The central aim of this thesis is to deconstruct and reconstruct the dominant theoretical perceptions of diplomacy, by reworking radically existing theories of diplomacy. This thesis achieves reconceptualisation of diplomatic theory by critiquing the thoughts and ideas of theorists postulating on modern diplomacy. Consequently, this thesis is concerned (largely) with the theoretical terrain of diplomacy studies.The purpose of this intended deconstruction and reconstruction is to introduce and construct three lucid types of diplomatic theory. These three types or categories introduced in this thesis are Traditional, Nascent and Innovative Diplomatic Theory. By categorising these three distinct types of theories, it is hoped that the diplomatic scholar will have a choice of lenses through which to interpret the complexities of the modern diplomatic environment. Ultimately, this thesis aims to strengthen Traditional Diplomatic Theory (TDT) and introduce/construct two alternate forms of diplomatic theory, Nascent Diplomatic Theory (NDT) and Innovative Diplomatic Theory (IDT).

The overall purpose of the dissertation is to make a contribution to a political theory of democratic transformations by drawing attention to one of the less theorised dimensions of a polity’s public culture: public affect. More precisely, I deal with the role that institutions in general and courts in particular can play in the education of public moral sentiments within transitional justice processes. A cognitive constructivist approach to emotions provides the background for my attempt to show, first, the legitimacy of negative public emotions of resentment and indignation in the aftermath of violence, and second, their positive potential for the reproductive efforts of the democratic community. These affects are barometers of injustice and can act as signals of alarm for institutions to intervene correctively. As such, they bear normative weight and should be a proper object of concern for any society attempting to make the transition to democracy; however, left unfiltered and unmediated institutionally, they can either degenerate into political cynicism and apathy, or be expressed in ways that are incompatible with the democratic value of equal concern and respect for all citizens. I argue that courts dealing with transitional justice issues can recognise, engage constructively, and fructify negative moral emotions for democracy. The exemplarity of judicial reflective judgment—both in the context of constitutional review of transitional justice bills and of criminal trials—can inspire citizens to reflect on what they want to do in the name of their violated sense of justice and encourage them to internalise democratic norms of social interaction. A series of case studies from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are used to illustrate how the judiciary has historically chosen to engage negative emotions in the aftermath of oppression and violence.

This study examines the foreign policy views of the Canadian thinker, George Grant. It focuses on the years between Mackenzie King’s re-election in 1935 and the Liberal party’s return to power under Lester Pearson in 1963. During this period, Grant argued, Canada was transformed from a British dependent to a satellite of the United States, a process that he believed had been accelerated by the continentalist economic and security policies of successive Liberal governments. As a young man during World War II, Grant admired the United States of F. D. Roosevelt. But as he began to contemplate the threat that a postwar Pax Americana posed to the societies of the Old World, and, ultimately, to Canada, his misgivings grew. His attempts to understand the emerging order led him to a critical study of modern liberalism, which he believed provided the chief philosophical justification for America’s expansion. Unlike Marxists who saw liberalism as simply an ideology of individual greed, Grant claimed that it succeeded largely by appealing to our hopes for social progress. These hopes found their loftiest expression in the belief that liberalism’s internationalization would produce the conditions for the overcoming of war within and between nations. Grant feared that this ideal could only be achieved through the annihilation of all real cultural diversity—the realization of what he called the universal and homogeneous state. One of his unique claims was that the Liberal policy of rapprochement with the United States after 1935 signaled the growing dominance of this ideal within Canada. This dominance was fed during the Cold War by “realists” like Pearson who decried the utopianism of communism, while failing to reckon with the utopian aspirations of his own society. Fearful of Marxist one-worldism, Pearson committed himself to a single-minded defence of a liberal order that tended to produce even greater homogeneity around the world. Grant’s own practical aim in writing about foreign policy, I argue, was neither to defend liberalism against its “utopian” critics, nor to reject it for an alternative like Marxism, but to highlight the utopian aspirations of liberal society, and thereby subject it to the moderating influence of doubt.

Building from Hannah Pitkin’s work on forms of representative democracy, this thesis demonstrates how differing generational expectations of political representation affect participation in electoral politics. Consistent with earlier work, it confirms that youth voting decreases when young people are less educated, less interested, or when they lack a sense of responsibility. However these factors only explain part—and not necessarily the most important part—of the younger generation’s motivations for voting. The analysis also shows that youth are markedly less likely to vote when young people feel that their values are not aligned with those of political leaders. The relationship between values—or symbolic representation—and voting remains significant and strong for young people even when the classic predictors of voting are included in the model. In fact, symbolic representation is a stronger predictor of voting than such factors as education, political interest, or the sense of responsibility to vote. This new variable is therefore important in understanding why the most recent decline in voting occurs predominantly among youth. Issue campaigns are less likely to move young people one way or another with respect to voting, as the majority of issues do not affect young people directly, if at all. As a consequence youth are left to rely on their own understanding of what political leaders actually stand for to pull them in or entice them to vote. But if the values that young people care about are not symbolically represented by political leaders and their electoral platforms, then youth will have less to vote for, and will likely just stay home and ignore elections altogether. Conversely, if political leaders make modest changes to their campaign strategies that also appeal to values—rather than strictly to interests—we could also see an increase in turnout among youth, and therefore an increase in democratic legitimacy.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, urban spaces have become increasingly subject to various methods of surveillance and control, especially by physical means. Yet, while 9/11 acted as a catalyst for rapid increases in security measures, the process of securitization has a much longer history. Accordingly, this research looks at how security has been planned and how this has changed over the last four decades in the context of Canada. The dissertation focuses on three Canadian case studies to explore the evolution of security planning: the October Crisis with an emphasis on Montreal (1970), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vancouver (1997), and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Each case represents a significant moment in Canadian security planning and provides insight into the shifting structure of Canada’s security apparatus. Furthermore, these cases offer a lens into the historical transformations of the Canadian ‘security state’. While the issues and actions associated with these cases cut across local, national, and international scales, the impacts of security measures in each were mostly local and urban. To show how Canadian urban spaces have been transformed and controlled by an evolving security framework, I argue that security planning must be understood as a form of urban planning, although one that remains to be properly acknowledged by the profession or even the academic discipline of planning. Given the democratic claims of liberal planning and its professed concern for the good city, it is therefore significant that the security measures studied in these case studies were implemented without democratic scrutiny but with significant consequences for urban experience. This dissertation tells a story of security planning in Canada, demonstrating how its practices have changed over time in ways that are at odds with liberal political values cherished by mainstream planning.

