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This thesis aims to demonstrate the relevance of the ethic of care to political philosophy, by illustrating how a care-based theory of social justice might be developed. The thesis complements and extends existing work on the ethic of care, both as critical of traditional justice theories, and as a philosophical perspective. The thesis offers are-interpretation of the ethic of care, the care perspective, synthesised from works that consider both the practical and the philosophical implications of the ethic. This care perspective forms the basis for both a critical analysis and a reinterpretation of Rawls's account of social justice, from fundamental concepts, through the original position and the primary goods, to suggestions for alternative principles. The first two chapters explore the distinction between the ethic of care and the care perspective by looking at works that emphasise different aspects of the ethic. The contrast between care- and justice-based accounts is a recurring theme, illustrating how a care approach can offer both critique and reinterpretation. Chapter three puts forward the justification for care as a basis for political philosophy, and expands on the account of the care perspective introduced in chapter one. The thesis then turns to a critique and reinterpretation of Rawls's theory of justice. Chapter four presents a critical analysis of the key conceptions of Rawls's account, and chapter five offers a reinterpretation of these conceptions and a reworking of the original position that is based on the care perspective. Chapter six discusses the concept of primary goods, and chapter seven offers alternative principles of justice. Chapter eight summarises the alternative account, and concludes that the alternative principles could be chosen in the original position. The final chapter concludes that the thesis has achieved the objective of demonstrating how a care-based theory of social justice might be developed.

The Russian legitimation formula contains the arguments the Russian leadership advanced to promote its state-building project between 1991 and 2000. The period of investigation coincides with Yeltsin's presidency. The focus is on how the legitimation rhetoric was adjusted both to changing circumstances over time and to three main audiences: the Russian domestic population, the Russian domestic elites and the international community. In order to analyse the contents of the legitimation formula a framework was developed which divided the different arguments used by the Russian leadership into six main categories (democratic, national, charismatic, eudaemonic, external and negative arguments). The material selected for analysis had to relate to basic features of statehood. Firstly, how did the Russian leadership seek to legitimate the new borders of the Russian Federation. Secondly, how did it legitimate the new constitution of 1993 and the way the constitution was introduced. Finally, the arguments used to introduce, abolish and remodel state rituals and symbols were examined. The main conclusion is that the Russian leadership did not change its core legitimation rhetoric over time or across audiences. Democratic arguments, centring on elections and a popular mandate as prerequisites for legitimate authority, dominated the legitimation formula both over time and for all the main audiences. Instead, the Russian leadership used subtle nuances and historic references to adapt its legitimation formula to changing circumstances over time and to the expectations of different audiences. Overall, the absence of national arguments was striking, as was the strong tendency to rely on negative arguments. The threat of Russian disintegration and civil war was frequently invoked, which suggests that the Russian leadership perceived this as a resounding argument among all the audiences it directed its legitimation formula at.

This thesis aims to rescue the tradition of corporation theory from the implications of ontological and ethical individualism, which form important tenets of mainstream political theory. My argument for corporate personality builds on the Lockean and Humean theory of personal identity over time. According to this theory, personal identity is not rooted in the identity of a deep and indivisible Self, but in the relatedness between temporally distinct psychological stages. A person is a group of desires, beliefs, memories, traits and other attitudes, tied together by a causal string. On the best interpretation of the Humean view, personal identity has normative consequences. We are bundles but the string that ties the stages of one life together is formed by the normativity of action-guiding principles and by the mutual recognition of certain associative obligations. This normative claim is often meant to buttress ethical individualism against those who deny that persons exist at all. However, this thesis demonstrates that the claim also reinvigorates the idea of corporate personality. The argument develops along two different strands. First, it is shown that corporate personality is a political theory. It is the theory that compares co-operative relations between people with the co-operative relations between the stages of one person. For contractualist theories, the core virtue is justice. For corporate theories, the highest virtue is integrity. Second, corporation theory makes a real contribution to the field of political theory, in particular in an area where contractualism has traditionally encountered problems, to wit, the continuity of the contract. This thesis argues corporation theory is much more successful in explaining our transgenerational obligations to the past and future.

This thesis addresses the divergence of postcommunist transitions in terms of political regime types. The literature on democratisation proposes three principal factors as determining the unveiling of developmental paths in transition states: elite power configurations, economic policies, and international relations. While these factors indeed explain the success of some postcommunist democratisations, they cannot account for the array of political trajectories across the region. The thesis proposes nationalism as the principal factor behind such divergence. It suggests that the forms of nationalism available to and adopted by political elites were behind the variation in postcommunist regime development. The thesis reveals a specific postcommunist type of nationalism, egalitarian nationalism, which is ethnically inclusive but anti-liberal. It proposes that the prevalence of pro-European liberal or collectivist egalitarian nationalism determined the evolution of postcommunist transition types towards democracy or authoritarianism respectively. The argument is developed through the analysis of the historically longest and the most stable case of postcommunist transition reverted from a democratic to an authoritarian path: the post-soviet development of Belarus. The country's elites' effectiveness in formulating policies in national ideological terms proved consistent with their political success or failure, and thus determined the direction of Belarusian development. During the democratisation period, liberal nationalism was pursued in a way that had little resonance with inherited identities and was inconsistent with the European developmental model that its protagonists purported to profess. As such, it discredited and undermined the democratic development of Belarus. The more egalitarian national ideology, on the contrary, was upheld in a socially resonant way, and was consistent with the policies advanced in other spheres of social development. As such, egalitarian nationalism underpinned the construction and consolidation of an authoritarian regime. The main contention of the thesis is that political ideologies, and national ideologies in particular, remain a key determinant of social development in the present day world.