This study grounded within the discipline of conflict resolution in the field of international conflict is an empirical investigation and comprehensive analysis of the politics of security decision- making in an African petro-state called Nigeria. It explores how the Nigerian political elite perceive national security threat and the impact of this perception on the construction of security strategies in the oil producing Niger Delta region of the country. The study challenges the traditional thinking mode of national security and explores the transformative potential of the human security concept. In doing so, the study arrives at a central thesis that the specific interpretation of national security threat within the Nigerian political elite has escalated the level of insecurity in the state, especially in the Niger Delta region which is the research case study. The issues are addressed in eight chapters with the central themes of elite and security illustrated with theoretical as well as empirical accounts of the making of political elite and the roots of threat perception in Nigeria. By injecting a theoretical framework that comprises both discursive and non-discursive approaches through the two variants of securitisation theory - Copenhagen and Paris Schools, the study strips bare the security perception of the Nigerian political elite. Through qualitative and quantitative research methods, the study explored three different groups’ perceptions as its unit of analysis; and the specific nuances and commonalities within them analysed. The central hypothesis is that state institutions are not just a consequence of early historical conditions, but because agency and structure do evolve over time, the contingent processes and events such as natural resource discovery, nationalisation and the timing of key historical events create a set of governance resources, political economy incentives and elite culture that frames the behaviour of state actors and policy-makers. Nonetheless, these critical junctures may open windows of opportunity to push for a far-reaching changes in frameworks for decision-making and re-shape the mode of governance. The originality of the work is twofold. First, is its utility of an analytical framework that comprises both discursive and non-discursive practices as proposed by the Copenhagen and Paris Schools of securitisation theory to unravel elite perception of security. Second, is its application of a deconstructivist approach through qualitative data coding to analyse the evolving security dynamics in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. The study concludes that the lack of a process to allow the views of those who prioritise state security over citizens security, and those who view security the other way round to communicate and find a common ground is a major problem that needs to be overcome.

With the overall aim of contributing to the peace efforts in Cyprus and facilitating transformative peace on the island, this thesis explores the relationship between (de)securitisation, ontological security and reconciliation in protracted conflict environments. The theoretical framework is built upon this trilateral nexus and uses Cyprus as a single case study for its application. In line with the overall aim, the thesis improves to the theorisation of institutionalised securitisations by complimenting the Copenhagen School with the Paris School, enriches the concept of (de)securitisation with ontological security literature and broadens the dual-ethnic approach to the Cyprus Problem by adding the Turkish settlers/immigrants to the empirical analysis. Underpinned by both theoretical and empirical contributions to the relevant literature, the thesis provides a more nuanced understanding of identity and friend-enemy configurations by analysing the securitisation dynamics that go beyond the primary self to include other-others, other-selves and othered-selves through a strategic blend of quantitative and qualitative methods. Finally, the thesis suggests that we need to couple the concept desecuritisation with ontological security considerations in order to fully understand and explore its potential as a facilitating tool for transformative peace. More specifically for the case of Cyprus, the thesis argues that securitisation of Turkish immigrants as a threat creates ontological dissonance and peace-anxieties for the two main communities in Cyprus; thus, calls for their desecuritisation and inclusion in peacebuilding efforts.

The goal of this thesis is to analyse the impact of Arctic ecology on the development of international systems in the circumpolar world. It is a goal pursued in two steps: (i) by developing an analytical approach capable of tracing the mutual constitution of international and ecological systems in world history; and (ii) by using the resulting toolkit to establish a baseline understanding of the international systems of the polar basin. Part One adapts the analytical approach pioneered by Barry Buzan and Richard Little to study international systems in world history, adding a contextual axis to their analytical matrix in order to escape the anthropocentric cul-de-sac that has heretofore limited IR’s ability to consider ecology’s role in the constitution of international units, processes, and structures. The resulting approach – defined in terms of SocioEcological Coevolution – describes this relationship in terms of three sources of explanation: coevolutionary process, ecological capacity and biogeographical structure. Part Two uses the toolkit to analyse the past four hundred years of Arctic history, charting the impact of ecological systems on the principles of membership and behaviour that define international systems in circumpolar world. Through discussions of socio-ecological coevolution, ecological capacity and biogeographical structure, the project identifies the Arctic as a region defined by competing sets of Westphalian and imperial principles. The balance between the Arctic’s anarchic states system and its hierarchic imperial systems has its fulcrum on a socio-ecological ecotone – a transitional gradient that divides its neo-European and non-European biomes and marks a shift from Westphalian to imperial social principles. Though designed to answer specific questions about the constitution of international systems in the circumpolar North, Coevolution proves itself to be a promising tool for ecological analysis in IR with potential applicability to regions outside of the Arctic Basin.

