IR Honors Students

Carissa Cheng
Title: Taiwanese American Storytelling and the “China Threat”
Thesis Advisor: Professor Gi-Wook Shin
Abstract: In the last century, Taiwan has been threatened by two waves of “mainlanders”, first the Kuo Ming Tang who imposed martial law for almost 40 years, and now the People’s Republic of China and its increasingly expansionist territorial ambitions for “reclaiming” Taiwan. In this continuous historical memory of Chinese threat, how do Taiwanese families, particularly families who have immigrated to the United States, remember and pass on stories of China from one generation to the next? This paper seeks to investigate the role of historical memory through intergenerational storytelling in sustaining anti-China sentiment and ethnic identity attachment within the Taiwanese American community.

Arí Jah Gibson
Title: Global Perceptions of African Americans: A Comparative Study of Perceived African American Identity in Spain, France, and the United States
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Vasiliki Fouka
Abstract: African Americans have faced racial discrimination in the United States for centuries, but less is known about how African Americans are perceived in European contexts, particularly in France and Spain. Understanding these perceptions is key to exploring how historical and socio-cultural factors influence racial hierarchies abroad. The central research question is: Where do African Americans sit on various racial hierarchies in Spain, France, and the United States? This research also investigates whether being American provides African Americans with certain privileges and how these privileges impact their social, economic, and cultural experiences. By comparing perceptions in these countries, this study will offer insight into how race and nationality intersect in shaping African American experiences abroad.

Ben Kingston
Title: Chinese Infrastructure Investments & Political Trajectory in Tanzania
Thesis Advisors: Professor Larry Diamond

Tiana Lakhani
Title: AI in Shadows: How have North Korea's cyber activities evolved from 2009 to 2024, and what are the data rights implications, with a focus on AI’s role in cyberwarfare?
Thesis Advisor: Professor Dafna Zur
Abstract: North Korea emerges as a particularly fascinating case in cyberwarfare—both as a nation-state and as the most disconnected country on the planet, yet it has risen as a global cyber power. North Korea’s state-sponsored Lazarus Group and Emerald Sleet have been responsible for major cyberattacks like the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, and recent AI-driven espionage campaigns targeting think tanks and research agencies. Together, these operations have resulted in significant financial losses and widespread data rights violations. These activities are driven by North Korea’s need to circumvent international sanctions, gather intelligence, and generate foreign currency to support its weapons programs (Jun et al., 2015). By 2018, North Korea was responsible for 20% of global crypto cybercrime and over $8 billion in financial losses (Kaspersky, 2018; Boo, 2017). This raises the question of how a state that is barely wired can evolve into a global cyber threat - the puzzle central to this thesis. By answering this question, I aim to uncover pivotal insights that can be used to drive the development of more effective cybersecurity strategies in the future.

Aidan Singer
Title: Evaluating Purchaser Preference in the Voluntary Carbon Market
Thesis Advisor: Professor Rob Dunbar
Abstract: This study investigates purchaser preferences in the legacy voluntary carbon market focusing on how buyers perceive the "quality" of carbon credits. The central question examines what influences buyers' perceptions of quality and how these factors underscore the concerns buyers respond most to, whether it be risk, environmental impact, or others. The study hypothesizes that in the legacy market, quality is primarily determined by verification standards and co-benefits, which is distinct to other areas of the voluntary market, such as the carbon removals market, where technology type and removal duration play a larger role. Using datasets from Carbon Plan, a "value proxy" metric will be developed to evaluate demand signals in the absence of price data. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative analysis with qualitative interviews, to assess key variables and aims to enhance understanding of consumer preferences in carbon markets and provide insights into aligning market incentives with high-quality climate solutions.

Max Wolf Solberg
Title: A House Divided: How Taiwan's Domestic Politics Impacts ROC Defense Policy
Thesis Advisors: Professor James Fearon and Dr. Kharis Templeman

