[{"id":145,"date":"2018-12-11T15:15:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T19:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=145"},"modified":"2018-12-11T15:16:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T19:16:24","slug":"research-design-presentation-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/12\/11\/research-design-presentation-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Design Presentation 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"1170\" height=\"878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A9wKIKjsuBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":143,"date":"2018-12-11T12:18:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=143"},"modified":"2018-12-11T12:18:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:18:23","slug":"research-design-presentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/12\/11\/research-design-presentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Design Presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"1170\" height=\"878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k5-ldcRRotg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-research","7":"category-sisolson","8":"category-sisolson18","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":141,"date":"2018-12-07T14:47:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=141"},"modified":"2018-12-07T14:47:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:47:20","slug":"research-post-9-mentor-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/12\/07\/research-post-9-mentor-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Post 9: Mentor Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During my meeting with Professor Bachman on Thursday, <em>November 29<sup>th<\/sup>, <\/em>we briefly revisited and discussed each of the research modules I have completed over the semester. We debated the pros and cons of each design sketch and expounded upon their strengths and weaknesses. Professor Bachman then simply asked which of the three suited my intellectual curiosity the most and which I thought would be most \u201cimpactful\u201d. For my first Large N sketch, which looked at how states might abuse INTERPOL for political objectives, we both agreed that, while it was a clever way to capture the manipulation of global governance, the fact that an unknown percentage of the red notices are not publicly accessible taints the validity of my findings. While discussing with Professor Bachman, I realized that when I spoke about Russia\u2019s methods of exporting repression abroad, I felt the urge to tie in other state regimes for comparison. As a researcher, and as a thinker, I am most stimulated when I compare and contrast concept and cases. For this reason, I believe that a small-n case comparative case study is the best methodological avenue for me.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly enough, my small-n design sketch was the weakest out of my three, but Professor Bachman reassured me that, in the long run, it is better to choose the research module that is both interesting and impactful. After our 45-minute meeting, I spent the following week tweaking my methodology design. Originally, I had planned to use Mill\u2019s Method of Comparison and research both Russian and Chinese policies towards their \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations. My concern, thought, was that my two cases were too dissimilar to conduct a valid analysis. As time passed and I read more literature on state-diaspora policies, I began to consider comparing more cases&#8211; specifically cases that shared similar historical narratives. Now, I plan to compare state-diaspora policies between a number of former-Soviet Union states\/CIS states. I would like to research why some states engage their diasporas via various policies and mechanisms of extraterritorial repression. I emailed Professor Bachman with this recent revelation and will continue reviewing course-materials on how to correctly construct a typology before the final narrative presentation on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>I am slightly concerned that I have not read enough state-diaspora relations literature to accurately tease out the most important factors that influence policy. As an amateur researcher, this aspect of neopositivist research \u2013 choosing variables <em>a priori<\/em>\u2014concerns me. Over winter break, I will focus on reading more literature on state-diaspora policies and what factors are the most influential in shaping them. In addition, I will begin to familiarize myself with more CIS state affairs, not just Russia and Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During my meeting with Professor Bachman on Thursday, November 29th, we briefly revisited and discussed each of the research modules I have completed over the semester. We debated the pros and cons of each design sketch and expounded upon their strengths and weaknesses. Professor Bachman then simply asked which of the three suited my intellectual [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mentorship","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":137,"date":"2018-11-11T18:43:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T22:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=137"},"modified":"2018-11-11T19:38:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T23:38:03","slug":"research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/11\/11\/research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #8: Qualitative Data Sources for Interpretivist Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I want to analyze Soviet-era discourses on the Stalinist regime\u2019s perceptions of \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations because I want to find out why the Soviet Union felt so strongly against \u201ctraitors\u201d, \u201cdefectors\u201d, and those that \u201cbetrayed the motherland\u201d in order to help my reader understand why the regime might have employed mechanisms of extraterritorial repression such as \u201cliquidation\u201d or \u201clethal retribution.\u201d<a name=\"_ftnref1\"><\/a><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>I would have liked to extend my analysis to the present-day regime under Putin and trace how the discourses have evolved over time; however, for the purposes of this project, I will solely focus on the Stalinist regime\u2019s discourses as it is more feasible at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>I am seeking to explore why and how Stalin\u2019s regime villainized \u00e9migr\u00e9s and how this act of meaning-making might have influenced the wet-work policies enacted abroad. The participants in the discourses I plan to analyze are the political elite including and surrounding Stalin, and, in a broader sense, the top tier of the power network. Their perceptions constituted the polices that affected the object of the discourse\/practice: \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations living abroad. Their ways of speaking not only convey meanings but also have material effects &#8212; this helps me understand how state-sanctioned murders on foreign soil could have become possible.