This thesis seeks to explain Argentine and Chilean approaches to modern Pan-Americanism. It offers several significant contributions to the historiography of Pan-Americanism and Southern Cone policymaking. First, it provides a sweeping overview of Pan-Americanism as a form of regional cooperation from 1888 to 1930, gathering the various strands of Pan-American history and forming a coherent overall narrative. It introduces a two-dimensional analytical framework for understanding Pan-American cooperation as a whole. The 'first dimension' included efforts to regulate the political relationships in the Americas while the 'second dimension' was more technical, social, cultural, and commercial. Within this framework, the approaches of two participant countries (Chile and Argentina) are closely examined in parallel. Attitudes towards the US, geopolitical calculations, and economic considerations – the basis of most historical interpretations – form part of the explanation, but this thesis presents a more complicated set of actors, influences, and ideas. Inspired by the methodology of Foreign Policy Analysis and recent studies in modern regionalism, the second half of the thesis deconstructs Pan-American policies. It examines four patterns that emerged through research: changes in the organization of policymaking, the influence of non-state actors and public opinion, the rise of intermestic strands of Pan-Americanism, and the role of ideas in international relations. Each pattern is analyzed and fully substantiated using evidence selected from the narrative and supplemented by wider research. Referencing models from multiple disciplines, the chapters reveal how different actors and objectives (including stemming social crisis, gaining prestige, and demonstrating commitment to democratic governance) influenced policy at different moments. Ultimately, this thesis emphasises the interplay of factors and suggests that unpacking Pan-Americanism has implications for understanding Latin America's role in international history and modern regionalism in the Americas.

