Mountain Scholar :: Browsing by Author "Stevis, Dimitris, committee member"

Browsing by Author "Stevis, Dimitris, committee member"

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Open Access
Accountability and legitimacy in transboundary networked forest governance: a case study of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Jedd, Theresa, author; Betsill, Michele, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee member; Cheng, Antony, committee member
Using a social constructivist ontology to examine key debates and areas of inquiry vis-à-vis the democratic nature of transboundary forest governance, this research examines the case of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent, an instance of networked governance. Part I builds up to an examination of the movement toward conceptualizing transboundary networked governance, exploring the claim that government has given way to governance, blurring the lines between public and private, and moving beyond its antecedent models--systems theory and complexity, corporatism, state-in-society, new public management and privatization, inter alia--to reflect a more complicated and inherently collaborative relationship between state, society, and market-based actors. The dissertation project, then, investigates several key questions. At a basic level, it asks, what does networked governance look like, and in the case of the Crown Roundtable, how might these arrangements be adaptive given the absence of an overarching forests treaty? Looking deeper into the implications of networked governance, the project then moves to an investigation of the ways that these processes become legitimate modes of governing and how they allow actors to hold each other accountable. Evidence in the Crown Roundtable suggests that the state is simply one actor among many. In this sea of various players, without the traditional forms of accountability, how do we ensure that governance retains its democratic qualities? The second part (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7) builds from the initial observations in the first part (chapters 1, 2, and 3) that state boundaries in the Crown of the Continent are transected by landscape identities and norms. It examines the implications for maintaining democracy in governance. Given the lack of institutions (such as the juridical, legal, and electoral channels) available at the domestic level, how can actors be held accountable? What do shifts toward a flattened and fragmented forest governance landscape represent in terms of both the ability of diverse actors to relate to one another and also for the participants to see NG as a worthwhile process to engage? In answering these questions, Part II examines whether NG architectures are able to incorporate channels for accountability while simultaneously drawing upon a broad base of participation and maintaining social legitimacy. Finally, the dissertation concludes with thoughts on institutional design. In so doing, it hopefully contributes to an understanding of how to build collaborative networked arrangements that are better able to address transboundary environmental problems.
Open Access
Climate change contributions to conflict: an analysis of Syria, Yemen and Egypt
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Harmon, Daniel, author; Harris, Peter, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Lindsay, James, committee member
Ascriptions of false, causal connections between climate change and conflict sets a dangerous precedent for future refugee migration. Classification of refugees fleeing murderous regimes and/or circumstances, as climate migrants attempting to escape areas impacted climatically, reduces the subjective severity of the actual situations they were fleeing. Potential harmful ramifications to their asylum claims could result, consequential of a reduction in perceived threat to those migrants' lives by Consular officials. It also delegitimizes future climate refugees' asylum claims, those truly fleeing areas devastated by the effects of climate change/variability. Responsible consideration of the latest 2018 IPCC Special Report indicates, absent aggressive greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement measures, these are migrant circumstances that are increasingly likely to manifest. Such false assertions also detract from placing responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions where it should be placed: with the Syrian, Yemeni and Egyptian governments. Affirming climate change as the main causal factor that initiated the Syrian conflict allows the regime to shift focus from its own administrative failures that were in fact the largest contribution to a conflict that has witnessed the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Similarly, false attribution of climate effects to Yemen's calamitous situation allows the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, involving famine conditions for millions of Yemenis, to be mistakenly viewed within an environmental context. Deaths and atrocities purportedly resulting from climate phenomena shift responsibility from where it should lay, with the Yemeni conflict's belligerents and their egregious actions. Also, the identification of Egypt's socio and political maladies as primarily consequent of climatic events disallows for the reckoning of the true causes that fomented rebellion during Egypt's Arab Spring "awakening." Finally, such false proclamations inhibit accurate advances to empirical knowledge that could be used in the future towards conflict mitigation and prevention. Implications for future climate refugees and those fleeing violent conflict demand accurate identification of conflict causation. To demand anything less as a member of a global citizenry is a dereliction of one's responsibility to humanity.
