This investigation, covering the past two decades, attempts to determine what benefits the Soviets have sought to gain in their relationships with Middle Eastern oil-producing nations. Chapter I surveys the U.S.S.R.'s oil industry and its tentative prospects for the 1980's. Chapter II discusses Soviet involvement in the Middle East since 1950, including nationalization and oil embargoes. In Chapter III, developments less favorable to the U.S.S.R. are, analyzed: the growing influence of conservative, anti -Soviet oil-producing states and the deradicalization of other Middle Eastern nations. Chapter IV concludes that the Soviets have met with varying success in their Middle Eastern involvements. The future of their oil industry remains uncertain.

This study hypothesizes that the major barriers to expanded trade between the U.S. and Eastern Europe are systemic in nature. Using this approach, each political/ economic system is examined in an attempt to define the obstacles to foreign trade expansion, to describe the most important systemic and political factors at work, and to demonstrate how they have determined and will continue to shape the economic relationships between the U.S. and the countries of Eastern Europe. A final synthesis presents the two systems in a unified picture of the economic environment and concludes that significant trade expansion is unlikely in the near future due to basic systemic incompatibilities which impede the resolution of key foreign trade problems.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and re-evaluate the questions involved in federalism and political problems in Nigeria. The strategy adopted in this study is historical, The study examines past, recent, and current literature on federalism and political problems in Nigeria. Basically, the first two chapters outline the historical background and basis of Nigerian federalism and political problems. Chapters three and four consider the evolution of federalism, political problems, prospects of federalism, self-government, and attainment of complete independence on October 1, 1960. Chapters five and six deal with the activities of many groups, crises, military coups, and civil war. The conclusions and recommendations candidly argue that a decentralized federal system remains the safest way for keeping Nigeria together stably.

The mass media's role in informing the American public is critical to public support for government policies. The media are said to set the national agenda. This view is based on the assumption of selective coverage they give to news items. Media coverage also influences the salience the public attaches to issues. However, media agenda effect has been challenged by Lang and Lang (1983). These scholars, in their media agenda-building theory, argued that the success of media effect on national agenda is dependent on group support. In order to test this theory, time-related data on South Africa crises, media coverage"of South Africa, American public reactions, congressional, and presidential apartheid-related activities, between 1976 and 1988, were analyzed. Congressional anti-apartheid policies were the dependent and others, the independent variables. The theory made analysis of the data amenable to the additive adopted to test for the significance of the interactive variables, indicated that these variables were negatively related to congressional anti-apartheid policies. The additive model was subsequently analyzed. The time series multiple regression analysis was used in analyzing the relationships. Given autocorrelation and multicollinearity problems associated with time series analysis, the Arima (p, d, q) model was used to model the relationships. This …

This study examines the nature and patterns of Soviet cultural activities in Egypt and Syria, the motivations behind those activities, and the contribution of the Soviet cultural effort toward the attainment of overall Soviet Middle East policies. Chapter I provides background information on Soviet-Arab relations, and in Chapter II Soviet objectives in the Middle East are examined. Chapter III identifies the important components of the Soviet cultural instrument in Egypt and Syria. Chapter IV assesses the contribution made by the cultural tool toward the attainment of Soviet objectives in Egypt and Syria. Finally, Chapter V demonstrates that the Soviet cultural enterprise exerted little impact on overall Soviet policy in the Middle East.

This study analyzes recent developments in U. S.- Iranian relations during the Nixon administration and attempts to portray the principal objectives of the United States and Iran vis-a-vis each other. Complex Interdependence is the model for development of the arguments. Due to the circumstances, however, the study substantially draws on Realism as well. Chapter I discusses methodology. Chapter II focuses on the Nixon Doctrine and its impact on U. S.-Iranian relations. Chapter III discusses the evolution of mutual interests between the two nations in the Gulf area. Chapter IV drawing on the previous chapters, concludes that an interdependent relation between the two nations has developed to the extent that in some areas policy of one nation would have an impact on the other, i.e., increase in the price of oil.

