Theses and Dissertations

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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been likely to develop and pursue its leadership ambitions in the same manner that it did had the United States not withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol.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
Autonomous region formation in the Middle East: cases in Kurdistan
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Wipperfurth, Pike James, author; Cavdar, Gamze, advisor; Harris, Peter, committee member; Yarrington, Jonna, committee member
Autonomous Region Formation in the Middle East - Cases in Kurdistan, is a thesis paper that interacts with Yash Ghai's theory for the formation of autonomous regions (Ghai, 2003), and applies the analytical framework developed by Yash Ghai and Sophia Woodman (Ghai and Woodman, 2013) to a series of cases left out in the original study. The paper seeks to address the gaps and limitations of the original study by selecting cases from the Middle East geographic region, stemming from the shared experiences of the Kurdish people and their bids for autonomous region formation, and encompass both established and unestablished autonomous units. The cases of Iraqi Kurdistan (Iraq) and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) (Syria) serve as established autonomous units while the Kurdish majority regions of Bakur (Turkey) and Rojhelat (Iran) serve as unestablished cases for which a comparative analysis can be made. By utilizing Ghai's theory (Ghai, 2003) and the analytical framework of the original study (Ghai and Woodman, 2013), this paper tests the theory and framework against a new set of cases with characteristics different than those in the original study, effectively challenging, testing, and advancing the theory and framework. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the theory and analytical framework, as well as proposes potential factors and avenues of analysis that could be included in future studies.
Open Access
The animal paradox: animals, sovereignty and the politics of eating
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Young, Katherine E., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Chaloupka, William J., advisor
Looking at the history of political thought, it becomes clear that animals are the decisive political exception in Western politics. It is not that animals are simply excluded in the history of political thought, however, but that they are "inclusively excluded," demarcating the constitutive outside of politics. In other words, animals are characterized as unable to differentiate themselves from their world because they are irrational, speechless and/or appetite driven, and for these reasons, they function as markers for the state of nature and the exit point of politics. Expanding the Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben's work on the state of exception, it appears that the sacrifice of animal bodies-not simply the idea of animality-becomes vital to sustaining key political concepts like sovereignty, democracy and rights. More specifically, there is an underlying politics of eating that nourishes the Western canon. In the simplest terms, the politics of eating is a secular transubstantiation of sovereign power, in which meat is the material good (signifying the good life) that is consumed by political subjects to mitigate the tension between individual and state sovereignty. Of course, this economy of relations is exacerbated under late capitalism. With the advent of the animal rights movement, however, animals are now drawn into this anthropological political space. Yet, because so many animal advocates (scholars and activists alike) embrace traditional understandings of rights, democracy and sovereignty, they inadvertently support juridical forms that undermine their projects. With this in mind, and given the exceptional political state of animals, it is timely to think about new political strategies that take seriously the irony of animals within the larger context of politics as well as restore the public spectacle of meat, in order to reveal and disrupt the sacrificial politics of eating, which includes both humans and animals.
Open Access
Policy change and environmental governance at the U.S.-Mexico border: the creation and development of the Border Environment Cooperation Commission/North American Development Bank
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Ibáñez Hernández, Oscar Fidencio, author; Mumme, Stephen P., advisor
The present research performs a detailed analysis of bilateral environmental policy change using Historical Institutionalism, Punctuated Equilibrium and Policy Regime Theory to explain the origins and evolution of the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC) and the North American Development Bank (NADB). A multi-level governance approach is used to evaluate the complex interactions of BECC/NADB with several other institutional arrangements and their contribution to the United States-Mexico border environmental governance. The outcomes of the research identify opportunities and provide useful lessons to enhance bi-national environmental and non-environmental cooperation and governance particularly along the countries' common border.
Open Access
Gender, political participation and the environment in Japan
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Freiner, Nicole, author; Charlton, Sue Ellen, advisor
This dissertation examines women's centers in Japan; these government institutions were established in order to promote women's formal political participation. The women's centers are designed to raise awareness about public issues and provide networking opportunities. Although some have criticized these structures as being a "top-down" initiative, others have seen opportunities for creating new pathways into politics for women. This dissertation utilized qualitative interviews in order to ascertain the role of women's centers in formalizing women's political participation. Moreover, this dissertation examined the degree to which environmental issues are addressed in the activities of the women's centers because there is a historical trend in Japan which suggests that the environmental issue area is particularly salient for women. This dissertation research finds that while the women's centers are offering services for women in the area of domestic violence which challenge traditional gender norms, the women's centers examined have not significantly altered women's status or access to formal politics.