Open Access
Conceptualizing transnational democratic networks: a case study of world wide views on biodiversity
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Fiske, Desirée, author; Betsill, Michele, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; McIvor, David, committee member; Taylor, Peter, committee member
Democratic theory has most recently found itself in a 'deliberative turn.' Extending beyond the capacity maintained by state institutions, the deliberative turn may be understood as necessary for conditions of democracy to move beyond the bounds of the nation-state and to incorporate conditions of a globalizing world. As global governance literature recognizes nuanced abilities to regulate through private and public interactions, the democratic voice of citizen input is in a shift. Deliberative democratic theory has found its way into International Relations discussions, as it proposes methods for transnational democracy. World Wide Views on Biodiversity (WWVB) is the second transnational citizen deliberation to be held on a global scale, allowing a window of opportunity to bridge the normative theories with empirical observation. Identifying WWVB as a transnational democratic network, this analysis simultaneously seeks to inform the project of its pragmatic successes and limitations while placing WWVB within theories of transnational democracy. Results find Transnational Discursive Democracy best explains and understands the phenomena of WWVB. Furthermore, the theoretical findings inform practical implications for the WWViews Alliance to support network expansion through inclusion and dissemination practices. Specific recommendations are made to the network based on the analysis of theory and praxis.
Open Access
Fair Trade certified coffee estates: can Fair Trade USA promote workers' well-being, empowerment and gender equity in Brazilian and Nicaraguan coffee plantations?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Rosty, Claudia Magalhaes, author; Raynolds, Laura T., advisor; Hempel, Lynn, committee member; Carolan, Michael, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
In 2012, Fair Trade USA began to certify coffee estates, previously restricted to small producer organizations, to expand the benefits of fair trade to hired laborers. This dissertation research analyzes the implications of the Fair Trade USA certification of coffee plantations in 1) bolstering workers' well-being, 2) empowerment, and 3) gender equity on certified coffee estates in Brazil and Nicaragua. Using a cross-national comparative design and multi-methods qualitative techniques, this study examines how the Fair Trade USA certification of coffee estates plays out differently within each national context. The findings suggest that Fair Trade USA fosters worker's well-being in coffee estates when operating below national labor legislation and sectoral standards, and indicate variation, unevenness and limitations in bolstering worker's empowerment. This research reports marginal gender equity impact on rural workers.
Open Access
Green courts and global norms: specialized environmental courts and the global governance of environmental challenges
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Angstadt, James Michael, author; Betsill, Michele M., advisor; Daum, Courtenay, committee member; Gruby, Rebecca, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
As the diversity and intensity of environmental challenges increase, so too does the demand for institutions equipped to address those issues. This dissertation examines the emergence and implications of one such institutional model: dedicated environmental courts, referred to within this dissertation as "green courts." In a foundational effort to better understand and characterize green courts, it examines why the global spread of green courts is occurring, how it is manifesting, and what the global spread of green courts may imply for the domestic development and application of international environmental law norms. To examine these questions, this dissertation employs literature and methods derived from constructivist international relations and global environmental politics, yet speaks directly to established international environmental law scholarship. Through qualitative analysis of academic literature, primary documents, original expert surveys, and semi-structured elite interviews, this dissertation develops a detailed portrait of the actors seeking to promote the spread of green courts, the potential diversity of green courts, and the nature and global extent of existing national-level green courts. Its findings indicate that diverse actors are promoting the diffusion of a norm advocating green court establishment, and that green court norm dynamics reflect broader trends of transjudicial exchange, but that relatively few green courts currently exist of the model holding the greatest capacity to implement international environmental law. Collectively, this dissertation and its insights provide a strong foundation for timely future research objectives, including efforts to evaluate implications of green courts in light of environmental justice, to consider contributions of green courts to broader procedural and distributive environmental justice initiatives, and to evaluate how green courts affect environmental quality and outcomes.
