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Critiquing Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink's life-cycle hypotheses, this project tries to understand the socio-economic, political and institutional factors that influenced the construction of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). It addresses restless debates about the role of institutions in shaping behaviour, particularly in the context of unequal power distributions under United Nations (UN) voting rules. It questions what states had to gain from the Treaty, how power was exercised under consensus, and how this related to identity and norm formation. It also addresses ongoing debates about the power and influence of NGOs in international relations, questioning the extent at which NGOs were influential in the construction of the ATT despite restrictive access, and whether this alters or maintains the view of their influence in academia. It further questions the lengths at which institutionalised norms affect state preferences, particularly where economic, political and security factors are at stake. A number quantitative and qualitative sources are used to understand how rationality and legitimacy arguments are applicable to states promotion and opposition to ATT provisions, and questions how state preferences are influenced through peer pressure and esteem. The thesis concludes that regional groups have significant power in formulating the preferences of its member states. Challenging mainstream arguments made by constructivists, it also questions the extent at which states are 'socialised' or persuaded to support norms. Additionally, despite restricted access, and challenging aspects of the theory, NGOs were able to influence the agenda at the norm emergence and negotiation stages. It also clarifies areas where Finnemore and Sikkink's hypothesis is lacking or oversimplified, particularly 'tipping points' stages, in state socialisation, and where institutional factors, rather than purely social, were major element contributing to in the Treaty's construction.

This study addresses a gap in the literature on the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) national security. It establishes a reference for further research into the analysis of national security of similar countries to the UAE based on established international relations theory. The UAE, since its establishment in 1971, has gone through exponential development and changes in terms of its politics, economics and social structures. However, attempts to develop a comprehensive approach to analysing the various aspects of maintaining the country’s existence are scarce. Any research focuses on narrow specific areas. This research analyses the UAE’s national security by using the most relevant analytical framework based on Buzan’s ‘Nature of the State’ hypothesis from the Copenhagen School of International Relations. The threats to the UAE’s impeding national security threats are addressed using the various elements in the hypothesis. These elements are the ‘idea of state’ which concentrates on the country’s state formation, the institutional framework of the UAE, and the structure of its physical base. Importantly, due to the dynamic interdependency of these elements, a threat to one can create a threat to the other elements. The researcher establishes a framework for the analysis of national security, which; because of the similarity of the political, economic and social base of the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia), can be used to analyse their national security systems. Furthermore, the researcher addresses the requirement for further exploration of the interdependencies between the three elements composing the state and the need for a coherent approach in addressing those threats. The study is structured in five parts. Chapter one highlights the research’s introductory material. Chapter two explores the theories of national security of the major schools of international relations theories, while chapter three theorizes the UAE’s national security according to the most relevant international relations theory (Buzan’s ‘Nature of the State’). Chapter four explores the specific threats to the UAE national security and finally chapter five demonstrates the researcher’s findings and recommendations.

This thesis examines the way in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is engaging with and attempting to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), a topic largely absent from international relations literature. Specifically, it offers an interrogation and theorisation of the development and implementation of NATO’s ‘gender perspective’ from official documentation and from a series of elite interviews with individuals working within the international, military structures of the alliance. Drawing upon a composite methodology, framed by feminist theory, that centralises narrative and discourse, the thesis explores subjective understandings of gender and security. The research reveals that UNSCR 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, is (re)interpreted by NATO in very specific ways that both reflect and challenge pre-existing gendered norms and power hierarchies within the Alliance. The experiences of military personnel working for NATO show how these individuals locate themselves within - and negotiate - these gendered norms and structures to develop a relevant, palatable and ‘successful’ gender perspective. The findings of this thesis therefore expose complex and contradictory constructions of (militarised) femininities and masculinities within NATO and the tensions that emerge when an international military alliance actively engages with the topic of gender. In doing so this research makes a unique contribution to understandings of gender mainstreaming initiatives within international security organisations; in addition the research makes a novel contribution to the broader literature regarding feminist security studies, gender, war and militarism.

