CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Gray, Alison |
|---|---|
| Title | Ola I Ka Wai: Investigating the Department of Defense Response to the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility Water Crisis |
| Summary | U.S. military policy studies rarely occur in a domestic context, often focusing on international security instead. However, domestic events can prompt the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to engage in policy-making, especially when the military harms the population it is supposed to protect (Feaver 1999). When the U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Storage Fuel Facility sprung a leak that contaminated the drinking water and poisoned residents on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i in November 2021, the DoD responded by decommissioning the facility months later. This was an unusual response in that the DoD repealed a decades-long policy in a geostrategically critical location at a relatively swift pace. This thesis studies this case of DoD policy change using a case-centric process tracing methodology and hypothesizes that civil society actions caused the policy change. Through analyzing qualitative interviews, public government documents, local media coverage, and civil society publications, the hypothesized mechanisms were confirmed, demonstrating that civil society was key in the DoD decision to shut down and defuel Red Hill, and, more generally, indicating that civil society is capable of influencing DoD policy change. |
| Supervisor | Weiler, Florian |
| Department | Public Policy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/gray_alison.pdf |
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