I’m interested in globalization, trade and security in the Indo-Pacific. I hope to focus my research on China’s economic and naval interactions with countries in the Indian Ocean region such as Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. I am also interested in how the conditions of complex economic integration make trade more resilient, or more fragile and vulnerable to disruption by state actors.
My research interests center on electoral institutions, representation, race & gender.
I am interested in the development of identity politics in avowedly pluralist, secular states (particularly Israel, Turkey and India) – what has caused the populations of these states, which were founded upon ideals of pluralism and tolerance, to return to a seemingly more primordial approach to politics based on clan-like allegiances? How has this shift changed the relationship between state and citizen and the nature of local democracy?
My core interests are war-making and war makers. My current research projects concern reactionary extremisms, institutions of social control in the military, and the effects of external social forces on military organizations.
My main areas of study include the intersection of international war, coercive bargaining, and crisis escalation. I am interested in how leaders interpret signals and intentions of adversaries during international crises, and how this leads to inadvertent crisis escalation. I received a MA in International Relations from Seoul National University in 2019.
My research interests include deterrence, nuclear politics and military strategy.
My research interests center on American politics, news media, gender and race. I am particularly interested in interactions between intersectional systems of oppression, political behavior, and political and media representations.
I am interested in right-wing politics with regard to American political development. Particular questions I wish to focus on in my future research include: What does the label “conservative,” a term which is thrown around frequently carrying a number of specific and not always flattering connotations, really mean in current discourse and how has it changed over time? How has the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, evolved over time to represent such varied, and sometimes competing, interests as the Christian Right, big business, and anti-immigration activists?
David Stiefel is a graduate student in the doctoral program for Foreign Affairs; majoring in International Relations and minoring in American Politics. David earned his BS in Geology & Environmental Sciences, Media Arts & Design, and Jazz Studies from James Madison University (’07) and a MS from Georgetown University in Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infections Disease (’15). David has worked as an environmental consultant, professional musician, a defense contractor for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a landscape conservationist, and a Presidential Management Fellow
Amanuel Tsighe Gebremichael is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, where his major field is Political Theory and his minor field is American Politics. His doctoral project, “United Nations of Africa: Theories of Liberation in the Horn,” draws on original archival material in Eritrea, the UK, and the US to explore how activist and rebel groups across the Horn of Africa understood their “nationalist” projects as facilitating Pan-African integration and the construction of nonethnic states.
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