Debate about how populations can be protected from mass atrocities is well-established in international affairs. Beset with a raft of ethical, legal, political and normative questions, the rapid development of the ‘responsibility to protect’ has been held up as evidence of emerging, and even settled, consensus in this area. Indeed, from the perspective of well-established models of norm construction, notably the “Norm Life Cycle”, R2P’s institutionalization in the 2005 World Summit Outcome may signify momentum towards full acceptance. However, based upon a detailed tracing of R2P’s path into the Summit Outcome, this thesis questions how R2P is increasingly characterized as well as the theoretical explanatory frames used by scholars to describe the development and impact of international norms. It challenges the twin problems of linearity and norm exogenization which distort our understanding, and which are evident in overly optimistic portrayals of R2P’s development. With these in mind, the thesis adopts a framework constituted by a constructivist-inspired hypothesis and a process-tracing methodology defined by elite-level interviews and extensive documentary analysis. It shows how tracing the micro-processes of R2P’s development generates a very different story to those derived from broader theoretical frames. Indeed, the empirical findings show how and why the agreement was possible, and – through an analysis of the complex political negotiations – in what form R2P was collectively defined. This leads to the introduction of the concept of the ‘structured outcome’ to describe how R2P was propelled towards agreement more by a series of factors relating to the design and effect of the negotiation process than by the progressive acceptance of states. Accordingly, R2P’s formulation was purposefully limited to navigate pronounced dividing-lines and as a political agreement was more cosmetic than transformational. Resultantly its normative foundations were far shallower and far less significant than oft-rendered in mainstream perception.

The objective of the thesis is to study the concept of state identity and its role in foreign policy decision-making through a constructivist analysis, with particular focus on the Saudi–Iranian rapprochement of 1997. While there has been a recent growth in the study of ideational factors and their effects on foreign policy in the Gulf, state identity remains understudied within mainstream International Relations (IR), Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), and even Middle Eastern studies literature, despite its importance and manifestation in the region’s foreign policy discourses. The aim is to challenge purely realist and power-based explanations that have dominated the discourse on Middle Eastern foreign policy—and in particular, the examination of Saudi–Iranian relations. Saudi Arabia and Iran have played key roles in Gulf security for the past four decades, yet there have been few studies addressing their bilateral relations. Traditionally, differences—including sectarianism, nationalism, revolutionary ideology, competition over regional hegemony, oil prices, policy towards US military presence in the Gulf, and disagreements over the hajj—are often cited as reasons for their rivalry, yet these differences do not on their own offer a convincingly clear explanation as to why the rapprochement took place at that particular time, or why it thrived—and subsequently declined—despite the continuing presence of these issues. The primary purpose of the thesis is to analyse and understand the reasons behind the rise and demise of the Saudi–Iranian rapprochement of 1997. By focusing on ideational and materialist factors, the thesis seeks to demonstrate how changes in state identity—particularly in the official foreign policy discourse—indicates changes in policy, and therefore a shift in the amity–enmity pattern between the two states. Without discarding the value of realist explanations, the thesis will argue that the rapprochement process of 1997 has been significantly (though not exclusively) influenced by changes in state identity in each state. Moreover, this thesis provides a theoretical framework based on the concept of state identity and role theory (“self versus other”) to study the evolution of enmity, the rise of the rapprochement process during the Khatami presidency (1997–2005), and the subsequent revival of Saudi–Iranian rivalry during President Ahmadinejad’s first term (2005–2009). The main argument of this thesis is that ideational and materialist factors were instrumental in the demise of the rapprochement process, but the change in Iran’s state identity during the first term of President Ahmadinejad altered the perception of each state towards the other. Thus, the relationship transformed from a state of relative friendliness to a state of enmity and rivalry. This is explained by examining the muqawama–mumana’a discourse and the “moderates” versus “radicals” debate that consumed the narrative of Saudi–Iranian relations between 2005 and 2009. The methods employed in answering these research questions and hypotheses are largely structured around a chronological account of the development and formation of state identities and an analysis of each state’s foreign policy discourse during the period in question. This will be supplemented by qualitative interviews with individuals who participated in the rapprochement process, and will draw upon new archival material that has hitherto not been utilised in the literature on this subject.

