The aim of this paper is to investigate the link between internal and external conflict of states in the field of International Relations. More specifically, it is a critique of the Diversionary War theory, which argues that political leaders can instigate foreign conflict to divert the attention from domestic issues in order to secure their political positions. This paper will test an alternative approach to the Diversionary War theory called the Diversionary Peace theory, which inverts the logic of the original theory. It argues that leaders facing domestic strife have incentives to cooperate with other states in order to deal with the internal problems in a more cost effective way. Using process tracing methodology, the Diversionary Peace theory is applied to Turkey from 1984-1999, to understand how the Kurdish issue as a source of domestic conflict in Turkey affected the Turkish-Syrian relations. The Diversionary Peace Theory would assume that as the Kurdish conflict escalates at the domestic level, Turkey would be inclined to give concessions to Syria to deescalate conflict at the international level. This paper proves otherwise: as the domestic conflict escalates, relations actually deteriorate and cooperation becomes less likely. Therefore, it is both a critique of the Diversionary War theory and the Diversionary Peace theory. The main interpretation of the findings is that the theory is not applicable to those cases where the boundaries between domestic and international realms are too porous as in the case of the Kurdish politics. When the domestic conflict and international dispute is interlinked, as in this case, I argue that cooperation might not be possible. Future reseachers in the area are advised to pay attention to whether the domestic factor and the international factor are interlinked, how the level of domestic conflict affects foreign relations and the impact of domestic audience costs.

When Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, it was the beginning of a two month long war. The aim of this essay is to find alternative explanations to the Falklands war with the main question being whether there were hidden motives for Thatcher and her reactions in 1982.   The essay will focus on the period 1965-1982 in which different texts will be analyzed by applying theories. The diversionary war theory describes how state leaders can improve their political popularity by intentionally escalating a conflict. The geopolitical theory explains how a state, by investments, constructions and military, can create demographic and international perceptions regarding a territory while foreign political theory describes how decision making is affected by the bureaucracy, psychology and the international system.   The ministry of defense and the navy was heavily affected by the financial cuts during the conflict and may also have affected the manner in which they advised Thatcher in 1982. Because of the British unwillingness to invest geopolitically in the Falklands and their aggravation of the diplomatically efforts to find a peaceful solution, the conflict got worse. In addition, Thatchers intentions to implement economic reforms and her record low political popularity make it plausible to suspect her for having, intentionally, escalated the conflict to gain political popularity and to enable the economic reforms.