Turkey and neo-Ottomanism: Domestic sources, dynamics and foreign policy

This study examined the relationship between the Turkish Islamic movements and the present government of the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AK Party). Since the AK Party came to power in 2002 it implemented unparalleled political reforms and pursued to improve Turkey’s relations with the EU. Opponents argued that because of the dominance of the secular military in Turkish politics, the AK Party is forced to secretly advance its Islamic agenda using the language and symbolism of democracy and human rights. This study argued that the ideas of the AK Party show similarities with the “Ottomanist” thought of the late Ottoman era. With special reference to the preservation of the Ottoman State, Ottomanism in an eclectic way was able to incorporate Islamic principles like freedom, justice and consultation into the political arena which was increasingly dominated by the secular European concepts. Literature on Islam and politics in Turkey, however, disregards the Ottoman roots of freedom and pluralism and tends to reduce the relationship between religion and state into exclusively confrontational struggles. This conceptualization of the political process relies on particular non-Turkish Muslim experiences which do not necessarily represent Islam’s venture in Turkey. Contrary to the prevailing scholarship, Islamic movements in Turkey, namely, Naqshbandi, National View and Nur, which are discussed in detail in this study, are not monolithic. They all uphold the same creedal tenets of Islam but they have sharp differences in terms of how they conceptualize the role of religious agency in politics. I argue that this diversity is a result of three distinct methodologies of Islamic religious life which are the Tariqah (Tarikat ), Shariah (Şeriat), and Haqiqah ( Hakikat). The differences between these three approaches represent a typological hierarchy in the formation of the Muslim/believer as an agent of Islamic identity. Through these different if not conflicting modes, the AK Party reconnected itself with Turkey’s Ottoman heritage in a post-Ottoman, secular setting and was able to develop an eclectic political identity of Neo-Ottomanism that is evident in the flexibility if not inconsistency of its domestic and foreign policy preferences.

Gender politics, women's rights and international norms in Lebanon

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the reasons for the under-representation of women in politics in Lebanon, and the role of international norms of gender equality in bringing about change. For those questions, I examined the particular relevance of confessionalism arguing that a confessional social structure and political system empower patriarchal forms of organization with detrimental effects to women's political participation. This dissertation makes innovative contributions to two types of literature. First, literature on the barriers to women being elected into political office has put strong emphasis on electoral systems of representation, but has rarely addressed the way in which electoral systems that seek to ensure minority representation – such as the confessional system in Lebanon – operate to keep women out of politics. This study provides an important corrective to this literature by exploring a non-Western case and broadening theorizing on the issue. Second, constructivist literature in the field of International Relations has argued that international norms of gender equality – including gender quotas – have diffused throughout the 20th century. This research illustrates the mechanisms that counteract international diffusion, and adds to our understanding of how international norms are translated into domestic contexts.

The impact of friends on newly immigrant children's emotional and behavioral adjustment

Immigration disrupts an individual's support network; however, the stresses of the immigration process increase the need for social support. The presence of social support becomes essential for immigrant children and adolescents to cope with these important transitional circumstances. Friends are both sources of social support and models for behavior. Furthermore, friendship networks are known to have a significant influence on youths' functioning. Literature suggests that peer relations become more important in adolescence and friend support is related to child and adolescent well-being. Thus, friend relationships may be particularly important for immigrant youths who experience disruption in their friendship networks during the process of migration to another country. In addition to friendship networks and support, friend characteristics also need to be taken into consideration as important factors for immigrant youth adjustment. My study involved analyses of the effects of friend support and friend problem behaviors on emotional and behavioral functioning for elementary, middle, and high school age newly immigrant children and adolescents. ^ Immigrant children and adolescents (N = 503) were interviewed at schools by interviewers fluent in participants' languages. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that friend support and friend problem behaviors were related to children's self-esteem and externalizing behaviors. In addition, friend problem behavior alone predicted children's psychological symptoms and depression scores. Furthermore, age/grade was found to be a moderator for the relation between friend problem behavior and immigrant youth behavioral adjustment such that compared to elementary and high school cohorts, middle school youths showed more externalizing behaviors when they had friends performing problem behaviors. ^ Results supported the idea that both friend support and friend behavior are related to newly immigrant youths' emotional and behavioral adjustment. This study informs further research and interventions concerning the development of programs to facilitate immigrant youths' adjustment by revealing friendship factors related to their adaptation.^