Open Access
Gender, security, and the environment: lessons from the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna water basin
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Detraz, Nicole, author; Betsill, Michele, advisor
Environmental security has come to represent a way for scholars and policymakers to link the concepts of traditional security scholarship to the environment. Within academia, scholars use the concept of environmental security in several different ways, as well as using alternative terms to convey a relationship between security and the environment. While there has been some scholarly work conducted that seeks to identify the ways that academics link these concepts, there has been little systematic work done that examines the intersection between approaches to environmental security and gender. This dissertation argues the necessity of including gender into the discourses on security and the environment. In the project I address the theoretical and practical implications of ignoring the gendered aspects of security and the environment and the possibilities for introducing gender into theoretical and political debates linking environment and security. The key questions that this project explores are (1) How are the issues of security and the environment linked in theory and practice; (2) To what extent is gender a part of these discussions; and (3) What are the implications of how these issues are linked? I undertook three research steps for the dissertation. Step 1-discourse analysis of the academic literature linking environment and security. This step involved examining the academic literature using discourse analysis to identify three distinct discourses linking environment and security. Step 2-gender analysis of the three major discourses linking environment and security. This step consisted of tracing the presence and absence of gender in the security and environment debates in order to understand the place of gender currently, and the possible inclusion of gender into the discourses. Step 3-case studies of water issues in South Asia. These case studies explore some of these ideas in the context of real world policy discussion to see whether these same discourses inform policy debates; whether and how gender is considered in these policy debates; and refine some of the ideas/concepts about how gender matters and could be incorporated in the academic discussions.
Open Access
River restoration and dam removal in the American West: an examination of policy change across political jurisdictions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Clark, Bradley T., author; Davis, Charles E., advisor
The engineering of water resources has largely defined the advance of civilization in North America. For various purposes, this development has continually expanded, with emphasis on societal benefits often at the expense of ecological considerations. The heyday of dam building ended by the mid-1960s, with the largest structures being completed. Since then, environmental and social impacts have mounted in severity and scope. For decades, research from the natural sciences has documented many negative ecological impacts from the damming of rivers. More recently, a political movement to restore rivers and natural resources has grown and prompted numerous changes to traditional polices of river development. This dissertation's focus is dam removal, an example of such policy change, and means to restore rivers in the western US. The theoretical perspective offered by Lowry (2003) is utilized to examine policy change and explore the political dimensions of dam removal. Key variables include the degrees of political receptivity and physical complexity of proposed dam removals. Specific attention is on the three federal jurisdictional contexts in which the political debates unfold; these include dams under the direction of the US Army Corps of Engineers; the US Bureau of Reclamation; and nonfederal hydropower dams regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A detailed case from each context examines the political dynamics and address the question of why dams in some contexts have been removed or are slated for removal, while others have not. A fourth, intergovernmental context is also considered for dams under the primary jurisdiction of a state or local administrative agency, albeit with notable federal influence and/or involvement. Broad research questions include: How do the politics of dam removal play out in different political jurisdictions? Are dramatic versus less dramatic types of policy change more or less likely in various contexts? This research finds that major policy change can occur, not only within federal administrative contexts in the West, but for cases when political receptivity is low and physical complexity is high.
Open Access
Hydraulic fracturing and the corporate colonization of the subsurface
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Fryer, M. Zoe, author; Macdonald, Bradley, advisor; Mumme, Stephen, committee member; McIvor, David W., committee member; Bubar, Roe, committee member
The United States presidential election of 2000 played a prominent role in determining the trajectory of the country for the next quarter of a century. The new millennium ushered in a new era with the George W. Bush administration chosen by the courts and the electoral college, the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing, Citizens United which flooded politics with money, restrictions in democracy, and persistent global climate crises. This dissertation will explore the role of the state in facilitating the corporate colonization of the subsurface. Drawing upon the ideas within Ralph Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society, this dissertation will critically analyze American pluralism and the state to reveal the many ways in which American democracy by the people has become democracy by the corporations. Analysis will be conducted using power structure research wherein key governmental positions held by the gas and oil elite will be identified, while using the overall framework of Miliband's state apparatus, including the five areas of the executive, the administrative, the coercive, the judicial, and the sub-state. The primary argument maintained throughout this dissertation is that the gas and oil industry elite have commandeered American democracy and policies to provide for their own benefit, at the expense of the American people and the health of the environment. The conclusion will include the work of Michael Lowy to argue for an eco-socialist leaning future wherein the gas and oil and subsurface are reclaimed as property of the state to be held in preservation.
