Hagan

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Margaret Darin Hagan, PhD Student (BA Chicago, MA Central European)
mhagan07@qub.ac.uk

Thesis

My dissertation focuses on the efforts of non-governmental interest groups to internationalize ethnic conflicts in deeply divided societies, with Kosovo and Northern Ireland as my primary case studies. Central to my work is the puzzle of why international attention and intervention in such societies comes only after non-violent protest turns into terrorist attacks, so that dedicated international efforts to resolve the conflict come only once escalating violence has made resolution a far more difficult undertaking.

I will be looking primarily at the efforts of human rights groups to attract the attention of the global public and policy-makers to an ethnic conflict, with a comparison of their strategies when this conflict is largely peaceful versus when it grows more violent. Also to be considered are the general role of human rights NGOs in conflict interventions; the potential existence of a ‘human rights public’ and a ‘global polity’; the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy; and the impact of human rights activism upon public opinion and political activity.

Areas of Research

My more general research interests include the recent politics and history of Southeastern and Central Europe; the politics of human rights activism; civil society development in post-communist countries; strategies of political mobilization of the general public; and the political activity of immigrant groups.