Oman's foreign policy: Foundations and practice

The object of this dissertation is to record and analyze the foreign policy of the Sultanate of Oman from the early twentieth century until 2004. It challenges the central assumption of the contemporary scholarship on the subject that Muscat's modern foreign policy begins in 1970. It is often presumed that the pre-1970 era does not merit a thorough investigation to understand Muscat's modus operandi today. This study argues that for a comprehensive understanding of Muscat's foreign policy since 1970, the frontier of the historical analysis of Oman's regional and international involvement should be pushed back to the 1930's, when the young Sultan Said assumed power over the country divided by the "Treaty" or the "Agreement" of Sib. Indeed, the thrust of this research lies at once in repudiating the conventional wisdom regarding both the persona of Sultan Said and the customary political/historical narrative of Said's reign. The critical analysis of this period is utilized to rebut the pervasive and largely inaccurate historical narrative of the events prior to 1970, to recount an original interpretation of the period, and to use the narrative as a preamble for subsequent foreign policy directions and initiatives. Furthermore, this dissertation covers the gaps in the literature resulting from the absence of any materials that either record or analyze Muscat's foreign policy from 1996 until 2004. In addition, his study provides new information and a fresh analysis of the international relations of the region, including great power rivalry, especially the competition between the United States and Great Britain, and the attitudes of major regional actors, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. ^ The use of a thorough historical inquiry is vital to support the central claim of this dissertation; therefore, a large section of this dissertation is based almost exclusively on archival materials collected from the British Public Records Office, the University of Oxford and the Library of Congress. This project represents the most comprehensive use of archival materials on the subject matter to date. ^

The mosses of Terra Nova National Park, Eastern Newfoundland, a bryofloristic analysis and interpretation

The known moss flora of Terra Nova National Park, eastern Newfoundland, comp~ises 210 species. Eighty-two percent of the moss species occurring in Terra Nova are widespread or widespread-sporadic in Newfoundland. Other Newfoundland distributional elements present in the Terra Nova moss flora are the northwestern, southern, southeastern, and disjunct elements, but four of the mosses occurring in Terra Nova appear to belong to a previously unrecognized northeastern element of the Newfoundland flora. The majority (70.9%) of Terra Nova's mosses are of boreal affinity and are widely distributed in the North American coniferous forest belt. An additional 10.5 percent of the Terra Nova mosses are cosmopolitan while 9.5 percent are temperate and 4.8 percent are arctic-montane species. The remaining 4.3 percent of the mosses are of montane affinity, and disjunct between eastern and western North America. In Terra Nova, temperate species at their northern limit are concentrated in balsam fir stands, while arctic-montane species are restricted to exposed cliffs, scree slopes, and coastal exposures. Montane species are largely confined to exposed or freshwater habitats. Inability to tolerate high summer temperatures limits the distributions of both arctic-montane and montane species. In Terra Nova, species of differing phytogeographic affinities co-occur on cliffs and scree slopes. The microhabitat relationships of five selected species from such habitats were evaluated by Discriminant Functions Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis. The five mosses have distinct and different microhabitats on cliffs and scree slopes in Terra Nova, and abundance of all but one is associated with variation in at least one microhabitat variable. Micro-distribution of Grimmia torquata, an arctic-montane species at its southern limit, appears to be deterJ]lined by sensitivity to high summer temperatures. Both southern mosses at their northern limit (Aulacomnium androgynum, Isothecium myosuroides) appear to be limited by water availability and, possibly, by low winter temperatures. The two species whose distributions extend both north and south or the study area (Encalypta procera, Eurhynchium pulchellum) show no clear relationship with microclimate. Dispersal factors have played a significant role in the development of the Terra Nova moss flora. Compared to the most likely colonizing source (i .e. the rest of the island of Newfoundland), species with small diaspores have colonized the study area to a proportionately much greater extent than have species with large diaspores. Hierarchical log-linear analysis indicates that this is so for all affinity groups present in Terra Nova. The apparent dispersal effects emphasize the comparatively recent glaciation of the area, and may also have been enhanced by anthropogenic influences. The restriction of some species to specific habitats, or to narrowly defined microhabitats, appears to strengthen selection for easily dispersed taxa.

