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Description
Amidst studies attempting to fix the U.S., China, and their relationship into preconceived frameworks of international relations, presupposed definitions, and models of reality, this dissertation adopts an identity centric approach to understanding the nature of U.S.-China relations and, more generally, international politics. This approach involves utilizing an interpretive method to understanding, analyzing the narratives of self and other expressed by political actors and how their identities--expressed through narratives--interact with one another and thus how they influence or reflect social behavior. Striving for greater understanding and a more intellectually honest approach to the study of international politics, this study seeks not theory building or generalizability in a traditional "scientific" sense. Rather, informed by thinkers from Karl Popper through those more recent, this dissertation develops and outlines an in-depth, contextual approach to understanding, applying this approach to analyzing the nature of U.S.-China relations. Ultimately, this study argues that U.S. and Chinese identities and how their identities interact influence the nature of U.S.-China relations, whether the relationship tends towards cooperation or conflict, and that in order to glimpse this nature researchers must delve into the details of their subjects of study. Attempting to do so, this study analyzes U.S.-China relations surrounding the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, relations regarding the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute between China and Japan as it pertains to U.S. relations with China, and relations regarding encounters between the U.S. and China in cyber space (paying special note to attempts to define this "space" itself).
ContributorsKoehler, Clifford Eugene (Author) / Simon, Sheldon (Thesis advisor) / Doty, Roxanne (Committee member) / Ashley, Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The state of exception in Rwanda did not spontaneously occur in Rwanda, it was initially developed by German and Belgian colonizers, adopted by two successive Hutu regimes, and nurtured and fed for 35 years of Rwandan independence until its final realization in the 1994 genocide. Political theory regarding the development of the "space devoid of law" and necropolitics provide a framework with which to analyze the long pattern of state action that created a milieu in which genocide was an acceptable choice of action for a sovereign at risk of losing power. The study of little-known political theories such as Agamben's and Mbembe's is useful because it provides a lens through which we can analyze current state action throughout the world. As is true in many genocidal regimes, the Rwandan genocide did not just occur as a "descent into hell." Rather, state action over the course of decades in which the subjects of the state (People) were systematically converted into mere flesh beings (people), devoid of political or social value, creates the setting in which it is feasible to seek to eliminate those beings. A question to be posed to political actors and observers around the world today is at what point in the process of one nation's creation of the state of exception and adoption of necropolitics does the world have a right, and a duty, to intervene? Thus far, it has always occurred too late for the "people" in that sovereign to realize their political and social potential to be "People."
ContributorsSinema, Kyrsten (Author) / Johnson, John (Thesis advisor) / Quan, Helen (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Doty, Roxanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis seeks to build upon the empirical use of the Copenhagen School of security studies by evaluating and investigating speech-acts in recent Guatemalan newspaper media as they relate to drug trafficking within the geopolitical borders of Guatemala, particularly induced by Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. The study attempts to engage a critical theoretical framework to study securitization within the country and thereby build upon the theory by conducting real-life analysis. Using a research program that is made up of content and text analysis of national press and presidential speeches, I test several hypotheses that pertain to the processes of Guatemala's current drug trade and drug trafficking securitization. By coding securitizing speech-acts and discursive frames in the national print media, I identify the national elite, the power relations between the national elite and citizenship, and attempts to dramatize the issue of drug trade. Upon analyzing the findings of such securitization, I propose several hypotheses as to why the national elite seeks high politicization of drug trade and the implications that rest on such drastic measures. This thesis itself, then, has important implications: it uses empirical tools to help further the theoretical foundations of the Copenhagen School, it examines the process of securitization study from a real world context outside the developed world, and it presents important information on the possible consequences of securitizing drug trade.
ContributorsBrinkmoeller, Matthew (Author) / Doty, Roxanne (Thesis advisor) / Gortzak, Yoav (Committee member) / Jones, Ruth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011