IR Honors Students and Thesis Abstracts

Combat in the Commanding Heights: Gauging Impacts of China's Rare Earths Monopoly on US Energy Security

Metals are the fuel of the future. Rare Earth Elements (REEs), in particular, are a group of 17 metals crucial to EVs and wind turbines because of their unique magnetic properties. In the late 1980s, China began to refine Rare Earth Metals aggressively. A decade later, they dominated global production and now account for 80-90% of REE production. Given the necessity of REE-enabled technologies, it is widely assumed that China’s monopoly over REE production is detrimental to the US’s long-term energy security. However, this hypothesis has not been empirically verified, nor has its magnitude been measured. This thesis aims to quantify the US-China REE supply chain reliance. First, I investigate the performance of REE-reliant US companies during supply shocks. Next, I assess these companies for four key factors indicating supply chain reliance. This reveals which, if any, of these factors have historically dictated performance most. The findings of this study are useful to those who wish to better understand the resource-energy security nexus and the mechanisms of supply chain reliance.  

How do diaspora communities construct histories of their homelands? My thesis compares diaspora and homeland understandings of a single historical moment: Japanese atrocities committed on Chinese soil and to Chinese peoples during the Second Sino-Japanese War. While the literature on collective memory and intergenerational trauma focuses attention on temporal inheritances of memory, few have considered how memory may be crystallized and transmitted across space, from homelands to diaspora. While traveling through China in 2021, I observed that second-generation Chinese Americans (those born in the United States) harbored greater and less nuanced forms of anti-Japanese anger than mainland Chinese youth of the same age, despite the former’s spatial and temporal distance from the mainland. Through both an original survey study and in-depth interviews, this thesis assesses whether these differences in historical memory are observed across a broader and more representative population, and also investigates the causes behind these differences in historical memory. Survey data demonstrates that third-generation Chinese Americans tend to hold greater degrees of anti-Japanese anger than do their first- and second-generation counterparts, and that second-generation Chinese Americans tend to hold different forms of anti-Japanese anger according to the year of their parents’ migration. Interview data suggests that several factors contribute to this difference, including a drive among second- and third-generation Chinese Americans to retrieve knowledge of Chinese history and heritage; a tendency among first-generation parents to educate their second-generation children with outdated historical narratives; and the surprising salience of mainland war films in Chinese American understandings of the war. However, survey and interview data indicate that Chinese Americans’ experiences with alienation, racism, and outsidership in the U.S. lead them to question both U.S. and Chinese narratives of the war, and to extend sympathy towards the contemporary Japanese people. Ultimately, this thesis documents how diasporic communities preserve, distort, and construct memories, with an agency that is often discounted in broader geopolitical discourse.

Thesis:

Chen, A. (2023). Diasporic Lag in Memory-Making: Chinese American Historiographies of the Second Sino-Japanese War

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

During the Secret War concurrent with the Vietnam War era, the U.S. dropped over 270 million cluster bombs on Laos, making it the most bombed country per capita in the world. To this day, approximately 80 million unexploded ordinances remain in Laos. America’s Secret War on Laos continues to impact the livelihood and well-being of Laotian citizens today, yet there has been little conversation regarding what justice looks like for these people. In my thesis, I argue that the U.S. is culpable for wartime damage to Laos, that there is both legal and moral justification for transitional justice in the region and that reparations are the most appropriate transitional justice mechanism. My research seeks to answer the question: Based on the material needs of the Laotian people, what model of reparations is most appropriate and feasible? In other words, what form should these reparations take, to whom should they be directed, and how should they be administered? Through interviews with Laotian citizens, I hope to provide a snapshot of the war's continued impact on the Laotian people and their visions of justice and reparation for the Secret War. My interviews inform the design of a comprehensive model of reparations specifically tailored to address the needs of the Laotian people as they pertain to the lasting consequences of the war. I also evaluate the political feasibility of reparations through a comparative analysis of reparations implementation in other international case studies. Ultimately, I hope to establish a design precedent that encourages the pursuit of ambitious justice processes, especially for those peoples who continue to struggle against imperialism and its enduring impact.

Thesis:

Phagnasay Le, G. (2023). The Cost of Imperialism: Designing a Model of Reparations to Laos from the U.S. for the Secret War Bombing

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is widely considered to be a gross violation of the Charter of the United Nations and, for some scholars, just another example of a major power undermining the international rule of law, akin to the beginning of the ‘War on Terror’. However, new scholarship on the justificatory power of international law provides a different outlook: While international law is used to serve political interests, there are limits. States must make appeals to law that accomplish a level of ‘plausible legality’ for their actions, or risk contestation and condemnation on the grounds of their betrayal of universal international principles. But, how are these discursive limits imposed by the international community and to what extent do they constrain state behavior?