"Suffragettes of the Harem": The Evolution of Sympathy and the Afterlives of Sentimentality in American Feminist Orientalism, 1865-1920

This project examines narrative encounters in space identified as “harem,” produced by authors with biographical ties to the vanguard of the American Suffrage Movement. I regard these feminists’ circulations East, to the domestic space of the Other, as a hitherto unstudied, yet critical component of transnationalism in the history of U.S. Suffrage. This literary record also crucially reveals the extent to which sentimentality was plotted as a potential force for the reform of other cultures. An urge to sympathize denied in the space of the harem illustrates the colonial anxieties that subtended sentimentality’s prospective deployment beyond national borders. In five chapters on the work of Anna Leonowens, Susan Elston Wallace, Demetra Vaka Brown, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Edith Wharton, I examine how Suffrage-minded authors writing the harem strategically abandon an activist praxis of fellow feeling. Such a reluctance to transform sentimental literature into a colonial literature consequently informs that genre’s postbellum decline. The sentiments that run dry for American feminists in the harem additionally foreground the costly failures of Wilsonian Idealism, a doctrine that appropriated a discourse of sentimentality in order to script the United States’ expanded involvement in global affairs.

Genomic and archaeological evidence suggest a dual origin of domestic dogs

The geographic and temporal origins of dogs remain controversial. We generated genetic sequences from 59 ancient dogs and a complete (28x) genome of a late Neolithic dog (dated to ~4800 calendar years before the present) from Ireland. Our analyses revealed a deep split separating modern East Asian and Western Eurasian dogs. Surprisingly, the date of this divergence (~14,000 to 6400 years ago) occurs commensurate with, or several millennia after, the first appearance of dogs in Europe and East Asia. Additional analyses of ancient and modern mitochondrial DNA revealed a sharp discontinuity in haplotype frequencies in Europe. Combined, these results suggest that dogs may have been domesticated independently in Eastern and Western Eurasia from distinct wolf populations. East Eurasian dogs were then possibly transported to Europe with people, where they partially replaced European Paleolithic dogs.

Photography, desire and resistance in the lives of women, following the 1979 revolution in Iran

In my last four years of PhD by practice at the Royal College of Art, I have conducted extensive research on archival photography including materials held at the Museum der Weltkulturen, Frankfurt am Main; the Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies (IICHS) , Tehran; and the International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam. My project started with the fortuitous encounter with a photograph taken by Iranian photographer Hengameh Golestan on the morning of March 8, 1979. The photograph shows women marching in the streets of Teheran in protest against the introduction of the compulsory Islamic dress code. In 1936 Reza Shah had decreed a ban on the headscarf as part oh his westernising project. Over forty years later following the 1979 Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini reversed this decision by ordering that women should now cover their hair. This ‘found image’ presented me with a glimpse into the occulted history of my own country and the opportunity to advance towards a deeper learning and understanding of the event of March 8, 1979 a significant date in the history of feminism in Iran. In what follows I revisit the history of Iran since the 1979 revolution with a particular inflexion on the role women played in that history. However, as my project develops , I gradually move away from the socio-historical facts to investigate the legacy of the revolution on the representations of women in photography, film and literature as well as the creation of an imaginary space of self representation. To this end my writing moves constantly between the documentary, the analytical and the personal. In parallel I have made photographs and video works which are explorations of the veil as object of fascination and desire as well as symbol of repression.

