Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/100502
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Open Access "When the people are the territory": the politics of seeds and the production of GMO-free territories in Colombia(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Kline, Curtis, author; Velasco, Marcela, advisor; Lee, Julia, committee member; MacDonald, Bradley, committee member; Malin, Stephanie, committee memberThis dissertation examines how Indigenous peoples in Colombia mobilize against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by declaring and constructing GMO-Free Territories, asserting sovereignty over seeds, land, and ecological governance. Focusing on two cases—the Zenú Indigenous peoples and the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC)—it argues that conventional theories of state formation, predicated on coherent territorial control and centralized authority, fail to capture the fragmented and negotiated nature of postcolonial states. Through these case studies, the dissertation shows how Indigenous communities actively reshape the terms of governance, challenging agrarian extractivism and reconfiguring territory through land recuperation, seed and food sovereignty, and the formation of autonomous institutional structures. Seed politics serves as a key lens through which Indigenous strategies of resistance and governance are enacted and made visible. Rather than representing a break from earlier struggles, seed sovereignty emerges as a new layer within long-standing processes of territorial defense and autonomy-building. These movements are not merely reactive but are also creative and future-oriented, constructing alternative territorial orders that defy both state and corporate development models. Using a process-tracing methodology, the study identifies mechanisms such as claims-making, memory work, identity formation, boundary activation, and territorialization through which Indigenous actors contest spatial control and materialize autonomy. Theoretically, the dissertation reframes the state as an unstable and relational formation, continually reshaped by resistance from below. It argues that "when the people are the territory," territory is not simply a bounded administrative unit but a lived and political space, cultivated, remembered, and defended through embodied presence and collective action. These movements unsettle dominant models of sovereignty and open space for plural, decolonial, and ecologically grounded forms of governance rooted in the defense of seeds, land, and collective rights.Item Embargo Let's talk about facts: assessing the use of evidence in public policy(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Rupinsky, Shae, author; Scott, Ryan, advisor; Olofsson, Kristin, committee member; Duffy, Robert, committee member; Grigg, Neil, committee memberScholars and practitioners of public policy often assert that evidence – the full body of information with which policy actors engage to form and communicate their policy preferences – should be used in the process of public policy making. Furthermore, proponents of evidence-based policy state that evidence should be derived from methodologically rigorous sources. Despite this common decree, debate persists concerning which types of evidence should and are actually used by policy actors as well as the factors that influence its use. Normative differences among scholars have resulted in a disjointed approach to understanding the use of evidence in public policy as well as a lack of uniform discourse across disciplines. In response, I develop and integrative framework for assessing the use of evidence in public policy and test the framework by evaluating the use of evidence in the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant debate unfolding in San Louis Obispo County, California. The development of an integrative framework serves to unify the disparate scholars assessing the use of evidence by providing a common set of concepts that can be used to evaluate evidence use, interactions, and impacts. Subsequent analysis helps to not only test the efficacy of the framework but provides insight into who uses evidence where and when as well as what helps to predict evidence selection. The dissertation thus contributes to the existing literature on the use of evidence in public policy in two ways: by providing an integrative framework and advancing understanding of how evidence is used in public policy.Item Open Access Intrastate conflict and humanitarian aid obstruction(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Oso, Oluwafunto Mercy, author; Goes, Iasmin, advisor; Bae, JoonBum, committee member; Jessie, Luna, committee memberThis thesis examines one of the causes of humanitarian aid obstructions – intrastate conflict, attempting to answer the puzzle "Why do some recipient countries obstruct or outrightly reject humanitarian assistance more than others?" Given the human and material costs associated with internal challenges, countries experiencing such are argued to be more favorable in receiving assistance from international aid donors. This line of reasoning leads to the stylized conclusion that countries ravaged by internal crises are more likely to attract humanitarian assistance. However, I observed such assistance when offers were obstructed in many conflict-prone countries, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. This generates an important puzzle. In addressing this puzzle, I focus on intrastate conflict (where at least one of the actors is a government of the state) and how it affects humanitarian aid obstruction and argue that recipient countries undergoing intrastate conflict as more likely to disrupt the operation of humanitarian aid. I also contend that this effect is consistent regardless of the sources of humanitarian