<a name=\"_ftnref2\"><\/a><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Soviet definition of defection is broader than the West\u2019s in which a defector is an individual who cooperates with a hostile foreign intelligence service.<a name=\"_ftnref4\"><\/a><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>Given that Soviet citizens were prohibited from leaving the country to settle elsewhere, those who sought political asylum were labeled defectors.<a name=\"_ftnref5\"><\/a><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>The political elite interchangeably used derogatory terms to villainize nationals living abroad, including\u00a0<em>byvshie liudi<\/em>, or \u201cformer people.\u201d<a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a>These individuals are &#8220;no longer regarded as human beings&#8221; after their offenses, which included &#8220;traveling abroad or having relatives abroad.&#8221;<a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a>This book, which includes direct excerpts from statements by Stalin\u2019s team helps me understand how the identities of emigres are constructed and represented as traitors of the collective. These texts are connected to executive orders such as the NKVD Executive Order No. 00447, passed in July 30, 1937, which was an operational order for agents to slaughter \u201cenemies-of-the-state.\u201d<a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a>The laws and regulations in 1929, 1934, and 1937 focused on the punishment of the soviets who had left the USSR without permission and been sentenced for \u201cbetrayal of Motherland.\u201d<a name=\"_ftnref7\"><\/a><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Why is the detestation of defectors so deeply codified in the Soviet-Russian collectivist narrative? As a researcher who is closely tied to the Soviet\/Russian culture, I hold certain assumptions as to why the regime might have considered emigration as a form of betrayal; but, I am eager to analyze the relevant discourses and explore this puzzle more in-depth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>I have borrowed the term \u201cLethal Retribution\u201d from Dana M. Moss\u2019s typology of extraterritorial state repression. Dana M. Moss, \u201cTransnational Repression, Diaspora Mobilization, and the Case of The Arab Spring,\u201d\u00a0<em>Social Problems<\/em>63, 2016, p. 485<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a>Jean Carabine, \u201cUnmarried Motherhood 1830-1990: A Genealogical Analysis,\u201d in Discourse as Data: A Guide to Analysis, ed. Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor, and Simeon J. Yates, London: Sage, 2000, pp.269<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a>\u201cDefectors, Soviet Era.\u201d Encyclopedia of Russian History, The Gale Group Inc. Accessed Nov. 10, 2018: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/history\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/defectors-soviet-era\">http:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/history\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/defectors-soviet-era<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a>Ibid<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a>Paul S. Gregory. Lenin\u2019s Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archive, 1. (Stanford, California, Stanford University: Hoover Institution Press, 2008) p. 38.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a>Ibid<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a>An image of the original document accessed here: https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:NKVD_Order_No._00447.jpg#\/media\/File:NKVD_Order_No._00447.jpg<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/B1750F33-B887-495F-8FAC-C41A02873AB5#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a>Nikita Petrov, \u201cCrimes of the Soviet Regime: Legal Assessment and Punishment of the Guilty Ones,\u201d <em>International Conference \u2018Crimes of Communist Regimes\u2019<\/em>(Prague, Feb.24-26),\u00a0Accessed Nov.09, 2018:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ustrcr.cz\/data\/pdf\/konference\/zlociny-komunismu\/COUNTRY%20REPORT%20RUSSIA.pdf\">https:\/\/www.ustrcr.cz\/data\/pdf\/konference\/zlociny-komunismu\/COUNTRY%20REPORT%20RUSSIA.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I want to analyze Soviet-era discourses on the Stalinist regime\u2019s perceptions of \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations because I want to find out why the Soviet Union felt so strongly against \u201ctraitors\u201d, \u201cdefectors\u201d, and those that \u201cbetrayed the motherland\u201d in order to help my reader understand why the regime might have employed mechanisms of extraterritorial repression such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":133,"date":"2018-10-28T23:44:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T03:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=133"},"modified":"2018-10-29T00:39:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T04:39:55","slug":"research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/10\/28\/research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #7: Qualitative Data Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe Extraterritorial Gap\u201d refers to the lack of literature and analysis on extraterritorial state power and specifically practices of transnational repression.<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a>Political scientist Dana M. Moss demonstrates how states exercise coercive power across borders in her comparative case study of Libyan and Syrian exile communities and encourages further research into other states, including Russia and the other former Soviet Republics.<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scholars have argued that the extensive Soviet history of eliminating \u201ctraitors\u201d abroad has been inherited by the Russian Federation. <a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>\u00a0This form of transnational repression has also been borrowed by a number of other post-Soviet states, including Uzbekistan.<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>My research aims to explain the Soviet tendency to export repression across sovereign borders and the inheritance of such policies by its successor states. Specifically, my dependent variable is operationalized as the intensity of extraterritorial repression (low, medium, or high) by a former Soviet state in comparison to the USSR (high). In other words, the specific outcome I seek to explain is the inheritance of a Soviet \u201cwetwork\u201d policy by former Soviet states and the different levels of intensity of this form of extraterritorial repression.