(Hon. Mention) Teetering on the Edge: Iraq’s Precarious Hold on Democracy
The Iraqi government’s response to the Arab Spring-inspired “Day of Rage” protests in 2011 reflects the fine line the country often crosses between taking neces...
Category: Essays
The China Skeptic’s Talking Points Memo
Little more than three decades since the opening of China’s economy under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the country has emerged as the greatest force reshapi...
Tweeting to Win: Al-Shabaab’s Strategic Use of Microblogging
Today, we live in a world of networked global communities, drawn together by the recent technological boom. This unprecedented degree of interconnectivity...
Public Opinion and Soft Balancing within the Transatlantic Alliance
Amidst the Iraq War and the promulgation of a unilateral foreign policy under the Bush administration, global public opinion of the United States plummeted. One...
The Evolution of Citizenship Adjudication in the European Union
In 1993, the Treaty on European Union (TEU), otherwise known as the Maastricht Treaty, entered into force and transformed the fundamental nature of what would h...
Constitution as Reconciliation? Exogenous Influences on Post-Conflict Kosovo
“Kosovo is the love child of an international affair. We don’t know who we are. We don’t know what parent to look up to. We are a bastard child.” – Shkelzen Mal...
Conversion and Settlement in Pre-Mandate British Foreign Policy
I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green & pleasant Land[1] With thes...
An Arendtian Analysis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
On May 10th, 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first president of South Africa to have been elected by citizens of all races. The selection of a black...
Cold War Nationalisms: Metropolitan Encounters, WWII, and the Politics of Frantz Fanon and Ho Chi Minh
On 7 May 1954, a victory rang out in a northwestern province of Vietnam that reverberated throughout the colonial world. For the first time in modern memo...
Italy, Europe and the Euro Crisis: Partnership for Reform or Discord for Disaster
Little more than two years ago, European news outlets and politicians spoke about the prospect of economic downturn and financial unrest as if it were only caus...