Isabel Sydney Blum
In the pursuit of a carbon-neutral economy, governments worldwide are embracing diverse policies to promote sustainable energy solutions. The European Union stands at the forefront of this effort, with countries adopting different approaches to solar photovoltaic (PV) governance to influence the trajectory of the market. How do different policy frameworks drive variation in solar PV capacity and market development across the European Union? Focusing on three pivotal case studies—Germany, Spain, and France—this thesis explores the intricacies of solar PV governance against the backdrop of shifting energy market landscapes from the early 2000s to 2015. The thesis contends that feed-in tariffs (FITs) emerge as a powerful policy instrument, particularly when addressing information asymmetry, fostering investment, and stimulating the early stages of market competition. Effective FITs offer regulators the flexibility to provide financial support while avoiding excessive policy costs, thereby facilitating sustainable proliferation of solar PV. However, once this energy source approaches grid parity, tendering schemes are preferable as they enable more efficient cost and quality control. By analyzing the nuances of solar PV policy design and its implications for market dynamics, these findings offer insights for future research and policymaking endeavors, contributing to the imperative transition towards renewable energy in Europe.
Thesis Advisor: Professor William Barnett
Thesis:
Blum, I. (2024). Powering Europe: A Comparison of Policies Promoting the Solar Photovoltaic Industry in Germany, Spain, and France
Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Kate Bradley
Rare Earth Metals, or Rare Earth Elements (REEs), are the fuel of the future—they are scarce inputs crucial to the clean energy transition. For this reason, it is widely assumed that China’s monopoly over REE production is detrimental to the United States’ long-term energy security. However, this hypothesis has not been adequately tested in the literature. This thesis aims to fill that gap by assessing the reliance of key U.S. clean energy industries on China’s REE supply chain. In the thesis, I use two REE price shocks—one that occurred during a 2010-2012 export cut and the other during the COVID pandemic—as a natural experiment. I study financial indicators of nine wind energy and electric vehicle (EV) companies operating in the US to understand how they reacted to the supply shocks. To constrain the extent of REE supply chain dis/advantages, I compare these results to the performance of wind energy and EV companies operating in China, as well as to non-EV companies which don’t use REE in large quantities. I find that neither wind energy nor EV company financials are significantly impacted by REE supply shocks, with the slight exception of Tesla. Tesla’s cost of revenues appeared particular affected by the 2010-2012 price shock. Tesla, in particular, reacted to the sensitivity by spending more on resilience strategies, like raw materials inventory stockpiling and research & development efforts. Though the perceived impact of REE price shocks is large within the political sphere, because the price shocks didn’t impact bottom line profitability, the shocks were not perceived to be impactful by public markets: changes in these US wind and EV companies’ stock prices are uncorrelated to REE price shocks. This implies that REE supply chains receive outsized political attention relative to the economic role they play, though open questions remain about the extent of our future consumption of REEs.
Thesis Advisor: Professor Jean Oi
Thesis:
Bradley, K. (2024). Conflict over the “Commanding Heights:” Gauging Impacts of China's Rare Earths Monopoly on U.S. Energy Security
Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Isa Calero Forero
To what extent did the anti-gender Movement’s narrative of “gender ideology” impact the Colombian peace accord plebiscite in 2016? The 2016 plebiscite asked Colombians to decide whether or not to accept the peace accord between the government and the guerilla group FARC-EP. The peace accord vote was quite close, but ultimately failed, with 50.2% voting ‘No.’ Previous studies have cited the “gender ideology” narrative as a factor that created opposition to the accord, including how Pentecostal church leaders of the ‘No’ campaign argued that “the agreements put Colombia at risk of ‘homosexual colonization.’” (Beltran and Creely 2016) That said, more research is needed to understand why and how this narrative gained traction. Thus, this thesis seeks to answer the question: How did the narratives surrounding “gender ideology” and the Colombian peace accord shape the discussions about the intended purpose and impact of the accord, and ultimately impact their decision in the peace accord plebiscite? To answer this question, I conducted 29 in-depth interviews with members of different political parties in Colombia during the summer of 2023, and also conducted a survey experiment with 862 Colombian respondents during the spring of 2024. The interview data is analyzed in two passes, using both deductive and inductive codes, supported by analytic memos and prepositions. The survey used a set of vignette experiments to identify the impact of language related to gender identity, sexual orientation or the LGBT community on political approval decisions. These methods provide insight into which narratives were most prevalent with regard to “gender ideology,” why they garnered opposition, and how they shaped the perception of the accord. I argue that the “gender ideology” narratives became part of the vision of the future for a post-conflict Colombia that, when put in combination with the fear of the rise of the FARC as a political party, and grievances about impunity, mobilized ‘No’ voters against the accord. This study will contribute to a growing body of research on the strategies and impact of the anti-gender movement, as well as how and why their narratives have been able to gain traction in political decisions.
Thesis Advisors: Professor Beatriz Magaloni and Professor Anna Gryzmala-Busse
Thesis:
Calero Forero, I. (2024). “No a la destrucción de la familia”: “Gender Ideology” Narratives and the Colombian Peace Accord Plebiscite
Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.

Irmak Ersoz
In 2022, $210.6 billion was donated as official development assistance through bilateral or multilateral channels. Yet this development aid has been notoriously ineffective. While many development scholars have investigated this problem through data analysis and case studies, there has been little to no consensus on what makes development projects fail. This thesis probes whether governance data about aid recipient countries could help make that aid more effective.
The rise of machine learning has provided new tools to find patterns between successes and failures within development projects. In this thesis, using machine learning and an experimental survey against human judgment, I built a model to predict the performance of development projects. I used project information spanning over 60 years combined with governance indices spanning from public sector performance to the rule of law to understand whether project characteristics, governance levels, or both influence the performance of development projects. I found that a model that incorporates governance indicators can predict project performance significantly more accurately compared to a model that does not incorporate governance measures, demonstrating the difference a holistic understanding of governance can make for projecting development outcomes.
This rudimentary predictive modeling exercise shows that machine learning can point out patterns of success and failure among a vast corpus of development projects, pointing out policy and project design levers that can prove useful to development professionals as aid is modernized. Ultimately, this thesis shows how these new data science tools can be translated into meaningful contributions to development policy.
Thesis Advisors: Professor Adam Bonica and Professor Jeremy Weinstein
Thesis:
Ersoz, I. (2024). Development Through the Looking Glass: Predictive Modeling Development Project Performance
Stanford Digital Repository. Available HERE.