<\/p>\n<p>Previously classified KGB materials reveal the importance that successive Soviet leaders attached to \u201cliquidating\u201d traitors. <a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a>From 1972 to 1984, intelligence officer Vasily Mitrokhin took extensive manuscript notes of KGB operations all around the globe. <a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a>Another important primary source I plan to use is a declassified CIA report from 1964 that chronicles the policies and techniques of the KGB\u2019s special liquidation operations, also known as \u201cwetwork\u201d (Mokryee Dela).\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[7]<\/a>The report outlines the various methods, organizational aspects, techniques, types of targets, and overall trends of USSR extraterritorial repression. <a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[8]<\/a>This basic structure of the report offers various indicators of the operationalization and intensity of Soviet repression abroad.<\/p>\n<p>I plan on borrowing a similar classifying procedure and using various primary and secondary sources to inform my own observations. Reports from Amnesty International and the Foreign Policy Centre are especially helpful in informing the techniques and targets of extraterritorial repression by the former Soviet States. <a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[9]<\/a>Additionally, the Central Asian Political Exiles (CAPE) database charts the extra-territorial security measures deployed by Central Asian states &#8212; more than 75 % of which relate to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\">[10]<\/a>The dataset delineates four categories of exiles and three stages of extra-territorial security: put on notice through Interpol, arrest and\/or detention, rendition and\/or attacks.<a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\">[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>Emmanuela Dalmasso, et al., \u201cIntervention: Extraterritorial Authoritarian Power,\u201d <em>Political Geography\u00a0<\/em>(2017), p. 1:http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1016\/j.polgeo.2017.07.003<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a>Dana M. Moss, \u201cTransnational Repression, Diaspora Mobilization, and the Case of The Arab Spring,\u201d\u00a0<em>Social Problems<\/em>, Volume 63, Issue 4, 1 November 2016, p.494<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a>Calder, Walton. &#8220;Russia Has a Long History of Eliminating &#8216;Enemies of the State&#8217;.&#8221; The Washington Post. March 13, 2018. Accessed October 29, 2018. https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/monkey-cage\/wp\/2018\/03\/13\/russia-has-a-long-history-of-eliminating-enemies-of-the-state\/?utm_term=.ece9edc971ce.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a>David Lewis \u201cIlliberal Spaces:\u201d Uzbekistan&#8217;s extraterritorial security practices and the spatial politics of contemporary authoritarianism,\u201d Nationalities Papers, 43:1, (January 2015) p. 140-159<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a>Ibid, Walton<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a>Vasiliy Mitrokhin, &#8220;The Papers of Vasiliy Mitrokhin.&#8221; <em>Churchill Archives Centre MITN<\/em>, Accessed October 29, 2018. https:\/\/janus.lib.cam.ac.uk\/db\/node.xsp?id=EAD\/GBR\/0014\/MITN.\u00a0The Mitrokhin Archive documents can be accessed through this website portal and all of the documents are in Russian.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[7]<\/a>Central Intelligence Agency, \u201cSoviet Use of Assassination and Kidnapping\u201d\u00a0<em>CIA Historical Review Program,\u00a0<\/em>Written. Feb. 1964, Declassified Sept. 1993,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol19no3\/html\/v19i3a01p_0001.htm\">https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol19no3\/html\/v19i3a01p_0001.htm<\/a><em>,\u00a0<\/em>Accessed September 28<sup>th<\/sup>, 2018.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[8]<\/a>Ibid<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[9]<\/a>Amnesty International, \u201cReturn to Torture: Extradition, Forcible Returns, and Removals to Central Asia,\u201dJuly 2013, Accessed Oct. 28, 2018: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/download\/Documents\/12000\/eur040012013en.pdf\">https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/download\/Documents\/12000\/eur040012013en.pdf<\/a>. As well as &#8212; Adam Hug, The Foreign Policy compiled a report: \u201cNo Shelter: The harassment of Activists Abroad by Intelligence Services from the Former Soviet Union,\u201d The Foreign Policy Centre , Nov. 2016 Accessed Oct. 28, 2018: <a href=\"https:\/\/fpc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/1786.pdf\">https:\/\/fpc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/1786.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[10]<\/a>Database of known Central Asian political exiles (CAPE), <em>Exeter Central Asian Studies Network<\/em>, Accessed Oct. 26: \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/excas.net\/exiles\/\">https:\/\/excas.net\/exiles\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/81B35817-0BE2-4698-B7C3-F624F485B1E8#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[11]<\/a>John Heathershaw, Rosa Brown, and Eve Bishop, &#8220;Practices and Patterns of Extraterritorial Security: Introducing the Central Asian Political Exiles (CAPE) Database.&#8221;<em>The Foreign Policy Centre<\/em>. November 21, 2016. Accessed Oct. 29, 2018: <a href=\"https:\/\/fpc.org.uk\/practices-patterns-extraterritorial-security-introducing-central-asian-political-exiles-cape-database\/\">https:\/\/fpc.org.uk\/practices-patterns-extraterritorial-security-introducing-central-asian-political-exiles-cape-database\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe Extraterritorial Gap\u201d refers to the lack of literature and analysis on extraterritorial state power and specifically practices of transnational repression.[1]Political scientist Dana M. Moss demonstrates how states exercise coercive power across borders in her comparative case study of Libyan and Syrian exile communities and encourages further research into other states, including Russia and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":128,"date":"2018-10-14T17:23:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T21:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=128"},"modified":"2018-10-16T11:41:34","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T15:41:34","slug":"research-portfolio-post-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/10\/14\/research-portfolio-post-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #6: State Repression Transcends State Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Given that there is no existing database that accurately monitors the trend of state-sponsored assassinations on foreign soil, I had to reconceptualize my original research puzzle to accommodate a Large N methodology. I began by questioning what is it about this form of state violence that strikes me as particularly interesting. I find that when a sovereign state exerts its authority by assassinating one of its \u00e9migr\u00e9s abroad, the irony of an international system based on sovereignty is underscored. Thus, my dependent variable is a state&#8217;s manipulation of international organizations\/system (the norms for engaging with these organizations) to fulfill political objectives.