Open Access
Community capacity and collaborative wildfire planning: the role of capacity in acquiring federal mitigation grant funding
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Ryan, Benjamin, author; Scott, Ryan, advisor; Goes, Iasmin, committee member; Burkhardt, Jesse, committee member
Since the passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act two decades ago, Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) have become the predominant planning tool for community preparedness, risk mitigation, and response; improving coordination between governments, natural resource management agencies, and residents; give communities the ability access federal grant funding programs in the Western United States. Research on CWPPs has mainly been the focus of case studies, with relatively few large-scale studies to understand how a community's biophysical, socio-economic, vulnerability, and social conditions account for the variation in federal grant allocation. This study includes over 1,000 CWPPs in 11 states to evaluate the conditions that precipitate the allocation of grant funds for risk mitigation and community resilience. Through the estimation of a Binomial Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation Model to estimate the probability of winning grant funds based on the included indicators. Findings indicate that grant winnings are closely correlated with biophysical risk, financial capacity, and CWPP Update status, while socially vulnerable communities were more likely not to receive grant funds. However, we fail to find evidence that social capital affects the likelihood of winning grant funds. These findings suggest a need for a more equitable distribution of federal grant funds to mitigate wildfire risk properly.
Open Access
Towards a dialectical account of eco-neurosis: developing a framework on the unconscious in an age of ecological degradation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Leal McCormack, Rudy, author; McIvor, David W., advisor; MacDonald, Bradley J., committee member; Fattor, Eric, committee member; Sbicca, Joshua, committee member; Moore, Jason W., committee member
In 2019, the United Nations Climate Summit in New York described climate change as the defining issue of our time. In an age of climate volatility owing to over-production and over-consumption, capitalism's transformation of nature has developed negative environmental impacts and physical health concerns. At the same time, research in psychology and related fields is uncovering worrying mental effects due to the changing climate. The production of uncomfortable psychological effects now has a direct corollary with ecological doom; burgeoning labels for this occurrence are climate anxiety, eco-anxiety. The prefix "eco" in front of the names establishes that mental conditions can be related to environmental shifts or transformations, including climate change. I wish to contend with these initial conceptual names and say they are too narrow in focus. I am presenting the term "eco-neurosis." I do this for two reasons, one I use it as an umbrella concept for all forms of emotional discomforts and maladies due to climate change (e.g., grief, mourning, anxiety, depression, etc.) Second, while psychological literature has abandoned the use of neurosis, post-Freudian psychoanalysis provides strong historical precedent for the use of neurosis as a concept that indicates the political rumblings associated with the term. Thus, I claim that Eco-neurosis (EN) is a byproduct of a historical civilizational development in the form of climate change. In effect, climate change is not only altering "business as usual" but appears to be leaving a mark on the human psyche.
Open Access
Pessimism and the Anthropocene
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Witlacil, Mary E., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Daum, Courtenay W., committee member; Dickinson, Gregory, committee member; McIvor, David W., committee member
This dissertation provides an intellectual history of critical pessimism in the twentieth century to develop a novel theory of ecopessimism sensitive to the challenges of the climate crisis. To theorize ecopessimism, I have considered pessimism alongside the critical philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. By theorizing alongside post-foundationalist philosophers and critical theory, pessimism challenges monolithic concepts, suprahistorical narratives, and technological optimism. As well, pessimism invites us to be a part of this world and to see it as it truly is—for all its sinister violence, injustice, and misery—but also to relish in the beauty of existence without specific expectations. In this manner, and drawing on Nietzsche, pessimism is a life-affirming ethos of spontaneity, which aims to will differently, while being deeply attuned to suffering and injustice. Critical ecopessimism is a form of weak theory that emphasizes contingency and historical discontinuity. Furthermore, because pessimism engages with and accepts the possibility of worst-case scenarios, it provides the intellectual and political resources necessary to deal with environmental crisis, as well as the collective grief for all we stand to lose. Ecopessimism uses critique to cut through the outmoded narrative of progress, the cruelty of technological optimism and ecological modernization, as well as the eco-authoritarianism of the overpopulation alarmists. This dissertation theorizes a critical pessimism that asks us to expect nothing specific as the present dissolves into the future; beckons us to live as though the worst were possible and to live joyfully in the face of adversity; and calls us to be sensitive to the injustice and suffering of human and more-than-human others while being critically attentive to the world we have inherited.
