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.

How do religions and nationalism interact in secular democracies? With its history of nationalism based on religious ideologies, and the subsequent forced separation of state and religion, Japan provides a valuable case to examine how religion and nationalism interact and affect the politics of a secular state. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and synthesize the divide within the literature regarding the idea that Shinto is fundamentally nationalist in nature. Due to Shinto's historical ties to Japanese nationalism, it is clear that religion and nationalism played a role in Japanese politics in the past. However, with Japan's transition to democracy and the constitutional provision of the separation between religion and state, religion's effect on nationalism in Japan has become blurred contemporarily. In order to explore these relationships between Shinto, nationalism, and Japanese politics, I investigate how political groups and religious organizations influence nationalist sentiment in political institutions and public opinion in Japan using the Japanese Value Orientations survey and an original dataset. I find that even though the evidence is mounting against the accuracy around the idea of State Shinto and the fundamentally nationalist nature of Shinto, the narrative persists. The existence of nationalist circles perpetuates these narratives, …

This dissertation examines the impact of FDI on peace in civil conflict-experienced states. While economic grievances have often been pointed out as a major cause of civil war within the literature, scholarship on post-conflict peace has focused mainly on political settlements, such as one-sided victories or power sharing, largely ignoring the importance of economic conditions. Thus, this dissertation aims to examine how FDI can affect sustainable peace in conflict-experienced states in terms of prevention of conflict recurrence and regime stability. FDI can be conducive to peace during/after civil conflicts, as it can bring capital which can be used for economic reconstruction and development in conflict-experienced states. Furthermore, this dissertation focuses on the impact of bilateral FDI. When a third party intervenes in a conflict management process and the third party has a great deal of economic interaction with the conflict experienced state, this economic interdependency will affect the third party's motivation to make the conflict-experienced state stable. It also provides third-party with greater leverage over peace efforts. Eventually, this third-party leverage will affect peace during/after civil conflicts. This dissertation is built around three interrelated empirical chapters: (1) determinants of FDI in conflict-experienced states, (2) the impact of FDI on conflict …

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is recognized as a founder of the modern scientific project and a forerunner of the modern era of political thought. He advocated the development of an active science that would enable human beings to control nature in order to relieve man's estate. To accomplish this, Bacon argues that we must reconstruct all arts and sciences upon a more solid foundation. In reconstructing the arts and sciences, Bacon subtly changes the meaning of foundational religious, political, and scientific notions in order to better suit his project of progress. As the inheritors of his vision, turning to Bacon helps recover foundational considerations that have been forgotten as a result of his success. This dissertation approaches Bacon's thought through an analysis of his New Atlantis, a fable that envisions the completion of his project. I also turn to his other political, scientific, and religious works as appropriate to supply what is omitted in the fable. I find that although his revision of religious, scientific, and political foundations is conducted subtly they are nevertheless revolutionary, and essential for preparing the various outlooks that characterize the modern world.

Interest and concern about penitential labor practices has been growing among scholars recently. The relationship of these practices to the principles of American liberalism, and in particular its Lockean roots, have not been thoroughly studied. The present investigation traces contemporary practices to features of Lockean liberalism, and offers suggestions for how to respond to widely acknowledged deficiencies while remaining within the broadly accepted principles laid out by Locke. The advantages of such an approach include political stability.

This dissertation examines the role of third parties in civil war mediation and peacekeeping efforts. The dissertation makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, it builds upon existing literature by applying state-level arguments of third party involvement in mediation and peacekeeping efforts to the United Nations Security Council and regional IGOs. Second, it investigates the role of communication and coordination between third parties in their conflict management efforts.

This research examines the political implications of community-police relations in the United States by exploring the link between race, perceptions of police performance, and trust in government. Relying on survey data, I examine these relationships for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Whites. In addition to examining the broader relationship between community-police relations and institutional trust, this dissertation examines (1) how police perceptions influence individuals' comfort in contacting the police, (2) how police violence and police perceptions influence trust in government, and (3) the effectiveness of community-oriented policing in building community-police relations and increasing trust in government. First, I find that these relationships are conditional on race and ethnicity. Black respondents, who are more likely to experience negative interactions with the police and who are less likely to have positive perceptions of the police, are less comfortable contacting them. Second, while police violence does not have a significant effect on public trust in government, police perceptions and perceptions of discrimination do. Respondents that perceive the police to be performing well and who do not believe their own racial group is being discriminated against, are more likely to express trust in government. Finally, I find that community-oriented policing has the potential to both …