Thesiss

After 9/11, public concerns about terrorism in the United States escalated. In the next years, the threat of terrorism prompted several far-reaching foreign and domestic policies, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the massive increases in federal defense spending, upgr…

A common view among scholars is that extended security threats "ratchet" up civil liberties violations and entrench them in a state's legal regime. This dissertation suggests that the opposite can occur. A prolonged threat may allow a society to incorporate civil liberties into …

This dissertation examines the history of the concept of (what would translate in English as) “human rights” in modern Japanese history. Specifically, it traces how the term jinken (lit. “human rights” today) has become a term able to articulate Japanese wartime and colonial atr…