This thesis argues that American exceptionalism is a necessary, but insufficient, way of reading U.S. foreign policy. Exceptionalism is employed by different ideologists in different ways and in differing contexts. This thesis employs the contextualist methodology of Quentin Skinner to challenge proleptic, static understandings of American exceptionalism and, in doing so, uncovers American grand strategy as a keenly contested ideological battleground. In each constituent case study, the thesis identifies the ideological innovators of American strategic policy and the key moments of ideological innovation, and examines why ideological innovations became conventional, or not. The analysis proceeds with an introduction to the composition of grand strategy, continues with an examination of Quentin Skinner’s version of Cambridge School contextual analysis, and then places Skinnerian contextualism within the broader framework of International Relations theory. This analysis illustrates the methodological advantage of Skinnerian contextualism, which allows the reconstruction of the context in which past generations of ideological innovators operated and conceived of the world and the place of the United States within it. This specific type of analysis demonstrates ideological innovation in practice at four pivotal moments in American foreign policy: first, the emergence of containment as the cornerstone of the Truman Doctrine at the outset of the Cold War; second, détente and the supposed injection of realism into American foreign policy; third, President Clinton’s strategy of enlargement and the place of American exceptionalism in the aftermath of the Cold War; and, fourth, the Bush Doctrine and the interaction between American exceptionalism and neoconservatism. The thesis concludes by stressing the particularities of historical context, having demonstrated that, although exceptionalism has rarely been the only causal dynamic of American grand strategy, it has consistently provided the context with which innovating ideologists have been required to engage in order to create their own version of grand strategy.

By 1991, Britain retained responsibility for 14 overseas dependent territories. A policy of accelerated decolonisation that took shape under British Governments between the early 1960s and the late 1970s had, by the early 1980s, given way to what Drower has called an ‘era of colonial permanence’.1 This was because territories such as Bermuda refused to take the hint and move towards independence. This thesis examines the way in which Britain appeared to lose control of the process of decolonisation. It will do this by studying power-sharing dynamics in Bermuda between 1963 and 1977. It is argued that Britain did not exercise full control in Bermuda in 1963; her role was characterised by London’s dependence upon Governors who accommodated themselves to the dominant white minority both for pragmatic reasons and out of shared cultural and racial affinities. It was this dynamic that suffused three forums of Anglo-Bermudian collaboration: constitutional reform in 1963-1968; the internal security state in 1968-1973; and the colonial justice system in 1973-1977. This period saw a rapid diminution of British power in Bermuda, a process accelerated by proliferating constitutional ambiguities and metropolitan decline. In contrast, the power of Bermudian conservatives was entrenched via electoral advantages and enhanced local autonomy.

This thesis consists of three essays, on the causes and consequences of violent conflict. It focuses on two factors that are thought to play a role in violent conflict, natural resource abundance and the media. The thesis exploits quasi-experimental variation to investigate whether natural resources and violent conflict are related, and if so, through which mechanism. It finds that evidence from cross-country studies indicating that natural resources (as a single category) cause violent conflict is not as robust as popularly believed. Proxies for natural resource abundance used are potentially endogenous to conflict, and addressing this issue changes the results obtained radically. Agricultural resources are found to be negatively related to civil war onset. In the case of diamonds specifically, evidence is found that primary diamonds, but not secondary diamonds, are related to violence. Both results provide support for income (or opportunity cost) as mechanism connecting natural resources and violent conflict. Policy documents assert that media can play a state-building role in conflict situations. However, media could also induce anxiety, and there has been increasing interest in the role of anxiety in the formation of political attitudes. This thesis investigates the impact of intensity of exposure to radio broadcasts on fear of victimization and the impact of fear on political attitudes, in South Sudan. It concludes that individuals living in areas with better radio reception display a higher level of fear, and that anxious individuals are more likely to support a local militia and less likely to support the government army. The latter could be considered the opposite of state-building.

This study examines the role of culture, investigating to how China policy-research experts socially construct ‘American-ness’ through ‘China’ as the Other. I posit the following overarching research question: “How and why are social and cultural boundaries of ‘American-ness’ dialectically drawn by China policy-research experts within U.S. think tanks through their social construction of narratives on ‘China’ as the Other?” The empirical foundation is comprised of 40 face-to-face, in-depth interviews with China policy-research experts across 26 internationally leading think tanks in Washington, DC, and New York, USA, as well as four interviews with relevant experts (i.e. State Department and academia). Additional methods encompass participant observation, contextuality, triangulation, informal conversation, descriptive statistics/database, and collection of written material. The multimethod, ethnographic research strategy is coupled with a social constructionist epistemologically driven study, and deploys Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and the embedded conceptual “thinking tools” as the theoretical framework (including cross-tabulation and ethnographic/interpretivist contents analysis). The engagement with Bourdieu is also dialectic in its own right, herein allowing obtained field-data and ‘native categories’ of the research subjects to unveil new lines of inquiries as well as to expand and nuance Bourdieu’s conceptual “thinking tools” themselves in a “bottom-up” fashion. This study contributes to the Bourdieusian sociological ‘turn’ in International Relations (IR) research (in particularly, making the non-state, individual level the focal point of the inquiry, in addition to contesting the assumptions concerning immateriality/construction innately preceding materiality/physicality – within the IR constructivism research programme), and to the specific think tank literature by propagating a third ‘school of analysis’, i.e. conceptualising the thinking of policy-researchers. More broadly, this study provides an important perspective on a key bilateral relationship (U.S.–Sino relations) in U.S. Foreign Policy (and for the world) as well as a prominent category of key players in U.S. Politics.