Open Access
Inequality as a cause of macro-instability and productive inefficiency
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Friedman, Mark, author; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Vasudevan, Ramaa, committee member
These essays will examine the impact of inequality from both macro and micro perspectives. The first issue to be raised will be the contribution of inequality to macroeconomic instability. In the third chapter the focus will expand to determine whether an optimal level of inequality can be found. Much of the examination will be informed by principles outlined in the Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) developed by the philosopher P. R. Sarkar. As this dissertation was written during the recovery from the Great Recession, a timely controversy is addressed in the first chapter – whether growing inequality contributes to economic instability. Arguments for and against the proposition are critically examined in detail. It is concluded that the accumulated weight of the arguments favor the position that inequality can indeed help destabilize economies. In the second chapter econometric evidence is presented to show that high inequality contributes to the severity of economic downturns, both in terms of GDP declines and in consumption losses. Attention is also given to the impact of inequality in contributing to the global crisis leading to the Great Recession. While the initial evidence presented here cannot be considered conclusive in demonstrating a causal link between inequality and that specific crisis, it is shown that rising inequality was present in most of the 15 countries included in the study which were suffering recessions. An attempt to define an efficient limit to inequality will be the focus of the third chapter. The discussion will extend from the PROUT principle that any inequality that is accepted by society is only justified to the extent that it provides incentives for greater service to society by those receiving more than others. Any amount of income or in-kind amenities provided to a person that is beyond the minimum requirements by the standards of that society should not exceed the value of the extra services coaxed from that person by the extra incentives. A humanistic model of motivation for productivity is developed that suggests that people are productive for a variety of reasons besides material rewards. This is intended to place the need for incentives, and by extension inequality, in a perspective that suggests wide inequality is unnecessary and economically inefficient. Diagramatic analysis that introduces the Sarkarian Individual Productivity Curve demonstrates reasonable limits to inequality.
Open Access
International trade of electric vehicle batteries and lithium: a network approach to trade structure and structural inequality
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) DeBruin, Jacob, author; Roberts, Tony, advisor; Luna, Jessie, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
As international efforts toward clean energy transition and climate mitigation have been made, the international trade of emission-reducing technologies and their necessary materials has grown. Few technologies have seen as much growth as electric vehicles and their lithium-ion batteries; and few materials have seen as much growth as lithium. Research on international battery and lithium trade is extensive but has yet to examine the formation of the trade structure and its structural inequality. This study uses bilateral trade data from the UN COMTRADE database and country attribute data from the World Bank database to (1) measure the overall structure of and structural inequality in international electric vehicle battery and lithium trade networks; and (2) analyze determinants of the trade networks' formation. Results indicate that the international trade of electric vehicle batteries and of lithium are characterized by a core-periphery pattern—by which certain countries occupy the center of trade, and by which certain countries occupy the margins—and therefore, that there is an inequality in the distribution of trade relationships among countries participating in battery and lithium trade. The results also indicate that differences in countries' GDP and country's structural position in the networks largely determine the likelihood of trade-relationship formation. Inferentially, the results provide some evidence for (ecologically) unequal exchange in the trade of commodities that ostensibly support clean energy transition and sustainable economic development, like electric vehicle batteries and lithium.
Open Access
Manufacturing precarity: a case study of the Grain Processing Corporation/United Food and Commercial Workers Local 86D Lockout in Muscatine, Iowa
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Gabriel, Jacqulyn S., author; Murray, Douglas, advisor; Carolan, Michael, committee member; Taylor, Peter Leigh, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
On August 22, 2008, approximately 360 workers were locked out of their jobs at Grain Processing Corporation (GPC) in Muscatine, Iowa, after the company and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 86D failed to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement at the expiration of their existing agreement. This study examines the GPC/UFCW lockout within the context of the growth of precarious employment in the United States. Using this labor dispute as a case study, it illustrates how lockouts are implicated in the generation of precarious employment and how workers and unions respond when confronted with employment precarity. This study suggests that the steady decline in union membership, density, and collective bargaining power in U.S. manufacturing over the last several decades has placed those manufacturing workers who are still covered by collective bargaining agreements at risk of their employers initiating lockouts as a means to displace and replace them and their jobs with more precarious forms of employment. Indeed, by locking out its bargaining unit employees and replacing them with workers hired through a temporary employment agency, GPC was able to effectively take around 360 relatively well-paid, permanent, unionized manufacturing jobs and turn them into precarious jobs. In doing so, the company also rendered some 360 workers precarious. Thus, in addition to demonstrating how GPC was able to deploy a lockout to achieve precarious employment relations, this study examines how the locked out workers and their union responded to the precarious position they were placed in as a result of the labor dispute. This study draws on data gathered primarily through in-depth interviews with a sample consisting of 62 of the approximately 360 locked out workers roughly five and a half years into the GPC/UFCW labor dispute. It summarizes, describes, analyzes, and explains these workers’ experiences both prior to and following the lockout. In doing so, it highlights both the negative and positive effects of the labor dispute from the perspective of those workers who experienced it firsthand. For instance, it reveals a number of difficulties these workers faced as a result of being locked out of their jobs. Yet, it also reveals that most of these workers experienced a rather remarkable “recovery” after ultimately being displaced from their jobs at GPC as a result of the lockout. In fact, the majority of workers in this study who sought reemployment after being locked out by the company were able to secure jobs that were comparable, and in most cases superior, to their jobs at GPC in terms of wages, benefits, and working conditions. I use an inductive approach to analyze and conceptualize the factors that contributed to these workers’ “recovery” from the lockout. This analysis shows that the most important factors in explaining the relatively positive outcome of the labor dispute for a significant number of workers in this study was their social capital and human capital coupled with a favorable local labor market. Overall, this study contributes a worker-centered account of the changing nature and quality of employment relations in the United States. It also contributes to our understanding and analysis of how employment precarity is being generated and how workers and unions are responding to employers’ efforts aimed at achieving precarious employment relations.