assistance. Using a time-series cross-sectional design that covers developing (non-OECD) countries from 1997 to 2023, I find empirical evidence supporting the theoretical arguments. My conclusion is that intrastate conflict significantly increases the likelihood that humanitarian assistance will be obstructed in the recipient countries, just as it can make countries more likely to be considered for such assistance.Item Open Access Braking for immigrants? Analyzing the effects of news coverage on immigration policy in the United States(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Schuck, Zoe, author; Brock, Clare, advisor; Weitzel, Daniel, committee member; Olofsson, Kristin, committee member; Thilmany McFadden, Dawn, committee memberWhat role does the media play in the policy process, and is there a meaningful relationship between bill passage and the media? Building on previous work investigating the relationship between media attention and bill passage time, this paper uses an issue-specific lens on one of the US's most polarized issues, immigration, to examine media attention as a contributor to friction and policy stasis. Results indicate that high media attention on illegal immigration slows passed bills and can kill bills in the introductory and committee stages. Contributions to media attention, framing, and punctuated equilibrium theory are offered.Item Open Access Environmental shifts and strategic rifts: climate change's role in allied relations; the case of the Northwest Passage(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Williams, Tate, author; Goes, Iasmin, advisor; Lee, Julia, committee member; Mao, KuoRay, committee memberAs Arctic sea ice continues to recede due to accelerating climate change, the Northwest Passage (NWP)—a historically ice-bound maritime route—has become increasingly navigable and economically valuable. This thesis investigates whether climate change is influencing the longstanding dispute between Canada and the United States over the legal status of the NWP. While Canada asserts that the route lies within its internal waters, the U.S. views it as an international strait, open to global navigation. This research employs a qualitative single-case study to examine how increasing navigability is shaping political relevance, policy framing, and interstate discourse over the region. Drawing on sea ice data, historical policy documents, and discourse analysis of public statements by Canadian Prime Ministers, U.S. Presidents, and Chinese officials since 1988, the study traces how national narratives and securitization strategies have evolved. The thesis considers the implications of rising outside interest - namely Chinese - in the Arctic and how this external pressure affects bilateral relations and domestic responses. It concludes by evaluating potential outcomes of the dispute and analyzing how Arctic Indigenous populations are increasingly marginalized in a securitized policy landscape. The findings contribute to understanding how environmental change acts as a catalyst in transforming geopolitical relationships and reshaping traditional alliances.Item Open Access Gender and renewable energy transitions: discourses used by prominent NGOs in the United States(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Pauley, Hannah, author; Stevis, Dimitris, advisor; Olofsson, Kristin, committee member; Mao, KuoRay, committee memberThis master's thesis evaluates the discourses used by prominent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United States when discussing gender in connection with renewable energy transitions. In the current political environment of the United States, with a presidential administration attempting to weaken the environmental state and reduce states' rights to address issues of justice, NGOs have become important actors in advancing gender equality within energy systems. NGOs can bring attention to the gendered dimensions of energy transitions and can push governments to respond to calls for justice, but their stances on the issue have not been extensively analyzed. Building on Paula Walk's (2024) study, "From parity to degrowth: Unpacking narratives of a gender-just transition", this thesis evaluates the discourses used by prominent NGOs in the United States to provide more specific insights into the current politics of the energy transition in the United States. The analysis finds that the most common discourse used by the NGOs in the study is the opportunity discourse, aimed at ensuring that women and men benefit equally from the opportunities associated with a renewable energy transition. While this discourse is needed to increase the representation of women within the energy sector, it represents a traditional approach to gender mainstreaming, rooted in technological optimism and based on an isolated view of the climate crisis that limits opportunities for justice.Item Open Access Is the Arctic heating up? Complicating the picture of regional security(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Gricius, Gabriella, author; Goes, Iasmin, advisor; Lee, Julia, committee member; Weitzel, Daniel, committee member; Greaves, Wilfrid, committee member; Temirbekov, Sayat, committee memberWhy do states maintain policy continuity towards unsettled spaces, even in the absence of intersubjective agreement? In this dissertation, I develop the concept of unsettledness to describe geographic spaces where the intersubjective understandings of the status, governance, and territorial meaning of a space remains unresolved. This results in persistent flux in the norms, rules, and behaviors that states adopt towards that space. Unsettledness differs from conventional notions of territorial disputes, ungoverned spaces, or undefined spaces in that it does not necessarily provoke security dilemmas or institutional resolution. Instead, states