditionality over time (ii) varying levels of the EU’s credible commitment to the candidate country’s prospect for membership, and (iii) domestic dynamics in the candidate countries. Furthermore, the European integration process favors democratic consolidation but its magnitude is shaped by the candidate country’s prospect for EU membership and domestic factors in the candidate country. Finally, the study involves a major policy implication for the European Union: unless the EU provides a clear prospect for membership, its democratizing leverage will be limited in the candidate countries.

Voting with their feet: Migration, partisanship, and party-safe elections in Florida

Political scientists have long noted that Congressional elections are often uncompetitive, often extremely so. Many scholars argue that the cause lies in the partisan redistricting of Congressional districts, or “gerrymandering”. Other scholars emphasize polarization created by a fragmented news media, or the candidate choices made by a more ideological primary electorate. All these explanations identify the cause of party-safe elections in institutions of various kinds. This dissertation, by contrast, presents a structural explanation of uncompetitive elections. My theory is that population composition and patterns of migration are significant causes and predictors of election results in Florida. I test this theory empirically by comparing the predictions from four hypotheses against aggregate data, using the county as the unit of analysis. The first hypothesis is that Florida can be divided into clearly distinguishable, persistent partisan sections. This hypothesis is confirmed. The second hypothesis is that Florida voters have become increasingly partisan over time. This hypothesis is confirmed. The third hypothesis is that the degree of migration into a county predicts how that county will vote. This hypothesis is partially confirmed, for the migration effect appears to have waned over time. The last hypothesis is that the degree of religiosity of a county population is a predictor of how that county will vote. This hypothesis is also supported by the results of statistical analysis. By identifying the structural causes of party-safe elections, this dissertation not only broadens our understanding of elections in Florida, but also sheds light on the current polarization in American politics.

Diversity and knowledge in the age of nation-building: Space and time in the thought of Yanagita Kunio

The study examines the thought of Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962), an influential Japanese nationalist thinker and a founder of an academic discipline named minzokugaku. The purpose of the study is to bring into light an unredeemed potential of his intellectual and political project as a critique of the way in which modern politics and knowledge systematically suppresses global diversity. The study reads his texts against the backdrop of the modern understanding of space and time and its political and moral implications and traces the historical evolution of his thought that culminates in the establishment of minzokugaku. My reading of Yanagita’s texts draws on three interpretive hypotheses. First, his thought can be interpreted as a critical engagement with John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of history, as he turns Mill’s defense of diversity against Mill’s justification of enlightened despotism in non-Western societies. Second, to counter Mill’s individualistic notion of progressive agency, he turns to a Marxian notion of anthropological space, in which a laboring class makes history by continuously transforming nature, and rehabilitates the common people (jomin) as progressive agents. Third, in addition to the common people, Yanagita integrates wandering people as a countervailing force to the innate parochialism and conservatism of agrarian civilization. To excavate the unrecorded history of ordinary farmers and wandering people and promote the formation of national consciousness, his minzokugaku adopts travel as an alternative method for knowledge production and political education. In light of this interpretation, the aim of Yanagita’s intellectual and political project can be understood as defense and critique of the Enlightenment tradition. Intellectually, he attempts to navigate between spurious universalism and reactionary particularism by revaluing diversity as a necessary condition for universal knowledge and human progress. Politically, his minzokugaku aims at nation-building/globalization from below by tracing back the history of a migratory process cutting across the existing boundaries. His project is opposed to nation-building from above that aims to integrate the world population into international society at the expense of global diversity.

Framing infectious diseases and U.S. public opinion

The United States has been increasingly concerned with the transnational threat posed by infectious diseases. Effective policy implementation to contain the spread of these diseases requires active engagement and support of the American public. To influence American public opinion and enlist support for related domestic and foreign policies, both domestic agencies and international organizations have framed infectious diseases as security threats, human rights disasters, economic risks, and as medical dangers. This study investigates whether American attitudes and opinions about infectious diseases are influenced by how the issue is framed. It also asks which issue frame has been most influential in shaping public opinion about global infectious diseases when people are exposed to multiple frames. The impact of media frames on public perception of infectious diseases is examined through content analysis of newspaper reports. Stories on SARS, avian flu, and HIV/AIDS were sampled from coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post between 1999 and 2007. Surveys of public opinion on infectious diseases in the same time period were also drawn from databases like Health Poll Search and iPoll. Statistical analysis tests the relationship between media framing of diseases and changes in public opinion. Results indicate that no one frame was persuasive across all diseases. The economic frame had a significant effect on public opinion about SARS, as did the biomedical frame in the case of avian flu. Both the security and human rights frames affected opinion and increased public support for policies intended to prevent or treat HIV/AIDS. The findings also address the debate on the role and importance of domestic public opinion as a factor in domestic and foreign policy decisions of governments in an increasingly interconnected world. The public is able to make reasonable evaluations of the frames and the domestic and foreign policy issues emphasized in the frames.

The influence of corporate interests on USAID's development agenda: The case of Haiti

This dissertation is an attempt to use the radical political economy approach, which assumes that there is a connection between a state's strategic interests and the interests of dominant multinational corporations (MNCs) located within a state's territory, to explain continuity in the USAID development agenda and lending patterns during the past 30 years of development aid to Haiti. Employing the qualitative method of "process-tracing," my study concludes that the radical political economy approach has an explanatory power when it comes to understanding continuity in the USAID development agenda and lending patterns during the past 30 years of development aid to Haiti. The evidence shows that USAID has implemented in Haiti, from the 1980s through the post-9/11 Washington Consensus period, neoliberal policies that conform to the political economy of US multinational corporations (US MNCs). Contrary to the claim that the USAID-sponsored post-earthquake development paradigm has departed from previous development strategies, the study has shown that USAID has used the occurrence of the January 2010 earthquake tragedy to accelerate in Haiti the implementation of a neoliberal agenda congenial to the business promotion of multinational investors, particularly US multinational corporations. In terms of the way ahead, the study argues for the implementation of a new development approach articulated by a legitimate Haitian state and primarily intended to promote the socioeconomic development of the poorest Haitians.