Open Access
Neoliberal dirt: homelessness, stigma, and social services In Fort Collins, Colorado
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Berganini, Stefanie, author; Browne, Katherine, advisor; Snodgrass, Jeff, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
This thesis presents a thorough investigation of the network of resources available to people experiencing homelessness in Fort Collins, Colorado. It also explores the stigma faced by the homeless community, and the ways in which stigma affects services, public policy, and the everyday lived experiences of homeless people. By exploring the various programs provided by government, non-profit, and private organizations and institutions, I aim to create a conceptual map of the sources of support available to the homeless population of Fort Collins. In doing so, I analyze both the strengths and weaknesses of the existing service network, and explore the ramifications of systemic gaps on the lives of homeless people. Using data gathered through participant observation in various resource-providing organizations, as well as via interviews with non-profit executives, city administrators, homeless advocates, faith community leaders, business community representatives, and people experiencing homelessness, I attempt to present an emic, or insider, view of the complex issues surrounding homelessness in Fort Collins. The results of this research provide actionable information that may be used to shape public policy or other programming decisions for the local community. Both housed and unhoused residents in Fort Collins can benefit from an understanding of how the network of support services functions, how stigma affects the public's view of homeless people, and how stigma and services interact. In Chapter 2, I first outline national-level data surrounding the occurrence and causes of homelessness. Next, I explore the formation of stigma, and the process of symbolic boundary-making that defines our everyday perception of the world. I then provide an overview of the ways in which governance reconfigures conceptualizations of public space, with related ramifications for homeless people existing in the public sphere. Finally, I explore existing data about homelessness in Fort Collins, and chronicle the city's recent history of homeless-related governance. Chapter 3 describes the data collection and data analysis methodologies used to generate my findings. I outline the timeline for this research, provide descriptions of my interview groups and participant observation activities, and explain the social networking process used to generate the included service network map. I also explain the transformational research framework I use to situate this work. Using a critical political economy lens, Chapter 4 explains my major research findings. First, I present the results of my network mapping process. Next, I provide an overview of the strengths in the city's existing social service network. Then, I explore the stigmatization of homeless people in Fort Collins, and the negative stereotypes held by actors in both the general public and in significant positions of power. Finally, I detail the weaknesses in the city's current attempts to deal with homelessness – including a lack of affordable housing, a failure to provide for some basic needs, a severe dearth of mental health and substance abuse services, and a policing model that sometimes makes homelessness worse, not better – and how those weaknesses affect, and are affected by, the stigmatization of homeless people. Chapter 5 synthesizes the preceding chapters and offers final conclusions about the state of homelessness in Fort Collins. It also posits actionable next steps, and suggests other relevant lines of research not covered by this paper.
