During the 1960s and 1970s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) publicly endorsed the proliferation of nuclear weapons and refused to adopt international legal obligations regulating nuclear exports. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that between 1956 and 1976, at a time when China publicly supported nuclear proliferation, it also refused to provide nuclear and missile technology to other nations. Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, as China began to integrate itself into the nuclear non-proliferation (NNP) regime, it simultaneously began to engage in the illicit transfer of nuclear and missile technology. My research aims to answer two questions: (1) Why has China’s policy on engagement in the NNP regime displayed a discrepancy between its rhetoric and behavior? and (2) Why did China engage the NNP regime when it did?
Undergraduate Merit Scholarship Winners
Fall 2012
Protests in South Africa have been increasing since 2006. Currently, the county is noted for having the highest number of protests in the world. Most of these protests are seen as popular reactions to the local government’s failure to deliver goods and services to informal settlements across South Africa. However, despite frequent protests, people in South Africa still vote, attend ward committee meetings, and approve of the way the local government handles its job. There have been many studies mapping out protest action across South Africa but none of these studies have comprehensively tried to explain why people choose to protest against the local government and why we see regional variations in the rate of protests. There have been case studies of different protests but there has been no large-scale study explaining the puzzling relationship between improving perceptions of accountability and the propensity to protest. This research project seeks to examine the regional differences in rates of protests as well as understand why communities choose to protest.
In our era of social capitalism, businesses and finance have taken a new role within hybrid social enterprises and impact investing to address some of the world’s most difficult market failures and social issues – like access to clean water, equitable education and sustainable food distribution. Asia, a relatively untapped market, is now experiencing some of the most exciting growth and development in impact investing, from a creation of a new Impact Investing Exchange that has both public and private social enterprises to an active impact investing forum held last in Singapore. I want to investigate which economic sectors would yield the most potential financial and socially for Asia, especially in the east Asian countries like Singapore and China. My preliminary research plan includes attending impact investing, philanthropy and social innovation forums to gather the universe of impact investing funds and social enterprises in order to gauge the current landscape across the diverse East Asian coutnries. I will also interview key executives of those firms to receive input about what they feel are some of the difficulties, challenges and opportunities for scaling impact investing in Asia.
Current models of addressing the global health care discrepancy have proven insufficient, however well-intentioned. Leaders in the field are calling for the implementation of novel approaches to solve the issue, like training general practitioners and registered nurses in basic surgical techniques. Two examples of this training program have been shown to dramatically reduce "preventable" deaths, especially those resulting from trauma or injury. In order to develop these programs, the epidemiology of injury must first be investigated so that training programs can be optimized for the changing public health challenges presented by the rise of both terrorism and asymmetric warfare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to aggregate data regarding the epidemiology of civilian injuries resulting from terrorist attacks and asymmetric (both inter- and intranational) warfare in developing countries between the years 2003-2013. MeSH terms "terrorist: war: IED: injury: epidemiology" will be used in Pubmed and Medline to search for relevant publications. Specific attention will be paid to trends in the body areas wounded and types of injuries resulting from improvised explosive devices (IED).
China's rampant corruption has become a subject of contention among Western and Chinese academics, policymakers, and political pundits. A core puzzle in this debate involves the severity of the corruption problem: how bad is corruption in China? Given the difficulties in measuring the actual rate of corruption in any country, and especially in the opaque Chinese authoritarian regime, scholars have approached this issue in a variety of ways, such as domestic perceptions of corruption. This study approaches the puzzle of Chinese corruption by analyzing the trends in anti-corruption enforcement, examining how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has changed its efforts to address corruption in the reform era. Data on enforcement will consist of a systematic aggregation of research in secondary literature and Western media reports. Findings on the CCP’s shifting reliance on one tool of enforcement to another will suggest how seriously the political elite views corruption as a threat to the Chinese economy and livelihood of the Party.
This project seeks to understand gender, food and diet culture, economic changes as a factor contributing to malnutrition, obesity and poor oral hygiene in Vietnam. Different factors will be examined to increase awareness of the gender inequality in child oral health and nutrition in developing countries, and to tailor specific health education and policies to reduce this gender disparity. Gender inequality has deep roots in the cultures and traditions of many developing countries, including Vietnam. According to The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2005 by United Nations, in developing countries primary school enrollment ratios of girls to boys are 86-92 girls to 100 boys, and gender disparities become more pronounced when children enter secondary school and university. Among health issues and health disparities, child oral health is frequently neglected, and gender disparities are not well-studied. Child oral health is very important in children’s overall health and development since severe tooth decay can cause chronic mouth pain, malnutrition, and inability to concentrate in school. In her earlier studies, Dr. Karen Sokal-Gutierrez (Associate Clinical Professor, SPH) has observed across several countries in Latin America and Asia that boys’ oral health appears worse than that of girls. Why is there this pattern of gender difference in oral health in children? What are the gender-based differences in nutrition and oral hygiene for children in Vietnam? To answer this question, we use a mixed methods study, using quantitative and qualitative methods. Secondary data from existing surveys of parents and exams of children in collected in 2011-2012 by Dr. Ivey and Dr. Sokal-Gutierrez’s Children’s Oral Health and Nutrition projects in Vietnam will be analyzed. New data in 2012 by using in-depth interviews and focus groups with mothers, grandmothers and shop keepers in Vietnam about their parenting practices and expectations regarding nutrition and oral hygiene by gender will be translated, transcribed and analyzed qualitatively. Analysis of existing quantitative data will be done in SPSS.