This study documents that external and internal forces were causes of change at VCWTP. External forces caused. Fort Worth to reorganize and introduce new management at VCWTP after 1982. These improvements led to VCWTP being selected best managed wastewater treatment plant in the nation by EPA in 1988. This study first analyzes external and internal forces responsible for changes at VCWTP. A history of plant operations also is reviewed. Personnel interviews were conducted of perceptions of employees. Finally, statistics obtained of the plant operation from 1969 to 1988 are compared with personal interviews. Five forces effect change at VCWTP; population, regulatory requirements, political conflicts, an organizational and managerial factors. Turnaround occurred as external and internal corrections were made.

In a civil war, conflict management practitioners are concerned with bringing the conflict to an end and providing security for civilians. Similarly, human rights advocacy groups are also concerned with minimizing civilian harm. Given the similar intentions of these actors in civil war states, this dissertation explores under what circumstances conflict management practitioners and human rights advocacy groups collaborate. First, I compare to what extent mediation and peacekeeping cases differ with regards to showing signs of interaction; second, I compare how the level of interaction changes depending on whether peacekeeping missions are deployed by the United Nations or regional intergovernmental organizations. I find that human rights groups are more likely to interact with peacekeeping missions, especially when the missions are deployed by the United Nations. Moreover, I analyze to what extent the interaction between human rights groups and peacekeeping operations impacts how human rights groups carry out their advocacy efforts. The findings reveal that the way human rights groups use their advocacy efforts depend on whether the third parties providing peacekeeping operations respond to their requests.

This paper surveys U.S. foreign policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the American administration reacted to the Soviet Union's interventions in Afghanistan and Poland and to its planned gas pipeline to Western Europe. Chapter I outlines the origins of the pipeline project; Chapters II and III describe U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviets during the Carter and Reagan administrations. Chapter IV focuses on the economic sanctions imposed against the Soviet Union by the United States and their failure to block or delay the pipeline, and Chapter V stresses the inability of economic sanctions-- in this and other instances--to achieve political ends.

This study examines the political and administrative role of planning and budgeting in Saudi Arabia. It demonstrates how they have contributed to lessening the political crises of distribution, participation, and penetration that confront developing countries. The study also investigates how these two bureaucratic processes have helped adapt rapid changes in a manner acceptable to the cultural milieu. In addition, the study explores the politics of planning and budgeting and identifies the roles various actors play. The evolution and institutionalization of planning and budgeting are examined through printed materials and interviews with planners and budgeters in the Ministries of Planning and Finance. In addition, a number of the Ulama, businessmen, former government bureaucrats, officials of key ministries and agencies, and media were interviewed in an attempt to understand how they interact in the politics of planning and budgeting.

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the planning and budgeting processes in Jordan to determine whether the findings of Caiden and Wildavsky about those processes in other poor countries generally are applicable to Jordan. An attempt is made to answer the research questions by comparing data from national plans, budgets, and expenditures during a fifteen-year period (1970-1984). In Jordan, as in other developing nations, the role of planning and budgeting is highly significant to the success of the country's hopes for development. This research tries to evaluate the role of planning and budgeting as policy instruments in the process of development in Jordan. The second focus of the dissertation concerns the possibilities and problems of assessing the impact of governmental policies on development. Specifically, an assessment is made to determine the impact of governmental expenditures on development as evidenced in Jordan s gross national product during the last fifteen years. The following questions are addressed in order to examine the impact of government action on economic development. First, what are the impact and significance of government expenditures, as a combined measure, on the gross national product in Jordan? Second, which governmental expenditure areas provide the greatest contribution to …

This dissertation is a pooled time series, cross-sectional, quantitative study of the impact of international financial transfer on the level of democracy. The study covers 174 developed and developing countries from 1976 through 1994. Through evaluating the democracy and democratization literature and other studies, the dissertation develops a theory and testable hypotheses about the impact of the international variables foreign aid and foreign direct investment on levels of democracy. This study sought to determine whether these two financial variables promote or nurture democracy and if so, how? A pooled time-series cross-sectional model is developed employing these two variables along with other relevant control variables. Control variables included the presence of the Cold War and existence of formal alliance with the United States, which account for the strategic dimension that might affect the financial transfer - level of democracy linkage. The model also includes an economic development variable (per capita Gross National Product) to account for the powerful impact for economic development on the level of democracy, as well as a control for each country's population size. By addressing and the inclusion of financial, economic, strategic, and population size effects, I consider whether change in these variables affect the level of …

This study has a twofold purpose: to demonstrate the causes of and various responses (British domestic, Iranian, Arabian, American, and Soviet) to the British decision to withdraw and to illustrate the regional political consequences of that withdrawal. The British Labour Government decision resulted primarily from an economic crisis. The various responses to the decision seem to have been motivated by national self-interest. Some of the Gulf states-- Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait--predicted that the consequences of the withdrawal would be desirable while others--Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates-- predicted that the consequences would not be beneficial. In some ways, both sides were correct in their predictions.