Open Access
Political dimensions of livelihood transformation of the Indigenous Ata Modo people in Komodo National Park, Indonesia
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Afioma, Gregorius, author; Galvin, Kathleen A., advisor; Kwiatkowski, Lynn, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
This paper examines the political dimensions of the livelihood changes of the Indigenous Ata Modo people in Komodo National Park (KNP), Indonesia. Established in 1980, KNP is well-known as the natural habitat of the renowned Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis). What is less known is that KNP is also the home of the local communities of Ata Modo. The Ata Modo people have changed their livelihoods from hunting, gathering, and farming to fishing and the tourism economy in response to processes of enclosure, dispossession, and dissolution of the protected area through various interventions from colonial times to recent years. Political economy critique tends to overlook the local dynamic, while the institutional framework of livelihood analysis tends to depoliticize livelihood adaptation as the economic survival mechanism. Using the framework of political ecology, this paper explores the political dimensions of livelihood transformation and the subject-making process of the Ata Modo people. Through livelihood adaptations, I emphasize the individual and collective agency in navigating their access and control over the resources around the park. This research is based on the ethnographic materials I collected during 2016-2022. Through the study of Indigenous Ata Modo's agency and their engagement with various regimes of conservation in KNP, I argue that the Indigenous Ata Modo's livelihood adaptation is an act of positioning in relation to the power dynamics of conservation and neoliberal conservation and ecotourism project. While continuously marginalized by the fortress and neoliberal models of conservation, the Indigenous Ata Modo continue to define and build their livelihoods through everyday and spectacular acts of resistance, occupation, and incorporation. By focusing on the struggle and livelihood adaptations of the Indigenous Ata Modo, this paper contributes to the study of the interlinkage between conservation, ecotourism, and community engagement in development.
Open Access
Re-imagining the ecological subject: toward a critical materialism of entangled ecologies
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) DeCarlo, Chelsea Loren Welker, author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; McIvor, David W., committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Ishiwata, Eric, committee member
Given the severity of contemporary environmental degradation, especially climate change, a new understanding of the human-nature relationship is necessary for halting this destruction. Political theorists have tried to explain and rethink this relationship by turning to the social, the political, the structural, the historical, the ethical, the individual, the cultural, and the economic realms. At the same time, the production of subjectivity as both an explanation for environmental degradation and a possible domain where cultivating a better human-nature relationship could be found, remains under-examined by political theorists concerned with the environment. The purpose of my project expresses three different but interrelated trajectories of inquiry, each of which represents a dearth in ecopolitical theory generally. First, I interrogate how various radical ecopolitical theories have understood the production of ecological subjectivity and the consequences of these understandings of subjectivity for producing ecological subjects in the context of capitalism, specifically. If who we are and who we think we are matters for how the human-nature relationship plays out, then it becomes vitally important to understand how radical ecopolitical theory conceptualizes the relationship between the causes of environmental degradation, the production of human subjectivity, and the ecological context in which humanity finds itself. In short, I argue that the production of subjectivity has been neglected as one important political component that must be theorized much more robustly for its utility in creating more ecologically minded societies. Second, I would argue that one of the most powerful and intransigent forces preventing humans from re-imagining the human-nature relationship is capitalism, which in addition to its material production, also aggressively targets the production of subjectivity. This assertion constitutes both a starting point of this project, yet also something that requires greater attention from political theorists concerned with environmental degradation and the human-nature relationship. Given this assertion, the task of critically examining the relationship between capitalist subjectivities and the creative production of ecological subjectivities remains necessary to any attempt at the cultivation of an ecological politics. To this end, and thirdly, I argue that Félix Guattari's work engenders the creative impulse necessary for reconceiving of our own subjectivity in the context of the new ontology presented by Deleuze, Guattari himself, and the new materialists. Furthermore, I explore the possibilities for producing eco-subjects through innovative receptive practices attended to by both Guattari and the new materialists in the context of the capitalist overcoding of being. For instance, "becoming receptive" to a rhizomatically (dis)organized world could produce new sensitivities to environmental ecologies through a fundamental acceptance of existential uncertainty. Importantly, Guattari's work, though deeply committed to ecological goals and the production of ecological subjectivities, has been largely neglected by political theorists seeking a solution to environmental degradation and an ethically and politically bankrupt human-nature relationship. Ultimately, ecopolitical praxis requires a further theorization of the numerous ways that capitalism orders and limits human existence in the context of contemporary life. The triad under examination in my project, namely, subjectivity, ecology, and capitalism, represents a necessary contribution to ecopolitical theory which can re-invigorate Guattari's work for its utility in re-imagining the ecological subject, combating capitalism, and working towards a real ecopolitics.