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian government has reportedly issued Red Notices to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) in order to satisfy political objectives.<a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>Focusing on INTERPOL in particular may offer insight into how this longstanding form of global governance and international legal instrument is politically wielded by states that aim to export repression across borders. My dependent variable will be operationalized as an interval-ratio indicator: the amount of Interpol Red Notices issued by a state. The indicators this dataset provides are: Last name, Nationality, country Wanted By, and the number of Search Results (Red Notices).<a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>For the purposes of my project, I would focus on how many Red Notices are issued by each member state (interval ratio) so I could later dig deeper into my research puzzle: <strong>why <\/strong>do some states issue Red Notices more frequently than others?<\/p>\n<p>My unit of analysis will be the Member nations on Interpol, 192 in all, which include dictatorships as well as democracies. According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, at least 17 countries, including China, Iran, Pakistan and Venezuela, have abused this power to persecute political opponents, economic targets or environmental activists in the past.<a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Limitations of this dataset include the fact that it cannot be exported into an Excel spreadsheet and the data, which is continuously refreshed, does not have a timestamp. Lastly, Interpol does not publicize every single Red Notice; nonetheless, the percentage that they do post is substantial enough for a Large-N study. A supplement dataset could be The Political Terror Scale (PTS) which measures \u201cstate terror\u201d: violations of physical or personal integrity rights carried out by a state (or its agents). <a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>This category of human rights includes political violence and includes abuses such as extrajudicial killing and political imprisonment. PTS rates \u201cstate terror\u201d on a scale from 1-5 (ordinal level of measurement), 5 being pervasive state terror throughout the society.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>Bill Browder,<u>Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Mans Fight for Justice<\/u>. New York: Simon &amp; Schuster Paperbacks, 2015.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a>Red Notice Search Database, <em>International Criminal Police Organization<\/em>, Accessed October 12<sup>th<\/sup>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.interpol.int\/notice\/search\/wanted\">https:\/\/www.interpol.int\/notice\/search\/wanted<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a>Libby Lewis &#8220;Interpol&#8217;s Red Notices Used by Some to Pursue Political Dissenters, Opponents.&#8221; <em>ICIJ<\/em>. March 16, 2011. Accessed October 12, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/interpols-red-flag\/interpols-red-notices-used-some-pursue-political-dissenters-opponents\/\">https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/interpols-red-flag\/interpols-red-notices-used-some-pursue-political-dissenters-opponents\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/8A2C2A5B-5FF5-497B-9DA6-8832B2CF8F87#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a>Reed M Wood and Mark Gibney. \u201cThe Political Terror Scale (PTS): A Re-introduction and a Comparison to CIRI.\u201d\u00a0<em>Human Rights Quarterly <\/em>32(2): 2010, 367\u2014400. (pdf)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given that there is no existing database that accurately monitors the trend of state-sponsored assassinations on foreign soil, I had to reconceptualize my original research puzzle to accommodate a Large N methodology. I began by questioning what is it about this form of state violence that strikes me as particularly interesting. I find that when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":124,"date":"2018-09-30T20:53:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T00:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=124"},"modified":"2018-10-01T22:42:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T02:42:55","slug":"research-portfolio-post-5-research-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/09\/30\/research-portfolio-post-5-research-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #5 : Research Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am proposing to research the Soviet Union and Russian Federation\u2019s relationship with International Law because I am seeking an explanation for trends of extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil (EJAFS), starting from the Stalinist Soviet Era to Putin\u2019s current regime. This will help readers understand how international law has been and is (re)calibrated.<\/p>\n<p>The Soviet definition of defection is broader than the West\u2019s in which a defector is an individual who cooperates with a hostile foreign intelligence service.<sup>1 <\/sup>Given that Soviet citizens were prohibited from leaving the country to settle elsewhere, those who sought political asylum were labeled defectors.<sup>2<\/sup>The detestation of defectors is deeply codified in the Soviet-Russian collectivist narrative. In 2010, Putin stated: \u201ctraitors will kick the bucket, believe me.\u201d <sup>3 <\/sup>Putin\u2019s ominous rhetoric expressed \u201cwhat has been known for a long time,\u201d a State Duma deputy told the <em>New Yorker<\/em>. <sup>4<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Among other targets, Stalin\u2019s Great Terror campaign purged enemies-of-the-state that defected abroad. Under the Directorate of Special Tasks, established within the NKVD, officers had the right to liquidate defectors abroad without additional documentation.<sup>5<\/sup>The 1937 Operational Decree No. 00447 acted as a \u201ccookbook used by thousands of NKVD agents&#8221; to murder scores of individuals and emigre leaders participating in anti-Soviet activities emerged as primary targets.