Past Fellows at the Institute of International Studies

John L. Simpson Memorial Research Fellows, 2001-2002

Suraya Afiff, Environmental Science, Policy and Management: Rural Producers and Conflicting Discourses of Production, Protection, and Rights in North Sumatra, Indonesia. This dissertation research analyzes three discourses of contemporary land claims in Indonesia: 1) customary or adat land rights; 2) agrarian reform, in particular, land reform, and 3) environmental protection or conservation and development. All three of these discourses are emerging as "legitimate" ways to make claims (or counter claims) to land for oil palm development in north Sumatra and Indonesia. Each of these discourses has a history of international and national power which has changed and become more complex over time as well related to a range of violent political forms. This study will examine the mechanisms used by various national and local actors to make claims within each of these three discourses; how the three discourses engage with each other and with their own contentious historical origins; and the ways in which violence has or has not been used, and how the nature, origins and purposes of violence have changed over time. I will analyze the origin of each discourse, as well as its content and purported aims during the Sukarno (1945-1966) and Suharto (1966-1998) and after Reformasi (1998-2000). Through village fieldwork, I examine how the current discourse in north Sumatra can be located in the larger national and global discourses and how violence has (not) been used, contested, legitimate (or illegitimate) by various actors (the state authorities, NGOs and student activists, peasants, investors, and the media) before and after reformasi.

David Bach, Political Science: Governing Global Markets: States, Firms and the Diversification of International Cooperation. Electronic markets, embedded in data networks spawning the globe, are increasingly transnational in character, with participants transacting as easily with business partners from within the same national jurisdiction as with those outside. States have responded to regulatory challenges posed by these transnational markets in a variety ways. Some policy areas feature international organizations and treaties, while others witness loose transnational cooperation by domestic regulatory agencies. Certain issue areas remain under the control of states -- individually or collectively -- whereas other aspects of transnational market regulation have been delegated to private bodies. The dissertation seeks to explore and explain the variance of these "governance mechanisms." Focusing on the business transaction as the unit of analyses, the model draws on recent institutionalist work -- in political science as well as in economics -- to track the effects of domestic regulatory arrangements on transnational governance in globalizing markets. The model is developed and assessed on the basis of a set of comparative case studies drawn from the regulatory environment of cross-border securities trading and retail electronic commerce.

Melani Cammett, Political Science: Unraveling the National Market: Business Mobilization and Institutional Change in Morocco and Tunisia. Integration in global markets and production processes in the 1980s and 1990s has reshaped the lives of millions of people in developing countries, reflecting profound changes in the institutions governing the production of goods and services. But how do these institutional changes occur? This research illuminates the micro-level mechanisms of local institutional change. Many scholars have focused their attention on "path dependent" processes, which encourage gradual trajectories of institutional evolution. A theory that can account for alternative patterns of change, such as "path-altering" change, is also essential. In order to understand how and why institutional shifts occur, Ms. Cammett traces how Moroccan and Tunisian producers responded to integration in global production processes on multiple levels -- within the firm, at the sectoral level, and in the national institutional context. She argues that, despite parallel economic reforms and growing incorporation in internationalized production circuits, Moroccan and Tunisian firm owners in the same industries, notably textiles and ready-to-wear garments, developed distinct preferences because of the very different ways in which the business classes were organized in the two countries. As a result - and notwithstanding theoretical expectations to the contrary -- the institutions regulating business-government relations in Morocco and Tunisia changed in radically different ways in response to similar pressures from "globalization."

James Daughton, History: The Civilizing Mission: Missionaries, Colonialists, and French Identity, 1885-1914. This dissertation examines how conflict over missionaries, the concept of civilization, and the role of religion in a republican empire shaped both the dynamics of French colonial power and French national identity between 1885 and 1914. Considering events in Indochina, Madagascar, and Tahiti, this study focuses on how missionaries and various French colonial interests battled over the ethical basis of colonialism by promoting different "civilizing missions" to the colonies. By examining such "civilizing" projects, the dissertation also explores the dynamics of European-indigenous relations. Based on research from a variety of national and missionary archives, this study ultimately shows how French men and women, in an attempt to justify their positions of power, debated key tenets of their identity, and ultimately redefined the religious, racial, sexual, and moral boundaries of French culture and politics both in France and abroad.

Mark Henderson, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management: Forests, Fields, and Factories: Spatial Contexts of Land Conservation in China. The landscape of rural China has been transformed over the past two decades. New factories and housing have risen over the fields around many villages, while agriculture has been pushed further onto less productive lands, displacing forests and wetlands. National policies to control land use change, reasserting a collective claim on land resources, are reportedly successful in some locales, but fly in the face of the overwhelming trend toward decentralizing and even privatizing property rights in China. The goal of this study is to explain where and under what circumstances China's land conservation policies succeed, elucidating the effects of local history, changing political signals, and regional economic opportunities on land use decisions by local officials. This study aims to link satellite remote sensing techniques with social science approaches to model the success of land policy implementation within a regional systems framework.