My McNair Scholar research, examined how the Nixon Shock of 1971 affected the agricultural industry of Mexico and the subsequent severe and disproportionate effects at the local level. Using historical methods coupled with regression and ANOVA statistical analysis, I looked at how the Nixon’s decision to remove the U.S. dollar from gold, forced Mexico to shift away from their industrial organization. It led them to diversify exports and focus on agriculture. President Echeverria’s shared development policy increased expenditures for irrigation systems to spur agricultural production and export revenue for large and small farmers alike. However, using Instituto Nacional Estadistica y Geografia data circa 1970s, and R and STATA statistical software, I found water resources were disproportional. They favored large-scale private farmers who garnered higher export revenues from production back to the state. This finding demonstrates the exclusion of indigenous communities in Echeverria’s shared development policy, which sought to provide irrigation systems for large and small farmers alike. The effects of this disproportion form the basis of my current research question: what were the implications to small-scale maize farmers and indigenous peoples due to the 1971 construction of the Chicoasén dam?
Samuel Beckett's writings, when read philosophically, are often examined through the lens of critical theory, in light of work by scholars like Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger. However, one approach that has been thus far largely neglected is to examine Beckett's work through the lens of analytic philosophy—that is, philosophy that is rigorously grounded in formal logic. More specifically, my project reconsiders Beckett’s works in light of the sorites paradox. Beckett, in a letter to a director of Endgame, notes that the paradox he means to suggest in Endgame is one of Zeno’s, a paradox that “proves” the impossibility of the finite. However, Beckett’s description of an "impossible heap” does not match any of Zeno's infinity paradoxes. Rather, the "heap paradox" is the sorites paradox described by Eubulides. The sorites paradox reaches an entirely different conclusion: the problem of the "impossible heap" is a problem of vagueness, not of infinity. My aim, then, is to show how Beckett’s texts in actuality describe the sorites paradox. I plan to reinterpret Beckett’s work in light of the sorites paradox, and provide a positive thesis of what this could mean, both thematically and linguistically, for an understanding of Beckett’s work. Thus, in order to accurately position my own reading against Beckett’s conception, I seek to understand Beckett’s intent while crafting his works. To do so, I will visit the Beckett Collection at the University of Reading this winter, where I will focus on Beckett's correspondence and manuscript drafts.
The Arab Spring is a complex phenomenon, however understanding the actions of the coercive apparatus during the protests is important for understanding these regimes’ handling of protests and revolutions. Prior to the outbreak of Arab Spring protests, many of the states that experienced protests appeared to enjoy the support of their respective coercive apparatuses, which are comprised of institutions including the military, police, and intelligence agencies. Despite this apparent support, the coercive apparatus in several states abandoned the regime after Arab Spring protests broke out. This paper aims to determine why the coercive apparatus defected or did not defect from the regime in four cases during the Arab Spring protests: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain. In answering this question, I will examine political, ethnic, economic, and foreign factors that influenced the defection of the coercive apparatus during the Arab Spring protests.
On November 10, 1941, Hans Frank, governor of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland, introduced the death penalty to Poles and their household members who helped Jews "in any way: by taking them in for the night, giving them a lift in a vehicle of any kind" or "feed[ing] runaway Jews or sell[ing] them foodstuffs." Nonetheless, there has been significant documentation of non-Jewish Poles assisting Jews. To date, a total of 6,339 Poles have been officially recognized by Israel as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations for their efforts in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust, making Poland the country with the highest number of Righteous in the world. This raises the question: why did Poles assist Jews during the Holocaust? I argue that the leading reason that Poles were moved to lend aid to Jews during the Second World War was as a result of Jewish assimilation. Specifically, I assert that where Jews were more assimilated within a locality, Polish rescue will have occurred in higher frequency. I test this theory using both a dataset compiled by Jeffrey Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg of matched census and electoral returns from interwar Poland, as well as my own original dataset on the Polish Righteous Among the Nations. Using this data, I examine whether patterns of political cohesion, and therefore arguably perceived shared norms, match those of assistance. Having an observed overlap would suggest their relatedness.
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