The puzzle that drives this study is why Thailand pursued a proactive foreign policy towards greater powers during the Second World War. The main literature on Thai foreign policy-making generally suggests that Thailand is traditionally passive vis-à-vis greater powers. Oftentimes, it is believed that the fate of Thailand is subjected to the dictate of great powers. The empirical cases of Thailand during the Second World War suggest otherwise. How could a conventional understanding of Thai foreign policy make sense of Thailand’s war against France in 1940-41? Similarly, how could one understand Thailand’s defiant behaviours vis-à-vis Japan in 1941-44 despite the latter’s greater military capabilities and influence? This thesis employs the approaches of ontological security and status concern to interpret Thai proactive behaviours during the wartime period. It argues that concerns for status and recognition from the great powers were the primary motivations of Thailand’s proactive behaviours. In order to discern material and ideational motives of the Thai foreign policy-makers, this research heavily relies on archival research and utilises documents which were formerly considered to be classified. This methodological quest is to establish and enhance the credibility of the argument presented in the study.

Ontological Security Studies have been grounded on the ideas of Giddens (1991a,b). It describes how humans can face challenges of the modern world without being overwhelmed by anxieties. Since then many scholars such as Steele (2008) and Mitzen (2006) have developed his ideas furthermore. However, ontological security still lacks in terms of gender aspects (Kinnvall and Mitzen, 2016), individual security seeking (Croft and Vaughan-Williams, 2016) or the role of community rather than the state to secure ontological security (Berenskoetter, 2012). This thesis focusses on all three themes when analysing how women use mechanisms to strengthen their ontological security within the online community. Feminism is a strategy for women to build a common identity. Women used the #metoo to share their experience of sexual harassment and anxieties in a gender-hierarchical power system. Human development and security is not only physical security but includes living in freedom of fear, want and in dignity. Threats which challenge systems of believe, such as living in an equal world or living without fear, lead to ontological insecurity. Therefore, women look out for new routines which provide security. Drawing on existing scholarship, this thesis aims to undercover if digital feminist activism can be a source for women to gain ontological security when the state fails to provide it. A social constructivist approach is followed within the research. The aim is to acknowledge the experience and practices of the different perspectives: by female activists and women opposed to feminist movements. Therefore, the empirical basis of this study contains 198 Twitter posts which are sampled out of 6679 posts. A content analysis helped to understand the dynamics of online behaviour and furthermore, puts it into the context of their everyday experience.

The accession into NATO and the EU, from the perspective of the new Central and Eastern European members, symbolized their ‘return to Europe’. However, as the former outsiders have become insiders, they have become subjected to a new form of hierarchy. This is even reflected in international relations literature that studies the socialization of the new members into ‘European’ or ‘Western’ states (Checkel 2005; Gheciu 2005; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005, etc.). The new members continue to be perceived as geographically and culturally on the ‘verge of Europe’, ‘not quite European’ or ‘in transition’ (Wolff 1994; Kuus 2004a; Mälksoo 2010; Zarycki 2014). Their status as ‘latecomers’ in Western institutions has become a stigma. This dissertation asks how stigmatization and subjection to tacit hierarchies, constructed through discourse, affect a state’s foreign policy. It focuses on the East-West relation in the European Union as one example of a hierarchy within this community of states. This dissertation looks at Poland’s foreign policy in the EU. Analytically, I build on the concept of strategic culture, a set of collective, historically shaped ideas and norms guiding a state’s pursuit of security. I go beyond the existing literature to argue that the guiding principle of a state’s strategic culture is the pursuit of not just physical but ontological security, which refers to stable subjectivity (Giddens 1991; Kinnvall 2004; Mitzen 2006a; Zarakol 2010). The recognition as a full member of the ‘Western’ and ‘European’ identity community is essential for Poland’s ontological security. This dependence on recognition makes Poland particularly sensitive to stigmatization within that community. In three case studies, the 2003 Iraq crisis, the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, and the 2013/4 Ukraine crisis, I study how its ‘latecomer’ stigma, and quest for recognition as a full-fledged member of ‘Europe’, and the ‘West’, affects Poland’s foreign policy. I show how Polish foreign policy-makers alternate between two possible responses to stigmatization, adaptation and contestation, and how, paradoxically, both of these strategies often reinforce stigmatization.

This thesis aim is to investigate the propagation of the term 'Hybrid Warfare' in world politics, more specifically on NATO's discourses and official texts. Granted the argument that the term is unable to convey a concrete strategic doctrine or strategy due to its lack of conceptual fecundity, we argue that nonetheless, the usage of the term serves NATO as an Ontological Security exercise. The reasoning behind this argument is that Hybrid Threats (or war) have the capacity to make NATO ontologically (in)secure due to the latter's inability to respond efficiently. Thus, disrupting the alliance strategy of 'being' - that is a collective defense alliance in charge of security of all members via the Article V of the treaty - and at the same time its strategy of 'doing' which is the ability of the alliance to provide a peaceful and safe Euro-Atlantic region, inside and out. Following our attempted bridging on Hybrid War and NATO's Ontological Security, we then proceed to explicate policy changes influenced by the former. In order to do so, we chose to employ a three- layered model created by Jakub Eberle and Vladimir Handl which conceptualizes Ontological Security through narratives about the self, the other, and the overall international system. The argument is that when actors are threatened by a...

The swedish labour market has gone through an increasing flexiblization in part through an increase in insecure employment such as on-call employment. Research shows that these forms of employment have a number of negative consequences for example in the form of family life issues, economic worry, health issues and reduced life satisfaction. This essay investigates which sources of insecurity on-call employees experience and which strategies they use to feel safe. Six semi-structured interviews were performed with individuals using on-call employment as their primary source of income. This way the respondents own experiences and stories were explored. The analysis was primarily done through the terms ontological security with Anthony Giddens, the precariat from Guy Standing, The psychological contract and Lazarus and Folkman’s coping strategies. The result shows sources of insecurity primarily in the form of employment insecurity, economic insecurity and demand on availability. The respondents used strategies such as saving, adaptable routines, workplace participation and action aiming to achieve future safety such as continuous job searching and applying to education.

The driving argument of this thesis is that states, particularly the United States, are vulnerable in cyberspace for reasons that go beyond the material vulnerabilities that present studies on state insecurity in cyberspace focus on. This vulnerability in cyberspace is an ontological insecurity. Ontological insecurity reveals itself in the contradictions in official state discourse regarding cyberspace. State security of self—preserving and maintaining the seemingly concrete and consistent nature of what a state is about, how the state is understood in relation to other states, and how the state comes to understand itself through its own conceptions of self-identity—is challenged by cyberspace as a vehicle for massive amounts of information and challenges to state identity in relation to the state's behavior in cyberspace. Therefore, state identity and self-image are challenged in relation to cyberspace in two ways: first, through the vehicle that is cyberspace, and, second, through the practices that the state adopts to secure cyberspace and its broader security aims. The language that states, in this case the United States, use in order to justify surveillance practices and to impose meaning to cyberspace ultimately leads to projections of power that attempt to reinforce state strength and legitimacy vis-à-vis cyberspace, but these attempts fall short; contradictions arise in state discourse, and weaknesses are highlighted through these contradictions. Cyberspace, then, is an ontological as well as physical security threat to states. / Master of Arts

This thesis critically analyses, reconstructs and deconstructs the Living Educational Theory (LET) approach. It examines, challenges and modifies it, dialectically transforms it and offers a more suitable alternative to it. Whilst LET has not been well received in academia for two decades, this thesis is being written at a point in time when LET has greater recognition and influence. The thesis is composed of three parts. The first part examines and reconstructs the LET approach as a theoretical possibility and a practical methodological and heuristic approach. It introduces the LET approach and its key features, components, intentions and practices. It examines and interrelates the writings of the developers of that approach and its history and development. It also relates that approach to educational, action, reflective practice, practitioner and ontological research and the work and educational development of this author. The second part criticises, deconstructs and transforms the LET approach and proposes an alternative heuristic tool, solution and approach. It criticises the claim of living educational theorists that LET is an improved approach to the theorisation of a human existence and the educational, ontological, professional and epistemological development of practitioners. As well as criticising the new directions which the LET approach has recently taken, it introduces an alternative educational action research heuristic tool and approach that is based on self-dialectical reflective enquiry. The proposed alternative is based on creative and auto-phenomenological writing, self-dialectical and cathartic logging, public blogging and enquiring-within-writing logging into the question: how do I lead a more meaningful existence in the world for myself? It seeks to transform the LET approach into a deeper ontological, auto-phenomenological, and self-therapeutic auto-analysis, self-reevaluation and auto-empowerment. The third part concludes the thesis and reflects on my learning from my engagement with the LET approach and my hopes and intentions for the future.