Open Access
The provisions and implementation of just transitions: lessons learned from Colorado's Just Transition
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Aghababian, Sidra, author; Stevis, Dimitris, advisor; Scott, Ryan, committee member; Fremstad, Anders, committee member
As the world progresses on a path towards decarbonization to achieve emission reduction and climate goals, the question of how to transition from fossil fuel energy sources arises. Transitions from fossil fuel energy sources have the potential to be "just" by addressing social and environmental justice implications. It is important to understand how to create and implement transitions that are "just". This work explores the provisions and implementations of Colorado's Just Transition Policy. Using qualitative analysis, it first examines and evaluates the goals or provisions of Colorado's Just Transition Policy. It then examines whether and how the implementation of the policy is weakening, reproducing, or strengthening these goals.
Open Access
Pillars of stone or pillars of sand? An analysis of sustainability discourse in U.S. cities
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Means, Morgann K. R., author; Opp, Susan, advisor; Duffy, Robert, committee member; McIvor, David, committee member; Carcasson, Martín, committee member
Sustainability has emerged as a common governance paradigm in the United States, supplanting traditional top-down command-and-control regulations with a policy approach characterized by decentralization, municipal innovation, and the goal of ensuring that economic, environmental, and social systems function symbiotically. With institutional gridlock preventing comprehensive policy change at the national level coupled with state-by-state disparities in addressing environmental concerns, cities currently operate at the forefront of the sustainability movement. City governments have taken up the task of translating the broad precepts of sustainability into concrete policy decisions and planning trajectories. Despite its widespread adoption, the sustainability concept is as elusive as it is pervasive. While numerous cities throughout the United States have embraced sustainability as a guiding paradigm, the concept lacks an agreed-upon meaning and clear standards for practice. The recent rise of cities at the center of sustainability governance opens up numerous questions about how city officials navigate the definitional ambiguity of sustainability and integrate the core tenets of the concept into their planning frameworks. This dissertation contributes to a broader understanding of sustainable cities in the United States by analyzing three distinct, yet interrelated, aspects of municipal sustainability governance. First, through a content analysis of 200 U.S. cities, Chapter Two paints a picture of how cities conceptualize sustainability and the various factors (such as municipal demographics, structure of government, etc.) that correlate with a city's tendency to prioritize certain aspects of sustainability while deemphasizing others. Chapter Three builds upon this analysis by exploring the meaning of sustainability in disaster-vulnerable cities. Through both quantitative analysis and qualitative interview data, the chapter analyzes the nuances of policy change, issue definition, and the focal power of natural disasters in the sustainability domain. Chapter Four uses data from interviews conducted with city officials to examine the role of citizen participation in structuring the meaning of sustainability and the policy goals that cities incorporate under the sustainability umbrella. The core ideas from each of these chapters are discussed holistically in Chapter Five, which identifies how the findings from this dissertation provide empirical support for certain theories and assumptions related to sustainable cities, while challenging others. Taken as a whole, this dissertation finds significant variance in how cities conceptualize sustainability, shedding light on the contested meaning of the term. While the sustainability paradigm is often touted for its capacity to reduce tradeoffs between environmental protection, economic development, and social equity and to bring these three systems into a productive balance, this research shows that the meaning of sustainability is constructed situationally and that cities often prioritize only one or two pillars of the concept. Each chapter also sheds light on the nuances of issue definition and policy change in sustainable cities, including the catalytic impacts of natural disasters and the role that citizen participation plays in shaping cities' unique conceptualization of sustainability.
