CISAC conferred honors certificates to 12 undergraduates at a June 12 ceremony held under a sprawling oak tree outside Encina Hall. Students included Jane Esberg, who was awarded the Firestone Medal for her thesis on Regimes of Terror: The Relationship between Democracy and Terrorism in Chile and Sarah Catanzaro, who received the William J. Perry Prize for her research on Bin Laden's Henchmen: Al Qa'ida's Commanding Officers who are Leading the Global Jihad. The students were participants in CISAC's year-long Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies.

Class of 2009:

• Stuart Baimel, Political Science
  Trilateralism and Bilateralism: US-South Korea-Japan Security Relations

The United States maintains strong security alliances with Japan and South Korea and has had troops based in both countries for 60 years. Despite these alliances, the two Asian countries have very weak and acrimonious relations with each other, and trilateral relations are often completely nonexistent. In this study, Stuart Baimel determined what causes trilateral interactions to be so weak considering the strength of the alliances. He examined three hypotheses as to why trilateralism has been so weak-nationalist historical animosity, the abandonment/entrapment dynamic and idea of a Sinocentric hierarchy. He determined that the interplay between two factors causes trilateral relations to be weak. The first factor is personal leadership-the changes and variations in the political leadership over time. The second is historical animosity-the antagonism between Japan and South Korea stemming from Japan's colonization of Korea in the early twentieth century.

• Luke Beckman, Human Biology
  Communicating and Collaborating in Disasters

We live in a world that is prone to disasters and increasingly reliant on technology for everyday communications. Emergency responders are under added pressure to respond faster and coordinate with other groups more effectively. There is simultaneously a large movement in America calling for citizen service and community empowerment. This research focuses on how our society can leverage technology to help citizens and first responders coordinate more effectively in disaster response. This thesis looks at the current response system and how the system can evolve. Research was conducted through interviews and three case studies: 2007 Southern California Wildfires and the Strong Angel-III and Golden Shadow disaster response simulations. The findings are significant: they emphasize the importance of leadership, trust, properly-designed Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems, and political will. Given these findings, there is much potential for expanding properly-deployed ICT systems so that they can better link citizens and first responders in disasters.

• Jennifer Bernal, Public Policy
  From Corporatism to an Esprit de Corps: Overcoming the Intelligence Impasse in Mexico

Jennifer Bernal's thesis examines the interplay of Mexico's first transfer of presidential power from one party to another in 71 years, the stated determination of the new president to improve both the accountability and effectiveness of Mexico's intelligence organizations, the growing threat to Mexico's security from narco-traffickers and organized crime, and increased pressure from the United States after 9/11.  Jennifer was working in largely uncharted territory, made excellent use of interviews and information obtained through freedom of information requests to the Mexican government, and made excellent use of alternative hypotheses to examine and explain what she discovered.

• Sarah Catanzaro, International Relations
  Bin Laden's Henchmen: Al Qa'ida's Commanding Officers Who Are Leading the Global Jihad
  *William J. Perry Award

With great originality Sarah Catanzaro has skillfully explicated the complex organizational structure of Al Qaida. She asks why local groups ally themselves with the central leadership of Al Qaida and what happens to local leaders after mergers, partnerships, and collaborations are completed. She finds that decisions to join Al Qaida are opportunistic and strategic, not driven by ideological belief or social affiliation. Paradoxically, after joining Al Qaida local commanders become ideological publicists, spreading the jihadist message. Ms. Catanzaro's work is inventive in approach, sophisticated in methodology, and well-grounded in facts. Her persuasive argument makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution to the ongoing policy debate over the internal politics of Al Qaida. She is a most worthy recipient of this year's William J. Perry Prize.

• Sagar Doshi, Political Science
  Putting the House in Order: The Rise and Fall of the Homeland Security Council

For students of bureaucratic politics everywhere, Sagar Doshi poses a fascinating question in "Putting the House in Order: The Rise and Fall of the Homeland Security Council." How, Sagar asks, can a presidential-level organization, rolled out with much ceremony in 2002, find itself on life-support barely seven years after its founding despite what would appear to be its obvious utility. What Sagar discovers in this highly readable and insightful account of the ill-fated HSC is that a rare confluence of factors, including but not limited to the lack of sustained presidential interest, came together to complicate the agency's existence from the very outset. These findings notwithstanding, it was in the end, Sagar writes, what he terms the HSC's "organizational immaturity" - the inability of the Council to fend for itself bureaucratically -- that proved to be the its real undoing.

• Jane Esberg, International Relations
  Regimes of Terror: The Relationship between Democracy and Terrorism in Chile
  *Firestone Medal

Jane Esberg's thesis explores whether terrorist organizations are more effective when they operate within democratic or nondemocratic regimes by examining the case of Chile from 1965-1995. The existing literature is divided on this issue, with some arguing that autocracies breed resentment and frustration that feed militancy, while others argue that the civil liberties associated with democracy create a space for terrorists to operate. The Chilean case provides an excellent laboratory for examining this issue, since it experienced variation over time in terms of political representation and protection of civil liberties. Through a careful historical analysis of violent organizations that operated across these transitions, Jane shows how these organizations' missions, degree of hierarchy and centralization, membership levels, and tactics responded to changes in the political environment. She provides compelling evidence that militant groups have the hardest time operating effectively under stable democracy and repressive autocracy, and that organizational capacity increases when either representation breaks down in a democracy or when the repressive capacity of an authoritarian state weakens. The thesis is persuasively argued, careful in its attention to historical detail, and relevant to contemporary policy debates. It is a worthy recipient of a Firestone Medal.