<sup>6 <\/sup>It was also during this campaign that many members of the Soviet intelligence community began defecting to Western Europe. For example, former agent Ignace Reiss announced his defection in a defiant letter to Stalin and was later assassinated by NKVD in Switzerland in 1937. <sup>7<\/sup>In one of its declassified reports, the CIA details the 1940 assassination of Leonid Trotsky in a Mexican suburb and reveals both \u201cthe ruthless tenacity and skill of the Soviet service.\u201d<sup>8<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Another CIA declassified memo chronicles the policies and techniques of the KGB\u2019s special operations, also known as their as &#8220;wet work&#8221; (Mokryee Dela). <sup>9 <\/sup>The 1964 report states that these operations were \u201cdesigned to demonstrate that the Soviet regime can strike its enemies anywhere in the world\u201d; however, the report also concluded that the Soviets were increasingly concerned with the adverse publicity generated by EJAFS.<sup>10<\/sup>Indeed, assassinations outside the Soviet bloc dwindled during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras. <sup>11<\/sup>Rumors even circulated that Yeltsin categorically forbade the conduct of such extra-judicial retaliation. <sup>12 <\/sup>Similarly, after a historical trend of EJAFS by the CIA, U.S. President Ford enacted E.O. 11905 which explicitly forbade government employees to engage such practices. <sup>13\u00a0<\/sup>Nonetheless, EJAFS practices crept back into domestic and international law. The idea of \u2018compulsion of legality\u2019 offers a possible explanation.<sup>14\u00a0<\/sup>Once the state practice of lethal force has been recognized as systematic, it needs to be dealt with in legal terms. <sup>15 <\/sup><\/p>\n<p>A large chunk of scholarly literature is dedicated to assessing Israeli and U.S. policies of targeted killings (TK). The means and methods of vary, but the common element of all TKs is that lethal force is intentionally used against a target specifically identified in advance. <sup>16 <\/sup>The term is traced back to 2000 after Israel publicized its policy of TKs against alleged terrorists in Occupied Palestinian Territories.<sup>17<\/sup>Similarly, the U.S. Legal Adviser to State Department outlined the government\u2019s legal justifications for TKs, based on its asserted right to self-defense.<sup>18<\/sup>According to a Foucauldian perspective, when fundamental legal terms (i.e. self-defense) begin to accommodate the phenomena of TKs, these basic concepts are recalibrated within the constellation of international law. <sup>19<\/sup>This induction of TK policies into the legal discourse may have enabled its manifestation into Russia\u2019s domestic law. The UN Special Report highlights Russia as the third state having legally codified a policy on TKs. <sup>20 <\/sup><\/p>\n<p>In 2006, the Russian Parliament passed a law permitting security services to kill alleged terrorists overseas, if authorized by the President.<sup>21<\/sup>Russian legislators \u201cinsisted that they were emulating Israeli and US actions\u201d by legalizing the use of special forces abroad against extremism.<sup>22<\/sup>After earlier administrations formally disbanded it, Putin codified EJAFS into domestic law once again\u2014a possible example of the \u2018compulsion of legality\u2019. Putin invokes international law to justify Russia\u2019s behavior as globally acceptable. In his 2014 address to the State Duma justifying the annexation of Crimea, Putin mentions international law six times. <sup>23 <\/sup>Putin emphasizes interpretations of international law that focus on previous violations by other states, which improves Russia\u2019s appearance and damages the integrity of the West. <sup>24<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>In 2012, Putin signed another law redefining treason so that Russians working for foreign intelligence and citizens who pass state secrets to foreign organizations can be convicted. <sup>25<\/sup>While Putin\u2019s rhetoric is more deeply steeped in the counterterrorism lexicon, the underpinnings of the legislation harken back to Stalin\u2019s decrees. Targets of both domestic laws similarly capture the \u201ctraitors\u201d on foreign soil. Most recently, former military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal was poisoned in England and the British Prime Minister, Theresa May asserted that the action is an \u201cunlawful use of force by Russian against the U.K\u201d. <sup>26<\/sup>The UN Special Report affirms that TKs conducted in the territory of other States raise sovereignty concerns because, under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, States are forbidden from using force in the territory of another State. <sup>27<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>One could argue that the State\u2019s violations of international norms and ex-post facto justification is a continuation of its shaping of international law. By violating a norm, the perpetrator suspends said norm, transforms it into a symbol lacking enforcement, and thus impinges on its validity. <sup>28<\/sup>Thus, a number of scholars argue that the international legal community focus on strengthening legal norms prohibiting extrajudicial assassinations. <sup>29<\/sup>Others contend that TKs should be analyzed via ways that capture the moral complexities rather than simply condemning or exonerating them.<sup>30<\/sup>Lastly, some scholars claim that concentrating on the technicalities of particular legal codes distracts from the tragedy.<sup>31<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Generally, why are EJAFS codified into domestic law under some states\/administrations compared to others? Readers should care about this topic because it offers insight into how contradictions of international norms recalibrate international law. More specifically: why is it that, between Stalin\u2019s regime and Putin\u2019s, EJAFS are enshrined in domestic law at times and disbanded during others?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Notes<\/p>\n<p>[1] &#8220;Defectors, Soviet Era.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Encyclopedia of Russian History<\/em>, The Gale Group Inc. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/history\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/defectors-soviet-era\">http:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/history\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/defectors-soviet-era<\/a>(Accessed: September 30, 2018)<\/p>\n<p>[2] Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[3] Shehab Khan. &#8220;Video Re-emerges of Putin Threat That &#8216;traitors Will Kick the Bucket&#8217;,&#8221; <em>The Independent<\/em>, March 07, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/vladimir-putin-traitors-kick-bucket-sergei-skripal-latest-video-30-pieces-silver-a8243206.html\">https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/vladimir-putin-traitors-kick-bucket-sergei-skripal-latest-video-30-pieces-silver-a8243206.html<\/a>.Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[4] Joshua Yaffa. &#8220;Putin&#8217;s New War on \u2018Traitors\u2019,&#8221; <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, June 18, 2017. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/putins-new-war-on-traitors\">https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/putins-new-war-on-traitors<\/a>. Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[5] Central Intelligence Agency, \u201cSoviet Use of Assassination and Kidnapping\u201d <em>CIA Historical Review Program, <\/em>Written. Feb. 1964, Declassified Sept. 1993,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol19no3\/html\/v19i3a01p_0001.htm\">https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol19no3\/html\/v19i3a01p_0001.htm<\/a><em>, <\/em>Accessed September 28<sup>th<\/sup>, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[6] Paul S. Gregory. <em>Lenin\u2019s Brain and Other Tales<\/em><em>from the Secret Soviet Archive<\/em>, 1. (Stanford, California, Stanford University: Hoover Institution Press, 2008) p. 48.<\/p>\n<p>[7]Stephen Schwartz. &#8220;Intellectuals and Assassins &#8211; Annals of Stalin&#8217;s Killerati,&#8221; <em>The New York Times.<\/em>January 24, 1988. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1988\/01\/24\/books\/intellectuals-and-assassins-annals-of-stalin-s-killerati.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1988\/01\/24\/books\/intellectuals-and-assassins-annals-of-stalin-s-killerati.html<\/a>. Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[8] Central Intelligence Agency, \u201cLeonid Trotsky, Dupe of the NKVD\u201d <em>CIA Historical Review Program, <\/em>Written. Feb. 1964, Declassified July 1996,<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol16no1\/html\/v16i1a03p_0001.htm\">https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence\/kent-csi\/vol16no1\/html\/v16i1a03p_0001.htm<\/a>.<\/em>Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[9] CIA \u201cSoviet Use of Assassination and Kidnapping\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[10] Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[11] Christopher Andrew. &#8220;Counting the Cost of Putin&#8217;s War against &#8216;traitors&#8217;.&#8221; <em>The Sunday Times<\/em>, March 18, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/counting-the-cost-of-putins-war-against-traitors-6g69slmgn\">https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/counting-the-cost-of-putins-war-against-traitors-6g69slmgn<\/a>. Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[12] Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[13] Exec. Order No. 11905, 3 C.F.R. (1976).<\/p>\n<p>[14] David Dyzenhaus. \u2018The Compulsion of Legality\u2019 as cited in Susanne Krasmann, \u201cTargeted killing and its law: on a mutually constitutive relationship,\u201d\u00a0Leiden Journal of International Law\u00a025, no.3 (July 2012): 669<\/p>\n<p>[15] Susanne Krasmann, \u201cTargeted killing and its law: on a mutually constitutive relationship,\u201d\u00a0Leiden Journal of International Law\u00a025, no.3 (July 2012): 680<\/p>\n<p>[16] Philip\u00a0Alston, \u2018Study on Targeted Killings\u2019,\u00a0United Nations General Assembly, May 28, 2010,\u00a0www2.ohchr.org\/english\/bodies\/hrcouncil\/docs\/14session\/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf<\/p>\n<p>[17] Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[18] Harold Koh, Legal Adviser, Department of State, The Obama Administration and International Law, Keynote Address at the Annual Meeting of the American Soc\u2019y of Int\u2019l Law (25 Mar. 2010).<\/p>\n<p>[19] Susanne Krasmann, \u201cTargeted killing and its law: on a mutually constitutive relationship,\u201d\u00a0Leiden Journal of International Law\u00a025, no.3 (July 2012): 680<\/p>\n<p>[20] Philip\u00a0Alston, Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[21] Federal Law No. 35-FZ on Counteracting Terrorism (2006) available at: http:\/\/www.legislationline.org\/topics\/country\/7\/topic\/5.. . Accessed September 28, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[22]Steven Eke, \u201cRussia Law on Killing Extremists Abroad\u201d\u00a0<em>BBC<\/em>, November 26, 2006.<\/p>\n<p>[23] Address by\u00a0President of\u00a0the\u00a0Russian Federation (March 18, 2014) <a href=\"http:\/\/en.kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/20603\">http:\/\/en.kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/20603<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[24]Meghan Bodette, &#8220;Dangerous precedents: Russia&#8217;s use and misuse of international law.&#8221;<em>Nations &amp; States<\/em>. February 25, 2016. <a href=\"https:\/\/nationsandstates.com\/2016\/02\/25\/dangerous-precedents-russias-use-and-misuse-of-international-law\/\">https:\/\/nationsandstates.com\/2016\/02\/25\/dangerous-precedents-russias-use-and-misuse-of-international-law\/<\/a>.Accessed September 29, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[25] &#8220;Laws of Attrition, Crackdown on Russia&#8217;s Civil Society after Putin&#8217;s Return to the Presidency.&#8221; <em>Human Rights Watch<\/em>, October 19, 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2013\/04\/24\/laws-attrition\/crackdown-russias-civil-society-after-putins-return-presidency\">https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2013\/04\/24\/laws-attrition\/crackdown-russias-civil-society-after-putins-return-presidency<\/a>. Accessed September 29, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[26] Tom Ruys. &#8220;License to Kill&#8221; in Salisbury: State-sponsored Assassinations and the Jus Ad Bellum.&#8221; <em>Just Security<\/em>, March 15, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/53924\/license-kill-salisbury-state-sponsored-assassinations-jus-ad-bellum\/\">https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/53924\/license-kill-salisbury-state-sponsored-assassinations-jus-ad-bellum\/<\/a>. Accessed September 30, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>[27]\u00a0Alston, Ibid<\/p>\n<p>[28] Krasmann, Ibid 681<\/p>\n<p>[29] Jason Fisher, \u201cTargeted killing, norms, and international law\u201d, <em>Columbia Journal Transnational Law\u00a0<\/em>45, (2007) p. 712.<\/p>\n<p>[30] Stephen de Wijze, \u201cTargeted killing: a \u2018dirty hands\u2019 analysis,\u201d\u00a0<em>Contemporary Politics\u00a0<\/em>15, no. 3 (September 2009): 305-320.<\/p>\n<p>[31] Thomas Gregory, \u201cDrones, targeted killings, and the limitations of international law\u201d <em>International Political Sociology<\/em>, 9, (2015), p. 197.