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Since 2001, the attacks by terrorists on the World Trade Centre on 11th September, and the War on Terrorism brought to discussion the question of whether harsh interrogation techniques that may amount to torture under the definition of international law could be legitimately used as a means of information gathering in order to prevent future attacks. In April 2004, a number of photographs depicting serious abuses being inflicted on prisoners under US custody at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq became known to the public, arousing serious concerns towards US detention and interrogation policies in Iraq. Despite the shocking images of abuse, there remained significant level of tolerance among US public towards the use of physical and psychological violence as a means of intelligence gathering.In order to understand such level of tolerance among the US public towards the use of violence as a means of intelligence gathering, this thesis examined how the treatments towards detainees under US custody have been presented by the US news media. Applying the theoretical framework of Administrative Evil, this project demonstrated that, through facilitating the discursive conditions leading to the process of moral inversion where acts of evil become convincingly redefined as morally tolerable and even justified, the US news media have been unable to provide effective and sustained criticisms towards US government policies despite claims of increased media independence as a result of technological advancement. More importantly, by supporting the discursive conditions of substitution of moral responsibilities with technical, or instrumental, responsibilities, consequentialist moral reasoning, and the dehumanisation of victims, the US news media supported a discourse that encouraged sympathy and even acceptance among US public opinion towards coercive interrogation techniques, some of which would amount to torture under international humanitarian standards. Examining the failures of US news media, the result of this thesis prompts us to critically review the role of the news media under the context of war. More significantly, the result of this thesis also demonstrated the failure of moral safeguards within modern liberal democratic societies and the need for a standard of morality based upon uncompromising responsibility to the others as fellow human beings.

The thesis explores cooperative security efforts between the United States and Russia in the framework of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Programme and other non-proliferation programmes, which were established in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse as a response to nuclear proliferation threats in the former Soviet Union. One of the main objectives of CTR is to reduce nuclear dangers associated with vast nuclear arsenals, which first and foremost, means reductions in nuclear weapons. This work presents an overview of different proliferation threats ranging from proliferation of nuclear material to potential ““brain-drain”” from the former Soviet nuclear complex, explains their technical and socio-economic aspects and assesses the effectiveness of the U.S.-Russian programmes, which deal with these threats. The CTR process has encountered some major obstacles on its way. The research suggests that some important problems in the implementation of CTR programmes are of bureaucratic nature. However, bureaucratic factors are aggravated by the political factors stemming from the fact that the national security policies of the U.S. and Russia are still in part based on concepts and strategies adopted during the Cold War. This is especially evident with regard to the role assigned to nuclear weapons by both countries. Therefore, the CTR process is used as a laboratory study of the U.S.-Russian strategic relations in the post-Cold War era. The study demonstrates that the processes happening in the international security system below the surface and which might not be so obvious at a glance can be absolutely important for the future of the international system. The CTR process represents a mechanism, which can be used to build a new international system, where the role of the nuclear weapons becomes more and more obsolete.

On December 13, 2001, President George. W. Bush gave Russia notice that the U.S. would abrogate from the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM) Treaty. Signed in 1972, this treaty embodied profound significance; it codified Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) into the strategic doctrine of two competing superpowers. In dispensing with the treaty, President Bush signalled his intent to pursue a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system capable of intercepting adversary missiles in all stages of flight. This study seeks to explain why, in view of the uncertainty of the threat of emerging ballistic missile powers, the unproven technological feasibility of the system and the availability of alternative arms control options, the Bush administration still continued to pursue strategic defence. This was the case even after the focus of the national security threat shifted to international terrorism and non-state actors. This study demonstrates that the Bush administration's motivation to pursue strategic defence is is rooted within the shared values of a Republican conservative belief that the U.S. has the fundamental obligation to pursue international primacy. Missile defence as one part of a new Nuclear Triad is tested by this study as a capability designed to deliver this objective.

This thesis looks at the practices that classify ‘fragile states’ and their impacts. I analyse not only direct practices of ranking and categorisation but many indirect practices that make of ‘state fragility’ a measurable and manageable political truth. This research looks at the relations between the World Bank, OECD and the g7+ group of self-labelled ‘fragile states’ to understand how this measurable and manageable political truth is constructed, what power this construction involves and what its implications are. ‘State fragility’ has been largely quantified in systems used to compare state performance. Drawing from Bourdieu’s sociology and Hacking’s philosophy, I suggest these practices of quantification and classification are not a mere technicality; they answer to deep-seated successes of statistical reasoning, and their political entrenchment in policy-making has particular impacts in the ‘fragile states’ agenda. I suggest quantifying and classifying practices constitute a style of thinking and doing that carries symbolic power, a subtle but no less important form of power. Symbolic power is diffuse, and through the subtlety of practical sense it wins the complicity of those who seem least favoured by it – as crucially and richly exemplified by the self-labelling and self-measurement of the g7+ in terms of ‘state fragility’. However, in the diffuse and hardly traceable form of statistics, it also carries the elements that allow its own weakening and change. While direct power hardly leaves arms unattended, quantification by necessity travels with its tools and practices, hence, making it more possible to catch hold of some of these elements. I argue that by ignoring the practical sense in quantification and classification and by taking for granted what power is in these dynamics, how it is exerted and by whom, many critics paradoxically side-line the very subtle but important possibilities for weakening and change this symbolic power carries within.

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Shifts in attention towards regional governance across the globe have contributed to a diverging gap between decision-makers and citizens. There is a scholarly focus on the European example of regional integration - the European Union - given the particularly advanced stage of integration which the EU has achieved. Attitude formation literature on the topic of regional integration is therefore EU-centric and provides evidence-based discussion regarding EU legitimacy alone. In this thesis, 1 demonstrate the generic applicability of EU-derived opinion formation theory for an investigation of public support in a very different, developing world context. More pertinently, 1 grapple with sub-continental and continent-wide regional integration efforts which are fundamental to a non-EU approach towards continent-wide unity and demonstrate the importance of these dynamics for an investigation of public support. 1 focus on the African ‘building block’ context as an illustrative case-study. 1 specify three discrete approaches to provide an enhanced understanding of citizen support for regional integration in the African ‘building block’ context. Crucially, 1 demonstrate attitude formation models to investigate a) support for a sub-continental ‘building block’ of African unity; b) support for overlapping ‘building blocks’ of African unity and c) the relationship between support for ‘building block’ organisations and support for a continent-­wide regional integration organisation. 1 operationalise these models of public support utilising original and existing Tanzanian data. 1 derive a rather specific discussion from each model which relates to the perceived legitimacy of regional integration arrangements among a Tanzanian population. The increasing ceding of power to sub-continental and continent-wide integration arrangements in other regions of the world implies the broader significance of this thesis. By drawing attention to the interplay of multiple regional integration arrangements from a public opinion perspective, we can provide valuable evidence-based debate regarding the legitimacy of rather ‘distant’ decision-makers cores for populations more widely.

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