This thesis concerns the relationship between IR theory and time. More specifically, I scrutinise simultaneous and seemingly contradictory visions of Western Standard time, or clock time, and the problem of Time, understood as time’s natural propensity for bringing dissolution, discord, and death to human experience. I develop two primary wagers about these phenomena, and work through their implications to show how this ostensible contradiction results from tensions intrinsic to developing IR theories and recapitulates a venerable way of appraising time. The first wager is that all ‘time’ utterances result from symbolic representations of efforts to time various changes. In particular, a discursive emphasis on the problem of Time suggests that the timing activity being referred to is faltering or failing. The second wager is that narrative is a sort of timing activity integral to both retrospective understanding and lived experience. Narrative propounds a timing standard by which people orient themselves and act in the world, but is also itself the product of timing operations resulting in a temporal vision. After elaborating these wagers, I use them to examine the process of developing IR theories. First, I explicate IR as a narrative vocation by scrutinising disciplinary reactions to surprising change. Second, I address IR methodologies and find that various ways of reasoning use narratives to reduce time’s flow. Third, I unpack the narrative and temporal aspects of a variety of IR explanatory forms and show how each reconfigures the pitiable effects of time. Finally, I discuss how quantitative IR relies on narrative timing techniques to preserve symbolic connections to eternity in the face of temporal phenomena. These moves contextualise IR as a thoroughly narrative timing project whose viability hinges on its ability to placate, manage, or tame the problem of Time, which holds striking implications for IR as a social science.

This thesis builds on the current literature on health security and on the European Union by examining the process of securitizing pandemic influenza at the level of the EU. It does so by two means: First, the thesis revisits securitization theory and the assumptions underpinning it in order to provide a revised theoretical framework that is more suited to analysing securitizing processes as they relate to pandemic influenza and the EU. Second, on the basis of this revised framework, the thesis offers a detailed empirical study of the process of securitization in this context. The thesis asks the following two questions: Has pandemic influenza been securitized at the level of the EU? What are the consequences for the role of the EU as a provider of health security? The thesis broadly follows an externalist reading of securitization theory by arguing for the elevation of the importance of context and actor-­‐audience disposition in accounting for processes of securitization in different empirical settings. On the basis of this, the thesis argues that it is possible to identify a process of securitizing pandemic influenza underway at EU level with political effect. This process of securitization has been spurred and propelled forward by a series of crisis events and has provided the basis for the expansion of EU competences and activities in providing for health security within the Union. The thesis demonstrates, however, that this process of securitization is a negotiated one and one marked by points of contestation throughout. Thus, while the thesis concludes that the process of securitizing pandemic influenza at the level of the EU has currently reached what can be considered a heightened stage, the extent of executive authority granted to the Commission in providing for health security within the Union remains limited.

This thesis recovers and examines what are termed the neighbourhood aspects of Edmund Burke’s and Thomas Paine’s thought. These neighbourhood ideas reveal a conception of politics in both writers that makes no distinction between the different scales of human action. This is a way of thinking about the relations of people and communities that has been overlooked by those studying the history of international political thought, as it does not conform to the prevailing image of ‘international’ thought. It is argued that a dichotomised conception of politics divided into domestic and international realms of action became dominant in the nineteenth century and shaped both the way we think about the world and the values embodied in our present ways of life. By recovering this alternative neighbourhood conception, we are able to consider with a new sense of possibility what we think about the concept and values we have inherited. The thesis adapts Quentin Skinner’s arguments about the method of studying the history of political thought to argue that there is a much broader history of international political thought that can be drawn upon. The thesis examines Burke and Paine’s arguments and involvement in some of the most significant events of the late eighteenth century. It explores how the neighbourhood perspective shaped their ideas and arguments about the relations between Britain and the American Colonies and the establishment of an independent America. It considers Burke arguments in regards to Britain’s involvement in India through the East India Company and how neighbourhood ideas shaped his vision of Empire. Finally it considers Burke’s and Paine’s different reaction to the French Revolution, and their common concern for the growing dominance of the conception of politics that saw people and communities as isolated, autonomous individuals, rather than socially constituted beings.