The Iranian nuclear crisis is a proxy arena for competing visions about the functioning of international relations. Yet, no comprehensive analyses have been conducted so far that use the Iranian nuclear case as an illustration to conceptualise the interaction between ‘hegemonic structures’ and those actors resisting them. This doctoral dissertation is a first step to fill this gap in the literature. It analyses the foreign policies of China, Russia and Turkey towards the Iranian nuclear programme and thereby answers the research question to what extent their policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. Based on 55 semi-structured elite interviews with experts and decision-makers closely involved with the Iranian nuclear file, this research draws on neo-Gramscian scholarship to analyse resistance to hegemony across its ideational, material and institutional framework conditions. The case studies examined show how ‘compliance’ on the part of China, Russia and Turkey with approaches to the Iranian nuclear conflict has been selective, and how US policy preferences in the Iran dossier have been resisted on other occasions. To understand such variation in ‘norm compliance’, this dissertation introduces a two-level model to understand foreign policy discrepancies between a discursive and a behavioural level. Chinese, Russian, and Turkish reluctance to use sanctions as tools in international diplomacy on a discursive level did not prevent the eventual adoption of international sanctions against Iran and Chinese, Russian, and Turkish compliance therewith on a behavioural level. While multilateral Iran sanctions are seen as complying with the rules of the UN system, additional unilateral sanctions are contested on normative grounds and perceived as illegitimate and as an extraterritorialisation of domestic legislation. Besides an ideational resistance to unilateral sanctions, the economic impact of these ‘secondary sanctions’ on third country entities constitutes an additional material reason for Chinese, Russian, and Turkish criticism. Their eventual compliance with sanctions lists, however, indicates a level of receptiveness to the economic leverage of US-dominated international financial mechanisms. In this context, the Iran nuclear case serves as an illustration to shed light on the contemporaneous interaction of the forces of consent and coercion in international politics. This research thus makes a critical contribution to key questions of International Relations at the interstice of security governance, proliferation policies, and debates surrounding the co-existence between hegemonic structures and ‘norm-shapers in the making’.

