The present research is an analysis of the political decision-making process in Israel in relation to two crises, the summer of 1982 and the summer of 2006, preceding respectively the First and Second Lebanon wars. The present research is structured in accordance with the theoretical posture of Neoclassical Realism. Although still a young school of thought, the theoretical roots of Neoclassical Realism can be found in Classical Realism and Neo-realism - concerning the role of the State in the international system, and are integrated with the study of the domestic level and the role of the deciders in the elaboration of foreign policy decisions. By making the link between the international and domestic level explicit, this thesis allows grasping the full extent of the origins and implications of a State’s foreign policy. In addition, in order to study the relevance of a long-term approach in researches on decision-making processes, Historical Institutionalism complements Neoclassical Realism in the theoretical framework. To answer the research question the present research is based on the “process tracing” methodology, which aims at uncovering the mechanisms - that is the tangible expression of actors and their actions - and aims at explaining how these are linked to their surrounding environment. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis investigates what it means to view disruptive innovation as a political problem. I take my point of departure in the tendency for controversial disruptions in heavily regulated sectors, such as electronic cigarettes or hydraulic fracturing, to open regulatory spaces by challenging established expectations about how they ought to be governed. In the wake of such disruption, policy actors with a stake in the matter engage in sensemaking and discursive contests to control the meaning of the innovations in order to close the regulatory spaces by aligning them with one set of laws instead of another. I study these contests in two recent legislative initiatives of the European Union to address the disruptive potential of e-cigarettes and fracking: the 2014 revision of the Tobacco Products Directive and the 2014 Commission recommendations on unconventional fossil fuels. The research draws on 51 interviews carried out with key policy actors during and after the policy debates. I bolster this with an analysis of policy documents, press releases and scientific studies, as well as a content and network analysis of position statements in newspaper articles. I find that the strategic use of rhetoric and framing plays an important part in creating, maintaining, and entrenching opposed coalitions in both policy debates. In both case studies, the policy solution is accompanied by deteriorating levels of trust among participants, leading coalitions to engage in strategies of venue-shopping to circumvent their opponents. This underscores the significant challenges there are for policymakers to address disruptions while maintaining legitimacy. The original contribution of the thesis lies in its novel conceptualization of disruptive innovation as a political problem, its application of micro-sociological approaches to the politics of expertise and European public policy, and its practical and theoretical suggestions for how to better study periods of disruption and govern through them. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished