Can and does neoclassical realism explain the difference in how India and China mobilise oil (a key resource) externally to meet their respective goals and objectives. The thesis illustrates how political economy (political economy as employed in the thesis examines the structure of the economic system, not the foreign policy executive) is incorporated as the intervening variable into neoclassical realism to explain the acquisition of oil blocks by Indian and Chinese oil corporations in West Africa. Consequently, the thesis transcends the existing or prevalent theories of neoclassical realism which either elucidate structural outcomes like polarity or balancing, or deviations from neorealism like under balancing or over balancing. The thesis postulates that the independent or the exogenous variable i.e. the difference in the relative power of India and China elucidates the ability of Chinese oil companies to outbid their Indian competitors and/or be preferred as partners by international oil companies (IOCs) and/or have better quality oil blocks as well as China’s widespread outreach in 11 countries in West Africa compared to India’s presence in two counties namely Nigeria and Gabon. The intervening variable or the difference in the political economy of India and China explicates why China is represented by state owned enterprises (SOEs) in the oil industry in West Africa where as India is represented by SOEs and/or private enterprises. For case study analysis, the thesis uses a pattern-matching logic in 11 countries in West Africa and employs Angola, Nigeria and Gabon for in depth case studies. The thesis examines not only the bids that Chinese and Indian oil corporations place for the oil blocks but tries to explicate the reason why they are able to place those bids. It examines the rate of return on capital/investment, rate of interest on loans and the ease of availability of loans or finance, the difference in the level of technology and ability to acquire technology, project management skills, risk aversion, valuation of the asset and the difference in the economic, political and diplomatic support received by the Chinese and Indian oil companies from their respective governments. It also discusses the reasons why the Chinese national oil companies (NOCs) are preferred as partners by African oil companies and IOCs. Thus, the thesis provides a more comprehensive explanation for the ability of the Chinese oil companies to mobilise oil in the oil industry in West Africa relative to their Indian counterparts, and makes an empirical contribution to the existing literature on India and China in the oil industry in West Africa.

The thesis analyses the conditioning factors of Canada’s and Japan’s bargaining power in the multilateral trade negotiations of the Uruguay Round and Doha Development Agenda (DDA). It deals with two related research questions. The central question of this research is: to what extent and why did Canada’s and Japan’s bargaining power decrease from the Uruguay Round to the DDA? This question is related to the following auxiliary research question: what are the conditioning factors of Canada’s and Japan’s bargaining power during the Uruguay Round and DDA, and to what extent have these factors changed from one round to the other? While the thesis includes a general overview of their negotiation profiles, it analyzes specific, detailed case studies of the profiles of these countries in anti-dumping and market access/NAMA negotiations in both rounds. The hypothesis of this research is that Japan and Canada have lost bargaining power from the Uruguay Round to the DDA because of changes in the following conditioning factors: economic power; activity in country coalitions and groups; interests groups and decision-making structures on the domestic level; ideational power; and foreign policy objectives. In addition, the importance of the position of the preferences a country in the spectrum of the overall membership of multilateral trade negotiations is examined. The thesis finds that this hypothesis is partially confirmed. Canada and Japan have mainly lost bargaining power owing to a relative decrease in their economic power, a lower profile in central negotiation groups as well as coalitions, and due to domestic politics. Ideational power and especially foreign policy objectives can be considered less relevant. The thesis also finds that especially Japan’s bargaining power in anti-dumping negotiations was affected by a change of the position of its preferences within the spectrum of the overall membership of the negotiations.

This study examines to what extent Indonesia’s transition to democracy has impacted Jakarta’s foreign policy, particularly regarding the foreign policy-making process, its fundamental doctrine, and foreign policy strategies in three specific areas: regional cooperation in ASEAN, promotion of political values, and conflict management. The puzzle this thesis addresses is that Indonesia’s foreign policy in many ways does not conform to expectations generated by theoretical works on democratization and foreign policy. The dissertation argues that Indonesia’s democratisation has affected Jakarta’s foreign policy only in a mixed and limited fashion. While Indonesia’s democratisation has shaped ideas that have influenced Indonesia’s foreign policy, some traditional foreign policy pillars continue to be relevant. First, notwithstanding Indonesia’s democratic transition, Jakarta remains committed to the principle of an independent and active (bebas-aktif) foreign policy. As such, maintaining a balanced presence of big powers remains a key explanation for Indonesia’s policies on East Asia cooperation. Second, while democratisation has led to the proliferation of foreign policy actors, foreign policy-making remains largely unaltered, with the president and the foreign minister serving as the central decision-makers. However, democratisation has changed the substance or style of Indonesian foreign policy, and such a change is discernible in efforts to shape political cooperation in ASEAN, Jakarta’s management of conflict on Ambalat dispute with Malaysia, and its Myanmar policy. Additionally, democracy and human rights now prominently feature in Indonesia’s foreign policy strategy towards the wider Asia. Significantly, however, while democracy promotion has been driven by the desire of Indonesia’s foreign policy leaders to reflect its newfound identity, human rights promotion has been lacking in Indonesia’s promotion of political values abroad due to domestic considerations. Hence, frameworks focusing on the role of identity and ideas in foreign policy flowing from democratization offer an important, yet insufficient explanation of Indonesia’s foreign policy in the cases discussed. Using an integrative approach that draws on works on the role of leaders, the salience of institutions, and the influence of identity and ideas in foreign policy, this study contributes to the wider discussion about the relationship between democratisation and foreign policy.

Over the past two decades, there has been a rapid increase in funds made available by the international donor community to support local civil society actors in fragile states. Current peacebuilding and development efforts support and strive to recreate an active, vibrant and ―liberal‖ civil society. In the case of Sierra Leone, paradoxically, the growing support has not strengthened civil society actors based on that liberal idea(l). Instead of empowering individuals, enhancing democratic ownership and pro-active participation stemming from the civil sphere, Sierra Leone‘s civil society landscape appears to be neutralised, depoliticised if not instrumentalised to provide social services the state is either too weak or unwilling to deliver. In critically assessing how Sierra Leone‘s civil sphere became depoliticised during the country‘s peacebuilding and development phase, the thesis advances three main arguments. First, it supports the commonly agreed consensus in scholarship that postwar civil societies have become instrumentalised to serve a broader liberal peacebuilding and development agenda in several ways. Second, a deeper inquiry into the history of state formation and political culture of Sierra Leone reveals that Ekeh‘s (1975) bifurcated state is very much alive. In short, Western idea(l)s of participatory approaches and democracy are repeatedly challenged by a persisting urban-rural divide as well as socially entrenched forms of neopatrimonialism, elite-loyalism and tribalism. Sierra Leonean civil society finds itself currently in the midst of renegotiating those various intersections of a primordial and civic sphere. Third, the effects colonialism has had on African societies are still reflected in the current monopolisation of wealth and power among a few (elites) next to a vast majority living in abject poverty. More concretely, how abject poverty, human development and above all the lack of education affect activism and agency from below remains a scarcely addressed aspect in the peacebuilding and development literature.

The thesis studies the development of the ASEAN Charter with the aim to understand its origins, the needs to codify implicit principles to explicit norms, and norm contestation in the process of drafting the Charter with special reference to Chapter VIII Dispute Settlement Mechanism and Article 14 Human Rights Body. Chapter VIII bestows ASEAN officials such as the Secretary-General with increased authority in mediation while Article 14 prescribes the establishment of concrete and binding regional human rights mechanism. Both constitute unprecedented practices since non-involvement of ASEAN in Members’ unresolved disputes and minimal institutionalism used to be adhered to strictly. The thesis explains why some norms are codified and strengthened while some are weakened in the context of ASEAN’s lifeworld, a shared understanding and common cultural background. Moreover, the concept of artificial lifeworld created by non-state actors when the existing lifeworld lacks normative space for newer norm is also explored. ASEAN is treated as a social context where negotiation takes place and the condition inducing to the use of arguments is analyzed. Having access to Records of the HLTF Meetings, the thesis sheds light on the drafting process which used to remain behind the closed door.

The thesis extends VoC theory to both emerging markets (EMs) and firm-level corporate governance by explaining how market structures direct firm level competitiveness. The most competitive firms are those that follow the contours of capitalism in the domestic political economy. The thesis uses a Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, though institutional differences between developed and developing economies require adaptation of VoC theory in an EM context. The thesis identifies a VoC pattern of complement formation based on the typological trajectory of the EM. A typological trajectory is defined as the complement structure negotiated by economic stakeholders as developmental state controls are withdrawn. The thesis will argue that countries follow different paths of capitalist development, which may not converge to a liberal market economy. Empirically, the thesis uses a multi-level comparative case study of India and Brazil to test hypotheses about capitalist formation and firm competitiveness. India and Brazil share many similarities in their econoimic structures and liberalisation patterns yet have different leading seactors. In the first level of the case study, complement structures and stakeholder bargaining preferences are analysed within a comparative framework. In the second level, within country case studies of firm level corporate governance patterns test the link between market structuring and firm level incentives. The firms selected for the case study are from leading sectors in India (IT) and Brazil (banking). The firm level focus on a single sector makes it possible to control for a wide range of variables while analysing comparative differences in corporate governance across three case firms that exhibit varying levels competitiveness. The thesis finds that EMs espouse typological trajectories, or developmental paths, that conform to either a Liberal Market Economy (LME), Mixed Market Economy (MME), or Coordinated Market Economy (CME) equilibrium. Indian complement structures exhibit a LME typological trajectory. In the Indian IT sector, firms converged to liberal corporate governance norms. And amongst the software firms, those with the most liberal corporate governance models performed best. Brazilian complements, in contrast, moved towards a MME structure after liberalisation. The strong influence of banking and its role as a leading sector are tied to the privileged and powerful position of capital in the domestic market. The differentiation between India and Brazil demonstrate the importance of market structures in understanding development trajectories as well as drivers of firm competitiveness.

The separate trilateral cooperation mechanism among Japan, the Republic of Korea (thereafter Korea) and the People’s Republic of China (thereafter China) emerged from a wider framework for cooperation, the ASEAN Plus Three. To the scholarship on that framework, the new development constituted a puzzle, as the scholars considered a scenario for trilateral cooperation mechanism without ASEAN as highly unlikely. Instead, it took seriously prospects for Sino-Japanese competition and divisions running deep throughout all of Northeast Asia. Despite the obstacles that seemed insurmountable, a separate trilateral cooperation mechanism emerged in 2008. My argument to explain this development reaches back to regional sources. I introduce the analytical framework centred on foreign-policy preferences and outcomes to argue that collective outcomes originate neither in strategies of individual states nor in their bilateral relations, but through interaction at the level of a region; I also argue that the Trilateral Cooperation is a shift in regional affairs, but it is far from being a genuine revolution. I argue that ASEAN Plus Three provided a cooperative context for their relations in Asia. This thesis argues that for Asian international relations, the Trilateral Cooperation mechanism is neither a revolution nor an insignificant development, but a sign of shifts in regional affairs. While previous scholarship–as reviewed in chap. 2–focused on obstacles to cooperation, my research emphasised the incentives. Even though a ‘trilateral cooperation’ may seem a vision too distant from the three states’ preferences, through interaction they achieved an outcome of cooperation in International Relations (chap. 1). Intentions of Japan, Korea, and China vis-à-vis Northeast Asian regional cooperation differ (chaps. 3, 4, and 5), but they share a participation in regional initiatives. Through a study of literature, official documents, and interviews, I re-picture foreign-policy profiles of these Northeast Asian states: albeit none of them was reaching for the Trilateral Cooperation in its specific form, this forum emerged as a side-effect of their regional interactions. This research implies that picturing state interests per ‘nation’ state leads to a stalemate in explanations. We can overcome this through allowing for side-effects of state interactions, which explain more effectively how preferences of the states can produce outcomes in International Relations.

Much of the rationalist literature in International Relations explains the nature of the EU-Russia energy relationship by assuming that tensions evident in the relationship are a product of the actors’ distinct interests. In contrast, for conventional constructivists any tension is seen to derive from the essentially different identities of the actors. Conversely, existing discourse-based accounts analyze the construction of competing energy discourses or how the different approaches of the EU and Russia are indicative of a struggle for ‘Europe’. This thesis aims to contribute to the discourse-based literature by adding a focus on how energy discourses between Self and Other are constructed in the first place. This implies an understanding of discourses as socially constructed and ‘sedimented’. Deploying a framework drawn from Wæver the thesis identifies a tripartite and layered discursive structure through which key discourses are both ‘sedimented’ and can be studied. Layer one investigates the historical narratives and representations that Western Europe and Russia have constructed to represent each other; layer two investigates how the EU and Russia have constructed their energy paradigms and how actors have used these paradigms in their mutual energy relations. This layer also examines the extent to which the historical narratives and representations of layer one are reflected in the mutual energy relations between the EU and Russia. Layer three focuses on discursive practices (e.g. statements, written texts or symbolic acts) and examines how the discursive structure made up of layer one (historical narratives and representations) and layer two (energy paradigms) is played out in the debates over the Nabucco / South Stream pipeline competition and in the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue. The study of EU-Russia energy relations through ‘sedimented’ discourses provides the basis for arguing that actors’ positions alternate between cooperation and confrontation, rather than continually interacting in an assumed ever-present tension. The political implications that emerge from conceptualizing EU-Russia energy relations as a Self/Other discursive interaction are that a deeper discursive contest underlies EU-Russia energy relations. Such a contest sheds light on the mutual construction of actors’ identity, and on their construction of ‘Europe’ as a political project.

This thesis examines the achievements and limitation of collective action in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). With particular focus on two specific issues of ‘aid untying’ and ‘aid effectiveness’ between late 1990s and early 2010s, and two member countries namely the UK and Japan, the thesis first assesses the indicators (existence, forms and level) of collective action. It then explores the conditions (factors that account for the indicators) for collective action in the DAC. As literature on the OECD and the DAC is scarce, this thesis fills knowledge gaps by providing a detailed analysis of the DAC and offering insights into stronger global governance through the lens of collective action. Using primary evidence drawing on extensive interviews as well as OECD archival documents, the thesis advances four main findings. First, the DAC has achieved collective action only to some extent – it has successfully (if sometimes slowly) reached agreements, but implementation processes reveal more shortcomings. Second, successful agreement has resulted largely from leadership of the UK in the DAC together with work by the DAC Secretariat to build trust relationships as well as to nurture feelings of fairness among the members. The DAC’s limited membership and closed, homogenous nature encouraged this atmosphere. Third, DAC members’ motivations and incentives for collective action can be identified both at individual and institutional (government) levels, ranging between rationality and social/global norms, that are often intertwined and complex, making collective action challenging to understand. Fourth, the DAC is now in transition due to the rising influence of emerging countries and the growth of an additional locus of collective action at recipient country level. All this presents increasing challenges if the DAC is to maintain a reputation for collective action in the future.

The difference between Geographical Indication (GI) and generic food terms is an important and highly contentious issue in international negotiations. This distinction is of significant importance to producers, manufacturers, consumers, and policy-makers all over the world because it means the difference between the restricted versus open use of certain popular terms in domestic and global markets. This thesis uses a food studies approach that employs cheese as a lens to understand the contested politics of Generic Geographical Indications (GGIs), which has been under-explored in the literature on GIs. Through case study and an analysis of written policy material and other documents, websites, blogs, artifacts, observations, and semi-structured interviews and discussions, it investigates the complex processes through which European and New World (NW) actors compete over the status – protected or generic - of cheese names, why this struggle is manifested in the case of Parmesan but not of Cheddar, and how we can better understand genericism within the context of GI policy. The thesis argues that actors guided by differing agricultural paradigms compete to secure the use of terms through oppositional discursive strategies of ‘gastro-panic’ where they appeal to a language of security in order to persuade policy-makers to take action against the perceived threatening actions of their opponents. It finds that unlike the contested term Parmesan no such panic has emerged surrounding Cheddar because its widespread use has not been interpreted as a threat to the ‘original.’ As well, genericism emerges as both a dynamic and socially-constructed concept subject to ongoing negotiation and contestation and a strategic discursive device used block the successful registration of proposed product names as GIs. The debate over cheese reveals the inherently political nature of the ways in which genuineness and genericness are constructed in an increasingly competitive marketplace.