In this thesis, I analyze the United Nations (UN) debates and resolutions that occurred in response to the war in Ukraine as a potential best case study for exploring how states draw upon international law in opposition, and the extent to which mass legal contestation impacts state behavior. Through a qualitative analysis of the first five resolutions and six meetings of the United Nations 11th Emergency Special Session, I show how legal principles dominate states’ efforts to discredit and delegitimize Russian actions and that states use broadly accepted legal principles to do so, like the UN Charter. Regardless of their position, states seek to portray themselves as supporters of the international rule of law, either by stating directly their disagreement with or indirectly distancing themselves from Russian actions.

Further, I investigate whether, by acting against an ‘illegal’ act, states can establish a discursive notion of “Russian illegality” to justify and empower actual cost-inflicting actions. I find that although states’ efforts to contest Russia’s actions on legal grounds is viewed as fair, there are varying degrees of and a limit to the amount of permissiveness that states can pursue when making legal arguments. Indeed, some states’ extrapolation of legal arguments seem to pass a limit of permissiveness, where their actions no longer clearly follow from the universal legal principles under discussion, leaving the door open to counter-contestation and dissent. In this light, legal contestation can be understood as a self-interested process, in which states attempt to use their questioning of other states' legality to build their own empowered position from which to act. This thesis provides insight into questions about the relevance and effectiveness of international law in foreign policy justifications and the extent to which law can both empower and constrain states’ actions and positions.

Thesis:

Queener, S. (2023). The Limits of Permissiveness: International Law, the UN, and the War in Ukraine

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Starting in 1970, the British Empire in the Pacific began to collapse, and within a decade, it was entirely dismantled. Compared to the remaining American and French colonial empires in the Pacific, this timeline is unique. Literature largely credits the rapid decolonization of British dependencies in the Pacific to British interests and their decision-making processes. There is only limited discussion of how these islands may have affected each other and influenced this rapid period of decolonization. My research seeks to answer the following question: To what extent did Pacific Islands influence each other’s decolonization movements, timing, and processes? This thesis pursues this question by closely examining two case studies: Fiji and New Hebrides. More specifically, I analyze their independence journeys through the lens of the first elected political leaders, who were also among the first advocates for independence during these formative years of state-building. Using rich archival material from the U.K. National Archives, Australian National University, and National Library of Australia, I examine the political leaders’ personal writings and identify specific sources of influence in the years leading up to Fijian and New Hebridean independence. My research finds that Pacific leaders and their independence movements drew inspiration from prior colonial dependencies that shared some significant deterrent to independence, for example ethnic division, and these precedents were often found outside the region. I find limited evidence of Pacific Islands influencing each other’s decolonization processes and movements, despite their close proximity.

Thesis:

Rodriguez, R. (2023). Contagion or Coincidence? Pacific Island Independence Movements Under the British Empire

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Previous academic literature indicates that the United States has used the rhetorics of democracy, international norms, and national security to justify its foreign military interventions from the Cold War to the War on Terror (Kerton-Johnson 2010). However, scholars have failed to substantially investigate the use of human rights rhetoric. When the United States has intervened militarily in a foreign country, how has it used human rights rhetoric to justify its military action? Which human rights does the U.S. cite, and how do these statements match the reality of the human rights conditions on the ground for each case? To answer these questions, I conducted original textual analysis of 60 presidential speeches from the American Presidency Project and compared human rights justifications from these speeches to the actual human rights situations of each case. Through my research, I critically analyze the existence and political implications of the invocation of human rights rhetoric in the past, present, and future of American foreign policy. This thesis finds that American presidents historically have used human rights rhetoric to justify U.S. foreign military intervention, particularly during responses to humanitarian crises in the 1990s and more recently since its 2011 intervention in Libya. Further, within these justifications presidents most often invoke the rhetoric of personal integrity rights, such as the human right to "life, liberty, and security." American presidents frequently portray U.S. foreign policy as addressing human rights violations and by documenting this practice, this thesis contributes to our understanding of U.S. foreign policy and how it is justified to domestic and foreign publics.  

