Academic literature on the topic 'American intervention'

Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs<br>The most decisive campaign of the American Civil War was waged in neither Virginia, nor Pennsylvania, nor along the Mississippi River, but rather in Great Britain. Northern military advantages in the prosecution of the war effort could have been completely negated by a serious diplomatic setback in Great Britain. In order to win the Civil War, the North had to prevent Great Britain from entering the conflict. British intervention (which would have also included France), whether in the form of actually entering the war on the side of the South, official recognition of the Confederacy, foreign mediation, or a call for an armistice followed by peace negotiations, would have been a diplomatic disaster for the North and a fatal blow in its attempt to re-unify the nation. Military setbacks on the battlefield were not nearly as threatening as diplomatic setbacks abroad. The North had greater manpower, a stronger and more balanced economy, an industrial infrastructure, and a better equipped army; yet, in order for these advantages to translate into military victory at home, the North first needed to ensure that the domestic conflict did not spread to an international war<br>Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2003<br>Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: History<br>Discipline: College Honors Program

Recent studies have shown that imagining contact with a member of a differing social group can reduce prejudice toward said group. This type of prejudice intervention, known as an imagined contact intervention, can be beneficial when direct contact with the outgroup is not feasible. This study adds to existing research on imagined contact interventions by replicating a simple version of the intervention by Husnu and Crisp (2010) and assessing attitudes toward an American Muslim out-group. This study extends the research of Husnu and Crisp (2010) by using American participants as opposed to British participants and also uses an online distribution for the intervention as opposed to a laboratory setting. The research question was: Will the imagined contact intervention significantly reduce prejudice toward the American Muslim out-group when compared to a control condition? Participants who reported socializing with the Muslim out-group less than three times in the past six months completed a form of the intervention online, responded to an out-group attitude index regarding the Muslim out-group, and completed demographics questions. In this study, there was no significant effect of the imagined contact intervention on out-group attitudes. Possible reasons for the intervention’s ineffectiveness, including the use of online distribution for the survey, are discussed along with directions for future research.

History<br>M.A.<br>After the First World War, there was widespread support for U.S. intervention in the Near East to assist Christian minorities in the region, but the Wilson administration and the U.S. Senate took little action. The Armenian cause in particular was foremost in the minds of Americans. Many Americans felt the United States had a moral responsibility to help Near Eastern Christians. For many observers, American interest coupled with the opportunity for increased participation in Near Eastern affairs made it seem likely that the United States would emerge from the peace process as a major influence in the Area. However, this was not the case, and proposed initiatives that would increase American participation in the area were either ignored or rejected. There was broad interest in getting more involved in the Near East, but no consensus on how to do so. Some favored an American mandate over Armenia, while others wanted a larger American mandate over Armenia, Constantinople, and Anatolia, and others sought to avoid mandates altogether and instead preferred sending direct aid to Armenia and the Near East. By the time it seemed clear that American intervention in the Near East would only happen along the terms favored by those seeking to limit American costs and responsibility, the solidification of isolationist sentiment in the United States, antagonized by the long League of Nations debate, and changing circumstances in the Near East made a dramatic increase in U.S. influence in the region unlikely. The debate over American intervention in the Near East provides insight into larger discussions about American imperialism and its relationship to humanitarianism, American isolationism in the interwar years, and the partisan atmosphere of American postwar politics.<br>Temple University--Theses