Dans cette thèse nous avons cherché à prendre la mesure de la rupture épistémologique produite par l’analyse des systèmes-monde dans le champ des sciences sociales à travers l’étude d’un de ses principaux représentants, Immanuel Wallerstein. Dans un premier temps, ses recherches sur les mouvements nationalistes, la décolonisation et les indépendances africaines, se sont inscrites dans le cadre de ce qu’on a appelé la théorie de la modernisation qui corrélait changements sociaux et développement. Un tel modèle reposait sur une philosophie de l’histoire progressiste ordonnant les sociétés pensées comme des entités discrètes sur un axe menant de la tradition à la modernité, de sociétés agraires et rurales pauvres et oppressives pour l’individu à des sociétés urbaines industrielles prospères et individualistes. L’échec du développement des pays africains au cours des années 60 a fait douter Wallerstein de la pertinence de ce modèle. Il a alors cherché à élaborer une théorie alternative de la modernité à l’échelle globale. Au lieu de lire l’histoire mondiale selon le fil d’une modernisation qui serait un processus se réalisant à l’échelle sociétale, il l’a organisée autour de l’échange inégal entre zones exploiteuses et exploitées appartenant à un même système social appelé « système-monde moderne. » L’histoire de la modernité depuis la Renaissance et la conquête de l’Amérique devenait alors celle d’une polarisation continue entre les différentes zones de ce système, sa globalisation à partir de la deuxième moitié du dix-huitième siècle et durant tout le dix-neuvième ne faisant qu’étendre au monde entier l’inégalité entre un centre développé et une périphérie sous-développée. Au-delà de la critique de la théorie de la modernisation et du développementalisme, l’analyse des systèmes-monde a aussi procédé à une remise en cause de l’image progressiste de l’histoire qui s’était imposée depuis la philosophie des Lumières. Le système-monde moderne apparu au tournant du quinzième et du seizième siècle, comme tout système, aura une fin, comme il a eu un début. Nous vivons dans un système social qui en tant que tel est voué à disparaître sans qu’on puisse dire s’il constitue un progrès par rapport aux précédents (jamais aucun système social n’a été aussi inégalitaire), ni s’il donnera naissance à un système qui sera meilleur (en bifurcation chaotique l’avenir est incertain).En élaborant une autre « chronosophie » (Krystof Pomian), une autre « image » (Thomas Kuhn) de l’histoire que celle, progressiste, qui sous-tendait le développementalisme et la théorie de la modernisation, c’est bien une révolution copernicienne et une rupture épistémologique dans les sciences sociales qu’expose l’analyse des systèmes-monde. C’est donc bien un nouveau paradigme qu’elle se propose de constituer, l’œuvre de Wallerstein incarnant le passage des histoires mondiales classiques fondées sur le nationalisme méthodologique et l’idée de progrès, vers les histoires globales actuelles. / This PhD thesis aims to study the epistemological break produced by world-systems analysis in the field of social sciences, through the study of one of its major representatives, Immanuel Wallerstein. Initially, his research on nationalist movements, decolonization and African Independences was part of what has been called modernization’s theory. Such a model, built on a progressist philosophy of history, orders societies - perceived as discrete entities - on a linear axis leading from tradition to modernity, from poor and oppressive agrarian societies to prosperous and individualistic urban, industrial societies. The failure of development in African countries during the 1960s caused Wallerstein to doubt the relevance of this model. He then sought to elaborate an alternative theory of modernity on a global scale. In this theory, modernisation - a process realizable on the societal scale - is not the guiding thread to the reading of world history. Rather, world history is organised through the unequal exchange between exploitative and exploited zones belonging to the same social system he called “modern world-system”. The history of modernity from the Renaissance and the conquest of America onwards became one of continuous polarisation between different zones of the system. Its globalisation from the second half of the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century expanded inequality between a developed centre and an underdeveloped periphery to the entire world. Further to the critique of modernisation and developmentalism, the world-systems analysis has also called into question the progressive image of history which had been imposed since the Enlightenment philosophy. The modern world-system as it emerges at the turn of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century will have a demise as it had a beginning. As a social system, it is bound to disappear. It does not constitute an improvement with regard to the precedent systems (never has any social system been so inegalitarian) and it is unlikely to breed a better system since in a chaotic bifurcation, the future is uncertain.By elaborating a new “image” (Thomas Kuhn) of history, a new chronosophy (Krzysztof Pomian), the world-systems analysis operates a Copernican revolution and an epistemological rupture in the social sciences with regards to the theory of modernisation presented as the compendium of nineteenth century social science. As such, the world-systems analysis emerges as a new paradigm. Wallerstein’s work constitutes the passage from world histories founded on methodological nationalism and the idea of progress to the current non-Eurocentric global histories.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 triggered many responses amongst the American public, including a number of private initiatives in medical aid that occupied a borderland between traditional humanitarian relief and political activism. This study is interested in the stories of three organisations arising in this tradition: the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy (AMBASD), the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China (ABMAC), and the China Aid Council (CAC). While three separate initiatives in terms of who was responsible for their creation in the United States, and the communities they sought to help abroad, all three demonstrate parallels in their foundation and development that merit a joint historical consideration. Emerging from the backdrop of isolationism in U.S. foreign policy, the AMBASD, ABMAC, and CAC became a means of voicing both political and humanitarian ideals through the medium of medicine. In many ways, this thesis becomes a study of lost causes. As political campaigns, none of the organisations in this study succeeded in changing U.S. policy, although the ABMAC and CAC benefitted from interests that overlapped with larger changes in U.S. military alliances. As humanitarian organisations, only one (the ABMAC) lived past the conflict to which it owed its foundation. Their story, however, retains its historical interest in challenging both the way in which we examine the mythology of humanitarian idealism, and our understanding of the balance between internationalism and isolationism in the 1930’s United States. For the medical activists of these organizations, medical aid offered both a tangible outlet for personal ethical and political beliefs, but also promised an alternative means of diplomacy that brought greater agency to more popular levels.

The purpose of this thesis is to assess Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. I argue that the nature of the relationship was transformed by the region becoming the centre of Cold War conflict, and show how Pakistan’s role affected the development of the mujahidin insurgency against Soviet occupation. My inquiry begins by assessing the historical determinants of the relationship, arising from the colonial legacy and local interpretations of the contested spheres of legitimacy proffered by state, tribe and Islam. I then map the trajectory of the relationship from Pakistan’s independence in 1947, showing how the retreat of great power rivalry following British withdrawal from the subcontinent allowed for the framing of the relationship in primarily bilateral terms. The ascendance of bilateral factors opened greater possibilities for accommodation than had previously existed, though the relationship struggled to free itself of inherited colonial disputes, represented by the Pashtunistan issue. The most promising attempt to resolve the dispute came to an end with the communist coup and subsequent Soviet invasion, which subsumed bilateral concerns under the framework of Cold War confrontation. Viewing the invasion as a major threat, Pakistan pursued negotiations for Soviet withdrawal, aligned itself with the US and gave clandestine support to the mujahidin insurgency. External support enhanced mujahidin military viability while exacerbating weaknesses in political organization and ideology. Soviet withdrawal in 1989 left an unresolved conflict. Faced with state collapse and turmoil across the border, heightened security concerns following loss of US support, and intensified links among non-state actors on both sides of the frontier, the Pakistan government drew on its recently gained experience of working through non-state actors to attempt to maintain its influence in Afghanistan. There would be no return to the relatively stable state-state ties prevailing before 1979.