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the significance of identity as a driving force behind Swedish security policy change. By studying social identity constructions of Russia in Swedish defence propositions from 1992, 2004 and 2015, the thesis concludes that these constructions might have resulted in shifts in Swedish security policy. The thesis uses discourse analysis to examine how Russia was socially constructed as 'difference' in the propositions. Drawing on self/other theories in IR, the study concludes that Russia was constructed in more or less antagonistic forms of ‘otherness’/’difference’ in the different propositions. In 1992, Russia was constructed as a neutral other and a temporally radical other. In 2004, Russia was constructed as a connected other. In 2015, Russia was constructed as a radical other, mostly due to the Russian aggression against and annexation of Crimea. Moreover the article concludes, through a qualitative content analysis, that these perceptions of Russia may have generated ontological (in)security for Swedish political identity. Drawing on Mitzen (2006) and others, the thesis demonstrates that ontological (in)security may have been a driving force behind security policy change. This thesis argues that the search for ontological security may have resulted in European integration for Sweden in 1992, expanded cooperation with Russia in 2004 and a proposition on a strengthened defence capability in 2015. In relation to existing research on Swedish security policy change, this thesis highlights the importance of identity and perceptions of 'others' as a driving force behind security policy change.

This thesis analyzes how the need for ontological security (OS), the ‘security of being’,impacts the foreign policy decision-making of states. Traditional security studies focus primarily on physical threats to the state. By contrast, an OS framework argues individuals feel secure when they are able to maintain communal narrative. This narrative in turn becomes the lens through which policymakers, and thus states, analyze events, while also becoming a potential source of conflict if challenged. Therefore, while physical security is still important, one is better positioned to account for perceptions of physical (and non physical) threats, and subsequent policies seemingly contradictory to traditional security studies, by employing an OS framework. While this will be explored within the context of the DPRK, the applicability of such a framework is far greater, holding key insights for International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). DPRK narrative formed out of the postcolonial nationalism of Japanese occupation, culminating into the hyper-nationalist ideology of Juche. North Korea’s seemingly ‘abnormal’ behavior might in turn be indicative of its unique national narrative and history of colonization and humiliation, leading to a different set of behavioral expectations than states whose narratives do not encompass such stories or reference points. While not all states are expected to act in the same manner as North Korea, the framework would expect them to defend and promote their respective national narratives. Moreover, while narratives can double as sources of legitimacy, as seen increasingly in the DPRK, this in no way detracts from, and merely compounds, the emphasis on narrative maintenance. Examining the historical record, it is argued the OS framework is consistently better at accounting for DPRK policies than traditional security studies. Therefore, more broadly in FPA, by taking seriously group narrative as a key component of OS, one can better account for perceptions and foreign policy decision-making.

This dissertation aims at exploring and analysing the effects of Japan&rsquo / s trust-based relations in the region of East Asia in the post-Cold War period within the framework of its anti-militaristic state identity and outlook. The main research question is based on how the Japanese policy makers constructed the meaning of the post-Cold War period, opening the ways and ideas to solidify the anti-militaristic state identity and posture. In this sense, Japan provides a significant case study for examining ontological security. The main argument of dissertation is based on building up Japan&rsquo / s ontological security structure in the regional context. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has pursued an anti-militaristic state identity and posture. This attitude has been the guiding principle of Tokyo&rsquo / s foreign and security policy. In this dissertation, for the continuance of anti-militaristic identity successfully in the post-Cold War period, Japanese policy decision-makers have both configured and further sustained the country&rsquo / s trust-based relations with neighbouring countries in the region. This dissertation was analysed under the five main headings except the introduction chapter: (1) The historical background telling the story of anti-militaristic identity and posture of Japan, (2) Japan&rsquo / s emerging human security agenda in the Post-Cold War period, (3) Japan&rsquo / s cooperative initiatives at the regional level by focusing in particular on APEC and ARF. (4) Japan&rsquo / s relations with the significant others for its identity preservation. (5) The conclusions.