Germany's Energiewende, a pioneering transition to renewable energy, has drawn global attention. Yet, despite initial enthusiasm, disillusionment has grown among energy sector workers and civil society. This study aims to uncover the factors driving this disillusionment. The primary research question is: What contributes to disillusionment amidst the Energiewende transition? Through qualitative analysis of data from the IGBCE union, a key stakeholder in the transition, this research examines the gap between policy objectives and worker concerns. Hypothesizing that a lack of legal support fuels dissatisfaction, the study contextualizes evolving worker attitudes through literature review. Concerns over job insecurity and transition policy inadequacies have shifted sentiment despite initial optimism. Using a comparative case study approach and narrative analysis, I explore how the IGBCE's legal narrative reflects worker grievances. By examining documents from 2015 to 2023, including union materials, recurring themes and narratives are identified. This illuminates the complex relationship between government policies, and worker discontent amidst energy transition. Employing sociological theories such as the "treadmill of production" and "creative destruction," I examine barriers to a just and sustainable transition, questioning whether there are other growth factors that leads to advanced economies being stuck on a "treadmill". Analysis reveals that the Energiewende is primarily driven by societal pressure, prompting political and economic transitions. This shift also influences the stances of labor unions, exemplified by IGBCE's evolution from advocating for fossil fuels to embracing renewables. However, union interests persist in advocating for members. Consequently, with only half of energy jobs governed by collective bargaining agreements aimed at ensuring fair wages, dissatisfaction among workers intensifies. Therefore, workers find themselves vulnerable to precarious conditions and insufficient wages. Result also shows notable lack of government support, further exacerbating worker concerns. This deficiency underscores the importance of unions as effective representatives of workers' interests, with perceived benefits such as collective bargaining power and legal representation, which contribute to the increasing appeal of unions for workers seeking support and protection.

This study seeks to explore the perspectives of Latine students at the University of Washington (UW) regarding racial representation within the institution. Do Latine students see their experiences and identities represented and reflected in university life? How do Latine students experience and perceive Latine representation (or lack thereof) in terms of the composition of faculty, student body, and community spaces at UW? This research project aims to uncover the realities, challenges, and promise of support and community on campus. Through interviews with Latine students, faculty, and staff, this inquiry will describe how students find support at UW and navigate their academic environment. To attain a comprehensive understanding, the research utilizes a combination of primary and secondary sources, incorporating interviews with Latine students, staff, and faculty at the UW to capture personalized and nuanced perspectives. By examining the lived experiences and perspectives of individuals directly affected, the study aims to thoroughly examine the complex dynamics at play. Exploring the lived experiences of Latine students, the study will contribute to the discourse on racial representation in academia and its impact on student well-being and academic success. The findings will inform discussions on how institutions can foster an inclusive environment that recognizes and supports the diverse backgrounds of all students. This research project has emerged from ongoing conversation and collaboration with the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs members. This research project will inform the community report that the Commission is preparing.

Cybersecurity is one of the fastest-growing areas of study within the social sciences, as the internet is becoming an increasingly important piece of the international security system. Russia, along with the cybercriminal gangs that operate there, is one of the key global actors in cyberspace - making it crucial to research in order to better understand the global security landscape. My research centers on the governance structures that have emerged within cybercriminal organizations due to the anarchic, ungoverned nature of the internet. I am seeking to understand what structural factors prevent members of cybercriminal organizations from defecting, whether that be joining another organization or going to law enforcement. Traditional criminal organizations can rely on the threat of violence to prevent this type of defection, but due to their geographically dispersed nature and the anonymity the internet affords their members, cybercriminal organizations often have no way to credibly threaten violence. To understand defection and cybercrime organizations, I analyze the history of traditional criminal norms and traditions in Russia’s vorovskoi mir (thieves’ world) along with in-depth textual analysis of a trove of over 60,000 leaked internal chats from a prolific Russian ransomware gang with the use of natural language processing (NLP). I expect that my findings will show that cybercriminal gangs, without the threat of violence available to them, are forced to resort to positive incentives encouraging members to remain loyal. However, when these incentives fail, I expect to find that defections have very little impact on the overall functioning of the organizations. My research is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the cybercriminal actors at large in our world today, and provides insightful observations about cybercriminal organizations that not only contribute to theoretical discussions but also have real-world policy implications.