Open Access
Where the wild things grow: an analysis of urban agriculture in U.S. cities
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Jeffrey Crew, Nichola, author; Opp, Susan, advisor; Duffy, Robert, committee member; Saunders, Kyle, committee member; Seman, Michael, committee member
Industrial agriculture produces approximately 24% of the global greenhouse gas emissions emitted annually and agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is a primary source of water quality degradation to inland and coastal waters, as well as a significant contributor to ground water pollution (EPA 2017; EPA 2022). In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, supermarket food prices have increased 8.6% in the United States and are expected to swell an additional 3 to 4% over the course of 2022 while producers' profit margins continue to grow, with net income increasing by 500% (USDA 2022). Food benefits distributed through the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were threatened with proposed cuts of $4.2 billion during the Trump administration. While the Trump administration's cuts were eventually blocked by Federal courts and the American Rescue Plan of 2021 invested $12 billion to fight hunger, increasing food prices and stagnant wages place a larger burden on lower economic classes, increasing food justice and food security concerns. It's clear that alternatives to the industrial agricultural system are direly needed, and they are indeed actively being sought, primarily at the local level. Urban agriculture (UA) presents a potential avenue forward, especially to address the social equity concerns inherent in the industrial agriculture system. However, the extant literature on the subject lacks external validity and a comprehensive index of what efforts cities are employing to combat hunger, inequity, and environmental issues. This dissertation establishes a catalog that demonstrates the wide array of the means by which U.S. cities are pursuing, attending to, and integrating UA, particularly within the context of sustainability goals; why cities vary in their approach to UA; and how this compares to our understanding of local level sustainability efforts in the extant sustainability literature. To explore these questions the first chapter of this dissertation provides a comprehensive discussion of the UA and sustainability policy context and literature. The second chapter presents an index of municipal programs and policies to examine cities' activities related to UA, with the goal of painting a detailed portrait of the UA landscape in large U.S. cities. With this additive index, UA initiatives are catalogued and U.S. cities with populations over 200,000 are ranked accordingly. The third chapter employs quantitative methods to examine why cities' approaches to UA vary and what factors help explain this variation. This study pays particular attention to eight independent variables related to political ideology, percentage of Hispanic residents, population size and change, median home value, median household incomes, the presence of land grant universities, and adult diabetes rates. Subsequently, the fourth chapter of this research will turn its attention to examining specific cities, for a more comprehensive and qualitative understanding of what initiatives and programs individual cities are engaging in order to provide a richer, more textural, and meticulous understanding of individual cases. Finally, the fifth chapter concludes this research by highlighting key findings and what they mean for current understandings of sustainability initiatives at the municipal level, in addition to avenues for future research. This research finds that cities are engaging in a wide variety of innovative urban agriculture programs and policies and a vast majority are doing so in the name of sustainability. Many of the same factors that influence the likelihood of a city's pursuit of traditional sustainability policies, such as larger population size, political ideology, and increased wealth, also influence city engagement with UA. However, percentage of Hispanic residents demonstrates an effect contrary to what we would expect in the context of the sustainability literature. Overall, it's clear population size has a dominant effect on how aggressively a city pursues UA. Additionally, the case studies in Chapter Four highlight the importance of a city's relationship with local food policy groups and how participatory a relationship the city and community share regarding UA matters. This research contributes to our understanding of UA in the context of sustainability by providing insights into city attitudes toward UA, cataloging pertinent programs and policies, and offering preliminary explanations as to why cities vary in their efforts. Future research can build upon the foundations this dissertation presents and explore more specific aspects to further the extant literature.
Open Access
LGBTQ+ power, and justice, and knowledge! Oh, my! -or- Liberal and progressive factions of the LGBTQ+ movement: a study of power, justice, and knowledge
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Lockwood, Emery Edison, author; Daum, Courtenay W., advisor; McIvor, David W., committee member; Kasser, Jeff, committee member
Social movements are important to understand when studying the reification of democracy because they are a mode of political action that is frequently utilized for a wide variety of causes by diverse sets of people. This work explores the differences of power, justice, and knowledge in the progressive and liberal factions of the LGBTQ+ Movement and what that means for both the LGBTQ+ community and society. Using a historical analysis of the strategies and actions of the liberal and progressive factions of what has grown to be the LGBTQ+ Movement an examination with a lens of power provided by Lukes (2021), justice as fairness advocated for by Rawls (1958; 1971;2001), justice as recognition and redistribution put forth by Fraser (1997) and Honneth (2004), epistemic injustice theorized by Fricker (2007), and willful hermeneutical ignorance formulated by Pohlhaus (2012) will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of change the two factions are able to create.