This thesis seeks to explore an English School understanding of regional international society and construct a conceptual framework derived from the body of English School literature that can provide significant insights into international society at the regional level. This conceptual framework will be applied to an analysis of three case studies from continental Africa: the Union Government debate, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), and the African Union (AU) position on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) expansion. The framework is comprised of two multifaceted main themes: the degree of solidarism in regional international society, and the potential tensions between regional and global international societies. The analysis of the case studies through the conceptual framework indicates that African international society is characterised by a low degree of solidarism; while the ambit of African international society has expanded considerably, there is still minimal consensus on the character of the African state, and minimal commitment to law enforcement, or the prioritisation of regional over national interests. Despite the presence of significant collaborative aspects, African international society's relationship with global international society is also marked by significant tensions, with a particularly prominent link between the desire to militate against global hegemony and global-regional identity dynamics. Through the utilisation of the conceptual framework in the case studies, this thesis demonstrates viability of the framework and the potential of the English School in studying politics at the regional level. In addition to providing a better understanding of African international relations therefore, this thesis makes a theoretical contribution that could form the basis of future English School research on regions.

John Rawls has been the most influential figure in Anglo-American political philosophy since publishing A Theory of Justice in 1971. The focus of this thesis is his later work, The Law of Peoples, which sets out his ideas on the issues of international justice. Published in its definitive form in 1999, the book represents an application of Rawls’ view of justice in A Theory of Justice to a hypothetical ‘Society of Peoples’. His realistically utopian vision prescribes traditional principles for International Society, based on equality and respect among liberal and decent peoples, as well as more contemporary ideas about defending and promoting human rights and international co-operation. The reception of his ideas has been mixed, with more radical thinkers being especially critical of Rawls’ advocacy of nonliberal societies and his rejection of the concept of international redistribution. In respect to these ideas, his critics argue that he has reneged on the liberal egalitarianism of his earlier work. This thesis attempts to defend The Law of Peoples as a progressive and critical work. It argues that the text has much to tell us about contemporary issues of International Politics, in particular, global poverty. Rather than performing a libertarian turn and renouncing his values, it is the argument of this thesis that Rawls’ international outlook is both radical and consistent with his domestic approach. The first part outlines The Law of Peoples, its critics, and how it can be viewed as a consistent development of Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism. The second part involves an elaboration of a key principle, the duty of assistance, as a robust and far-reaching approach to assisting the world’s poor. The final part evaluates how such a radical recapitulation of this duty sits with the broader aims of Rawls’ work.

This study entitled, Canada’s Human Security Foreign Policy: Illuminating the Role of Ideas in Soft Power, investigates the role of ideational factors in explaining foreign policy outcomes. Specifically, it examines the context of Canada’s human security foreign policy development from 1996-2001 under former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy. Viewing human security as an idea or political leitmotif allows a more profound understanding of policy, its connection to soft power strategies, and the successful adoption of international human security treaties. To date, most research on human security has asserted the wide depth and scope of its conceptual boundaries make it problematic as a policy tool. Opposing claims have been forwarded as to Canada’s success in human security policy creation and implementation. The study seeks to interrogate these opposing claims in order to push the debates that exist in the literature forward. It is argued that Canada’s human security foreign policy serves to throw into question claims concerning the ineffectiveness of human security as a policy tool, whereby Canada’s use of soft power strategy in pursuit of specific human security issues has allowed it to gain greater power in international affairs. Moreover, a focus on ideational factors that allow for power enhancement to occur serve to push Joseph S. Nye’s initial conceptualization of soft power forward within a wider taxonomy of power dynamics. Illustrated through efforts in developing and implementing its human security foreign policy, the explicit connection between ideas and soft power becomes paramount to understanding the Canadian case. Albeit an idea that informs policy in bounded issue-based contexts, human security and its connection to soft power informs both policy research and academic literature.

At the turn of the 21st century, the global resurgence of religion is posing a direct challenge to a Westphalian international system which upholds secular politics as the most peaceful, stable, and universal foundation for international relations. The aim of this thesis is thus to interrogate the secular dimension of the contemporary political foundation as well as the beliefs and assumptions that shape IR‘s historical foresight so that international dialogue may be facilitated. Through the reconsideration of the secularisation process, I demonstrate that the Westphalian secular order emerged through the usurpation, translation, and appropriation of important religious resources found within Christianity. Far from being universal or neutral, the current foundation of international politics has theological origins and a religious character to which it is oblivious. In turn, this implies that secularism‘s overconfidence in its own neutrality and objectivity may be a threat to the preservation of peace and security. In the name of value pluralism, IR must distance itself from its secularist history. Therefore, what is required is to reconsider the way IR relates to religion with a view to strengthening political independence and international freedom and to forestalling value conflicts. If IR is to facilitate genuine global cooperation, it must reconsider its secular foundation and exchange it for a post-secular project in which secularism and religion are considered on an equal footing. In the interest of peace and security pluralism should rethink its assumptions concerning the inevitability of secularisation and exchange its secularism for the establishment of a ‗post-secular‘ dialogue with religion.

This thesis is inscribed in the field of international political theory, even though it also seeks to contribute to an understanding of IPT as subsidiary to other areas such as theology, ontology and ethics. It consists of a study of the existential theology and ethical ontology – or ‘ontological ethics’ – which lies at the basis of Reinhold Niebuhr‘s theory of international politics. It seeks to spell out the ways in which Niebuhrian realism was not only profoundly theological, but also constituted a powerful existentialist reconfiguration of the Christian tradition going back to Saint Augustine. This thesis argues that Niebuhr‘s religious thought, as much as his international political theory, cannot dispense with a detailed account of his reception of major continental thinkers, usually couched as existentialist philosophers – namely Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and their 20th century followers. I demonstrate how Niebuhr‘s ontological investigations, which constituted the indispensable ground of his political theology and IR theory, sought to import the existentialist insights of these continental thinkers into the overall framework of his Augustinianism. Kierkegaard‘s insights about love and anxiety, as much as Nietzsche‘s genealogical enquiries into the history of ethics, the discourse of survival and preservation, and the practices of power, were a key ingredient in Niebuhr‘s international political theory. I argue that through them Niebuhr was able to recast Augustine‘s realist formulation of the ‘impossible possibility’ of a world community, as well as his critique of political idolatry and of modern forms of pride and of paganism, in influential ways which still speak to us today. In turn, Niebuhr‘s theological and realist-existentialist critique of Wilsonian idealism – with its problematization of the sublimation of modern subjectivity and the belief in the endless rational capacities of the human self – allows for a limited margin of dialogue between Niebuhrian realism and those contemporary strands of critical IR theory which have always defined themselves in opposition to the realist tradition.

This thesis contributes to the existing scholarship on intelligence studies and examines the reasons, the means and the consequences of the privatisation of intelligence in the United States between 2001 and 2009. In the years after the /11 terrorist attacks, the extension of public-private intelligence ‘partnerships’ has raised important questions about the nature and parameters of the modern national security state and the boundaries of legitimacy as defined within the democratic model. A major focus of this project is the relationship between the US intelligence community’s reliance on the private sector and intelligence accountability. A considered analysis of this issue casts new light on the strengths and weaknesses of the US system of intelligence accountability. This research suggests that, in the period under consideration, the relationship between the privatisation of intelligence and intelligence accountability was characterised by interdependence and imperfection but not necessarily in a completely negative way. Privatisation complicated accountability holders’ access to information from intelligence providers whilst emphasising the need for better regulation,control and oversight of private intelligence activities. Senior accountability holders (within the executive and legislative branches) nevertheless always retained the authority to devise better means to access private sector information, improve accountability standards, and sanction or support private intelligence ‘partners’. However, this did not mean that the executive and the legislature used their authority to achieve optimum solutions. Indeed, the lack of policy planning behind privatisation adversely affected the accountability process in the US. The resultant gaps in accountability can be traced to key accountability holders’ priorities in the years 2001-9. This, it is argued here, demonstrates a lack of political willingness within the US body politic to hold both public and private intelligence providers to account.

An increasing number of works argues that the state boundary is no longer just a territorial line to mark the outer edges of the state but it has become more diffused in terms of its locations and its forms. Bordering practices take place not just at the geographical entry and exit points of the state but in cyberspace and are performed not simply by immigration officers but also, for instance, by civilian vigilante groups. While the extant works successfully address the complexity of bordering practices and suggest the need to think of the boundary differently from a simple line, it has yet to effectively propose an apposite image of the boundary. This lack of investigation leaves the extant works unresponsive to their own reliance on the image of the boundary-as-a-line in articulating alternative images. The thesis examines this tenacious image of a line in order to investigate an image of the boundary which might productively reflect its diffused characteristics. Considering that bordering is an act of classifying people into groups, the thesis takes categorisation as a focal point of investigation. This enables the thesis to point out that the tenacity of the boundary-as-a-line image is manifested in the continual reliance on categories in the extant debates. Drawing on the examples of migrant activism where categories play significant roles, the thesis argues that categories are used as representational tools in activism. As such, categorisation entails the possibility of failing to represent to perfection. The thesis argues that the reliance on categories is realised in this representational slippage, the gap between what categories are supposed to signify and what is actually signified by categories. The thesis concludes by suggesting that these two－the ability and inability of categorisation－point to the image of the boundary as a dot. The reliance on categories, and hence the tenacity of the boundary-as-line image appears in the gap between what a line attempts to do and what it fails to do.