This thesis explores the continuous British interest in the American Civil War from the war’s end to the late twentieth century and the British utilisation of the conflict at home and in the Atlantic arena. Contributing to the limited, yet burgeoning literature on the subject, this study emphasises the independent agency of both the Civil War and its British interpreters. It thus rejects a simplistic depiction of British adoption of American culture and applies a more sophisticated methodology that accounts for the active, versatile and autonomous British use of complex foreign images. This enables a meaningful analysis of the Civil War’s place and role in modern British culture. The thesis examines the British fascination with the conflict as reflected in four facets: politics, military thought, academe and popular culture. Additionally, it takes a transatlantic perspective and explores how Britons’ view of the United States has influenced their understanding of the Civil War. This study thus provides a first comprehensive and coherent overview as well as a nuanced picture of the American conflict as it travelled across the Atlantic from a historically distanced perspective. The thesis reveals that the Civil War achieved unique prominence in British culture and that this British fascination with the war was part of a greater transatlantic encounter between an epic American affair and sophisticated British interpreters. Accordingly, the two main questions underpinning this study are ‘why were the British particularly interested in the Civil War?’ and, following directly on that path, ‘how did Britons use the war both at home and in the transatlantic sphere?’ Answering these questions further establishes the war’s prominence in British culture and explores the character of the British encounter with the conflict. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of the Civil War’s global impact and casts another light on Anglo-American relations.

In the last decade, scholars have recognized economic development and modernization as crucial themes in the history of the twentieth century and the ‘global Cold War.’ Yet while historians have written lucid histories of the role of the social sciences in American foreign policy in the Third World, far less is known on the Soviet Union’s ideological and material support during the same period for countries like Egypt, India, Ethiopia, Angola, or – most prominently – Afghanistan. This dissertation argues that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is best understood as the final and most costly of a series developmental interventions staged in that country during the latter half of the twentieth century by Afghans, Soviets, Americans, Germans and others. Cold War-era Afghanistan is best understood as a laboratory for ideas about the nation-state and the idea of a ‘national economy.’ One can best understand Afghanistan during that period less through a common but ahistorical ‘graveyard of empires’ narrative, and more in terms of the history of the social sciences, the state system in South and Central Asia, and the ideological changes in ideas about the state and the economy in 20th century economic thought. Four chapters explore this theme, looking at the history of the Soviet social sciences, developmental interventions in Afghanistan prior to 1978, a case study of Soviet advisors in eastern Afghanistan, and Soviet interventions to protect Afghan women. Making use of new materials from Soviet, German, and American archives, and dozens of interviews with former Soviet advisors, this dissertation makes a new and meaningful contribution to the historical literature on the Soviet Union, Central Asia, and international history.

Cardinal Richelieu is traditionally accredited with defeating the power of the grands, the upper echelon of the French nobility, as part of his supposedly successful project for monarchical absolutism. Modern historians have recast Richelieu as a nobleman of his time, who advanced himself within the social and political hierarchies through marriage alliances and patronage. He therefore worked hard to forge alliances with the grands rather than trying to destroy them. Yet his ministry was riven by persistent noble conspiracies and rebellions, which have gone largely without systematic investigation. This study examines the nature and causes of that unrest during Richelieu’s final six years, offering a radical re-assessment of the opposition and the politics of the period. Noble conspiracy was not just a by-product of government by a first minister, but reflected the factional nature of Richelieu’s approach. Factional rivalry was exacerbated by the emergence, after 1638, of a struggle for the anticipated regency. After this, Richelieu took a more hostile approach to his adversaries, forcing them to adopt strong countermeasures in order to preserve their positions. Richelieu’s opponents were surprisingly successful in asserting their independence. As well as enjoying widespread domestic support, they allied with the Habsburg powers to engineer military rebellion, posing a major threat to the Cardinal and undermining the war effort against Spain. The Spanish set their stall out for a long-term war, expecting that Richelieu’s opponents would eventually gain power and negotiate peace on more flexible terms. The ability of the grands to re-assert themselves was still a dominant characteristic of French politics. Richelieu’s legacy, on his death in 1642, was a highly volatile political situation in which success was still a long way off for France. These findings suggest the catalytic impact of Habsburg power on France’s internal divisions, which should consequently be seen as integral to the forging of the ancien régime.