often respond to these conditions with low-tension narratives and low-key approaches rather than securitization or increased governance to avoid potential risks. The Arctic provides an ideal case study for understanding unsettledness under conditions of strong institutional norms, given its long history as a frontier space where geopolitical, environmental, and institutional forces have converged. Although the region has been framed in different ways over time—from a Cold War missile pathway to a zone of exceptional peace to an arena of renewed great power competition—its unsettled spaces remain resistant to intersubjective agreement. This dissertation explores three Arctic cases: Svalbard, Greenland, and Arctic maritime routes (the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage). These cases exhibit both continuous flux and an enduring lack of consensus, making them key examples of unsettled spaces. In analyzing state responses to unsettledness, I assess three potential explanations for policy continuity: (1) states aligning unsettled spaces with broader geopolitical narratives, (2) states varying their security framings might shift how states could sustain continuity, and (3) states relying on expert communities to reinforce policy positions. Through a discourse analysis of policy documents and interviews with experts and policymakers, I find that states neither explicitly integrate unsettled spaces into great power competition nor adjust their security framings to suit different strategic needs. Rather, my findings suggest that states deliberately avoid securitizing unsettled spaces, opting instead for low-tension narratives and restrained policy approaches to sustain the status quo. These low-tension narratives are adopted as part of a broader strategy of risk aversion. States wish to avoid potential future militarization and thus keeping these areas unsettled is part of a broader agenda to avoid risk. This research challenges conventional wisdom in International Relations that would expect unsettledness to result in interstate competition or institutional stabilization. Instead, it highlights how, under conditions of strong institutional norms, ambiguity can be a strategic asset for states seeking to avoid political costs associated with either escalation or institutional resolution. While this norm may be changing with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, low-tension narratives continue to be the norm at least in the Arctic cases under examination. By theorizing low-tension narratives and low-key approaches, I also contribute to debates in securitization and desecuritization studies, demonstrating how states manage security ambiguity in spaces of persistent flux. Additionally, my findings shed light on the limited influence of expert communities in shaping policy on unsettled spaces. Rather than seeking expert input to resolve uncertainty, states tend to treat these issues as politically settled despite ongoing intersubjective disagreement. However, my work does highlight the importance of studying knowledge ecosystems in which experts operate and offers some practical strategies that policy-minded IR scholars could adopt. The implications of this research extend beyond the Arctic. Other regions with characteristics of unsettledness—such as the high seas and outer space—may exhibit similar dynamics. Understanding how states respond to unsettledness can offer scholars nuance in thinking through spaces that neither fit the mold of a settled territory nor a contested space. By conceptualizing unsettledness as a persistent condition rather than a transitional phase, this dissertation offers a new framework for analyzing spaces where governance and intersubjective agreement remain elusive.Item Open Access The high cost of stability: security, charisma, and democratic erosion in El Salvador(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Salazar, Daniela, author; Velasco, Marcela, advisor; Weitzel, Daniel, committee member; Martin, Carmen, committee memberLatin America has faced significant challenges associated with democratic erosion, including the weakening of institutions, the concentration of power, and certain restrictions on civil liberties. El Salvador, under the administration of Nayib Bukele, stands out as a relevant case due to the political dynamics that have emerged in recent years. While Salvadoran democracy has historically been fragile, recent changes have accelerated its deterioration at an unprecedented pace. The main objective of this study is to analyze the causes of democratic erosion. My explanation is that three key factors, insecurity, leader charisma, and opposition fragmentation, have facilitated democratic erosion and the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies in this country. The central hypothesis is that these three factors have been decisive in shaping these political dynamics. Through a qualitative approach, the study will seek to evaluate this hypothesis by analyzing primary data, such as Bukele's speeches and the policies implemented under his administration, as well as secondary sources, including academic reports and reports from non-governmental organizations.Item Open Access The decline of civic trust in the United States: a critical assessment of competing explanations(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Dunnington, Keegan, author; Çavdar, Gamze, advisor; MacDonald, Bradley J., committee member; Vasudevan, Ramaa, committee memberDo you trust your neighbor? What about your congressman? Regardless of your answer, the odds are it's far less likely that you would respond "yes" to both these questions than your parents or grandparents. Evidence suggests that trust in politics in general has been declining in the United States since 1965 (ANES 2008; ANES 2018; Vallier 2020; Jones 2022; Pew 