Statebuilding is widely defined as a comprehensive and external exercise that aims to shape economic, security and administrative structures and institutions in a post-conflict society by promoting liberal internationalist norms. This thesis proposes that the narratives on statebuilding assign limited responsibility to international actors engaged in statebuilding, despite its comprehensive and intrusive nature: a mismatch dubbed as the ¨responsibility gap¨. It continues to propose that the limited attribution of responsibility to actors engaged in external statebuilding is possible through ¨discursive safeguards¨ inherent in the framing of statebuilding. These propositions are tested in four stages: a) conducting a frame and discourse analysis on statebuilding in order to understand the way international responsibilities are framed, b) formulating an alternative framework to attribute responsibility by utilizing perspectives on moral responsibility, c) comparing these two frameworks to identify a responsibility gap in the way the statebuilding frame attributes responsibility to external actors, d) pointing out the discursive safeguards in international narratives that allow sustaining the responsibility gaps. As a last step, the propositions are tested through a case study, on the involvement of the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This thesis explores the ideological bases of the global governance of nuclear weapons by analysing the role of civil society, an actor generally left aside by nuclear scholarship. Here the question of nuclear order is tackled with an unconventional approach that combines critical works in nuclear studies, critical constructivist works on security, and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of civil society. Such approach brings civil society to the forefront of analytical attention in order to show the cultural domination exercised by the bomb by inquiring into the common sense nature of nuclear discourse. This rests on the assumption that uncritically accepted ideas about what nuclear weapons do have been instrumental in generating the current nuclear order that, although under mounting challenges, remains based on a hierarchy between states protected by the bomb and all the rest. To understand how civil society challenges and reproduces that order, this thesis analyses the calls for nuclear disarmament advanced by organised collective actors and inquires, in a Gramscian way, into the common sense ingrained in those calls as well as their ability to constitute a united front. As a result, the thesis problematises the notion of disarmament, marking the importance of a struggle on its very concept between reductionist and abolitionist frames. It indicates that while the latter are involved in a radical opposition, the former are culturally dominated by the system of deterrence, thus coming to represent two distinct historic blocs: a counter-hegemonic opposition, on one hand, and an unwitting part of the hegemonic apparatus, on the other. This thesis concludes that 1) civil society is far from having created a unity of intent; and 2) the bases for the reliance on nuclear weapons are deeply entrenched, because of the pervasiveness, even inside civil society, of a common sense view of the nuclear threat.

This thesis explores the everyday lived experiences of people involved in the relationship between Malawi and Scotland by critically examining the historical relationship between the two countries as well as the contemporary activities, meaning and context of the existing partnerships, relationships and networks. The role of networks and scale are also considered, primarily as they relate to international ‘development’. The research demonstrates that Malawi and Scotland do have a unique relationship, one founded on the legacy of interconnectedness granted by David Livingstone’s memory, and turned into a positive historical narrative. This special relationship has been strengthened through the implementation of a small international ‘development’ fund managed by the Scottish Government and the supporting of networking organisations between Malawi and Scotland, which appear to create spaces and opportunities for people to assemble together and jump scales of activity in communicating across national and international boundaries. As such this relationship based on equality, partnership and friendship between two small counties, one in Southern Africa, one in Northern Europe, offers a hopeful vision for international co-operation, assemblages of people and of partnerships that are truly equal, as long as the ever increasing trend towards neoliberal policies and bureaucracies around ‘development’ are resisted, even rejected.

While research on developments in minority rights field in the South and East European countries has shown that political incentives in the form of International Organization (IO) membership conditionality was a driving factor in facilitating transposition of minority rights norms into domestic legislation, compliance with IO recommendations post-conditionality remains a puzzle. This thesis contributes to the broader literature on ‘Europeanisation’ by first, examining transposition of and compliance with minority rights norms once the main ‘carrot’ of membership conditionality is consumed. Secondly, it presents a comparative perspective on adoption of minority rights reforms in EU and non-EU countries (Latvia and Georgia respectively). Last, by incorporating analysis of both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes of change, it contributes to the emerging research on the role of ‘bottom-up’ processes in Europeanization of domestic policies. This study shows that the influence of IOs on states after accession is very limited. However, it is not defunct. Adoption of the FCNM in both countries is explained in terms of the ruling government’s reputational concerns to safeguard an image of being ‘good European citizens.' In turn, reputational concerns, when and if present, were only effective to the extent of forging formal (as opposed to behavioural) compliance. Behavioural compliance, on the other hand, was tamed by the ruling government’s stance towards minorities and domestic political considerations (including domestic opposition to reforms). Importantly, this study also shows that bottom-up processes in the postaccession period take place indeed. While their effects on forging positive changes are limited, these processes are more influential in Latvia, rather than in Georgia. The study concludes that legacies of the communist past and their geographical location make the states in question subject to (sometimes) conflicting norms. It thus suggests, in addition to analyzing the influence of IO membership, the further research in the area should take the influence of other regional states/players into consideration.