This thesis examines United States foreign policy towards Afghanistan as a contemporary piece of analysis informed by Foreign Policy Analysis. As part of its Global War on Terror, the Bush Administration intervened in Afghanistan in early October 2001, and only in June 2011 did the Obama Administration decide to begin to end US involvement in Afghanistan. During these eleven years, a timeline which is the subject of this thesis, the US Global War on Terror policy in Afghanistan experienced a number of changes, evolving from a policy of ‘abandonment’ prior to the 9/11 terrorist acts to a military ‘intervention’, from a ‘counterterrorism’ to a ‘counter-insurgency’ strategy, from ‘destroying’ terrorism to ‘containing’ it, from treating the Taliban as ‘terrorists’ to declaring them as ‘non-terrorists’, from the goal of ‘defeating’ the Taliban to ‘degrading’ them, from seeing Afghanistan as having compelling relevance to US national security interests to seeing it as having minimal importance, and from intending to spend as long as it took to secure a ‘democratic’ and ‘strong’ Afghanistan to the objective of establishing a ‘good enough’ state so that the US could have a quick exit. Four decisions are identified to signify these developmental turning points: the decision to intervene in late-2001; the decision to employ a counterterrorism strategy in early 2002; the decision to approve a counter-insurgency strategy in late-2009; and the decision to begin to withdraw US troops in June 2011. Informed by the Foreign Policy Decision-Making Approach from Foreign Policy Analysis, this research analyses what the United States foreign policy towards Afghanistan was at each of the four turning points, and how and why it was constructed. Policymakers’ idiosyncratic characteristics, especially their belief systems and images, their bureaucratic positions and personal ties, domestic influences, and, most importantly, ‘false assumptions’, are those causal factors shown to be responsible for the resulting strategy for the Global War on Terror, which began in Afghanistan, and later for the abovementioned strategy changes. One of the main arguments of this thesis is that the assumptions made by both the Bush and the Obama Administrations were ill-informed and misjudged, and derived from rigid ideologies rather than realities on the ground in Afghanistan, and that therefore the policy choices failed at the implementation phases, greatly triggering the aforementioned changes in the Global War on Terror strategy in Afghanistan over the course of the eleven years.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008.<br>Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 348 p. : ill., maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 340-348).

Research has shown that African American males are performing poorly in American public schools and are disciplined at a higher rate than other ethnic and gender groups. Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) has a long history of success with individual students and more recently in school-wide settings. School-wide PBIS offers schools the ability to tailor their rules, rewards, and consequences to the specific needs and culture of a school. This descriptive and quantitative study sought to determine if implementation with fidelity of SWPBIS positively correlated to reduced disciplinary measures. The object of this study was to determine in what ways disciplinary rates for African American males differ in American public schools that identify as using SWPBIS with fidelity as compared to American public schools that do not implement SWPBIS with fidelity. Disciplinary rates examined included ISS, OSS single incident, and OSS multiple incidents. Descriptive findings indicated that schools that implement SWPBIS show a lower rate of ISS and OSS incidents for African American males. The quantitative findings did not yield a statistically significance between schools with fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS and schools without fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS.

<p> This research replicated Dunlap, dePerczel, Clarke, Wilson, Wright, and White&rsquo;s (1994) single-subject ABAB reversal design using choice/no choice conditions with a 3 year-old Native American boy exposed to trauma. The IV consisted of the child being able to select books to be read during story time vs. no choice. The dependent variables consisted of 2 target behaviors impeding his learning in his Head Start classroom: disruptive and aggressive behaviors. Rate of Behavior 1 during Baseline 2 was 10% higher than during Intervention 1, and considerably higher than Baseline 1. During Intervention 2, rate of Behavior 1 was 10% lower than during Baseline 2, but 24% higher than Baseline 1. Therefore, Behavior 1 responded as expected to the 3 final experimental phases, but was unexpectedly low during Baseline 1 due to uncontrollable, extraneous environmental variables. Rate of Behavior 2 during Intervention 1 was 57% lower than during Baseline 1. During Baseline 2, rate of Behavior 2 was 50% higher than Intervention 1. During Intervention 2, rate of Behavior 2 was 43% below Baseline 1 but 40% higher than Baseline 2. Because occurrence rates for Behavior 2 were low, often 0-3 per session, minor changes in occurrences inflated change percentages. In essence, Behavior 2 improved substantially between Baseline 1 and Intervention 1, then remained stable at low rates across the remaining study phases. During Intervention 2, half the sessions had 0 occurrence rates for Behavior 2, spiking in the final 2 sessions due to an uncontrollable extraneous variable. Overall results appear promising. Future research, with greater observation times and control of extraneous variables, is needed to fully demonstrate intervention effectiveness with young Native American children exposed to trauma. </p><p>