The study of medieval military display has been dominated by social historians for whom it is a means of understanding the ties of family, lordship and power. Its military function and importance on the battlefield is often marginalised, reduced to the practicalities of command and control or the identification of friend from foe. This thesis argues that those functions recognised by social historians were just as important on the battlefields of the High Middle Ages as off them. The battlefield was a social arena for the elite, for whom displays of individual identification and membership of the armigerous class were essential for the maintenance of their status. It is argued that the forms of display in use were much broader than just heraldry and banners, and included livery and the badge, war-cries and musical instruments and the arms, armour and other accoutrements the warrior took into battle. Drawing on the fields of biology and anthropology it is argued that both the forms and functions of display have drives deeper than those created by the dictates of medieval military culture. Display as a form of threat or warning, common to all creatures, can be seen as a function of that of the warrior. Symbols identifying the individual on the field might deter a prospective attacker. The wearing of armour not only made the warrior feel invulnerable but also altered his body shape, making him appear more masculine and powerful. It altered his experience of the battlefield which, it is argued, led to the donning of armour becoming a transitional ritual taking the warrior from peace to war. Finally, this study uses display as a vehicle for challenging the theory of a fourteenth-century military revolution. It is argued that display shows continuity of military culture that underlay the tactical, administrative and technological developments in war.

There is a common perception among corporate security managers that their occupation is afforded less status and is rewarded less well than the other management functions within business. In response to similar conceptions of the need to raise the value and status of their work, other occupations have historically embarked on so-called ‘professional projects’ whereby they collectively attempt to harness their specialist skills and knowledge as a commodity, the value of which they seek to raise and maintain. This small- scale qualitative study is intended to provide an insight into the analysis of corporate security managers and directors as to the health of their occupation and its standing in the modern corporate world. The study then examines the methods which other occupations have used to successfully improve the status of their practitioners and the value of their work. Finally, based on the analysis of the security managers and directors and the experience of other occupations, a broad strategy for corporate security’s own professional project is proposed. This study suggests that corporate security is currently enjoying divergent fortunes. The most successful security managers and directors enjoy parity of status with their peers from other functions and have taken on responsibilities far in excess of the traditional security department’s remit. However, at the other end of the spectrum there are many security managers who are afforded an inferior status to that of managers from other functions. As a result, they struggle to attract significant responsibility or resources within their organisations. The research suggests that other management functions have historically faced similar problems in their development. These other functions have used strategies of occupational negotiation, boundary work, closure and monopolisation to overcome their problems. Together these measures have constituted professional projects. Based on the appetite for professionalisation among our security managers, and the success of professional projects in comparable occupations, this study concludes that security management should embark on a professional project of its own.

The British Army is a very mature organization, which has suffered no discontinuity since becoming all professional in 1960. Much of the concept, character, practice and quality of British Army Officership has been assumed, and not studied as deeply and comprehensively as in other armies. The analogue of paradigm change, whether evolutionary or revolutionary (explained by Thomas Kuhn, 1970), has been chosen to bring discipline to an assessment of the speed and depth of change in officership since 1960. Officer entrants have been, and continued to be, expected voluntarily to accept the paradigm of officership - much of which is implicit - and measure up to the required standards of military compatibility, competence, motivation and good faith. In view of the Army's undoubted operational success and confidence, it has attracted a sufficient number of high quality entrants and from their ranks, eventually selected its senior officers. The pressures to modernize, including those induced by government, have mounted since the end of the Cold War. Exogenous demands for rethinking operational roles and embracing new technologies and military tasks, have been met successfully. Corporately, however, the Army has been found wanting in keeping abreast of social, educational, professional and judicial, changes in Britain. The reason has been that insufficient thought and research has been put into the human aspects of military service and officership for upward of twenty years. A divergence between the Anny and society has been reflected in the different attitudes between those who became 'career' officers and those who leave after a period of 'short-term' service. Evidence shows that in 2001, the concept and character of officership is currently marked by a much deeper comprehension. The performance and quality of officers is maintained, as befits a leading democratic nation. This has been achieved by rapid evolution, not revolution.

At the start of the twenty-first century, cooperation amongst international navies has once again emerged as an important element of international affairs, given new global security challenges, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. As such, the Japan-US naval relationship has been a relatively under-studied topic. The thesis pursues two interrelated objectives. First, it identifies and discusses the dynamics that have driven and in some cases constrained the development and institutionalisation of the Japan-US naval relationship over a 25-year period, between 1976 and 2001. Second, it examines the relationship between naval cooperation and institutionalisation in this particular naval relationship.<br/>A variety of factors contributed to the development and institutionalisation of the Japan-US naval relationship during this time period. The research indicates that the internal dynamics within the naval relationship, combined with external influences such as threat perceptions, national leadership influence and domestic politics drove and/or constrained the relationship at various times. The proposition advanced by this thesis is that when the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and US Navy operate together against a mutually acknowledged security threat or challenge, sharing risks and the defence burden, a dynamic is created in which cooperation encourages institutionalisation, which in turn facilitates improved cooperation.<br/>Institutionalisation is characterised in the thesis by the nature and extent of internal coordination, operational interaction, external linkages and by the depth of the relationship. The analytical framework uses these four components as indicators of progress in the development and institutionalisation of the naval relationship. A mapping technique is employed in the thesis as a tool of analysis to help order issues and provide a structure for comparing empirical data at three points over the course of twenty-five years.