Open Access
Representation and partnership: a case study of the worker committee on fair trade certified farms in the Ecuadorian cut-flower industry
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Schelly, Erica, author; Raynolds, Laura, advisor; Murray, Doug, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
This thesis explores the effectiveness of the worker committee on fair trade certified flower plantations in Ecuador in an effort to identify the challenges and opportunities for fair trade in its goal to facilitate worker representation and empowerment on large-scale enterprises. Representation starts by giving workers an institutional mechanism through which they can join management in the discussion of fair working conditions. The worker committee serves as this mechanism on certified farms in Ecuador. Empowerment implies that workers have the power to instigate change in order to improve working conditions. Providing worker empowerment is problematic in this context due to the structural limitations of the worker committee. Nonetheless, the extent to which the worker committee can provide representation and communication between workers and management may serve as an important step in the process towards worker empowerment. In order to understand the potential for representation on flower plantations, it is important to acknowledge that the flower industry and the actors involved are operating in a market that favors rationality and productivity. I employ Weber's notion of formal rationality to help situate this discussion. Formal rationality is the governing force behind the rise of modern society and its institutions; including the modern global economy. Formal rationality allows for efficiency and calculability, but also leads to an impersonal world where the needs of individuals are sidestepped in order to create a system of productivity. The goal of this study is to demonstrate how management's drive to rationalize production in order to survive in a competitive flower industry has the potential to both constrain and enable the process toward worker empowerment. For flower producers, the drive to differentiate makes certification an attractive option. Certified farms in turn, provide the institutional space for worker representation and communication with management. This paper argues that representation is a precondition for the type of empowerment that workers ultimately need, but does not assume that representation and empowerment are synonymous. Specifically, this study looks at the potential benefits and limitations of the worker committee in its effort to facilitate representation and communication. It addresses two research questions. What are the rationalization processes that impact the lives of workers and managers? To what extent does the worker committee serve as a forum for communication between workers and managers to promote representation?
Open Access
Rethinking deep ecology: from critique to synthesis
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Welker, Chelsea L., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Trembath, Paul, committee member
Deep ecology represents a strain of radical ecopolitical theory that has, over the past forty years, engaged in various debates with other strains of radical ecopolitical thought. Though deep ecology has attempted to defend itself against many critiques from this field, my analysis aims to reassess deep ecology's responses (or its silences) related to some of these charges. My goal is to adequately respond to these critiques that have been made against deep ecology, particularly the critiques that have arose from social ecology and from perspectives concerned with the Global South. At the same time, I utilize these critiques and my own responses to them to rethink deep ecology's role in the transformation of contemporary societies toward greater ecological sustainability. I add to this debate amongst radical ecopolitical theories by outlining the most important critiques that have been made at deep ecology from the above fields, in addition to formulating more adequate responses from the perspective of deep ecology. Moreover, I explicitly concern my analysis with how this re-envisioned deep ecology can constitute a viable political theory and play a vital role in the radical transformation of political societies for the benefit of both nature and human beings.
Open Access
Rocky Flats: a case study of nuclear contamination, knowledge, and environmental justice
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Luxton, India M., author; Malin, Stephanie, advisor; Hall, Peter, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
This thesis seeks to examine the environmental and public health experiences of individuals who live(d) near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in Arvada, Colorado during and after its operation. The data presented for this thesis has been collected as part of MSU-CSU's Rocky Flats Health Study to collect qualitative interview data from individuals who suffer from rare cancers, chronic illnesses, or have had a family member who has passed due to these health outcomes. Currently, there are few health studies related to Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, and those that do exist are highly contested (Iversen 2012). In addition to archival analysis of fifteen interviews, oral histories were conducted with fifteen individuals. Oral histories illustrate community perceptions of Rocky Flats, as well as the impact of living in close proximity has had on their health and quality of life. In my findings, I illustrate the political, institutional, and interpersonal aspects of accessing information regarding environmental contamination and subsequent health risks. Findings illustrate that access to information both during and after the facility's operation was severely constrained by structural barriers, conflicting reports of safety, and a culture of secrecy surrounding the site. Additionally, I examine the contested nature of participants' illnesses as well as their notions of justice. Understanding the lived, psycho-social experiences of people with contested illness is critical to connecting questions of justice and environmental contamination.