<p> This dissertation seeks to explain and understand why and how sub-State governments conduct their international relations with external actors, and how federal authorities and local governments coordinate or not in the definition and implementation of the national foreign policy.</p><p> It conducts a comprehensive and comparative study of the international relations of sub-State governments (IRSSG) in ten federal systems which are representative of all the regions of the world, stages of economic development and degree of consolidation of their democratic institutions (South Africa (Africa), India and Russia (Asia), Belgium and Germany (Europe), Canada, Mexico, and the United States (North America), Brazil and Argentina (South America), and Australia (Oceania)). It constructs a typology to measure and explain the IRSSG based on the domestic political institutions, especially the constitutional provisions relating foreign affairs and the intergovernmental mechanisms for foreign policy decision making and implementation. Based on the comparative analysis of the ten federations, an in-depth analysis of the Mexican case is done, explaining the variation in the IRSSG of its 32 federal units using economic, political and geographic variables to understand the amount and type of international activities and cooperation mechanisms. This analysis is complemented with the study of the 668 inter-institutional agreements signed by Mexican SSG, a survey applied to the public officials responsible of IRSSG in Mexico, and a case study of Mexico City&rsquo;s international activities, in order to better understand the preferences, perceptions, capacities, and motivations of Mexican SSG in their internationalization. </p><p> There are ten main findings. First, there is a very important variation in the IRSSG and central-local coordination in foreign affairs worldwide. Second, there has been change in the types of central-local coordination during the last decades. Third, the most important causes to conduct IRSSG are globalization, regionalization, and decentralization. Fourth, the democratization variable is a relevant cause for increasing IRSSG in all countries with democracies in process of consolidation; however, it is not as important in the cases of consolidated democracies. Fifth, the predominant motive to conduct IRSSG is to promote local economic development; another important reason is the management border issues; cultural motivation is only relevant in cases where there is cultural variation between SSG. Sixth, institutional creation and building is the norm between SSG to coordinate their international relations; SSG have created ministries or agencies to conduct their international affairs, however, the size, resources, activities and level of consolidation varies considerably between cases. Seventh, there is considerable variation in the international activities conducted by SSG. Eighth, a rationalization of national foreign policy is observed, as the federal government allows SSG to conduct international affairs in those areas where they have powers. Ninth, all countries make a difference between foreign policy (considered an exclusive power and responsibility of the federal government, which includes high politics issues), and international relations or affairs (which include those areas in which SSG have powers, mostly low politics issues). Tenth, all inclusive cases are developed and consolidated parliamentary democracies; all the complementary cases are presidential systems with developing democracies in consolidation (with the exception of the United States); and, the exclusive types have federal systems constitutionally; however, in reality, they function in a very centralized way, practically nullifying federal institutions.</p>

<p> The purpose of the current phenomenological study was to understand the developmental experiences of authentic leaders by documenting their own stories of how they view their growth into a successful global leader. The study used three overarching research questions: (1) How do leaders within international cooperatives describe their lived experiences that contributed to their development into successful and authentic global leaders? (2) How do cooperative leaders explain how they apply/use the principle of stewardship on a daily basis? (3) What experiences are described as challenges in the application of authentic leadership? Using these overarching questions as a guide, the current study posed interview questions that explore participants&rsquo; experiences in developing into an authentic leader. The study also explored how operating in a global environment has influenced their ability to be authentic in their leadership. Additionally, interview questions explored the context of authentic leadership and global leadership within cooperative organizations and how the role of being a steward for the organization influences their leadership style.</p><p> The theoretical framework for the study was guided by global leadership theory, authentic leadership theory, and stewardship theory. Purposeful sampling and snowball sampling were used to select study participants who are senior leaders within international cooperative organizations. Data was collected through the use of semi-structured interviews, and the interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using NVivo qualitative analysis software. The information collected and subsequent analysis may help future cooperative leaders develop into successful and authentic global leaders, as well as help close the gap in the literature on leadership within international cooperatives. The research findings led to the development of five themes surrounding the phenomenon of developing into an authentic leader within an international cooperative: (1) leading successfully, (2) leading globally, (3) developing authentically, (4) meeting the leadership challenge, and (5) cooperative appeal. </p>