Organized labor and U.S. foreign policy: The Solidarity Center in historical context

During the Cold War the foreign policy of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), was heavily criticized by scholars and activists for following the lead of the U.S. state in its overseas operations. In a wide range of states, the AFL-CIO worked to destabilize governments selected by the U.S. state for regime change, while in others the Federation helped stabilize client regimes of the U.S. state. In 1997 the four regional organizations that previously carried out AFL-CIO foreign policy were consolidated into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center). My dissertation is an attempt to analyze whether the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO in the Solidarity Center era is marked by continuity or change with past practices. At the same time, this study will attempt to add to the debate over the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the post-Cold War era, and its implications for future study. Using the qualitative "process-tracing" detailed by of Alexander George and Andrew Bennett (2005) my study examines a wide array of primary and secondary sources, including documents from the NED and AFL-CIO, in order to analyze the relationship between the Solidarity Center and the U.S. state from 2002-2009. Furthermore, after analyzing broad trends of NED grants to the Solidarity Center, this study examines three dissimilar case studies including Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region to further explore the connections between U.S. foreign policy goals and the Solidarity Center operations. The study concludes that the evidence indicates continuity with past AFL-CIO foreign policy practices whereby the Solidarity Center follows the lead of the U.S. state. It has been found that the patterns of NED funding indicate that the Solidarity Center closely tailors its operations abroad in areas of importance to the U.S. state, that it is heavily reliant on state funding via the NED for its operations, and that the Solidarity Center works closely with U.S. allies and coalitions in these regions. Finally, this study argues for the relevance of "top-down" NGO creation and direction in the post-Cold War era.

The American politics of a Jewish Judea and Samaria

This dissertation poses a set of six questions about one of the Israel Lobby's particular components, a Potential Christian Jewish coalition (PCJc) within American politics that advocates for Israeli sovereignty over "Judea and Samaria" ("the West Bank"). The study addresses: the profiles of the individuals of the PCJc; its policy positions, the issues that have divided it, and what has prevented, and continues to prevent, the coalition from being absorbed into one or more of the more formally organized components of the Israel Lobby; the resources and methods this coalition has used to attempt to influence U.S. policy on (a) the Middle East, and (b) the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular; the successes or failures of this coalition's advocacy and why it has not organized; and what this case reveals about interest group politics and social movements in the United States. This dissertation follows the descriptive-analytic case-study tradition that comprises a detailed analysis of a specific interest group and one policy issue, which conforms to my interest in the potential Christian Jewish coalition that supports a Jewish Judea and Samaria. I have employed participant observation, interviewing, content analysis and documentary research. The findings suggest: The PCJc consists of Christian Zionists and mostly Jews of the center religious denominations. Orthodox Jewish traditions of separation from Christians inhibit like-minded Christians and Jews from organizing. The PCJc opposes an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, and is not absorbed into more formally organized interest groups that support that policy. The PCJc's resources consist of support and funding from conservatives. Methods include use of education, debates and media. Members of the PCJc are successful because they persist in their support for a Jewish Judea and Samaria and meet through other organizations around Judeo-Christian values. The PCJc is deterred from advocacy and organization by a mobilization of bias from a subgovernment in Washington, D.C. comprising Congress, the Executive branch and lobby organizations. The study's results raise questions about interest group politics in America and the degree to which the U.S. political system is pluralistic, suggesting that executive power constrains the agenda to "safe" positions it favors.

Rethinking the national question: Anti-statist discourses within the Kurdish national movement

Why and under what conditions have the Kurds become agents of change in the Middle East in terms of democratization? Why did the Kurds' role as democratic agents become particularly visible in the 1990s? How does the Kurdish movement's turn to democratic discourse affect the political systems of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria? What are the implications of the Kurds' adoption of "democratic discourse" for the transnational aspect of the Kurdish movement? Since the early 1990s, Kurdish national movements in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria have undergone important political and ideological transformations. As a result of the Kurds' growing role in shaping the debates on human rights and democratization in these four countries, the Kurdish national movement has acquired a dual character: an ethno-cultural struggle for the recognition of Kurdish identity, and a democratization movement that seeks to redefine the concepts of governance and citizenship in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The process transformation has affected relations between the Kurdish movements and their respective central governments in significant ways. On the basis of face-to-face interviews and archival research conducted in Turkey, Iraq and parts of Europe, the present work challenges the current narrative of Kurdish nationalism, which is predominantly drawn from a statist interpretation of Kurdish nationalist goals, and argues instead that the Kurdish question is no longer a problem of statelessness but a problem of democracy in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The main contributions of this work are three fold. First, the research unfolds the reasons behind the growing emphasis of the Kurdish movement on the concepts of democracy, human rights, and political participation, which started in the early 1990s. Second, the findings challenge the existing scholarship that explains Kurdish nationalism as a problem of statelessness and shifts the focus to the transformative potentials of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria through a comparative lens. Third, this work explores the complex transnational coordination and negotiations between the Kurdish movements across borders and explains the regional repercussions of this process.