2005–2006 IGCC Dissertation Fellows

2005–2006 Dissertation Fellows

Emma Aisbett

Graduate Department: Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

My interest in global conflict and cooperation issues originated with my interest in environmental and sustainability issues. Many of our most pressing environmental concerns require global cooperation. Since then I have realized that many areas of global cooperation, such as foreign investment, have significant environmental and sustainability implications.

Goals: My goal is to use my expertise to produce high-quality, policy-relevant research on issues of global cooperation, particularly in regard to environmental and poverty concerns. I also hope to pass on my understanding through teaching and non-academic writing.

Dissertation Title: Three Essays on Investment Treaties and Developing Countries

Abstract: Due to sharply conflicting interests of developing and developed countries, over 50 years of efforts have been unable to produce a multilateral investment treaty. This importance of this governance vacuum can be seen from the fact that international investment is worth more than international trade to the global economy. Currently, efforts to encourage developing country participation in a multilateral agreement revolve around the claim that such an agreement would boost foreign direct investment to them. I will test this claim using experience from over 2,000 bilateral investment treaties already in place. I will also test whether the amount of extra investment received varies according to the stringency of the treaty, and the characteristics of the host country. This research will provide developing country policy-makers with better information on which to base their negotiating position.

Naazneen Haider Barma

Graduate Department: Political Science, UC Berkeley

Dissertation Title: Shared Sovereignty: Building Democracy and Reconstructing State Capacity in Post-Conflict Nation-States

My interest in post-conflict nation building stems from my experiences working on governance and institutional reform at the World Bank. I had the opportunity to work in Cambodia, East Timor, and Afghanistan, where I learned that the interaction between the international community and domestic political actors during the transitional period forms a critical juncture in the journey to long-term peace and stability.

Goals: I hope to re-enter the policy world in order to work operationally on post-conflict resolution in developing countries.

Abstract: My dissertation is a study of how international and national factors interact to build institutions in externally-supported post-conflict reconstruction. I explain the variation in the constitutional arrangements and administrative structures adopted by UN transitional authorities and domestic elites in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and East Timor. I attribute similarities to a world model of state-building represented by the UN template. My explanation of differences is based on the idea that political inclusion is the central practical puzzle to be solved in reconstructing the state and polity. Given a possible range of institutional solutions to democratic governance that conform to international standards, I expect that political elites concerned with guaranteeing the representation of their constituencies constrain the institutional outcomes implemented in discernable patterns.

Robert Brown

In between academic degrees Brown worked as an English teacher in Japan, as a consultant to financial services firms, and as a program officer for security at the Nautilus Institute in Berkeley, California. His dissertation will most probably explore state commitments to arms control and nonproliferation regimes.

Dissertation Title: Delegation to International Nonproliferation Institutions

Abstract: Since 1945, international cooperation to cope with the threats of weapons of mass destruction and their proliferation has exhibited substantial variation despite the general similarities of these weapons. This paper examines this puzzle of differing cooperation among states on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The project analyses the cooperation problems confronting prospective nonproliferation cartels in terms of the threats proposed by each of the WMDs and cost of information required to confront and roll back that threat. The project proposes that states may increase their cooperation when they are confronted with an increasing threat from proliferation, but that delegation to international nonproliferation institutions increases when states require higher-quality information and more credible commitments by other actors to collectively produce nonproliferation.

Gregory Allen Collins

Hometown: Danville, California

Graduate Department: Sociology, UC Davis

My initial interest in global conflict and cooperation issues stemmed from my involvement in emergency humanitarian relief and refugee operations in Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, and elsewhere in east and central Africa. Having spent a number of years working on emergency assessments and applied research for the World Food Program and various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), I am acutely aware of the number of lives lost, people displaced, and livelihoods irrevocably damaged as a result of protracted conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. This experience underlies my desire to explore discrepancies between the reasons these and other conflicts were initiated and the reasons they endure, with the aim of improving conflict resolution efforts.

Goals: I intend to continue to bridge the gap between academic research on protracted conflicts and policy-oriented research aimed at increasing the efficacy of conflict resolution efforts by continuing my work with the UN, NGOs, and applied research institutions as I pursue an academic career.

Dissertation Title: Conflict Economies: The Transformation of Armed Conflict

Abstract: Evidence from Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo suggests that profit-making opportunities that emerged during these conflicts have transformed the motives for engaging in the conflict. Whereas profiting during conflict initially provided groups in each case with the means of pursuing ideological, political, and material post-victory goals tied to grievances, these revenue sources have proven exceptionally lucrative, displaced initial goals, and become an end in themselves. This study will aim to uncover the mechanisms and conditions associated with the transformation of these conflicts into self-perpetuating conflict economies. Furthermore, I will expand my comparative strategy to include conflicts in other regions and counterfactual cases. By doing so, I hope to shed light on widespread and conspicuous association between protracted conflict and profitable enterprise.