• John McCormick, Public Policy
  An Assessment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Tactical Control over Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) Deployment in Iraq

Johnny McCormick has addressed the critical problem of the nature, extent, and effect of Iranian influence in Iraq after 2003. His relevant and timely research project focused specifically on Iran's supply of particularly lethal explosive devices, "explosively formed penetrators" or EFPs, to Shia militias for use against coalition military forces. He found that Iran probably does not control the actual use of the devices and that their deployment is correlated with American military operations against Shia militia strongholds. Mr. McCormick is to be commended for tackling a difficult research question with initiative, determination, thoroughness, and genuine intellectual curiosity. His substantive findings have important implications for American policy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Niko Milonopoulos, Political Science
  Bureaucracy Gone Ballistic: The Creation of the Missile Defense Agency and its Impact on the Development of Ballistic Missile Defense

The latest attempt to enshrine national missile defense as a central component of U.S. national security planning is the subject of Niko Milonopoulos's ambitious and illuminating senior thesis, "Bureaucracy Gone Ballistic: The Creation of the Missile Defense Agency and Its Impact on the Development and Deployment of Missile Defense Systems." As the title suggests, Niko's project focuses on the establishment by the Bush Administration in 2002 of the Missile Defense Agency with the expressed purpose of accelerating both the procurement and the actual deployment of missile defense systems through such controversial innovations as "spiral development," "end-to-end flight testing" and the funding of so-called "block capabilities." The real purpose of these highly unusual arrangements, Niko warns, has more to do with tying the hands of succeeding administrations by making cancellation of the program prohibitively expensive than it does with fielding a reliable set of military capabilities.

• Theo Milonopoulos, Political Science
  Hired Guns in the Fog of War: Private Security Contractors in Iraq and the Use of Force in U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations

In "Hired Guns in the Fog of War: Private Security Contractors in Iraq and the Use of Force in Counterinsurgency Operations," Theo Milonopoulos takes on the highly charged issue of whether the military contractors fighting along side U.S. military forces in Iraq engage more frequently in excessive uses of force than their uniformed counterparts as has been alleged in the popular press. What Theo finds is both disturbing -- at least some contractor units have been quick to shoot first and ask questions later, with often tragic results. But also reassuring -- that the problems have been exaggerated and that most of the needed fixes have been put in place. It is a study that is notable for the rigor of the research, the elegance and refinement of the writing, the value of its findings, and the importance of its recommendations. In every sense, this is a superb effort.

• Matthew Platkin, Political Science
  Benefactor or Beneficiary? The Political Impact of China's Aid Programs in Africa

One of the most important global changes of our time is China's inexorable rise to the status of a global power. In this astute and innovative study, Matthew Platkin navigates brilliantly over competing theoretical perspectives and flawed assumptions to assess what China is actually doing with an important dimension of its rising global power, its foreign aid to Africa. With careful and methodical statistical analysis of Chinese aid increases to African states over time, Platkin shows that China does tend to reward countries with which it is politically or ideologically aligned. But he finds no support for the argument that China is using its foreign aid to corner natural resources or advance its diplomatic rivalry with Taiwan. In fact, his findings suggest that "China is not simply seeking to replace or supplant Western donors," and may even be reinforcing the broad pattern of Western aid flows. This shrewd and intelligent work counters the impulse toward China-bashing with the most effective tool-evidence-while offering thoughtful guidelines for engaging China on policy toward Africa.

• Laura Thom, International Relations
  Inside Pandora's Box: Poppies, Violence, and Hope for US Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

Laura Thom's thesis is a thoughtful and careful investigation of the politics of opium and state building in contemporary Afghanistan. Her work focuses on a central dilemma facing policy-makers in Afghanistan since 2001: how should the international community address the extraordinary surge in opium cultivation in a country that has become the world's number one supplier of illicit narcotics? Having interviewed a number of key players involved in U.S. policy-making and read widely about linkages among violence, corruption, and local politics in Afghanistan, Thom convincingly points to the many ways that an aggressive counternarcotics policy might increase opposition among local cultivators and others to the U.S. presence and the American-backed government of Hamid Karzai. Thom concludes instead that the establishment of security in opium-cultivating regions should be the immediate focus of American policy. Rather than a short-term panacea for Afghanistan's ills, the struggle against opium, Thom argues, should form part of a broader, long-term development program. This is a well-informed and mature analysis that offers valuable policy recommendations.

• Peter Williams, Political Science
  Taming the Russian Bear: Understanding the Role of International Norms and the Chechen Wars

Do international norms influence the way that states behave? This is a subject of lively debate in academic circles and in the wider world of politics. In a rigorous and well-researched study, Peter Williams answers this question by asking how norms relating to human rights and the use of military force affected Russian behavior in the First and Second Chechen Wars. He comes to three conclusions: that the institutionalization of norms in an international regime does not guarantee that they will be effective; that transnational advocacy networks are much less effective than is often claimed; and that looking at states' interests is the best way to understanding whether or not they will comply with international norms. Peter Williams has written an incisive and thought-provoking thesis on an important topic.