Open Access
Environmental security: a source of legitimacy and contestation in global environmental governance
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Liebenguth, Julianne, author; Betsill, Michele, advisor; Harris, Peter, committee member; Macdonald, Bradley, committee member; Malin, Stephanie, committee member
Environmental security is an increasingly popular concept though which various actors seek to understand and articulate the urgency, risks, and vulnerabilities associated with dangerous socio-environmental changes. Such urgent shifts include rising temperatures, droughts, floods, intensifying weather-related disasters, land-use changes, and the expansion of exploitative and extractive practices, all of which can be said to pose significant dangers to a vast range of political communities and systems under the broader rubric of environmental security. The consequences of turning to the logic of security, however, are heavily debated among those who both espouse and reject this conceptual linkage. Thus, this dissertation seeks to dig deeper into the ways security is conceptualized, leveraged, and contested across certain domains of global environmental politics. Specifically, I contribute three empirical studies that each employ critical discourse analysis to highlight distinct connections between the environment and security as they emerge across different state and non-state actors, including governments, IGOs, NGOs, TNCs, and resistance movements. I focus on the Food, Energy, Water (FEW) security nexus as an over-arching arena of global environmental politics in which such actors frequently draw upon securitized language to describe environmental problems and their potential solutions. I find that 1) elite actors including state representatives, NGOs, and IGOs designing the FEW security nexus agenda position scarcity as the main threat and private sector actors as key agents of environmental security; 2) environmental security is leveraged in unique ways as a source of legitimacy by TNCs operating across the FEW nexus; and 3) resistance movements can generate contradictory and alternative visions of environmental security and legitimacy that challenge prevailing and unequal systems of governance. I conclude that the emergence of the FEW security nexus as global development paradigm presents a particularly important opportunity to interrogate processes and performative implications of securitization (both oppressive and emancipatory), build upon alternative, bottom-up visions of environmental security, and reflect upon the changing role of the state in relation to both security and global environmental politics more broadly.
Open Access
Small government, big problems: climate change adaptation policy in North American Great Lakes localities
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Gelardi, Carrington, author; Schomburg, Madeline, advisor; Scott, Ryan, committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee member; Denning, Scott, committee member
The Great Lakes region is home to 30 million people, one of the world's largest economies, and the world's largest freshwater ecosystem. These characteristics make the region uniquely vulnerable to climate change. Local governments in the area are subject to the impacts of climate change whether they are prepared for them or not. To explore this issue, this paper seeks to answer the question, "What is the state of local climate change adaptation policy in the Great Lakes region?" Most literature that exists on local adaptation focuses on larger cities with populations over 50,000 people. This project fills that gap by looking at climate plans from all U.S. local governments that border the Great Lakes regardless of their size. To do this, climate change adaptation plans and policies were gathered from each county and sub-county municipality (such as cities, villages, towns, and townships) in the United States that border the Great Lakes. A text analysis was performed that compared the documents to regional climate science, as well as an inductive content analysis to pull out the major topics in each plan. Local governments in the Great Lakes region are in the beginning stages of adapting to climate change. 6% sent back relevant policies. Many of them were small governments with under 20,000. Findings suggest a lack the capacity to adequately adapt, especially within the smallest governments. The degree of assistance needed from larger institutions to supplement any insufficiencies is still unclear. The results of this project capture a snapshot of how local governments bordering the Great Lakes are (or are not) adapting to climate change. This can be used to foster intergovernmental learning on how sub-state governments in the region can adapt, while also providing insight into the boundaries of local action in the face of a global issue.
