DACSS 602

Commentary

As we learned about the aspects of a wide range of research methods in the course, we were able to develop our individual ideas of what we would like to examine as “researchable” political, social and/or economic dilemmas and/or research questions.

Eventually, we had to focus our ideas so that we could create small groups to engage in a research project for presenting at the end of semester research symposium.

In addition, graduate students developed individual research proposals.

Brainstorming

Among the many ideas I was able to explore through the course:

1. “Cancel Culture” - Americans debate both what the legal definition of free speech is and the social obligations and responsibilities around free speech are. This has led to disagreements about “political correctness” and “cancel culture.” What are the reasons for, characteristics of, and political ideologies of Americans view “cancel culture” differently (some see it as holding people accountable, other see it as unreasonable censorship and thought policing)? I think this question is important to understand how to cross the cultural divide among Americans that is more and more divisive. Individuals, businesses, social media companies, and social justice advocates would be interested in these answers.

2. Vaccine Refusal – Are the people who are not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 the same people that were vaccine hesitant before the pandemic? If not, is their main reason given the speed of development and approval of the COVID-19 vaccines? If that is not their logic, what is? I think this question is key to understand how to get buy-in from unvaccinated persons to try and slow the mutation of the COVID-19 virus, if not possible to stop the pandemic any longer. Additionally, are people who agree with other types of conspiracy theories less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and if so, have the same beliefs affected their vaccination choices regarding their children?

3. Climate Change Deniers – What are the characteristics of those who acknowledge v. deny climate change is happening, and of those who acknowledge it, what are the characteristics of those who believe it is linked to human activity? What behaviors and policies are each of those groups of people willing to support to stop/change the course of climate change? And of those who believe it is happening and have no desire to stop it, what are their reasons? I think these questions are important as the way we message the urgency of changing behaviors and policies to change the course of climate change is relevant to all people alive today as well as future generations. Private corporations, governments and NGOs would be interested in these answers.

4. Military Environmental Cost - The resources and toxic materials used and deployed by armies and military factions during acts of war have major consequences to the global environment as well as local environmental risks. What are the legal and ethical obligations of invading military powers to mitigate and remediate their environmental impact on the areas they invade and occupy?

5. Resource Competition and Climate Change - What are the direct, indirect, and ancillary factors related to climate change that have and/or could lead to political and social instability and violent conflict in various regions?

Individual Research Proposal

Through the introduction below, you can get a sense of the research proposal I wrote as part of the course. To read the entire proposal, you can read it here.

Introduction

With the post-occupation takeover of Iraq by ISIS and the recent fall of Afghanistan demonstrating an evident lack of transitional capacity on the part of the U.S., I look to understand what has and what has not been done to improve that capacity. A review of the literature and government code demonstrates that there is a significant failure to engage in effective coordination between military and civil institutions in the U.S., despite mandates set for the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense to create cross-functional, strategic partnerships social and humanitarian actors (Sopko, 2021).

Since 1997, the U.S. has engaged in a series of failed attempts at creating a central knowledge base to address the reality that no concrete stability can be established without long-term, local engagement in conflict zones. (Faucher & Morgan, 2021). At the same time, the number of veterans in the U.S. has dropped since the end of the draft in 1973 to represent a much smaller segment of society, with approximately 7% of the population identifying as veterans and 41% of those having served during the pre-and-post-9/11 Gulf War era (1990 to present) (Schaeffer, 2021). One of many problems with the lack of transparency in U.S. Department of Defense data is the absence of transparent reporting on the number of veterans in the U.S. that have served explicitly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Estimates put the number at 3 million, with up to 80% of these veterans serving in combat zones (Shane, 2021).

In this proposal, I examine the potential resource that our society has in the lived experience of over 2 million living combat veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. How can the narratives of U.S. combat veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars serve the civil and humanitarian stabilization and long-term peace initiatives in those countries and regions in ways other methods have failed?

The field of veteran studies has theoretical perspectives in varying subcategories of psychological injury, physical disabilities, educational and employment needs, and post-service social and financial stressors. I want to expand veteran studies within the significant gap that exists in the absence of narrative studies of veterans’ experience from within their service rather than after their service.

Some research exists in this space, but my literature review consisted of research that primarily pertains to how those narratives can inform treatment for post-traumatic stress (Decker & Paul, 2013; Geisler & Juarez, 2019), women’s issues (Feldman & Hanlon, 2012; Daphna-Tekoah et al., 2021), anti-war political movements (Decker & Paul, 2013, Flores, 2017), or veterans’ identities and societal role in higher education (Phillips & Lincoln, 2017; Mobley & Miller, 2019). However, the broader study of civil-military relations pertains to theories that largely ignore all but elite military voices.

This narrative research study will be exploratory and within the realm of grounded theory as a guideline for building conceptual frameworks that arise through the study (Robson & McCartan, 2015). While it is a challenge to engage in this type of research without any expectations of the potential implications of the results, remaining open to developing themes is not inconsistent with using grounded theory in a flexible design (Robson & McCartan, 2015).

I hope this study can provide a map for additional, expanded research on new ways to navigate the barriers to military and civilian integration of knowledge and the practical application of that knowledge in stabilization and peacekeeping operations.

On a philosophical level, I believe this study will contribute important information on how veterans’ stories are received and how the narrative process varies among the diverse demographic of post-9/11 conflict veterans. The use of grounded theory in this study is called for precisely due to the absence of existing research on combat veterans’ narratives as a resource for cooperative peacebuilding in former conflict zones.

Group Research Project

For our group research project, we looked at the question of, “Was there a change in the media’s framing of the U.S. withdrawal in Afghanistan from when it was agreed upon by ex-President Trump and when it was executed by President Biden?”"

Hypothesis: The change in administration would result in a shift in how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was framed in the media.

Independent Variable: Administration (Biden/Trump)

Moderating Variable: Publication Source (New York Times/Wall Street Journal)

Dependent Variables:

• Sources: U.S. military-intelligence-security officials, U.S. veterans, Afghan eyewitnesses, and ground reporting
• Taliban framed as a threat to U.S. national security
• Frequency of mention of women/girls in articles

Methodology

For our data collection, we used a keyword search “Afghanistan Withdrawal” in both media sources resulted in 625 articles. We took a random, stratified sample of 300 articles with a proportional amount from each administration and each source.

Intercoder Reliability: 10% of the articles were randomly sampled and coded by each member of the team to determine intercoder reliability. Once the Kappa scores met the 0.80 threshold, the team moved on the with full study analysis. After 3 revisions, our intercoder reliability was 83.92.

Primary Coding Method: To construct the data set, the 300 articles were divided among the team and coding was performed using NVivo 12.

Secondary Coding Method: To add to the data set, we used NVivo 12 text queries to determine simple word frequency among the sample articles for certain terms of interest. In addition, the articles were imported into NVivo using Zotero, which captured publication source and dates published.

Preliminary Results

Limited by the semester time frame, we were able to come to just a couple of conclusions from our analysis of the data:

1. There was a significant difference in the incidence of articles focusing on the treatment of “women” and “girls” between the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, but only in articles published during the Biden Administration. The Wall Street Journal, specifically, increased mentions of this type significantly after Biden took office.

2. There was a significant difference in the incidence of articles using U.S. military veterans as sources for articles by both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal during the Biden Administration.

Poster Presentation

After further courses, there are many choices I would clearly make to the data visualization aspect of this presentation. However, it was a great milestone along this journey!

You can check it out by clicking here.