Predicting bee community responses to land-use changes: Effects of geographic and taxonomic biases

Land-use change and intensification threaten bee populations worldwide, imperilling pollination services. Global models are needed to better characterise, project, and mitigate bees' responses to these human impacts. The available data are, however, geographically and taxonomically unrepresentative; most data are from North America and Western Europe, overrepresenting bumblebees and raising concerns that model results may not be generalizable to other regions and taxa. To assess whether the geographic and taxonomic biases of data could undermine effectiveness of models for conservation policy, we have collated from the published literature a global dataset of bee diversity at sites facing land-use change and intensification, and assess whether bee responses to these pressures vary across 11 regions (Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe; North, Central and South America; Australia and New Zealand; South East Asia; Middle and Southern Africa) and between bumblebees and other bees. Our analyses highlight strong regionally-based responses of total abundance, species richness and Simpson's diversity to land use, caused by variation in the sensitivity of species and potentially in the nature of threats. These results suggest that global extrapolation of models based on geographically and taxonomically restricted data may underestimate the true uncertainty, increasing the risk of ecological surprises.

The Demobilized Body: Transgressions of Personal Space and Political Participation

Grounded in the intersection between gender politics and electoral studies, this dissertation examines the demobilizing effects of violations of personal space (in the form of domestic violence, control over mobility, emotional abuse, and sexual harassment) on the propensity to vote. Using quantitative methods across four survey datasets concerning Lebanon, the United States, Morocco, and Yemen, this research concludes that cross-regionally, familial control over mobility reduces the propensity to vote among women. Conversely, mechanisms of empowerment such as education and employment increase the propensity to vote.

MEN WRITING WOMEN: “THE WOMAN QUESTION” AND MALE DISCOURSE OF IRANIAN MODERNITY"

In this dissertation I explore “The Woman Question” in the discourse of Iranian male authors. A pro-modernity group, they placed women’s issues at the heart of their discourse. This dissertation follows the trajectory of the representation of “The Woman Question” as it is reflected in the male discourse over the course of a century. It discusses the production of a literature that was anchored in the idea of reform and concerned itself with issues pertaining to women. These men challenged lifelong patriarchal notions such as veiling, polygamy, gender segregation, and arranged marriages, as well as traditional roles of women and gender relations. This study is defined under the rubrics of “The Woman Question” and “The New Woman,” which I have borrowed from the Victorian and Edwardian debates of similar issues as they provide clearer delineations. Drawing upon debates on sexuality, and gender, this dissertation illustrates the way these men championed women was both progressive and regressive. This study argues that the desire for women’s liberation was couched in male ideology of gender relations. It further illustrates that the advancement of “The Woman Question,” due to its continuous and yet gradual shifting concurrent with each author’s nuanced perception of women’s issues, went through discernible stages that I refer to as observation, causation, remedy, and confusion. The analytical framework for this project is anchored in the “why” and the “how” of the Iranian male authors’ writings on women in addition to “what” was written. This dissertation examines four narrative texts—two in prose and two in poetry—entitled: “Lankaran’s Vizier,” “The Black Shroud,” “‘Arefnameh,” and “Fetneh” written respectively by Akhundzadeh, ‘Eshqi, Iraj Mirza, and Dashti. Chapter one outlines the historical background, methodology, theoretical framework, and literature review. The following chapters examine, the advocacy for companionate marriage and romantic love, women and nationalistic cause, veiling and unveiling, and the emerging figure of the New Iranian Woman as morally depraved.