Mainstream alliance theories have tried to account for the survival of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its ability to adapt to the post-Cold War realities of world politics, most notably the lack of a homogenized external threat. However,' they have not been able to fully account for a surge of NATO's novel practices and discourses of security provision. NATO Member States' decisions to involve extra-alliance public and private actors ' in their missions, or the Alliance's willingness to assume collective security functions are all examples of social phenomena that both Realist and Liberal theories have been unable to account for. While duly acknowledging their contributions, the main source of their limited utility to the study of contemporary NATO has been in how they define the Organization. By black-boxing and a priori defining NATO as an international military alliance, a collective defence arrangement, mainstream alliance theories have unsurprisingly remained silent as to how the Organization can be understood once that its nemesis has imploded. On the other hand, a bulk of scholarly work that focuses on NATO from a "practitioner's" perspective fails to coherently and consistently theorize alterations in NATO's post-1990 practices and discourses of security provision, usually focusing on policy observations and recommendations. This study approaches NATO's post-Cold War alterations in- security provision as a holistic process of structural transformation while remaining cognizant of the limitations in its approach . It defines transformation as long-term and structural changes in NATO (1) as a security provider, (2) in terms of consumers of its security goods and services, (3) as to the Alliance's perceptions of security challenges, risks, and threats, and (4) the nature and scope of means and instruments it uses to attain, maintain and expand security. Furthermore, the study argues that NATO has been differentiated from a unidimensional collective defence organization into a plural institution of security governance composed of five coexisting and non-hierarchical policy dimensions: (1) collective defence, (2) collective security, (3) norm diffusion, (4) facilitation of coalitions of the willing, and (5) generation of public-private security networks. While NATO as an institution of security governance (or "many NATOs") is considered to be an intermediate and variable transformation outcome, this thesis attempts at suggesting an array of policy-areas of Allies' interactions and bargaining (factors) that have arguably driven the process. Without claiming the totality and comprehensiveness of their explanatory power, the study focuses on three key transformation factors: (1) the relative size of individual contributions to NATO's security goods, (2) shifts in alliance size, and (3) the nature of NATO's core security goods. As the research accounts for transformation processes as triggered and driven by interactions, communication and bargaining amongst Allies, it frames their relations as "strategic" and deploys game theoretic tools to account for how intra-alliance politics have reinforced specific policy dimensions in the security governance NATO. Thus, burden sharing will be framed as a public goods game between a generic European ally and the United States, each deciding on their individual contributions to the Alliance's security goods. Enlargement is approached as a complete information veto bargaining relationship whereby Allies bargain over the extent and depth of NATO expansion in the 1990s and 2000s. Finally, post-Cold War practices of security provision are studied as a departure from collective defence through a comparative analysis of two public goods games involving two generic Allies - one whose security preferences were first mediated in NATO during the Cold War, and another Ally who joined the Alliance in 1997 or later. The conclusion ponders the holistic meaning of transformation and the consistent application of game theory to its inquiry.

While US ballistic missile defence (BMD) has been identified as a recurring stumbling block in post-Cold War US-Russian relations, its actual impact on the bilateral relationship has not been thoroughly assessed. Through an examination of the diplomatic factors that have underpinned US and Russian missile defence policies from 1999 to 2013, this thesis explains why US BMD was not as destabilising as feared by nuclear experts and scholars of US-Russian relations. Because US ballistic missile defence remained a diplomatic issue, it did not have a significant impact on other fields of cooperation and confrontation. US BMD did not go as far as turning into a central military irritant between the US and Russia. At the same time, the process of US-Russian missile defence diplomacy fostered a zero-sum outlook in US-Russian relations. While American and Russian policymakers sought to detach US BMD from fields deemed to be more important, diplomatic exchanges on US BMD only perpetuated opaque policy manoeuvres and increased mutual mistrust. In addition, the US- Russian conflict over ballistic missile defence developed into a diplomatic struggle over the post- Cold War European security architecture. The analyses of the role of European NATO states in US-Russian BMD disputes reveal the dysfunctional mechanisms of the post-Cold War institutional settings. As such, European-US-Russian exchanges on US missile defence contributed to the persistence of the Cold War divisions of ‘Western’-Russian relations and ingrained a source of recurring conflict.