Open Access
Sanctions: protectionism, environment, and macro-level impacts
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Bramblett, Russell, author; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
Are Sanctions Motivated by Protectionism: This paper attempts to answer the question, "are sanctions the U.S. imposes on foreign countries motivated by trade protectionism"? Using sanctions votes in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2005-2015 and industry data within a given Congressional District, the empirical analysis indicates that with some types of sanctions bills and certain industries, Representatives' votes may be affected by the prevalence of industries within their district. The Necessary Conditions for Environmental Sanctions: Drawing from current environmental economics literature, this paper looks at the necessary conditions for carbon abatement and models the path to optimal carbon abatement using a country-level welfare-maximization model to illustrate the effects of pollution awareness on consumption optimization. This paper finds that social marketing is necessary for a country to increase its welfare by imposing environmental sanctions. A Time-Series Analysis of U.S. Sanctions Imposed from 1990 to 2015: Using time-series analysis and forecasting, this paper assesses the effects of sanctions using a dataset of U.S. imposed sanctions from 1990-2015. The analysis indicates that, 1. GDP is a good predictor of development assistance after a sanction, 2. export dependence is a good predictor of military expenditures after a sanction, and 3. contrary to previous research, constrained democracies are affected more by sanctions than pure democracies.
Open Access
Sustaining nature, transforming society: rethinking sustainability through radical ecopolitical thought
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Means, Morgann K. R., author; Macdonald, Bradley, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Trembath, Paul, committee member
Sustainability represents a central idea in environmental political thought that provides a conceptual framework for constructing, discussing, and judging the viability of solutions for ecological degradation. Despite the recent predilection for perceiving sustainability as a powerful discursive construct capable of capturing the pursuit of economic prosperity, societal well-being, and ecological vitality within a unified political project, the definition of the notion remains ambiguous and contested throughout the literature. This ambiguity has resulted in concern over the viability of the sustainability concept to induce beneficial transformation and has led to suggestions that the notion is rapidly losing its meaning as a coherent program for environmentally and socially positive change. In response to the ambiguity present in discussions of sustainability and the resulting concern over the diminishing meaning and significance of the term, this thesis constructs a typological analysis of sustainability. It divides the concept into three analytic categories—sustainability as a goal, as a human right, and as a need—in order to critically evaluate the multi-faceted articulations of the term within reformist environmental discourse. Identifying the common objectives of the typological categories, as well as the clear differences between the three reformist discourses regarding the impetus behind sustainability and the agents and processes involved in the transition to a sustainable condition, this thesis critically challenges reformist conceptualizations of sustainability. It then explores three radical ecopolitical discourses—ecocentrism, social ecology, and ecofeminism—in order to examine their potential to re-imagine sustainability and establish coherent conceptual boundaries for its realization. The final chapter of this thesis evaluates the feasibility of the radical ecopolitical paradigms by discussing potential openings for each position to enter into the existing conversation regarding human-nature interactions and to fundamentally restructure the objectives of sustainability, as well as the agents and processes involved in its pursuit.
Open Access
The "power" of coal: the US Diplomatic Coal Regime under the current global environmental discourse
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Batty, Evan, author; Taylor, Peter, advisor; Mahoney, Pat, committee member; Malin, Stephanie, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
Considering the scientific consensus that anthropogenic forces intensify climate change, addressing this "wicked" problem requires international cooperation to mitigate disastrous future global impacts. The increasing rate of international treaties and agreements focused on addressing climate change emphasize sustainable development as the global discourse for the environment. This thesis describes the global discourse, or more specifically a global environmental regulatory regime, as it emerges from the annual meetings of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change parties. Although it has been argued that these Conferences of Parties lack the enforcement mechanisms needed to directly affect the environmental regulations of nation-states, I argue that the international discourse on sustainable development has an indirect effect on state sovereignty, specifically related to domestic energy development and the US coal industry. In an effort to highlight this point, I discuss the alignment of recent attempts at environmental regulation in the United States related to the coal industry to the global environmental discourse.