Claudia Leal, Geography: The Pacific Lowlnds of Colombia at the Turn of the 19th Century. This dissertation is a historical geography of Colombia's Pacific lowlands between 1880 and 1930. Its purpose is to convey a sense of place at a decisive period in the region's history. The notion of extractive economy will serve as the framework for the study. The collecting and mining of natural resources for export has been the pervasive theme throughout the region's history. Extractive economies have been common in rainforest areas around the world. They gained importance after the mid-19th century when the development of chemistry and capitalism created new uses and demand for some of their resources. The Pacific lowlands of Colombia was no exception. At the turn of the 19th century, there was a revival of extractive practices centered around bonanzas of rubber and tagua nuts (vegetable ivory used for making buttons and other objects). An examination of this trade will allow Ms. Leal to 1) characterize the general economic model that has dominated the region since colonial times, and outline the unique characteristics it had during this fifty year period of economic growth (this necessarily includes looking at the way the Pacific region has been tied to the world beyond it); 2) explore the two main social groups that comprise the region, whites and blacks; and 3) examine some of the fundamental ways in which this society has conceived of and used nature. framework.

Brian McCook, History: Conflict and Concord: Ethnicity and Class in the Coal Mining Communities of the Ruhr and Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1880-1924. This research explores how national and class identities developed and influenced the process of Polish migrant worker integration into west German and northeast Pennsylvanian societies from 1880 until 1924. During this period, thousands of Poles migrated from eastern Germany to seek employment in the rapidly expanding coal industries of the Ruhr and northeastern Pennsylvania. Facing a similar degree of initial native hostility, Poles in both regions formed large, close-knit communities that were supported by the three pillars of church, ethnic organization and extended family. Shortly thereafter, however, the development of these two communities diverged dramatically. In Pennsylvania, the majority of Poles continued the process of incremental accommodation with, though by no means full integration into American society. In contrast, by the mid-1920s, the Polish community in the Ruhr was split. Economic hardship, political antagonisms and the attraction of the homeland encouraged two-thirds of the Poles in the Ruhr to leave and migrate to France or return to Poland. Nevertheless, one-third of the pre-war Polish community remained behind and integrated themselves, by comparison to the Poles in northeastern Pennsylvania, more fully into Ruhr society. Why did these differing adaptation outcomes occur?

Sally Roever, Political Science: Popular Representation in a Context of Institutional Collapse: The Case of Peru. Despite the introduction of increasingly open electoral systems over the past two decades, Latin American citizens, paradoxically, are facing a crisis of representation. The neoliberal economic reforms and "flexibilization" of the workforce that accompanied transitions to democracy have left mediating institutions -- including labor-based parties, unions, and state-sponsored programs -- severely circumscribed. At the same time, economic liberalization has shifted much of the urban workforce from industry to services, and from formal sector employment to semi-formal and informal work arrangements. How have citizens altered their strategies of political engagement in response to these processes? This project explores the dynamics of labor flexibilization and institutional collapse in Peru, where over half the urban workforce generates an income through informal means. The project includes qualitative case studies that examine patterns of political engagement among street vendors, the largest segment of the informal workforce, in Lima. It also includes a large-N survey that compares patterns of political behavior among informal and formal sector workers, and among different types of informal sector workers.

Vimalin Rujivacharakul, Architecture: Crashing Modernities: Architecture and Cultural Brokers of the officially non-Colonized countries, 1850-1950. Along the coast of Asia-Pacific Rim during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, since the European Imperialists had colonized the Indo-Chinese peninsula while Japan simultaneously re-oriented its attitude and took on a campaign to colonize Asia itself, China and Thailand were left alone, two countries struggling to survive against the overarching power of imperial Colonialism. Pulled by the need to create the imagery of the "autonomous nation" that has never been officially colonized on the one hand, and the desire to model the landscape after the imagined prototype of Western modern capitals on the other hand, members of different social strata in both countries manipulated architecture as cultural message of self-identification, and concurrently shaped a sphere of "processed" cultural message within the architectural landscape of fragmentation. The basis of Ms. Rujivacharakul's research in modern Chinese and Thai architecture is therefore the investigation of the fragmented architectural landscape and its diversified modes of architectural production. To move the discussion of modern Chinese and Thai architecture beyond the currently overarching political narrative of colonialism, she thus proposes to look at architecture within a new framework; she considers architecture as a cultural form produced through the procedure called "cultural brokerage." By "cultural brokerage," she introduces here the procedure of cross-regional multi-trajectory cultural transmission, and of the reproduction of cultural form under the hands of indigenous cultural brokers. As the cultural brokerage procedure accelerates the process of architectural development, bridges cultural differences among regions, and consolidates different approaches of architectural discourses, the multi forms of architecture emerge and become prototypes of other cycles of cultural brokerage. It is in this context that she proposes that modern architecture -- an apparatus of modern knowledge transmitted and appropriated by man -- can then be reexamined as the generator of the plural forms of modernity/modernities, whose diversified norms, in return, give birth to the fragmentary architectural landscape witnessed.

