Matching Items (362)
Description
This dissertation seeks to theorize small state strategic culture with special reference to the attitude of the ASEAN states toward institutionalizing regional cooperative security architectures. The quantitative case studies show that in small states where historically rooted strategic preferences may be limited, material influences and situational considerations take precedence over ideational factors in the making of the state's strategic culture. Second, the content of small state strategic culture focuses primarily on foreign and security policy issues that originate in their neighborhood. Lastly, Small states' threat perceptions from the neighborhood over time dictate the formation of strategic culture (provocative vs. cooperative). The qualitative case studies demonstrate that small Southeast Asian states (Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia) exhibit a higher tendency for conflict. Multilateral cooperation is at best selective. Bilateral means is still the preferred policy approach when dealing with other states. This dissertation concludes with a pessimistic remark on the prospects for the development and maturation of the ASEAN Political-Security Community. At its current stage, the APSC appears to be a policy instrument created only to reinforce ASEAN's centrality in charting the region's security architecture. This is no small accomplishment in itself nonetheless.
ContributorsKao, Mily Ming-Tzu (Author) / Simon, Sheldon W. (Thesis advisor) / Gortzak, Yoav (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Sacred apocalyptic texts claim to foretell coming events, warning the faithful of some terrible fate that lies beyond the present. Such texts often derive their power from successfully recasting past events in such a way as they appear to be "predicted" by the text and thus take on additional meanings beyond the superficial. This ex eventu status allows apocalyptic texts to increase the credibility of their future predictions and connect emotionally with the reader by playing on present fears. The fifth-century Daoist apocalyptic text, the Scripture on the Cycles of Heaven and Earth (Tiandi yundu jing, 天地運度經), is no exception. This thesis examines the apocalyptic markers in the poetic sections of the text, attempting to develop a strategy for separating the generic imagery (both to Chinese texts and the apocalyptic literary genre as a whole) from the more significant recoverable references to contemporary events such as the fall of the Jin dynasty and the subsequent founding of the Liu-Song dynasty.
ContributorsBussio, Jennifer Jean (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Cutter, Robert J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
DescriptionBased on previous research and findings it is proven that a non-profit class to create awareness will be beneficial in the prevention of eating disorders. This analysis will provide significant research to defend the proposed class.
ContributorsAllen, Brittany (Author) / Chung, Deborah (Author) / Fey, Richard (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Mazurkiewicz, Milena (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Establishing a healthcare practice in the U. S. by a Mexican national involves many different steps at federal as well as state levels. The recent implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act overhauls some requirements which include increased Medicaid eligibility as well as mandatory health insurance coverage. With these changes taking place over the next few years, the need for healthcare providers will expand. Consequently, I look into the requirements of establishing an urgent care practice in the state of Arizona. Given that Phoenix has a 40.8% Hispanic population and that the Affordable Care Act will increase the coverage of this demographic, it is the city of focus for my analysis. In order to make access to the Arizona healthcare market more impartial and accessible to Mexican entrepreneurs, changes need to be made to the certification process of medical physicians who graduated from Mexican universities. The general disadvantage of Mexican physicians as compared to their U. S. counterparts comes in the form of increased certification times and additional processes. An equal playing field will allow the ease in movement of medical physicians between the U. S. and Mexico which will help meet the increased demand over the next few years. From ownership to taxation and medical billing and coding, this analysis focuses on the many requirements needed to establish an urgent care in Arizona.
ContributorsIbarra, Joseph Anthony (Author) / Carlos, Velez-Ibanez (Thesis director) / Cruz-Torres, Maria (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This paper goes through a two-pronged approach in the attempt to understand E-Sports, entertainment gaming, and the creation of the E-Sports bar/Barcade. The first portion aims to explain and quantify the growth of electronic sports (or E-sports). This new craze has been growing immensely in the past 5 years, by viewership and by monetary endorsements. With these changes and growth patterns, we then move on to explain one of the many niche markets that has been created from the growth of E-sports and entertainment gaming. Through our experience in the field, we have evaluated 8 E-sports bars and Barcades in order to confirm their viability in the marketplace. Through our worldwide research we have found that E-sports will continue to grow and that Barcades will not only be viable, but will be a competitive market in the next 10-20 years.
ContributorsNist, Nicholas (Co-author) / Hester, James (Co-author) / Brooks, Dan (Thesis director) / Forss, Brennan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The unprecedented rise of terrorist network ISIL has brought the revolutionary Salafi agenda to the forefront of global politics. This thesis provides an analysis of the ideology and an overview of ISIL. The research is comprised of reports on the organization from prominent think-tanks, books analyzing the tenets and thinkers of Salafi radicalism and original source material confiscated from ISIL's predecessor al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). An international coalition is posited as a solution to the threat as well as the Middle Eastern terrorist threat more broadly. However, the likelihood of such international cooperation is minimal, and the commitment it would require may make it unfeasible.