Sir George Grey (1812-1898) served as Governor of South Australia, of New Zealand twice, and of the Cape Colony. This thesis explains his policy for the first time for a history of the political ideas of colonization. Grey introduced the policy of racial amalgamation to settler colonies after the 1837 Report of the Select Committee into Aboriginal Affairs, that had advised the policy of segregation as had been North American policy under Sir William Johnson. This thesis demonstrates that Grey was a Liberal Anglican who had adopted neo-Harringtonian thought, and who introduced Jeffersonian native policy into British native policy. He practised the strategic theory of Antoine-Henri Jomini, applying it to native policy. Grey captured the monarchical constitution of the empire for what had been a settler policy of dissent to the segregation of indigenes that dated back to Tudor Ireland and early Viginia. Grey's distinctive intellectual practices were ethnograpical research and speculation, for which he enjoyed an international reputation, and the constitutional design of settler colonies, an activity he came to totally identify with. The thesis concentrates on his first New Zealand governorship (1845-53) and upon the resumption of his second New Zealand governorship (1861-68) because it was in that colony he first fully practised his native policy and participated in constitutional design, and into which he brought about a crisis of indigenous amalgamation on the eve of the Waikato War in 1863, having introduced full responsible government.

The emergence of regional security organisations during the 1990s in Africa proved to be of great significance for the lives of many Africans, including those living in conflict-torn countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire or the Democratic Republic of Congo, but, at the same time, this phenomenon has been understudied. This dissertation explores why regional security organisations with an agenda of democratic governance emerged in Africa in the 1990s. This question is answered with two in-depth case studies on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Driven by an empirical puzzle, this study is both hypothesis-testing and hypothesis generating. The study starts by laying out the different possible factors put forward by several bodies of theory in international relations to explain the emergence of ECOWAS and SADC as security organisations. These hypotheses are then tested throughout the history and the evolution of ECOWAS and SADC in order to highlight the circumstances of their creation and their qualified failure as economic communities. This is followed by a comparative analysis of the security and democracy mandates entrusted to ECOWAS and SADC by its member states based on the study of the legal texts that outline the specific objectives of each regional security organisation and the tools they were given to implement their mandates. The study finally analyses the implementation records of ECOWAS and SADC in order to assess the commitment of their member states to their new democracy and security mandate. The research concludes with the two following hypotheses: 1) A security agenda cannot emerge without the involvement of the regional hegemon. 2) What the regional hegemon can do, including affecting the speed of the transformation, is constrained by the acceptance of its leadership by its neighbours (legitimacy) and by state weakness (capability).

This thesis investigates the relationship between Fascist Italy and the League of Nations (LoN) during the interwar period, with a particular focus on the years from 1922 to 1935. This relationship was contradictory, shifting from moments of active collaboration to moments of open disagreement. The existing historiography on the Italian membership of the League has not reflected this oscillation in policy, focusing disproportionally on the crises Italy caused at the League. However, Fascist Italy remained in the League for more than 15 years, ranking as the third-largest power, and was fully engaged in the institution's work. This dissertation investigates the dynamics that developed between Fascist Italy and the LoN through a systematic study of the Italians involved. In so doing, it contributes to the historiography of the LoN and of the Italian foreign policy in the interwar period. The thesis argues that there was more to the Italian membership of the LoN than the Ethiopian crisis. It reveals the extent of the Italian presence and activity in the institution from the beginning, and demonstrates that the organization was more important to the Italian government than previously recognized. Membership of the League was essential to guarantee Italy international legitimation and recognition. Through an active appropriation of internationalism, the Italian government hoped to obtain practical benefits in the colonial sphere. The thesis uncovers the depth and variety of interactions between nationalism and internationalism in the case of Italy and the League, establishing that they did not oppose each other but rather interacted. This dissertation illustrates the complexity of being an Italian working in the League, as well as the grey areas between nationalism and internationalism evident within individual experiences. Finally, it shows the continuity of actors and expertise in Italy's international cooperation between the interwar and the post-1945 period.