Caleb Heart Iyer Elfenbein

Graduate Department: Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara

Hometown: Poughkeepsie, New York

From my first political science course at Vassar College, I had hoped to join the Foreign Service. After serving as a intern at the U.S. Department of State, I decided that a critical perspective on issues of global conflict and cooperation is most appropriate to an academic setting (with the hope of influencing policymaking through research and teaching).

Goals: I would very much like to secure a teaching position at the university level, while keeping open the possibility of public service.

Dissertation title: Defining Islam: Colonialism, Religion and the Development of the Modern State in Egypt

Abstract: This project explores state regulation of religion in the context of past and present efforts to modernize the Middle East. Particular focus is given to the role of colonial-era religious reform in the institutional development of the modern Egyptian state and in the rise of revivalist Islam. The principal resources for this investigation are colonial-era British archival materials discussing religious reform in Egypt, primary texts of Egyptian advocates of Islamic revivalism and, finally, more contemporary scholarly accounts of the development of the modern Egyptian state.

Nikolas Emmanuel

Hometown: Redondo Beach, California

Graduate Department: Political Science, UC Davis

I began my university studies at the end of the Cold War and was marked by the dramatic changes that took place. Traveling only intensified my interests.

Goals: To find an academic position at a research university.

Dissertation Title: Bargaining on Asymmetry: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Political Conditionality

Abstract: Is it possible to intervene and promote political reform in authoritarian regimes? Recently, donors have required political change as a precondition for continued aid in over forty developing countries. The bargain is simple: undertake the requested political reforms or aid will stop. However, conditionality can have unintended consequences. It solicits deep misgivings among many in the developing world over complaints of blackmail and fears of domination. Such distrust undermines the donor position in the bargain with the recipient over aid and the development process. How effective has political conditionality been at encouraging political reform? This research project will provide one of the first systematic and methodologically rigorous assessments of the implications of conditionality in the relations between bilateral donors and African government recipients.

Kurtulus Gemici

Hometown: Zonguldak, Turkey

Graduate Department: Sociology, UCLA

Within a span of two decades, the 1980s and 1990s, patterns of consumption and production as well as cultural and political life in Turkey have changed considerably. I was a witness to these social transformations, especially in the changing lifestyles and opportunities for my family and people that I knew. The education I received, first in economics, then in sociology, helped me to realize that the social change I witnessed was part of a broader movement toward deregulated markets and liberalization in the developing world. My interest in this area is motivated by my fascination with and desire to understand this broader movement.

Goals: I intend to pursue an academic career, where I would have the chance to engage in research and teach about social and economic change.

Dissertation title: Financial Liberalization in Developing Countries: Chile, South Korea, and Turkey

Abstract: The proposed dissertation examines a puzzle in the trajectory of financial liberalization: Why did liberalization policies persist despite the recurrent economic volatility and crises accompanying them? I argue that financialization, a shift in where and how profits are generated in an economy, can explain the persistence of liberalization reforms. In order to assess this explanation, I propose to investigate the relationship between financialization, state structures, and liberalization policies in three developing countries. My empirical analysis aims to distinguish between the conditions that enable reversal of financial liberalization policies (as in Chile) and those that don’t (as in the case of Turkey and Korea). The proposed comparative research can contribute to our knowledge about the conditions under which developing economies move towards global financial integration.

Zachariah Cherian Mampilly

Hometown: Bangalore, India, and Indianapolis, Indiana

Graduate Department: Political Science, UCLA

My late father taught us to be involved in the world around us. During college, I spent a year at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and after college I worked for a human-rights organization in Lagos, Nigeria.

Goals: To work for social change either through a university teaching position or with a policy institution.

Dissertation Title: The Paradox of Plenty Revisited: States and Insurgents in the Resource-Dependent World

Abstract: While attention has been paid to how rebel movements recruit their fighters and finance their war machine, little has been said about how rebels govern the territory they are able to win. Considering that rebels are able to wrest vast territories and populations away from the state, this is an unfortunate oversight. Understanding rebel governance is essential not only for the population on the ground, but as importantly for ensuring a genuine post-conflict peace. In my dissertation, I intend to do a two-level comparative analysis of different rebel movements. One level will focus on a sample of 15 cases, and the other level will focus on providing detailed case studies of four movements. The basic argument I make is that the relationship between movements and local populations is shaped by pressures from below, within, and, most important for this dissertation, above.

Idean Salehyan

Hometown: San Diego, California

Graduate Department: Political Science, UC San Diego

I became interested in human rights early on in high school. Ever since, I've been involved in human rights and peace organizations. I chose to focus on an academic career in order to better understand the complexity of peace and security issues. Knowledge can contribute to a a better, more just world.

Goal: To obtain a job in teaching and research.