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am proposing to research the Soviet Union and Russian Federation\u2019s relationship with International Law because I am seeking an explanation for trends of extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil (EJAFS), starting from the Stalinist Soviet Era to Putin\u2019s current regime. This will help readers understand how international law has been and is (re)calibrated. The Soviet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":118,"date":"2018-09-23T03:59:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T03:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=118"},"modified":"2018-09-25T02:04:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T02:04:07","slug":"research-puzzle-proposal-4-article-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/09\/23\/research-puzzle-proposal-4-article-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #4: The Moral and Legal Implications of Targeted Killings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Both researchers, Stephen de Wijze and Susanne Krasmann, opt for the same type of introductory hook. While de Wijze starts his paper with the date of the targeted killing of Salah Shehada by Israeli Defense Forces, Krasmann begins hers with the date of President Obama\u2019s speech announcing Osama bin Laden\u2019s assassination. Both papers analyze targeted killings (TK); but, even by the first sentence, one can ascertain a divergence in their respective analytical approaches. De Wijze focuses on the actual act of Shehada\u2019s TK and its moral complexities, while Krasmann assesses the discourse surrounding Bin Laden\u2019s TK and its legal implications.<\/p>\n<p>De Wijze argues that analyzing TKs within a \u2018dirty hands\u2019 DH framework better captures the moral complexity rather than simply condemning or exonerating it. [1] He explains that when agents are motivated by moral obligations to commit moral violations, they have a case of DH. While de Wijze explicitly states that the principal legal questions are \u201cbeyond the scope\u201d of his paper, Krasmann focuses more on the legal implications from a Foucauldian perspective. [2] That said, both researchers expounded the same principles (legal and moral) including self-defense. De Wijze concludes that Shehada\u2019s TK fulfills the conditions of a DH analysis and can be justified in terms of legitimate self-defense.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Krasmann invokes this term for a completely different purpose. According to a Foucauldian perspective, when fundamental legal terms (i.e.self-defense) begin to accommodate the phenomena, as a security <em>dispositif,<\/em>said elementaryconcepts are displaced withinthe constellation of international law. [3] The crux of her argument is that TKs and its law are mutually constitutive and that once the act is legally articulated and is received by the legal debate, the understandings of those basic concepts are recalibrated. While they are formally preserved, they are rearranged in a way that legalizes the act &#8212; without actually amending the law. [4] Despite de Wijze\u2019s attempts to sidestep the legal questions at play, Krasmann\u2019s argument shows that any discourse on the topic inherently conjures both morality and legality.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the two papers reference some of the same seminal Israeli Foreign Ministry statements, U.S. Executive Orders, and UN Charter Articles. De Wijze includes a multiplicity of interpretations in the case of Shahada\u2019s TK and evidences the mixed reactions from state officials and media outlets. These researchers took puzzles similar to mine, selected one case in particular, applied a certain type of analysis to it, and then abductively spiraled towards a greater understanding of the phenomena. The qualitative evidence they integrated enhanced the intertextuality and propelled their interpretivist research further.<\/p>\n<p>I think that both articles inform my research in terms of which pieces of evidence are considered essential to the discussion. I particularly enjoyed learning about Foucauldian perspective on the interplay between practice and law (or knowledge and power). Furthermore, the Israeli and U.S. Policies of TKs are often invoked when Russian legislators justify their own policies on extra-judicial assassinations on foreign soil. [5]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Stephen de Wijze, \u201cTargeted killing: a \u2018dirty hands\u2019 analysis,\u201d <em>Contemporary Politics<\/em>15, no. 3 (September 2009): 305-320.<\/p>\n<p>[2] Ibid 308<\/p>\n<p>[3] Susanne Krasmann, \u201cTargeted killing and its law: on a mutually constitutive relationship,\u201d <em>Leiden Journal of International Law <\/em>25, no.3 (July 2012): 680<\/p>\n<p>[4] Ibid 665-682<\/p>\n<p>[5]\u00a0Steven Eke, \u201cRussia Law on Killing Extremists Abroad\u201d <i>BBC<\/i>, 27 Nov. 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both researchers, Stephen de Wijze and Susanne Krasmann, opt for the same type of introductory hook. While de Wijze starts his paper with the date of the targeted killing of Salah Shehada by Israeli Defense Forces, Krasmann begins hers with the date of President Obama\u2019s speech announcing Osama bin Laden\u2019s assassination. Both papers analyze targeted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":108,"date":"2018-09-01T00:38:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T00:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=108"},"modified":"2018-09-23T04:00:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T04:00:41","slug":"research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/09\/01\/research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #3: Philosophical Wagers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I appreciate this opportunity to reflect on what type of baggage, or assumptions, I will be carrying with me on the journey that is social science research. In this imaginary duffle bag that I plan on slinging across my back, I must prepare a package of tools that I deem useful for the journey ahead [1]. The methodology I choose will inform the way in which I navigate myself, while my ontological convictions will inform the type of destination that I am navigating towards in the first place. Both neo-positivist and interpretivist routes systematically produce empirical knowledge and both journeys would be internally valid in their own right. \u00a0But I now realize that it is more a matter of how I visualize, or would like to visualize, my final destination. In other words, <em>what type of concepts (destinations) within our social reality are even out there for me to understand and explain (journey towards)? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Before embarking on said journey, Abbott emphasizes the importance of reflecting on one\u2019s own intellectual personality. More often than not, I take new concepts and ascertain how they connect to ones that I am already familiar with, characteristic of an \u201cS\u201d person [2]. This intellectual habit of chaining disparate concepts very well may manifest itself during my research process. I admit, albeit grudgingly, that I feel most comfortable when I can pigeonhole concepts into a symmetrical model of social reality. On the other hand, I aspire to be a researcher who accepts ambiguity and has the courage to wallow in it because I believe that social reality is subjective, that context matters, and that all experience is relative. In my last post I mentioned conducting a comparative analysis between the U.S. and Russia, similar to the Kurt Weyland\u2019s research comparing the Arab Spring and the Revolutions of 1848 [3]. This, as Dr. Boesnecker commented, is more of a neo-positivistic approach despite the fact that I thought I was leaning towards (or subconsciously wanted to lean towards) a more interpretivist approach. Personally, I do not believe that there is always a causal mechanism lurking beneath the surface, one that can be teased out with the correct hypotheses and best-operationalized variables. That said, it seems apparent that I have a habit of linking concepts together in a way that assumes generalizability. Even whilst writing this post I feel like I am unearthing a subtle divergence between the social science researcher that I aspire to be and the thinker that I am now.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of my own research puzzle, I think it would be na\u00efve to claim that I could ever be a completely objective observer. No matter how much I try to minimize the political assumptions I carry as a Russo-Georgian immigrant to the U.S., they will subliminally inform my reasoning\u2014whether it ends up being inductive, deductive, or abductive. I must be cautious not to imbue certain jaded, normative assumptions that could explain the behavior and motivations of states that sanction extra-judicial assassinations on foreign soil. I just hope that I can strike an appropriate degree of transparency for maintaining a sense of trust with my reader. I look forward to further pondering my ontological and methodological commitments and finding a way that I can reconcile both in a way that most completely satisfies my intellectual personality.\u00a0<a name=\"_ftn1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>[1]\u00a0Abbott, Andrew Delano.\u00a0<em>Methods of Discovery Heuristics for the Social Sciences<\/em>. 1st ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2004. p. 3-79<\/p>\n<p>[2]Abbott, Andrew Delano.\u00a0<em>Methods of Discovery Heuristics for the Social Sciences<\/em>. 1st ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2004. p. 245<\/p>\n<p>[3]Weyland, Kurt. &#8220;The Arab Spring: Why the Surprising Similarities with the Revolutionary Wave of 1848?&#8221;\u00a0<em>Perspectives on Politics<\/em>10, no. 4 (2012): 917-34. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/23326925.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I appreciate this opportunity to reflect on what type of baggage, or assumptions, I will be carrying with me on the journey that is social science research. In this imaginary duffle bag that I plan on slinging across my back, I must prepare a package of tools that I deem useful for the journey ahead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-research","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":107,"date":"2018-09-01T00:37:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T00:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/?p=107"},"modified":"2018-09-23T04:01:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T04:01:11","slug":"research-portfolio-post-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/2018\/09\/01\/research-portfolio-post-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #2: Mentor Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I met with my faculty mentor, Professor Bachman, on August 30th and September 6th. The first time I stopped by his office, we spent some time getting to know one another and spoke of our respective research interests for about thirty minutes. I briefly outlined my proposed puzzle, making sure to convey that I am open to branching out into other avenues. Professor Bachman\u2019s expertise lies in international humanitarian law with a focus on United States violations. During our first meeting, I expressed my interest in how the Soviet Union and Russia contribute(d) to shaping international law via the state&#8217;s violation of it (i.e. extra-judicial assassinations on foreign soil). Although the fluctuating trend of these &#8220;state-sanctioned&#8221; assassination by the USSR\/Russia is an interesting puzzle to unpack, the aforementioned feedback loop is not exclusive to Russia. In my second meeting with Professor Bachman on September 6th, we discussed adding another comparative dimension to my research project: a parallel study of the United States\u2019 relationship to extra-judicial assassinations on foreign soil. Not surprisingly, my mentor had a wide array of information\/sources for conducting this type of research. Professor Bachman also informed me of the difference between U.S. &#8216;signature strikes\u2019 and &#8216;personality strikes&#8217;, and we decided that the latter better corresponds to the targeted assassinations of defectors by Russia. In particular, he mentioned one \u201cpersonality strike\u201d of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, that was conducted in Yemen under the Obama administration. Unlike the Russian Foreign Ministry, that vehemently denies participation in the assassinations in question, the United States Judicial Department released a \u201cWhite Paper\u201d that attempts to justify its actions ex-post facto. Delving into a comparative analysis between Russia\u2019s justifications (or lack thereof) and the United States\u2019 is a possible route for the future. That said, after speaking with Dr. Boesnecker, it is clear to me the importance of not settling for a particular methodology just yet. Although my puzzle seems to lend itself more towards an interpretive direction and my faculty mentor considers himself as an interpretivist researcher, I recognize the benefits of keeping my options open and envisioning my research with various methodologies. Additionally, my mentor and I briefly discussed customary law and the concept of jus cogens during our later meeting. My next steps will be reading secondary sources on international law and which forces contribute the most to shaping it. Whilst reading, I will be inputting notes into Zotero and keeping track of possible \u201cbuckets\u201d to sort scholars and theories into. These are all important stepping stones for me to get familiar with before I delve deeper into the puzzle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I met with my faculty mentor, Professor Bachman, on August 30th and September 6th. The first time I stopped by his office, we spent some time getting to know one another and spoke of our respective research interests for about thirty minutes. I briefly outlined my proposed puzzle, making sure to convey that I am [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mentorship","8":"category-sisolson","9":"category-sisolson18","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/tinamaglakelidze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]