Thesis:

Adams-Menendez, N. (2022). A New Rhetorical Legacy? Humanitarianism, Human Rights, and US Foreign Military Intervention (1980-2020)

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

What role do textbooks and educational materials have in institutionalizing officially-sanctioned narratives of the past? How can history education be used to inculcate national identity and inform collective historical memory? My research seeks to answer these questions with regard to the case of modern Britain, specifically how the British education system has shaped the collective historical memory of the British Empire since 1900. Through textual analysis of history textbooks from 1900-1960 and an original survey connecting educational experience with opinions about the empire, I seek to critically analyze the dominant narratives of the empire within educational materials from the twentieth century to the present and analyze their impact on collective memory. My empirical research finds that the national history curriculum has institutionalized a glorified view of the past while omitting key historical episodes that do not fit the narrative of imperialism as a “civilizing mission.” The thesis concludes by examining how education reform can be leveraged to promote truth, reconciliation, and justice at the systemic level in Britain and other postcolonial societies.

Thesis:

Beyer, B. (2022). Education, Collective Memory and Transitional Justice in postcolonial Britain

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

In 2015 and 2016, more than a million refugees arrived in Germany. How did this Summer of Migration impact native Germans’ understanding of who belongs to the German community and who does not? My thesis initially establishes that attitudes towards all immigrant groups except refugees improved during the refugee crisis. Why might this be the case? I investigate two potential causal pathways: First, I investigate the impact of county-level exposure to refugees on attitudes towards incumbent immigrant groups using a cross-sectional and a differences-in-differences design. While the cross-sectional analysis indicates that increased refugee presence on the county-level leads to improved attitudes towards other outgroups, the differences-in-differences design yields no conclusive findings. Second, I examine whether the national news media coverage drives the attitudinal shift, by analyzing the salience and sentiment of coverage on various immigrant groups. I show that the salience of other immigrant groups decreased relative to the coverage on refugees. The sentiment analysis indicates that the sentiment in national news coverage of incumbent immigrant groups improved somewhat during the refugee crisis, relative to coverage of refugees. Together these findings suggests that Germany’s “boundary of belonging” shifted to become more inclusive of non-refugee immigrants, which are culturally “close” to the native population as a result of the 2015/2016 refugee inflow. These findings present an important case study of how a homogenous society’s definitions of inclusion and exclusion adjust in the face of increased immigration. 

Thesis:

Braun, J. (2022). Germany’s Changing ‘Boundary of Belonging’: Anti-Immigrant Attitudes amidst the Refugee Crisis 2015

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Current scholarship has identified distinct styles of propaganda produced by the Chinese government. Huang (2015) describes “hard” propaganda as propaganda designed to signal state capacity rather than persuade; by contrast, Yang (2013) illustrates how “soft” propaganda advances narratives of everyday heroism to deflect from structural critique. However, literature on hard and soft propaganda remains bifurcated, even as both styles rapidly alternate in the Chinese information environment. My thesis offers the first empirical study of hard and soft propaganda, investigating whether distinct styles of propaganda produce different effects, whether propaganda variants interact with one another, and how this might contribute to autocratic resilience. I conduct an original survey experiment with over 650 mainland Chinese participants, who are treated with hard and/or soft propaganda based on the Three Child Policy. I find that citizens are significantly more likely to share and enjoy soft propaganda, and less likely to identify it as “political propaganda” in comparison to hard propaganda. Both hard and soft propaganda encourage citizens to seek redress through official channels, while soft propaganda also stirs an entrepreneurial response. Though hard and soft propaganda create political backlash, exposure to both varieties also makes it harder for participants to identify soft propaganda as political propaganda, and easier for participants to identify hard propaganda as political propaganda. I conclude that hard and soft propaganda result in distinct effects, and that a diverse informational strategy may reinforce autocracy over time.

Thesis:

Du, S. (2022). Hard and Soft Propaganda: Marketing Autocracy in Contemporary China

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Euroscepticism has been on the rise in Europe for the past two decades and saw its first major political win in the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016. Scholars feared this “Brexit” referendum would spark a wave of Euroscepticism to wash over the continent and prompt more “leave” referendums, but the drawn out negotiations over a withdrawal deal have dampened much of the European public’s Eurosceptic fervor. How have Eurosceptic parties reacted in the post-Brexit era? In this thesis, I use a combination of Eurosceptic party manifesto data, Eurobarometer survey data, and case studies of specific Eurosceptic parties to assess to what extent the rhetoric of Eurosceptic parties changed in reaction to Brexit, and explore the factors driving these changes. My analysis suggests that hard Eurosceptic rhetoric, which is rhetoric advocating for a member state to leave the EU, dropped slightly in the aftermath of Brexit. This thesis contributes to the literatures on Eurosceptic thought, European Union cohesion and empirical studies that use rhetoric as a measure to gauge political party intentions.

Thesis:

Durham, A. (2022). How Eurosceptic Party Rhetoric is Changing in the Post-Brexit Era

Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.