China’s rise and growing presence in the Indo-Pacific region is a major source of concern for the United States. To meet this challenge, President Biden’s administration has envisioned an Indo-Pacific Strategy aimed at keeping that vast region “free, open, prosperous, secure, and resilient” in conjunction with its allies and partners. This Task Force assesses the effectiveness of this strategy from the perspective of China as well as that of Australia, India, Japan and South Korea. It also examines the workings of this strategy from the standpoint of ASEAN and EU/NATO and that of such important world regions as the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific Islands. What can and must the U.S. do to maintain and enhance its ties to existing allies and partners and line up additional prospects to advance its Indo-Pacific strategy.

Through the production of a 150-page policy report, our team analyzes international activity in the Arctic related to the loss of summertime sea ice that opens new shipping routes, creates new opportunities for research extraction, and dramatically impacts the way of life for Indigenous Arctic communities, notably the Inuit. In the past decades, the Inuit and other Arctic Indigenous peoples have organized and created for themselves significant political power, leading to self-determination and self-governance initiatives and involvement in the Arctic Council, which is the leading forum for decision-making on Arctic issues. However, the growing economic value of the region also attracts non-Arctic states like China, who want to become a part of decision-making discussions on the region and benefit from the seasonal open ocean in the future. Given the growing power of Indigenous peoples and growing interest in the region, our report addresses two questions: what impact and influence do the policies of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, particularly Inuit, have on the roles of nation-states including non-Arctic nations such as China? And what are the implications of China’s Arctic policy on Arctic Indigenous Peoples, Canada, the United States, and beyond? We use qualitative research methods, mainly the review of primary and secondary source documents that situate our analysis. Our report also draws on meetings with government agencies and indigenous organizations in Ottawa. We will produce a series of recommended policies and areas for further attention that are meant to inform and guide nation states and organizations as they engage in the Arctic. Our analysis of Indigenous and international relations in the Arctic is important because the Arctic represents a unique and unusually successful arena for cooperation between nation states, Indigenous representation, and other non-state actors. This cooperation will only become more vital as global activity in the region increases.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is a hybrid regime, with common law legal systems inherited from its time as a British colony and simultaneously under the direct rule of the communist People's Republic of China (PRC). The HKSAR has a high level of autonomy from the PRC, enjoying many personal freedoms unknown to the rest of China: universal suffrage, the right to privacy, and an open internet. These values are encoded in its mini-constitution called the Basic Law which is modeled on the parliamentarian democracies of the Commonwealth nations. Since the United Kingdom handed over Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997, there has been a steady erosion of this autonomy and individual rights. These restrictions such as those on universal suffrage in selecting legislators and the Chief Executive implemented via PRC fiat culminated in the passing of a highly unpopular National Security Law (NSL) in 2020. The NSL criminalizes broad definitions of threats to national security, including supporting successionist movements whether “by force or threat of force” leading to the targeting of pro-democracy groups by the police. This research seeks to reveal the extent of the HKSAR government’s censorship of the internet and digital surveillance of its citizens since the passing of the NSL. By analyzing legal documents, news articles, cybersecurity reports, and academic sources this research has uncovered the legal and technical mechanisms that the HKSAR government has been utilizing to enforce the NSL. The report’s findings indicate that amendments to the data privacy ordinance, crowd-funding regulations, blocking of websites by internet providers, coercing of social media companies, and implementation of novel surveillance technologies have greatly reduced internet freedoms. These developments present a dilemma to the paradoxical socio-political structure of the city whose foundations are rooted in liberal legal traditions but face increasing interference in its governance by the PRC.

This research investigates Basic Needs Resources and Programs in the city of Kent, Washington. Kent is the sixth most populous municipality in Washington State, with an official population of 136,588, according to the 2020 Decennial Census. Shelter, food, water, education, and healthcare are five basic needs that, when attended to sufficiently, empower marginalized populations and those experiencing personal/financial crises. What are the barriers to assistance programs for those facing basic-need insecurity in areas such as access to shelter and affordable housing? To answer this question, this research pursues five steps. First, defining “Basic Needs” in the United States, Washington State, and Kent. Secondly, this research isolates five material-needs: safe/sustainable shelter and housing, quality food, clean running-water and sanitation, quality kindergarten-through-secondary education, and affordable healthcare and insurance. Third, this proposal notes historical and current resources/programs in Kent, WA, attending to those experiencing housing insecurity, especially due to the importance of providing shelter and housing as a basic need in addressing explicit housing insecurity. Fourth, this proposal outlines the methods to survey those operating affordable housing initiatives and emergency shelter programs and evaluate their activities according to recent research in the field. Fifth, the potential barriers of access to affordable housing in Kent, WA include racial and gender discrimination, socioeconomic disparities in wealth, rising costs of housing incongruent with stagnant rates of compensation among the working class, and the precedence of corporate interests over affordable housing development projects. This research is critical to further understanding the systems that discourage or disempower populations from seeking help in financial mobility.

