Degree Discipline

The Enemy of My Enemy: International Alliances Against Transnational Terrorist Organizations (open access)

The Enemy of My Enemy: International Alliances Against Transnational Terrorist Organizations

A dearth of pre-existing research in the field prompted this thesis on whether traditional econometric analyses of war deterrent alliances are applicable to modern alliances for counter terror purposes. Apparent foundational and contextual differences between the two types of alliances and the costs and benefits member nations derive from each lead the author to theorize that factors contributing to the formation of each alliance are fundamentally similar. Multiple types of statistical models are used to measure variables from the Correlates of War and Polity datasets combined with custom variables in a new dataset concerning major transnational terrorist attacks and the resultant alliances in testing the effect of traditionally contributing formation factors on alliances against terrorism. The results indicate that some contributing factors are similar, extant analysis tools have utility and that further investigation is justified.
Date: December 2010
Creator: Berthume, Joshua Guy
System: The UNT Digital Library
Schoolyard Politics: Ethics and Language at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (open access)

Schoolyard Politics: Ethics and Language at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been both contentious and successful. By examining the ICTY from a Levinasian ethical standpoint, we might be able to understand how the court uses language to enforce ethical and moral standards upon post-war societies. Using linguistic methods of analysis combined with traditional data about the ICTY, I empirically examine the court using ordinary least squares (OLS) in order to show the impact that language has upon the court's decision making process. I hypothesize that the court is an ethical entity, and therefore we should not see any evidence of bias against Serbs and that language will provide a robust view of the court as an ethical mechanism.
Date: December 2010
Creator: Hatcher, Robert
System: The UNT Digital Library