ContributorsSims, Alyssa Gabrielle (Author) / Simon, Sheldon (Thesis director) / Ripley, Charles (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This dissertation project addresses one of the most critical problems in the study of religion: how new formations of religion are constructed and constituted. My work builds on the recent revisions of the secularization theory, which demonstrates the alternative and hybrid ways people seek out religion in modernity. To this end, my project examines the emerging popularity and phenomenon of international meditation centers in Thailand, focusing on encounters between international meditation center teachers and their international students. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews at these sites throughout Thailand, my project explores the social processes of religious change and adaptation, and the construction of religious meaning. I detail the historical conditions that led to the formation of persisting ideas of Buddhism by tracing the continuities between Orientalist interpretations and modern-day spiritual seekers. My work contributes to a greater understanding of the most recent articulation of this engagement and interaction between Buddhism and the international community and adds to the burgeoning scholarship that reconsiders the relationship between religion and modernity. I investigate this relationship in regard to international meditation centers in Thailand through three angles: promotional materials concerning meditation in Thailand, experiences of international meditators, and teachings of international meditation center teachers. I contextualize this ethnographic analysis with an evaluation of the relationship of Buddhism to discourses of modernity and Orientalism as well as a historical inquiry into the rise of lay meditation in Thailand. Throughout I argue that international meditators' engagement with meditation in Thai temples constitutes a hybrid religiosity where the decontextualized practice of meditation is mixed with both non-religious and other religious beliefs and practices. Social discourses and practices involving meditation, even in a Buddhist country, demonstrate the deconstruction of traditional religiosity in modernity and the rise of hybrid religiosity. Through the decontextualization of meditation and the discourse of the practice having no religious boundaries, meditation becomes mixed with tourism, therapy, healing, as well as other religious and secular practices. This research contributes to studies of Theravada Buddhism as well as modern, global religions and the contemporary intersection between religion and tourism.
ContributorsSchedneck, Brooke (Author) / Schober, Juliane (Thesis advisor) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Fessenden, Tracy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation analyzes the way in which leaders of certain Taiwanese Buddhist organizations associated with a strand of Buddhist modernism called "humanistic Buddhism" use discourse and rhetoric to make environmentalism meaningful to their members. It begins with an assessment of the field of religion and ecology, situating it in the context of secular environmental ethics. It identifies rhetoric and discourse as important but under acknowledged elements in literature on environmental ethics, both religious and secular, and relates this lack of attention to rhetoric to the presence of a problematic gap between environmental ethics theory and environmentalist practice. This dissertation develops a methodology of rhetorical analysis that seeks to assess how rhetoric contributes to alleviating this gap in religious environmentalism. In particular, this dissertation analyzes the development of environmentalism as a major element of humanistic Buddhist groups in Taiwan and seeks to show that a rhetorical analysis helps demonstrate how these organizations have sought to make environmentalism a meaningful subject of contemporary Buddhist religiosity. This dissertation will present an extended analysis of the concept of "spiritual environmentalism," a term developed and promoted by the late Ven. Shengyan (1930-2009), founder of the Taiwanese Buddhist organization Dharma Drum Mountain. Furthermore, this dissertation suggests that the rhetorical methodology proposed herein offers offers a direction for scholars to more effectively engage with religion and ecology in ways that address both descriptive/analytic approaches and constructive engagements with various forms of religious environmentalism.
ContributorsClippard, Seth (Author) / Chen, Huaiyu (Thesis advisor) / Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (Committee member) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / Tillman, Hoyt (Committee member) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Indian gaming casinos are now a common sight around Arizona. The study of the history of the Arizona Indian Gaming establishments is the topic of my thesis which focuses on the conflicts in 1992, between J. Fife Symington, governor of the State of Arizona, and the Arizona Indian tribes, particularly the Fort McDowell Yavapai Indian Community. In order to learn more about this small band of Yavapai, my thesis examines the early history of the Yavapai and some of its remarkable leaders, along with the history of Indian Tribal gaming in America and Arizona following the blockade by the Yavapai. My thesis examines how the Modern Political Economy Theory (MPET) framed Yavapai survival and identity along with their determination to achieve economic self-sufficiency. My research extended into use the legal court system the by American Indian Tribes to achieve their economic goals, that culminating in the Supreme Court ruling in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987) confirming the rights of Indian tribes to conduct gaming on tribal reservation lands. Congress followed with the "Indian Gaming Regulatory Act" of 1988, (IGRA) to regulate the conduct of gaming on Indian lands, including the stipulation that states negotiate in good faith with the state's Indian tribes. Arizona Governor Symington refused to negotiate the necessary compacts between the State of Arizona and the Arizona Indian tribes. The dispute reached a climax on May 12, 1992, when Attorney General of the U.S., Linda A. Akers, ordered a raid on Arizona Indian gaming casinos and the Fort McDowell Yavapai countered with a blockade to prevent the removal of their gaming machines. The result of this action by the Yavapai blockade opened compact negotiations between Governor Symington and the Arizona Indian tribes. This resulted in the growth in tribal gaming casinos along with increased political and economic influence for the Arizona Indian tribes. My conclusion explains the current state of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Indian Nation and describes the benefits from Indian casino gaming in the greater Phoenix area.
ContributorsAlflen, Louise (Author) / Fixico, "Donald L (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Susan (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In order to discover if Company X's current system of local trucking is the most efficient and cost-effective way to move freight between sites in the Western U.S., we will compare the current system to varying alternatives to see if there are potential avenues for Company X to create or implement an improved cost saving freight movement system.
ContributorsPicone, David (Co-author) / Krueger, Brandon (Co-author) / Harrison, Sarah (Co-author) / Way, Noah (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2015-05