Jay Shambaugh, Economics: International comparisons of the effects of exchange rate flexibility. In this dissertation, Mr. Shambaugh examines the effects of exchange rate flexibility: the way exchange rate changes and prices interact, the way fixing the exchange rate influences GDP growth, and the way exchange rate flexibility alters domestic monetary policy options. The first paper focuses on the relationship between exchange rate and domestic price level changes, re-examining the question of exchange rate pass-through. Rather than focus on the response of prices to changes in the exchange rate, Mr. Shambaugh highlights the joint determination of these two variables, and examines the response of both variables to fundamental shocks to the economy. The paper demonstrates that the cause of the exchange rate change will have a significant impact on the way prices react, implying the effects of exchange rate volatility will depend on what is generating the changes in the exchange rate. The second section considers how changes in the base currency (the one to which a country has fixed its exchange rate) can alter economic conditions in a country that has a fixed exchange rate. Since interest rates and exchange rates will change due to factors in the base country and yet will have a strong impact on the pegged country, this paper not only highlights additional factors that should be considered when setting exchange rate policy, but also provides a test of exogenous changes in monetary policy and exchange rates. The final section looks at one of the possible benefits of maintaining separate currencies, the ability to tailor monetary policy to domestic conditions. It does so by examining a period of exchange rate flexibility that is rarely studied as such, the United States from 1836-60. Mr. Shambaugh first establishes that the banknotes circulating as money acted as separate state currencies and then that this gave states some limited monetary autonomy. Next, he examines narrative evidence to find actual attempts by state authorities to alter monetary conditions within their state, and finally, he consders statistical evidence to test the impact of such monetary policy actions. As currency unions and dollarization are increasingly mentioned as viable options for more and more countries, it is important to understand the effects of exchange rate flexibility and of fixing exchange rates before such permanent decisions are ma

Rachael Stryker, Anthropology: Making Family Material: An Anthropological Inquiry Into Russian-American Adoptions. This dissertation trains a critical anthropological eye on the growing phenomenon of pathologizing international adoptees who fail to become successful members of American families. Since 1992, Americans have adopted over 105,000 children from abroad - 25,000 of which are from Russia. A significant number of these children are diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), or a pathological inability to form mutual emotional bonds with adults, and are subsequently repatriated to their native countries or institutionalized in long term foster care, group homes, juvenile detention or military/boarding schools in the U.S. Attachment therapists currently apply the same techniques to all children diagnosed with RAD regardless of the child's cultural background. However, anthropologists have shown that attachment is not a purely biological process, and that it is, in fact, influenced and altered by external factors. This dissertation complicates the RAD diagnosis and its treatment by examining it as a nexus of the politics, socioeconomics and brief but turbulent history of international adoption between Russia and America. An ethnographic account of the inner workings of an attachment disorder clinic in Evergreen, CO brings into relief American assumptions about Russian culture, development, poverty, race, childhood, and attachment that contribute to the myth of the "grateful" or "rescued" Russian adopted child and which posit American parental love as a powerful curative agent for children from developing nations. Further interviews with children and adults in contemporary Russian orphanages demonstrate how Russian understandings of American culture, child abandonment and child rearing challenges these unrealistic expectations, eventually thwarting the standardized treatment offered by medical professionals. Ultimately, this project demonstrates the value of cross-cultural, comparative analysis for introducing new attachment therapy techniques, for developing a cultural component to training and education sessions for prospective adoptive parents and for informing future contemporary international adoption policies at large.

Jianjun Zhang, Sociology: Capacity, Orientation, and Stability of Local Governments and Variation of Chinese Rural Industry. In this project, Mr. Zhang will examine the relationship between local governments and Chinese rural industry in a developing and transitional economy. There are three key empirical questions he will address: 1) Why, under the similar national policy, did different ownership patterns in rural industry occur in different regions? 2) Why was local government involvement beneficial during early reforms, but that involvement became a liability for the later development of public sector of rural industry, i.e., township-village enterprises (TVEs)? 3) With the ongoing privatization of TVEs, is there a tendency for different regional patterns to converge? He answers these questions by looking at the organizational characteristics of local government capacity, orientation, and stability and their different impact upon the development of public and private enterprises. He hypothesizes that different combinations of capacity and orientation of local governments lead to different ownership regimes across regions, while shift of orientation and change of stability create variations in public sectors over time. This research will make three contributions. First, it will contribute to the literature on development by investigating the role of local government in economic development. Second, this project illustrates how existing institutions and the change of institutions shape the economy. Finally, this project will examine the validity of the two competing views: the neo-classical view that treats industrialization as a single unitary process and treats the market as a homogenizer, and the institutional perspective that emphasizes historical path dependence.