Ideas, Identities and Decisional Processes that Affect Security

The Mershon Center's second area of focus in international security studies is the ideas, identities, and decisional processes that affect security. This encompasses a cross-section of projects in politics, economics and cultural studies, including:

• Turkey: Islam, Nationalism and Modernity, which examines the interactions between three reference points in Turkish history.
• Political Dimensions of Economic and Civil Insecurity in Brazil, which examines how access to a social security net is related to democratization.
• The Psychology of Hate, a scientific analysis of hate to identify its psychological underpinnings and motivational implications.
• Counting Indians: Population and the Body Politic, 1800-1970, which argues that the concept of overpopulation as applied to India was not neutral but politically fraught.
• The Integration of Immigrants in Schools, which examines how immigrant and majority groups interact using London schools as a microcosm.
• The Development of Islamist Insurgency: Egypt, 1986-1999, which examines the wave of Islamist violence in 474 attacks that killed and injured over 2,000 people.
• Inter-relations between Political and Demographic Change in the 20th Century, a comprehensive study of political and demographic change across all major countries from 1950 to 2000
• Firms and the Welfare State: A Test of Employer Support for Economic Security, which looks at whether and why companies favor worker protections
• Demiurgic Politics: The Republic and the Timaeus, which examines four responses to theories of citizenship set forth in Plato's Republic.
• The Concept of Time in the Koran, which seeks to set the development of the Koran in historic context.
• Unveiling Modernity: Post-Colonial Islamic Reforms in Ghana and Burkina Faso, 1950-2000, which looks at why Wahhabism took hold in West Africa
• Colonization in Reverse: Diaspora, Diplomacy, and the 'People's Art', examines how Trinidadians used the Notting Hill Carnival to negotiate their identity in modern Great Britain.
• Immigrants, Assimilation, and Cultural Threat:  A Political Exploration, explores how American citizens view issues of immigration and successful assimilation.
• Sudanese Perspectives on the Darfur Conflict, investigates current Sudanese views of and responses to the conflict in Darfur.
• Radicals on the Road: Third World Internationalism and American Orientalism during the Viet Nam Era, explores the lives of Americans who criticized their government's intervention in Southeast Asia.
• Living Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention, which studies cultural identity and conflict in the disputed territories of Israel and Palestine.
• Race Frontiers: Indian Slavery in Colonial New England reconstructs the little-known history of Native American enslavement by European colonists in the 18th century.
• The Marxist Rhetoric, which asks how Marxism gained such wide influence in the 20th century despite the failure of its major propositions.
• Public Sector Capacity and Political Stability, which uses four case studies to explain why some Latin American countries maintain stable democracies while others succumb to political unrest.

To learn more, please click on the links above.