Does leaders’ level of uncertainty shape their support for military intervention? For example, when uncertain about their adversary’s intentions, are leaders more likely to assume the worst and intervene or hesitate until they can obtain more confident estimates? Do they favor an intervention...
GALILEO: POWER, PRIDE, AND PROFITThis study is about the European navigation satellite program dubbed "Galileo" and its ability to date to survive in the face of many serious obstacles. It seeks to understand Galileo's ability to survive by answering two basic research questions: 1) Did realist...
Burma`s dictatorial government maintains its power by coupling political repression and social control methods to cultivate a compliant citizenry. Yet non-violent and violent opposition to military rule continues. Armed resistance groups began fighting for independence and autonomy from the state...
What accounts for divergent and unexpected patterns of state response to banking crises? Contrary to predictions of convergence, significantly different patterns persist across countries. Moreover, these are contrary to expectations. States with a tradition of "laissez-faire" economic policy,...
Latvia and Estonia, which joined the EU in 2004, are lauded as "success" cases for those scholars concerned with demonstrating the positive effects of EU conditionality on democratic nation-building. This is because pressure from European institutions led to changes in citizenship and language...
Civil-Military Relations in Democratizing Taiwan, 1986-2007 This dissertation studies Taiwan's security sector reform in the process of democratization, a process that intends to nationalize the armed forces and intelligence services by removing partisan political control and placing the security...
This dissertation investigates the rise in Chinese labor protests by intra-national migrant workers (nongmingong), a growing demographic of Chinese labor. Through data gathered during 13 months of field research in Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta from 2007-2008, I...
An organization that seeks to transform persons, places or things needs resilience to achieve its goals. In their effort to transform their societies, political organizations compete "not just for resources and customers (followers), but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for...