IR Honors Students

My thesis explores the question of what the determinants of varying levels of national identification in Africa are. I am using three paired case studies-- Zambia and Malawi, Mali and Burkina Faso, and Tanzania and Uganda-- as well as quantitative regression analysis to look at historical, nation building, and development factors that might explain current divergences.

My honors thesis explores various factors that contribute to trust and business success in interactions between Westerners and their Chinese business counterparts. My research stems from my surprise that Chinese-Western business transactions are mostly done in English and that while there is an emphasis on following Chinese business norms, there does not seem to be a strong incentive to learn Mandarin for business success. My question is whether or not speaking Mandarin is an important factor of trust in Chinese-Western business deals. I plan to answer this question with three original empirical contributions: a survey distributed in Beijing, interviews conducted in Beijing and interviews conducted in San Francisco. First, I distributed thirty surveys to Chinese businessmen and women, asking about their interactions with a Western counterpart in order to analyze how trust is correlated with the Westerner's Mandarin proficiency. Second, I interviewed around seventeen businessmen and women in Beijing and asked them about their experiences working with Westerners. Finally, I will interview a smaller number of San Francisco businessmen interacting with Chinese counterparts in order to assess how English proficiency affects trust from the American perspective.

 I am interested in the question of Muslim integration in Europe as an intersection of politics, religion, and multiculturalism in society. More specifically, my research focuses on the cultural integration of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia in Paris, France; what is the impact of French policy in encouraging, or discouraging, their integration, and how the experiences of Yugoslavian Christian and Muslim immigrants compare to immigrants of other nationalities and religions throughout Europe? I hope to answer these questions using a combination of interview and quantitative statistical data.

The “Arab Spring” has failed to live up to its name, as evidenced by the continued revolutionary fervor and uncertainty within the Middle East and North Africa.  Dictatorial republics like those in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia have gone by the wayside and the ongoing violence in Syria demonstrates continued opposition to the era of pseudo-democracy within the region.  However, despite the political protests sweeping the region, Arab Muslim monarchies have survived the revolutionary chopping block, though not without internal political restructuring and dialogue with local opposition.  Furthermore, even kings in constitutional monarchies without the benefit of vast petroleum reserves have managed, for the time being, to retain their positions of executive power. My study examines the political strategies these constitutional monarchs implement to forestall regime-changing revolutions.

China's media system is one of the most repressive in the world. However, in recent years there has been an increase in somewhat independent media that is able to conduct investigative reports. Caixin Media, located in Beijing, is one such example. Caixin has broken several high-profile stories, many of which have reflected poorly on China's ruling regime. Despite its critical reporting, Caixin still exists today and while it may sometimes be rebuked it has not been shut down. My thesis will explore the possible explanations behind Caixin's success through a combination of on-site interviews and empirical analyses and hopefully shed light on the broader question of the emergence of independent media in countries with authoritarian governments.

With the emergence of indigenous rights movements in Latin America, collective cultural rights have arisen as the third generation of the human rights movement. However, some argue that human rights are a zero-sum game, where possibly promotion of collective rights contradicts promotion of basic individual human rights.  The purpose of my study is to challenge this notion and to analyze the complex vulnerability of minorities within autonomous indigenous regions.  With a focus on religious divisions and conflict, the question that arises is: Why does intra-communal violence break out and escalate in some communities and not others?  In a cross-regional study, this paper focuses on the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico and considers a number of factors that fuel ethno-religious violence.

Teaching at a children's shelter in Argentina, I became interested in the effect that globalization has on national investment in education. Does international economic integration constrain the choices that policy-makers make, and have policy-makers subsequently responded by increasing investment in human capital? With the generous support of Stanford's UAR, I traveled to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile to interview national decision-makers concerning federal spending priorities. Back on Stanford campus, I am conducting honors research on how changing economic structures have altered national education spending levels within the Latin American region. I look forward to analyzing whether globalization pressures policy-makers to enhance their competitiveness in this global economy.