This comparative study assesses the state of democracy and examines the process of democratization in the Arab World between the years 1980-1993. It addresses shortcomings in the mainstream democracy literature that excluded the Arab World from the global democratic revolution on political cultural grounds. To fulfil the objectives of this study, I employ both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches to test a number of hypothesized relationships. I hypothesize that transition to democracy is negatively associated with economic development, militarism, U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of oil, and dependency. I contend that emerging civil society institutions so far have had no significant effect on democratization in the Arab World. Finally, I hypothesize that the level of democracy in the Arab World is influenced greatly by the issue of civil rights. In order to investigate the hypothesized relationships, the following data sets have been used: Gastil's Freedom House Data set, "Repression and Freedom in the 1980s" data set, and Vanhanen's 1990 data set. The findings of this study support the aforementioned hypothesized relationships. I find that Arab countries, in general have made modest progress toward democracy, making the Arab World part of the global revolution.

The present study is an attempt to compare the performance of two competing models of economic development-- the conservative and radical models. The conservative model is represented by the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; the radical model is represented by Cuba. The following chapters focus on a comparison of these models as they have manifested themselves in the Carribean basin. The analysis of the performance of the models is conducted by comparing socioeconomic variables of the countries representing the models. The study looks at the time period 1960 - 1980 which coincides with the adoption of the two models in the respective countries.

This study attempts to explore the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of military regimes in the Sudan from independence in 1956 to 1989. Further, the study tries to identify the factors that led to the collapse of either or both civilian and military regimes. Most of the studies on military politics have focused their research on either military coups or, more recently, on military withdrawal from politics. This work tries to synthesize the study of military coups and military withdrawal from politics into a single theoretical framework.

This paper determines relationships between three elements of the American policy process: legislature, agency, and administrative clientele. It concerns interrelationships between these elements and their affect to agency functions. A model is constructed; revealing the policy process, illustrating behavior patterns responsible for normal functioning and failure of policies and programs. The model develops through study of a single policy area. Supplemental data are provided from a survey. The paper concludes that the process is based on legislation-- causing activity in an agency or substantial change in programs; agency actions, seated in its own organizational objectives, and resultant to internal conflicts; and by clientele behavior, determined by agency actions or inactions. This model may help predicting policy outcomes, but only after similar but more comprehensive studies.

In this project I investigate the factors shaping compliance with international human rights agreements and I provide a definition of compliance, which goes beyond “ratification.” I argue that compliance is a multistage process, built upon three different steps: ratification/accession, implementation, and what I call “compliant behavior.” As an alternative to the dominant structural and normative explanation of compliance, I suggest that the factors affecting compliance are not only endogenous to state characteristics, such as the democratic/non-democratic nature of governments, but also exogenous, such as the perceived level of threat to national security. I offer a twofold theory that looks at leaders’ behavior under conditions of stability and instability and I suggest that under certain circumstances that threaten and pressure government leaders, state compliance with international human rights law becomes more costly. I suggest that regardless of regime type, threats shape leaders’ behavior toward international law; states are faced with the choice to abide by international obligations, protecting specific human rights, and the choice to protect their national interests. I argue that when the costs associated with compliance increase, because leaders face threats to their power and government stability, threats become the predictor of non-compliant behavior regardless of the democratic or …