2024). What is the cause of the decline of trust in the United States? The objective of this thesis is to critically review the competing explanations for this question in light of the evidence collected from surveys. These existing theories which attempt to explain decreases in the general levels of trust in politics include social capital theory, an institutional theory, and several versions of political economy. (Putnam 1993; Skocpol 1996; Putnam 2000; Skocpol 2003; Uslaner 2010; Mishel 2015; Kroknes et al 2016; Torrente et al 2019; Mikaelian & Cohen 2021; Wu et al 2024). The thesis argues that none of these currently existing theoretical frameworks can fully explain the empirical evidence present in the form of survey data on civic trusts decline. As a result of this analysis, it is further argued that the Marxist theory of the rate of profit can be utilized to propose a new theory of civic trusts decline. It is theorized that the general tendency for the rate of profit to fall, as well as the counter tendencies of increasing the intensity of exploitation of the working class, the depression of wages, a situation of relative overpopulation, and domestic market expansion, leads to the decline of civic trust both directly and indirectly. In this process institutional degradation and social capitals decline work as intervening variables in this process, as their degradation is also triggered by the tendencies listed above. Further, it is argued that the counter tendencies of the use of credit, the cheapening of elements of constant capital, and international market expansion can actually help to rebuild some level of trust, as they increase the rate of profit without substantially burdening the domestic working class.Item Open Access The successful diffusion of gender-affirming care bans in the U.S.: how partisanship functions as a mechanism of policy diffusion(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Sosa, Taylor, author; Hitt, Matt, advisor; Brock, Clare, committee member; Dockendorff, Kari, committee memberSince 2015, the diffusion of anti-trans policies among the states has targeted the ability of transgender Americans to participate in athletics, change identification documents, use public facilities - such as bathrooms or locker rooms, and obtain gender affirming healthcare. The banning of gender affirming care (GAC) has resulted in increased reports of transgender youth suicide attempts in states that ban care. The proliferation of gender affirming care bans is problematic as it has negative health implications for transgender Americans. The diffusion of GAC bans can be traced to partisan interest groups, who actively diffuse anti-trans policies through venue shopping among the fifty state legislatures, and strategically advocating for the implementation of their policy preferences in legislatures amenable to their policy goals. To assess how partisan interests succeed at diffusing policy, I examine the diffusion of gender affirming care bans from 2021 to 2024 using textual analysis, measuring the cosine similarities of the 26 GAC bans to evaluate potentiality of copy and paste legislation, before performing a multivariate regression and an event history analysis to assess how this type of anti-trans policy has diffused across state legislatures. I find that partisan interests successfully diffused GAC bans in states that share their partisan identity, as states have sorted ideologically on LGBTQ+ policies. This finding is further evidence against the idea that states function as laboratories of democracy; instead, as states become sorted along partisan lines, transgender minors and adults find their rights and freedoms limited by what state they live in (Taylor et al. 2024). Rather than acting as laboratories of democracy, states are engaging in a democratic race-to-the-bottom as freedoms and rights are questioned and stripped from their citizens. These findings support past research questioning the reality of states functioning as laboratories of democracy (Tyler and Gerken 2022; Grumbach 2022, 2023), as well as research that finds the erosion of LGBTQ+ rights are linked to conservative messaging and are fundamentally attacks on democracy (Stein 2023; Taylor et al. 2024) – this expands our understanding of how a morality policy, such as anti-trans policies, are increasingly linked to partisanship and that this results in conservative controlled states adopting policies that restrict democratic rights and freedoms.Item 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 memberWhat 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.Item 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 memberAutonomous 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.Item 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., advisorLooking 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.Item 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., advisorThe 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.Item Open Access Gender, political participation and the environment in Japan(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Freiner, Nicole, author; Charlton, Sue Ellen, advisorThis 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.Item 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, advisorEnvironmental 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.Item 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., advisorThe 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.Item 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 memberThe 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.Item 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 memberSince 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.Item 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 memberIn 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.