Conventional wisdom suggests that ‘nations without states’ are seeking to preserve cultural and linguistic homogeneity within their homeland by advocating for independence or political autonomy. Accordingly, large-scale immigration has typically been seen as a threat to national minorities because newcomers tend to integrate into the culture of the majority group. In addition, even if immigrants learn the minority’s language, they are unlikely to sympathize with the nationalist movement or vote for nationalist parties. This dissertation seeks to explain why Basque nationalism, despite its historical grounding in racism and exclusivity, developed a group-based multicultural approach in response to foreign immigration. To account for this unexpected outcome, I develop two interrelated causal arguments that integrate the role of ideas and the imperative of nation building for nationalist elites. Nations are forged by a rich legacy of memories and nationalist history requires both an act of collective remembering and collective amnesia. The ideas that stem from the memories of repression constrained the choices of Basque nationalists, preventing the rise of ideas of racial purity and exclusion in favour of multiculturalism and openness. A second argument that I advance is that changing contexts are motivating nationalist elites to find new policy areas with which to distinguish the values of the majority and minority nation. The emergence of a stricter immigration framework in Spain and a backlash against multiculturalism in Europe provided Basque nationalists with an opportunity to link open citizenship and multiculturalism to the distinctiveness of the Basque nation. I apply the arguments developed through an in-depth study of the Basque case to the nationalist movements in Scotland, Quebec, and Flanders and conclude that diversity is an effective, but risky, new value that minority nationalists are employing to further their case for independence.

This inquiry examines the ruptures and continuities in local democratic practices in opposition and in government. I conducted research in seven rural municipalities in Chalatenango, El Salvador where leaders of oppositional community-based organizations entered municipal politics 15 years ago. This new generation of municipal officials established forums for citizen participation that incorporate patterns of citizenship learning and participation developed in oppositional civil society. The democratic outcomes of these municipal spaces for citizen engagement are mixed, however: they improved the quality of citizen participation in municipal governance, but circumscribed autonomous forms of citizen participation. The influence of partisan political and institutional state interests are the principal factors that account for this outcome. At the same time, civil society and local government in Chalatenango exist in a relationship of mutual influence. This suggests that efforts to foster democratic citizen participation should complement support to institutional innovation with efforts to strengthen civil society.

This paper examines two different theories in relation to the optimal modes of public deliberation about constitutional values and the public good in the context of democratic pluralism: Rawlsian Public Reason and Nedelsky’s Enlarged Mentality. I challenge Rawlsian public reason’s claim to epistemic abstinence, autonomy and its claim to reflect a political conception of justice by examining certain contradictory aspects of its theoretical rendition. I argue that significant aspects of the picture of democracy that Rawlsian public reason reflects are unempirical. I argue that Rawlsian public reason’s concept of bracketing moral and religious argumentation from public deliberation is unjustifiable, unattainable and derogates from Canadian constitutional values. I proffer that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is preferable as it is more realistic and consonant with Canadian constitutional values. I argue that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is facilitative of genuine and meaningful dialogic exchange in spite of difference whilst managing the risk of democratic instability.

This inquiry examines the ruptures and continuities in local democratic practices in opposition and in government. I conducted research in seven rural municipalities in Chalatenango, El Salvador where leaders of oppositional community-based organizations entered municipal politics 15 years ago. This new generation of municipal officials established forums for citizen participation that incorporate patterns of citizenship learning and participation developed in oppositional civil society. The democratic outcomes of these municipal spaces for citizen engagement are mixed, however: they improved the quality of citizen participation in municipal governance, but circumscribed autonomous forms of citizen participation. The influence of partisan political and institutional state interests are the principal factors that account for this outcome. At the same time, civil society and local government in Chalatenango exist in a relationship of mutual influence. This suggests that efforts to foster democratic citizen participation should complement support to institutional innovation with efforts to strengthen civil society.

This paper examines two different theories in relation to the optimal modes of public deliberation about constitutional values and the public good in the context of democratic pluralism: Rawlsian Public Reason and Nedelsky’s Enlarged Mentality. I challenge Rawlsian public reason’s claim to epistemic abstinence, autonomy and its claim to reflect a political conception of justice by examining certain contradictory aspects of its theoretical rendition. I argue that significant aspects of the picture of democracy that Rawlsian public reason reflects are unempirical. I argue that Rawlsian public reason’s concept of bracketing moral and religious argumentation from public deliberation is unjustifiable, unattainable and derogates from Canadian constitutional values. I proffer that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is preferable as it is more realistic and consonant with Canadian constitutional values. I argue that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is facilitative of genuine and meaningful dialogic exchange in spite of difference whilst managing the risk of democratic instability.