Open Access
The foreign policy ambitions of the European Union: a relational theoretical approach
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Marinova, Iren, author; Harris, Peter, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Weitzel, Daniel, committee member; Johnson, Merrill, committee member
What drives the European Union (EU) to develop leadership ambitions in some issue domains, such as climate change governance, but not in others? In this dissertation, I approach this question by focusing on the relational dynamics that constitute the EU. By situating my dissertation in the ontological premises of relationalism in International Relations as part of the "relational turn" in the discipline, I develop a theoretical approach and framework to capture and study the historical relational dynamics of power that make up the EU and exert driving effects for the foreign policy ambitions it sets for itself on the global stage. To demonstrate the value and applicability of my theoretical framework, I employ the case of the EU's leadership ambitions in the domain of global climate change governance. I identify two categories of relations that, separately and jointly, exert determining influence for its ambitions in this domain: 1) relations in the transatlantic space between the United States and the European project that developed during and since the inception of the latter; and 2) relations between the EU member states on the East-West axis that have long historical roots on the continent. The temporal range of the study encompasses the period from 1990 to 2015. I analyze the theorized relational dynamics and my argument in two empirical chapters that focus on each one of the relational categories separately and on subsequent parts of the temporal range. In the analysis of the first category, I employ qualitative counterfactual analysis to trace the transatlantic leadership transition between the United States and the EU that began in the 1990s and culminated with the American announcement of withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Complemented by three shadow cases that represent different temporal and issue-domain foci, the counterfactual analysis reveals that the EU would not have been likely to develop and pursue its leadership ambitions in the same manner that it did had the United States not withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. The analysis of the second category shifts the focus to the internal EU policy environment and the EU's foreign policy-making process by exploring the existence and extent of the theorized historical relational power dynamics among Eastern and Western EU member states in the expression of their national positions during the public deliberations in the Environment Council configuration of the Council of the EU through qualitative content analysis. The period at focus here is 2014-2015 for the purposes of capturing the dynamics prior to the Paris Agreement in 2015 and following the accession of all Central and Eastern European member states. Their positions are compared to the level of EU ambition expressed in the proposals under discussion at the given Council deliberation. The findings in this empirical chapter suggest that there is a clear alignment of Western interests with the ambitions of the EU, while the interests of Eastern member states are more rarely matched in the proposals, especially in the initial drafts, indicating that existing relational asymmetries along the East-West axis are present in and exert an effect on the EU's ambition-setting and climate foreign policy-making processes. This dissertation makes an important contribution to the study of the EU and its ambitions as an actor on the global stage and to the growing literature of relational approaches in the discipline of International Relations.
Open Access
The impacts of national security and sustainable development: comparative study of shared protected areas
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Harwell, Janeane, author; Mumme, Steve, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Velasco, Marcela, committee member; Kneller, Jane, committee member
National security and sustainable development paradigms shape national goals, priorities and policy in shared protected areas. The two paradigms define the physical, economic, social, and political infrastructure of shared protected areas through competing frameworks of national interests and environmental protections. This comparative study builds on international thinking about the relationship between sustainable development to answer the hypothesis that national security impacts most the environmental pillar of sustainable development. The research methodology is a triangulation of comparative document analysis with qualitative and quantitative interviews for a rich description of the two paradigms in two shared protected areas. Sustainable development is assessed in the four park conservation management plans using the Lockwood and Kothari traditional versus emergent sustainable development indicators as independent variables and the organizing framework. The impacts of national security doctrine, policy and projects are systematically assessed on sustainable development in the parks. This research formalizes one step toward the study of national security and sustainable development and the challenges of developing environmental protections in a national security environment.
Open Access
Three essays on globalization of trade and structures of economic growth and (under) development: comparative analysis of advanced and emerging nations
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Ganguly, Arpan, author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member
With the rise of neoliberal perspectives on economic policy and development in the 1980s came a new phase of globalization in the world economy. Quantitative increases in trade and financial flows, coupled with qualitative changes in corporate strategy and governance have been elemental to this process. Globalization of trade and production has integrated developed and underdeveloped regions of the world in a process of capitalist expansion and accumulation, one that has at times delivered bouts of growth in some countries, but little in terms of economic development or improvements in employment in others. This dissertation seeks to understand linkages between the globalization of trade and structures of development and under-development. Chapter 1 empirically evaluates the impact of trade and globalization on the quality of employment, particularly wage inequality by skill type and the functional distribution of income. This paper argues that rather than changes in relative prices, the link between trade and wage inequality is better explained by the mechanism of skill-intensity reversals. This is evident in trade's negative impact on less-skilled labor's skill intensity in production. Particularly for emerging nations, gains from external integration based on exploiting resource or skill-based differences in comparative advantage seems to have become transitory over time. Chapter 2 models the multifaceted impacts of trade and globalization on economic growth, using principal component analysis to differentiate among groups of countries based on how global capital interacts with domestic macroeconomic structures. This paper ties together a wide range of structuralist growth models to provide a unified narrative on regimes of globalization and growth. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of trade globalization on economic development through its impact on structural change. This paper groups the analysis of regional differences in structural change in the development literature into three broad categories. Data on sectoral composition of value-added trade, output and employment is used to emphasize these regional dynamics, highlighting how internal and external constraints on the industrial sector lie at the heart of these challenges.