<p> This project examines Russia&rsquo;s use of force in separatist conflicts in the former Soviet Union revealing that, contrary to what some have suggested, Russia has not pursued master plan to rebuild the Russian Empire or Soviet Union, and has not pursued a foreign policy driven by ethnic nationalism or imperialism. While Russia has maintained military and foreign policy contingencies for engagement in these types of conflicts in the event of crisis, there is little evidence of extensive Russian pre-planning focused on generating &ldquo;frozen conflicts,&rdquo; as a central focus of Russian geostrategy. Instead I find that Russia has used unplanned crises, often resulting from security dilemmas, to &ldquo;freeze&rdquo; these conflicts in order advance a number of geopolitical goals focused on ensuring the security of Russian state when the opportunity has arisen. The transformation of these conflicts can have the effect of creating a socio-psychological infrastructure that perpetuates gradual, but observable, change in the ethnic identity of separatist <i>de facto</i> states. Russia&rsquo;s intervention in these conflicts has developed this infrastructure based on the concept of a &ldquo;Russian World&rdquo; to which these separatist groups are said to belong. The Russian World serves a tool of Russian foreign policy in that it has replaced the relationship Moscow had with these separatist entities during the Soviet period.</p>

In June 2012 the European Union signed bilateral Association Agreements (AAs) based on a neoliberal economic growth philosophy with Central American states as well as! with Colombia and! Peru. In addition to free trade, these also include a ppolitical dialogue as well as an international cooperation pillar. This thesis explores empirical disconnects and contradiction in the EU’s efforts to combine these different aspects in it foreign policy. In particular, it investigates how successful the EU is in linking these AAs to it work towards sustainable development and gender equality at multiple levels. It does this by moving from a wide and international perspective to a local and more specific one. In doing this the thesis examines international trends, while concentrating on EU development policies in relation to trade with Latin America, using Guatemala as a case study. Most critiques against the AAs take place within a modernity framework but this research moves beyond these notions and considers how we may account for ‘the local’ and critically engage with Western mainstream development discourses. This thesis argues that there, in addition to the empirical disconnects in EU policy, is a disconnect within theory between gendered international political economy (GIPE) and theories on sustainability. Therefore the theoretical framework aim at bridging this gap by linking environmental feminist thought with feminist economics. In addition, this thesis includes Mayan cosmovision (worldview) and the concept of buen vivir (good life), which is inspired by indigenous people’s worldviews and is present in the Bolivian as well as the Ecuadorian constitutions. This way local forms of theoretical knowledge is taken into account and combined with complementing forms of feminisms, allowing for a critical analysis of trade, gender and sustainable development in Latin America.

<p> The emerging global structure is wrought with tension. The contemporary international system, marshaled by the communications-and-information revolution and characterized by dense interaction capacities among transnational actors, can be conceived as a global society wherein a common normative framework guides and constrains state behavior. Its intersection with revisionist rising powers harboring intentions to mold that framework to reflect their own preferences risks an ambiguous standard of behavior, confusion, and a clash of norms that threatens to transform the cohesion that underpins accord in the global society into chaos. As the state upon whose values and principles the existing international system is based upon, it is the responsibility of the United States to ensure the stability and viability of that system and &ndash; as far as other states are expected to conform to the normative standards thereof &ndash; its ability to accommodate the development of the states within it. The United States has traditionally promoted the democratic peace as the key stabilizing mechanism in the international system. While fully institutionalized democracies may be more stable and less aggressive than other forms of government, however, emerging democracies tend to be extraordinarily violent as self-rule precipitates secessionist wars, pathological homogenization, and ethnic cleansing as &ldquo;the people&rdquo; are defined and those excluded are sorted out. In regions beset by the legacies of colonialism and multi-ethnic empires, wherein state boundaries were arbitrarily drawn to aggregate and divide a complex mosaic of social identity groups, the results are national cascades fueling pervasive identity-driven conflict in a struggle to reify into the primary organizing structure of modernity: the nation-state.</p>

<p> Millennia ago, a vital trade route connected the thriving civilizations of ancient Greece, Persia, and China. Through the ancient Silk Road, China was able to influence societies far beyond its national borders. And now, in the twenty-first century, it seeks to do the same. This paper will attempt to develop a new paradigm that more fully explains the rationale and objectives of the One Belt One Road initiative. It argues that nation-building is the most comprehensive way to understand the Chinese government's intentions with OBOR. The following chapters will also demonstrate how OBOR fits into the CCP's larger ethno-nationalist "China Dream" campaign, which crafts a narrative of a unified and rejuvenated China predicated on a single identity.</p>