In response to the nuclear discharge incident on 21st August 2023 from the Fukushima nuclear reactors into the Pacific Ocean, Japan found itself at the forefront of a renewed global discourse on nuclear energy policy again post the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident. The consequential surge in antinuclear sentiment, particularly noteworthy within the East Asia region, serves as the impetus for this research, which seeks to meticulously analyze the potential impact of such sentiment on the public's perception of Japan's nuclear energy policy. This research adopts Akhiro Ogawa's conceptual framework of "anti-nuclear citizen" to scrutinize its influence on the youth demographic, and whether or not the identity influences their attitude towards Japan's current pro-nuclear policy. To ascertain empirical data, the survey method is employed to measure college youth’s sense of precarity, political involvement, and conscientiousness, serving as indicators of one’s alignment with the antinuclear citizen identity. The survey targets undergraduate Japanese exchange students and domestic students who are interested in Japanese studies at the University of Washington and undergraduate students in Japan and aims to delineate the nuanced correlations between antinuclear citizenship and specific policy perceptions. Recognizing the survey’s limitation of snowball sampling predicts a collective behavior that may not be representative of the general population, the study acknowledges potential biases and would like to serve as evidence to elucidate the presence or absence of “antinuclear citizens” within the defined focus group. Furthermore, the survey results are anticipated to delve into the rationales behind certain policy perceptions: generally anti-nuclear or pro-nuclear, leveraging participants' international experiences to augment the evidential support for the application of Ogawa's "antinuclear citizen" ideology. By analyzing the attitudes of the surveyed population toward Japan's nuclear policies, this research aspires to contribute to the conversation of the complex interplay between antinuclear sentiment, identity, and policy perceptions.

The European Union's (EU) New Pact on Migration and Asylum demonstrates the EU’s securitizing behavior towards migration. Current discussion surrounding the measures prevalent within the New Pact is primarily focused on the EU’s severity towards managing migration flows. While there has been a consensus on the inherent flaws of these extreme measures, previous research has taken the rationale behind the EU’s decisions for granted. The lack of clarification on the EU’s logic leads to a failure to explain why the EU continues to push this New Pact despite both the flaws present within it and the opposition to the pact by African nations directly affected by it. To illustrate the EU’s reasoning, I utilize discourse analysis of semantic structures and the use of metaphors in seven speeches made by key European Commission members on the New Pact. This process finds and measures the salience of the Commission members' ideations of an EU “home” that needs to be defended from threats to collective identity. These findings are supplemented by content analysis of European Newspapers to find underlying economic and political factors that also explain the EU’s stubbornness on the New Pact. The content analysis of articles will demonstrate why ontological insecurity has emerged as a problem now. My findings indicate that the European Commission members' refusal to adjust the New Pact is caused by a break in the psychological anchors that make people feel secure. Specifically, Commission members have been found to feel ontologically insecure when governing migration. They demonstrate the belief that migration flows are a threat to the EU’s collective identity and the idea of an EU “home.” To prevent a supposed deterioration of the EU “home” harsh policies such as the New Pact are passed to stem supposedly threatening migration flows.

In the period of 1996-2000, within the greater context of the Peruvian internal conflict, a forced sterilization regime affected over 300,000 people, the majority of which were indigenous women. The program operated under the guise of promoting maternal healthcare within indigenous and impoverished communities and went largely unnoticed by the greater public both internationally and within Peru. The Quipu project (2017) was established as a way to reconcile with the notion that such sterilizations were left out of the state funded truth and reconciliation process. The project's unique transmedia approach created a database led by women who were forcibly sterilized, allowing them to simply call a telephone line that would record their stories and publish directly on a website. This truth telling and testimonial regime is remarkable in several ways as an approach for truth and reconciliation, in that its approach specifically mimics cosmological and community networks in a digital realm. This study posits that Andean women engage with the Quipu Project’s truth-telling regime to reclaim their identities as indigenous women, mothers, and community members as was disrupted by sterilization. Through a rhetorical examination of testimonials, I analyze the impact of sterilization and subsequent involvement in the project on community relationships, identity, spiritual beliefs, and calls for justice. Additionally, through first-hand interviews with Quipu Project researchers, I draw specific insights into the development of the project. This research develops a vital understanding of testimonial processes in the face of traumatic events, especially in the context of failed statewide policies and reconciliation efforts.