This paper examines the role that military has played in the political development of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the modern Russian Federation. By utilizing the theoretical tenets of Eric Nordlinger, this paper endeavors to update and hopefully revise his classic work in civil-military relations, Soldiers in Politics. Chapter one of this paper introduces many of the main theoretical concepts utilized in this analysis. Chapter two considers the Stalinist totalitarian penetration model that set the standard for communist governments around the world. Chapter three follows up by addressing the middle years of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Both reformed the military in its relation to the party and state and made the armed forces a more corporate and professional institution. Chapter four pinpoints the drastic changes in both the state and armed forces during Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost. The military briefly ventured to a point it never gone before by launching a short coup against the last Soviet president. Chapter five focuses on the last ten years in the Russian Federation. While still a professional organization typical of the liberal model of civil-military relations, the armed forces face great uncertainty, as economic and social problems demand more of their …

This thesis examines and evaluates the questions involved in American arms sales to Iran and Egypt. The first two chapters outline the historical background and present detailed analyses of Iran's political situations prior to 1968 and United States policy toward it in that period of time. Chapter Three considers the American policies towards Egypt and the United States arms sales to that country. The main argument of the thesis appears in chapter Four which explains the objectives of Iran's government in buying American arms and the United States government's objectives in selling arms to Iran. Conclusions on the study comprise the fifth chapter.

This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts for humanitarian motives in a less threatening security context. To test these hypotheses, I compare U.S. military intervention in three temporal contexts reflecting more threatening security contexts (Cold War and post-9/11) and less threatening security contexts (1992-2001). Results of logit regression analysis reveal that a conflict’s connection to a threatening actor or ideology is the most statistically and substantively significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, both in more and less threatening security contexts. They also indicate that humanitarian motives are not a statistically significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, even in a more benign security environment. These findings imply that U.S. unilateral military intervention is reserved for more direct national …

This research incorporates a decision-making theory which defines the linkage between the public, the media, the president and the Congress. Specifically, I argue that the public holds widely shared domestic and international goals and responds to a number of external cues provided by the president and the media in its evaluation of presidential policies. Although most studies examine overall presidential popularity, there are important differences in the public's evaluations of the president's handling of foreign and domestic policies. Additionally, I am concerned with how the Congress responds to these specific policy evaluations, the president's public activities, and the electoral policy goals of its members when determining whether or not to support the president. Finally, I link together the theoretical assumptions, to examine the influence of varying levels of support among the Congress and the public, and the president's own personal power goals on the type, quantity, and the quality of activities the president will choose. Ultimately, the primary focus of this dissertation is on the sources and consequences of presidential support and the influence of such support on presidential decision-making.

Previous scholarship has long concentrated on the behaviors of belligerents during regime-dissident interactions. While much of the progress in the literature concentrated on the micro-level processes of this relationship, little research has focused on providing a theoretical reasoning on why belligerents choose to act in a particular manner. This project attempts to open the black box of decision making for regimes and dissidents during regime-dissident interactions in order to provide a theoretical justification for the behaviors of the belligerents involved. Moreover, this project argues that there is a relationship between the lower level events of political violence and civil war as the events at earlier stages of the conflict influence the possible outcome of civil conflict. Regimes and dissidents alike are strategic actors who conduct themselves in a manner to ensure their survival while concurrently attempting to succeed at achieving their respective goals. Although all authoritarian regimes are similar in their differences to democracies, there are significant differences between the regimes, which influence the decision making of the regime leader to ensure the survival of the political institution. In addition to influencing the decision calculus of the regimes, the behavior of the regimes impacts the probability of civil war at …

Human trafficking is a growing illegal crime, both in terms of numbers and profits. Thus, important to consider, as it is a human rights, political, criminal justice, national security, and economic issue. Previous studies have these examined these human trafficking factors independently, yet none have really taken into account how they work simultaneously. This study examines why human trafficker continues to occur, particularly at the domestic and transnational level, and also why some countries are better able to effectively deal with this problem in terms of criminalizing human traffickers. It is argued that at the domestic level, traffickers first must take into account the operating costs, illegal risks, bribery, and profits of the business. After considering these basic elements, they then need to consider the world, including economic, political, geographic, and cultural factors that may help facilitate human trafficking. However, human trafficking can occur across large geographic distances, though rare. This is more likely to happen based on the type of human trafficking group, available expatriate or immigrant networks, the origin-transit-destination country connection, or strength of the bilateral economic relationship between origin and destination countries. Finally, looking at why some countries are better able to criminalize traffickers helps us to …