Honors Students 2018-19

Collective memory has become site of struggle both over power and meaning in the 21st century. The urgent and increasing global contestation over vehicles of collective memory, such as monuments and memorial museums, have not occurred in a vacuum of violence. Yet, there remains a scholarly gap in examining why memorialization is contested and what lessons are to be drawn for future memorialization projects. Of note, scholars in the latter half of the 20thcentury, a time period that witnessed the burgeoning of memorialization, neglected the intersection of the politicization of collective memory and social inclusion in the memorialization of traumatic events. The broader research interest of this thesis is how does collective memory of a traumatic past affect social inclusion? In order to examine these relationships on theoretical and empirical levels, I conduct a comparative case study of two memorial museums: the Partition Museum in Amritsar, India and the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago, Chile. Hence, my research question is how and under what conditions do memorial museums, vehicles of collective memory, impact social inclusion? This thesis argues that memorial museums that address traumatic, historical pasts develop an overreliance on political memory, instead of balancing social and cultural memory, which undermines the cultural dimension of social inclusion for historically marginalized groups in their respective societies. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to theory building by uniquely combining three bodies of literature: collective memory, social inclusion, and memory studies. It concludes by offering real and practical suggestions to museum practitioners and social inclusion policy makers. In a time of immense global inequality, it remains vital to examine and revisit the intersection between collective memory and social inclusion theory.

The world is witnessing both rising nationalism as well as increasing efforts to understand the impact of of new communication technologies (NCTs) on politics.The impact of and processes by which NCTs enable contemporary configurations of national identity remain a matter of debate. By analyzing online discourse on film censorship in India, I show that NCTs change the ways in which mass media is produced, consumed, and discussed, with significant implications for who is represented in the discursive construction of national identity.

What kind of nuclear posture will ensure security and stability in a shifting international security environment? Recent trends in the United States’ nuclear strategy and investment indicate that the country has addressed the issues of international security and stability, in part, by becoming increasingly well-suited to engage in limited nuclear wars. Scholars and policymakers alike have characterized such a movement as a distinct shift from the trajectory established after the fall of the Soviet Union and a response to Russian resurgence on the geo-political stage. An increased nuclear warfighting ability is reminiscent of strategies employed by the US during the Cold War as NATO came under threat by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. Such historical similarities provide a case for understanding and assessing the current US shift. I conduct a longitudinal analysis of limited nuclear war’s emergence as a concept during the Cold War period and use process tracing to identify how such a concept influenced understandings of nuclear deterrence. I then apply this analysis to an evaluation of the modern arguments driving the shift in US nuclear posture. I find that, despite significant investment in a graduated deterrence posture that would enable to US to engage in limited nuclear war, successive US administrations lost faith in possibility of nuclear war being limited. Consequently, I find that the current US shift to a graduated deterrence posture does not provide a means for limiting nuclear war and is premised on an arms racing mentality similar to that of the Cold War period. These conclusions have implications for both the study of posture deterrence and for a critical analysis of US nuclear investment and strategy.

Water scarcity, as exacerbated by manifestations of climate change, critically endangers not only the welfare and development of the world’s population but also the security of the international system. Even those not currently harmed directly by drought have incentive to address issues of water scarcity—the economic ramifications, environmental impact, and migration caused by water crises will undoubtedly affect all nations as climate change escalates. Water scarcity has the potential to catalyze conflict and tension within the international sphere, as nations begin to compete over limited, vitally important resources. So as to avoid this potential conflict, sustainable and cooperative hydropolitical efforts must be established.

Therefore, in this thesis, I explore the vital question of—What drives states to initiate policies of hydropolitical coordination? More specifically, in focusing upon my case studies of Israel and Palestine, why do states in the Jordan Basin Region undertake processes of hydropolitical coordination in spite of conditions of securitization? In my thesis, I argue that non-state actors are able to influence state-level decisions in hydropolitical coordination. I examine the agency of non-state actors in initiating hydropolitical coordination and reducing securitization through a novel theoretical lens, incorporating social psychological and social movement theories.

My examination of non-state actors is vital—in order to best facilitate hydropolitical cooperation, policy makers and academics must understand how and which non-state actors exert their influence upon hydropolitical coordination, in order to foster their grassroots development and facilitate their advocacy. Further, once armed with this vital understanding, theorists, policy makers, and civil society members will be better able to understand the channels through which they can galvanize increasingly necessary positive-sum hydropolitical coordination in this era of exacerbating scarcity, mitigating the potential for universally deleterious and otherwise avoidable conflict.

What factors influence remittance-sending behavior? Existing frameworks for analyzing international remittance flows fail to adequately account for considerations of geographic proximity or constraints on migration and mobility between senders and recipients. In order to examine how migrants’ destinations influence their decisions about remittance-sending, I analyze the cases of Burkina Faso and Senegal, both located within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. Drawing upon a mixed-methods approach that incorporates both statistical analysis of survey research on remittance senders, and content and discourse analysis of migration regimes across various remittance corridors, I argue that regional remittances constitute a distinct dimension of analysis with unique implications for both sending migrants and recipient households. This study holds both theoretical significance for scholars seeking to understand the implications of migrant selection, and practical significance for policymakers seeking to facilitate or reduce the costs of remittance transfers.

While the significance of energy is recognized in international relations, little knowledge of the relationship between energy politics and international relations exists that transcends the significance of energy solely for state power, as characterized by the commonly used notion of “mixing of oil and politics.” To what extent and in what ways, then, do energy politics impact inter-state relations? This thesis examines the extent and ways in which the South Stream Pipeline Project influences foreign policy orientation of transit countries in the case of Serbia and Slovenia. I argue that energy politics are used as one of the multiple foreign policy strategies of an influencer state with the intent of influencing foreign policy orientation of target states. States achieve this through energy politics by establishing relations of dependence in other strategic areas, sometimes creating spheres of influence. This thesis contributes to the study of energy politics by extending an additional approach transcending beyond the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and dependency paradigms, and seeks to establish a framework of spheres of influence applicable to a broad range of strategic issues.