Dissertation title: Rebels Without Borders: State Boundaries, Transnational Opposition, and Civil Conflict

Abstract: Opposition groups will only rebel against the state if repression costs are sufficiently low. While current theories of political conflict look at domestic factors which reduce the costs of rebellion, this dissertation argues that insurgents can and do organize across national boundaries in order to escape the state's coercive reach. A state cannot easily police groups outside of its territorial jurisdiction, and rebels often organize transnationally among diaspora communities in order to take advantage of this constraint on state power. States that are too weak to police rebels on their territory and/or states that wish to foment instability in their rivals, moreover, are especially likely to host transnational opposition groups. This theory is tested through a statistical analysis of conflicts during the 1951–2000 period, and a medium-N analysis of insurgencies during the 1990s.

Lisa Stampnitzky

Hometown: East Meadow, New York

Graduate Department: Sociology, UC Berkeley

The events of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing "war or terror" drew my attention to the roles of knowledge and expertise in global conflict.

Goals: Academic research and teaching.

Dissertation Title: Terrorism Discourse and the Rise of the Terrorism Expert, 1972–2003

Abstract: After 9/11, President Bush declared that the United States was engaged in a “war on terrorism.” But what does it mean to declare war upon an enemy which is not a state, but a concept? Although political violence has a long history, “terrorism” was rarely invoked as a serious problem or a way of explaining violent incidents prior to the early 1970s. My project asks how ‘terrorism expertise’ has developed as a shaping factor in American policy since that time. Whose expertise is legitimated, and why? Which sorts of experts have influence in the public and policy spheres? An analysis of the forces shaping which types of expert knowledge are accepted as legitimate and relevant to the problem will contribute to a fuller understanding of the forces contributing to a nation’s perceptions of the dangers it faces and the range of options conceptually available to it as it formulates its response.

Joseph Wright

Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Graduate Department: Political Science, UCLA

Travel to East Africa and Central and South America as a undergraduate prompted me to ask serious questions about political and economic development. I became curious about why the standard "solutions" taught in textbooks seemed to work in some countries but not in others. In asking that question, I soon realized that the policy decisions in the developed world greatly impacted development in much of the global south.

Goals: Teaching and research at a university.

Dissertation title: Putting Politics Back Into the Aid-Growth Nexus: How Political Institutions Impact the Selection and Use of International Aid

Abstract: As the policy community looks to increase international aid flows, researchers need to better understand how aid affects growth and well-being in the developing world. Few researchers have studied how political institutions impact the selection of aid recipients and the use of aid in recipient countries. This dissertation addresses this question by modeling (1) how countries are selected to receive aid, (2) how domestic political institutions condition the use of aid, and (3) how aid effects the long-term development of political institutions. I combine the insights of these three models in an empirical test of the impact of aid on growth—introducing selection effects, the conditional impact of domestic political institutions, and the impact of aid on growth through the development of institutions over time.

Yan Zhou

Hometown: Hubei, China

Graduate Department: Economics, UC Santa Cruz

In recent years, the phenomenal increase in international reserves held by central banks in East Asian countries has given rise to both cooperation and conflicts in the global economy. I find it important to investigate the underlying mechanism of this phenomena in order to shed light on economic policymaking in response to potential tensions.

Goal: To enter academia.

Dissertation title: Essays on International Reserve Hoarding in Developing Countries: International Reserves and the Fiscal Policy

Abstract: My dissertation aims to study the mechanism behind the recent phenomenal increase in international reserves in Asian countries and potential global economic tensions behind it. It studies a potentially important but implicit variable associated with reserve holdings in developing countries: the fiscal policy. Specifically, it investigates the association between the demand and use of international reserves and the cyclical pattern of fiscal policy, and how their association is related to the accessibility to the international capital market. This study helps to explain the variation of reserves across developing countries and provides policy suggestions with regard to potential global economic tensions.

Eric Zusman

Hometown: Raynham, Massachusetts

Graduate Department: Political Science, UCLA

In 2000–01 I conducted fieldwork in China. During the course of that filed work, I was impressed with how much transnational cooperation exited between Chinese regulators and foreign counterparts.

Goals: I would like to become a professor at a mid-sized university.

Dissertation title: What Makes Dragons and Tigers Brown? A Comparative Institutional Study of Air Pollution Regulation in East Asia

Abstract: This project will serve two purposes. First, it will examine whether and how cross-national differences in domestic policymaking institutions affect cross-national differences in air pollution regulation across three states in East Asia: China, South Korea, and Japan. Second, it will investigate whether and how these cross-national institutional differences affect attempts to regulate emissions of regionally harmful sulfur dioxide (SO₂) (the precursor element of acid rain) and globally harmful carbon dioxide (CO₂) (the precursor element of greenhouse gases). The project will not only fill theoretical lacunae in the literature on environmental regulation, but also illuminate the prospects for and barriers to regional environmental cooperation.

Return to top.