The Impact of Friends on Newly Immigrant Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Adjustment

Immigration disrupts an individual’s support network; however, the stresses of the immigration process increase the need for social support. The presence of social support becomes essential for immigrant children and adolescents to cope with these important transitional circumstances. Friends are both sources of social support and models for behavior. Furthermore, friendship networks are known to have a significant influence on youths’ functioning. Literature suggests that peer relations become more important in adolescence and friend support is related to child and adolescent well-being. Thus, friend relationships may be particularly important for immigrant youths who experience disruption in their friendship networks during the process of migration to another country. In addition to friendship networks and support, friend characteristics also need to be taken into consideration as important factors for immigrant youth adjustment. My study involved analyses of the effects of friend support and friend problem behaviors on emotional and behavioral functioning for elementary, middle, and high school age newly immigrant children and adolescents. Immigrant children and adolescents (N = 503) were interviewed at schools by interviewers fluent in participants’ languages. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that friend support and friend problem behaviors were related to children’s self-esteem and externalizing behaviors. In addition, friend problem behavior alone predicted children’s psychological symptoms and depression scores. Furthermore, age/grade was found to be a moderator for the relation between friend problem behavior and immigrant youth behavioral adjustment such that compared to elementary and high school cohorts, middle school youths showed more externalizing behaviors when they had friends performing problem behaviors. Results supported the idea that both friend support and friend behavior are related to newly immigrant youths’ emotional and behavioral adjustment. This study informs further research and interventions concerning the development of programs to facilitate immigrant youths’ adjustment by revealing friendship factors related to their adaptation.

Youth-Physical Activity Towards Health: evidence and background to the development of the Y-PATH physical activity intervention for adolescents

Background: Despite known benefits of regular physical activity for health and well-being, many studies suggest that levels of physical activity in young people are low, and decline dramatically during adolescence. The purpose of the current research was to gather data on adolescent youth in order to inform the development of a targeted physical activity intervention. Methods: Cross-sectional data on physical activity levels (using self report and accelerometry), psychological correlates of physical activity, anthropometic characteristics, and the fundamental movement skill proficiency of 256 youth (53% male, 12.40 ± 0.51 years) were collected. A subsample (n = 59) participated in focus group interviews to explore their perceptions of health and identify barriers and motivators to participation in physical activity. Results: Findings indicate that the majority of youth (67%) were not accumulating the minimum 60 minutes of physical activity recommended daily for health, and that 99.5% did not achieve the fundamental movement skill proficiency expected for their age. Body mass index data showed that 25% of youth were classified as overweight or obese. Self-efficacy and physical activity attitude scores were significantly different (p < 0.05) between low, moderate and high active participants. Active and inactive youth reported differences in their perceived understanding of health and their barriers to physical activity participation, with active youth relating nutrition, exercise, energy and sports with the definition of ‘being healthy’, and inactive youth attributing primarily nutritional concepts to ‘being healthy’. Conclusions: Data show a need for targeting low levels of physical activity in youth through addressing poor health related activity knowledge and low fundamental movement skill proficiency. The Y-PATH intervention was developed in accordance with the present study findings; details of the intervention format are presented.

Las reformas emprendidas en Túnez de la mano del FMI y el BM ¿Precedente para la revolución de los Jazmines?”(1987-2010)

El estallido de la “Revolución de los Jazmines” cuestionó el éxito de un país que por más de dos décadas fue exaltado por el Banco Mundial (BM) y el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) por los logros alcanzados gracias a un programa de restructuración económica. Las exigencias e inconformidades de los manifestantes, que iban más allá de la falta de garantías democráticas, permitieron ver que el país sufría de problemas estructurales relacionados a los altos niveles de desempleo, la precariedad de la situación laboral y la desigualdad. Esta monografía pretende evaluar el papel que tuvieron las reformas económicas y en general el modelo de desarrollo que siguió Túnez de la mano del FMI y el BM, en el surgimiento y consolidación de las condiciones que dieron lugar a la Revolución de los Jazmines a finales del año 2010.