For the last eight years the United States has been engaged in Afghanistan. This commitment has had a profound impact on domestic and international politics and has altered the situation in much of Central Asia and the Middle East. U.S. efforts in Afghanistan since 2001 have focused primarily on driving out al-Qaeda and establishing a stable, centralized government to replace the Taliban regime. For much of the past decade, American focus has shifted away from Afghanistan to our engagement in Iraq. However, recent events in the region, including the volatility of neighboring Pakistan and Iran, have lead to a renewed interest in Afghanistan. A comprehensive and critical evaluation of U.S. policy must be made as an American and international military surge takes place. This report is a critical evaluation of current U.S. involvement in Afghanistan with concrete, actionable policy recommendations to secure, stabilize and sustain the Afghan state and ensure the security of American interests. A refocused effort to achieve security throughout the country, coupled with a renewed emphasis on the transfer of responsibility to the Afghan people and the Afghan government, are the crux of our recommendations to the State Department. Issues of accountability and corruption, within the Afghan state as well as within the foreign and international efforts assisting it, along with cooperation and coordination between Afghan, regional, international and U.S. forces are equally important and must be addressed. These issues are discussed within the specific frameworks of governance, infrastructure development, economy, civil society, and the role of regional actors and international influences, providing specific policy recommendations for the United States within each. At this critical juncture of our efforts in Afghanistan, it is imperative that we reevaluate, reform and effectively implement new policies to achieve lasting security and prosperity for Afghanistan, the Central Asia region and the United States of America.

The United Nations holds the unique position in the international community of being the global authority on state norms and standards while daily finding these norms contested by the member states and bodies within its structure. This paper argues that the United Nations is an arena where imperial fields converge and clash, creating dissonances in the work of the UN while simultaneously promoting global cooperation. I understand imperial fields to be multiple loci of power inherent in the very UN structure, manifested in the 192 member states and the multiple bodies and commissions that contribute to the overall decentralized UN organization. In order to prove that the UN is fragmented and incoherent rather than a central, cohesive institution, I focus on the UN Security Council (UNSC) as a microcosm of the tensions inherent in the larger UN system. I propose that the tensions and struggles created by the imperial fields in the Security Council influence (sometimes detrimentally) the decision making abilities of the member states. I study the circumstances of UNSC involvement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. and examine the influence of the imperial fields within the Council clash with the power of regional organizations. I hope to speak to the larger idea of UN efficacy in a constantly shifting world and whether it is able to uphold the ideals of peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development. 

China’s household registration system (hukou), despite various changes over the past three decades, continues to be one of the lynchpins of its political economy and has a tremendous impact on the lives of all Chinese citizens. The author will first depict the impacts of the hukou system on China’s society and economy, and analyzes the hukou’s role in perpetrating the country’s uneven spatial development. He argues for a fundamental reform and eventual elimination of the hukou system because the current system is retarding China’s development into a modern country. The author will proceed to analyze why the hukou system was implemented in relations to the command economy during the Maoist era and Marxism influence. He will conclude by pinpointing the salient changes that need to take place in order for fundamental reforms to the hukou to take place.

Member states of the European Union must transpose European Commission directives into national law within a specified period of time. However, the EU is plagued with frequent episodes of member state non-compliance. Current scholarship suggests several factors that influence the timeliness of directive implementation – including state capacity to undertake directive characteristics, EU – member state conflict, directive specificity and flexibility, geographic polarization, and others – though little research to date has investigated how national electoral politics impacts transposition rates and timeliness. In this study, I investigate whether parliamentary election cycles help to explain variations in compliance with EC directives across nations. My analysis is based on sixteen years of compliance information across four policy sectors and fifteen EU member states. I expect to find that the presence or absence of parliamentary elections is a significant predictor of compliance. In addition, I control for other established variables in order to assess the relative importance of politics versus other considerations.

In many ways, modern day India and Pakistan stand on opposite ends of the socio-political spectrum. Pakistan has inherited the mantle of regional basket case; India has become an economic and political powerhouse. Although numerous arguments have been put forward for Pakistan’s instability, few hold up in comparative perspective. The two countries not only share a common history, but also suffer from corruption, underdevelopment, inequitable social services, and high levels of religious violence. How does one explain Pakistan’s instability, when India shares so many of its problems? I suggest that part of the answer lies in the ideological construction of these two states. In India, secularism has allowed the state to construct itself in a space outside religious conflict, while in Pakistan the ideal of a unified Muslim nation has embedded the meaning of the state within bitter sectarian battles. I test the validity of this hypothesis by examining the role personal law – law dealing with marital and familial issues – has played in mediating between state ideologies and society in both countries. In particular, I focus on the how ideologies embodied in personal law regimes interacted with rising religious conflict in India and Pakistan during the 1980s. Using qualitative methods to examine data like court rulings and newspaper reports, I seek to understand how construction of personal law by the Indian Supreme Court and Pakistani Federal Sharī'a court has impacted the relationship between these states their societies. While India has promoted a secular legal system offering religious communities a degree of autonomy, Pakistan has worked toward a unified system of Sharī'a law. My preliminary findings indicate that while secularism can facilitate state stability, as in the case of India, the practice has done little to mitigate religious violence itself, revealing tensions between the imperatives of state survival and citizen well-being.

The Holy See (i.e. the universal government of the Catholic Church) occupies a unique position in the international system. The Holy See has the sovereign status of a state without actually being one, and it understands itself strictly as a non-governmental organization (NGO). Unlike any other NGO, however, the Holy See asserts itself through bilateral diplomacy with almost 200 nations, through formal engagement with the world's most prominent international organizations, and by leveraging its “moral capital” with an estimated 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide. The question is how exactly an ancient institution like the Holy See fits in with the broader community of nations, and whether its influence as a non-state actor can be explained without altering traditional notions of sovereignty, statehood, and power. This research examines whether existing international relations theory can bring the Holy See's non-state, transnational advocacy into explanations of social and political outcomes. In particular, it examines how the Holy See promotes its interests in a way that challenges realist assumptions about the influence of non-state actors. The Holy See has been an effective mediator in several international conflicts, a moral force and leader in international fora, and a persistent advocate of human rights in a way that has secured political and religious freedoms around the globe. And yet, the Holy See is not a state—a fact that is not consistent with realist expectations about the influence of non-state actors. In the final analysis, understanding the influence of the Holy See requires a theory that does not have material power and statehood as necessary variables in the evaluation of international outcomes, making it a unique and important subject in international relations theory.

There have been two consistent themes in the United States’ long history: democracy and empire. As a result, the US has created institutional structures to support and maintain both endeavors. Using Robert A. Dahl’s democratic theories as a foundation, my analysis identifies and details the institutions required for the maintenance of a democratic society, including elections and elected officials, the freedom of expression and information, individual autonomy and inclusive citizenship, participation, voting equality and the ability to achieve an enlightened understanding. My research also takes a broad historical approach in order to identify and examine the imperial institutions required to simultaneously maintain an American Empire, institutions such as expansion, war and conflict, the Imperial Presidency, secrecy, and the subversion of democracy and democratic values abroad. An analysis of the relationship between democracy and empire reveals that America's imperial institutions actively operate to undermine its democratic institutions and therefore put America’s democratic future at risk. The negative relationship between democracy and empire leads to the conclusion that in order to ensure the continuation of a strong and democratic American society, the United States must begin to relinquish its imperial holdings and begin to dismantle its imperial institutions. This, in turn, will allow for American democratic institutions to flourish without being subverted by the institutions required to maintain the American Empire.