Open Access
Alcohol policy as defined by path dependency and Prohibition
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Setty, Kathryn, author; Hitt, Matthew, advisor; Saunders, Kyle, advisor; Korostyshevsky, David, committee member
Across the United States there is noticeable variance regarding alcohol regulations from state to state. More restrictive states allow for dry counties, Sunday sale bans, and tightly regulate the types of alcohol that can be sold outside of liquor stores. Conversely, less restrictive states allow for 24/7 purchase, drive through liquor stores, open container zones, and decreased regulation on type of alcohol sold at convenience stores. This variance is not explained by modern or historic partisanship, nor general religiosity of a given area. Religiosity classified by high amounts of Protestantism along with historic rates of Protestantism have the highest amount of explanatory value for states with more restrictive alcohol laws. Utilizing the theoretical foundations of path dependency and increasing returns this paper posits that current variance in alcohol policies across states can be accounted for by the historic levels of support for the 18th Amendment and the temperance movement as represented by historic Protestantism in a given state. That is, after reaching a critical juncture in the passage of the 18th Amendment, states which had been more inclined to prohibit alcohol sales reached policy equilibrium that enabled regulation to persist. This paper will use an original data set that combines historical data from the U.S Census and archival data with modern measures of religiosity, along with constructed composite variables that rank each state's alcohol policy over time as most restrictive to least restrictive. This data, presented in a time series cross section analysis, will illustrate the historic relationship between Prohibition support and modern alcohol policy. History has a prevailing, lasting impact on the modern era which can be illustrated through policy and the power paradigms that persist within our society.
Open Access
NEPA implementation and trust: linking stakeholder trust to substantive effectiveness in U.S. Forest Service fuels reduction projects
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Hall, Hailey R., author; Scott, Ryan, advisor; Gottlieb, Madeline, committee member; Schultz, Courtney, committee member
Trust matters; but, rather than take it as a given, this study presents an empirical snapshot of how trust matters, what types of trust matter, and how those trust types interact within and on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) substantive effectiveness. I define substantive effectiveness as the degree to which the policy meets its established aims of considering environmental effects and including the public in the process. Using documents and public comments from two U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Fuels Reduction projects in the Boulder Ranger District in Colorado, I assessed stakeholder trust judgements by coding trust types and frequencies. I then used process tracing to examine how stakeholder trust types interact with one another and relate to substantive effectiveness. I found that interpersonal trust, interpersonal distrust, and institutional distrust play prominent but varied roles within the NEPA process. First, interpersonal trust mediates the effect of institutional distrust on the substantive effectiveness of the NEPA process. Second, higher levels of institutional and interpersonal distrust result in more substantive changes in the NEPA environmental assessment process. Through improved understanding of the roles and functions of stakeholder trust types on the NEPA process, we add nuanced understanding to established expectations of how trust and distrust operate within natural resource planning and management.
Open Access
South Africa and India's support for the ILO's green initiatives: a comparative study using the postcolonialism lens
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Nair, Sharmini, author; Mumme, Stephen, advisor; Lee, Julia, advisor; Lavoie, Anna, committee member; Ciplet, David, committee member
The International Labour Organization's (ILO) green initiatives seek to protect vulnerable communities from the impact of climate change on livelihoods. Nevertheless, there has not been universal acceptance of these green initiatives by developing states, which some claim is due to fear of neocolonialism. This research shows that South Africa has been more supportive than India in the formation of green policies within the ILO. This research seeks to explain the following: How do postcolonial theories assist in the analysis of enduring colonial logic in the ILO's environmental policies and South Africa's support of green initiatives at the ILO? Departing from materialist explanations, I utilize postcolonialism, namely Said's Orientalism and Bhabha's mimicry, to explain the responses by South Africa and India towards green policies at the ILO. By doing so, I expand the comparative field using postcolonialism and a heterogenized exploration of responses by labor and states in these two cases. This research is novel through its comparative case study of two major BRICS states and their link to ILO's green policies. Primary research sources will be minutes of ILO proceedings, recorded interviews on the ILO website, digital participant observation, digital fieldwork, and archival analysis. Secondary research sources include historical texts, and biographies of labor/political leaders. Using process tracing and discourse analysis, I produce narratives that depict labor experiences through historical processes, colonial framings, and mimicry. The research project describes how colonialism has shaped relationships between labor, social movements, and government and how it has resulted in disparate responses from South Africa and India at the ILO.