This dissertation argues that the major theories of global justice (specifically within the cosmopolitan tradition) have missed an important aspect of capitalism in their attempts to deal with the most pernicious effects of the global economic system. This is not merely a left critique of cosmopolitanism (though it is certainly that as well), but its fundamental contribution is that it applies the insights of Frankfurt School Critical Theorist Theodor Adorno’s negative dialectics to offer an internal critique of cosmopolitanism. As it stands, much of the global justice and cosmopolitanism literature takes global capitalism as an unsurpassable and a foundationally unproblematic system, often ignoring completely the relationship between the psycho-socially conditioned ideological aspects of capitalism and the horizon of achievable politics and social development. Using the philosophies and social theories of Adorno and Erich Fromm, I argue that there is a crucial psycho-social dimension to capitalism, or capitalistic mentality—represented in and functionally reproduced by transnational capitalism—that undermines the political aspirations of normative theories of cosmopolitanism, on their own terms. The project concludes with an exploration of Marxist, neo-Marxist, and post-Marxist theories as a potential source of alternatives to address the flaws within cosmopolitanism with respect to its general acceptance and under-theorizing of capitalism. The conclusion reached here is that even these radical approaches fail to take into account the near-pervasive influence of capitalism on the minds of radicals and activists working for progressive change or simply reject the potentials contained in existing avenues for global political and economic change (something which the cosmopolitan theories explored in earlier chapters do not do). Based again on the work of Adorno and Fromm, this dissertation argues that the best path forward, practically and theoretically, is by engaging cosmopolitanism and neo-/post-Marxism productively around this concept of the capitalistic mentality, building towards a praxeological theory of postcapitalist cosmopolitanism framed by a negative dialectical resuscitation of the concepts of class struggle and unlimited democracy. This postcapitalist cosmopolitanism emphasizes non-exploitative economic and political relations, cooperation, compassion, sustainability, and a participatory-democratic civic culture.

[pt] O objetivo desta Tese é demonstrar como discursos de poder-­‐ conhecimento criam subjetividades enquanto as descrevem. Especificamente, ela trata da relação entre produção de conhecimento e a produção da União Soviética como sujeito na década de 1950. Para tanto, as condições de emergência do discurso sovietologista são descritas. O termo discurso está associado à contribuição de Foucault ao estudo da relação entre poder e conhecimento, enquanto o termo sovietologista refere-­‐se à influência que a sovietologia, uma subárea da ciência política / relações internacionais cujo objeto de estudo era a União Soviética, exerceu sobre esse discurso. Teoricamente, minha análise baseia-­‐se sobre a representação, inspirada por Foucault, do poder como produtivo, e no pressuposto de que discursos são entremeados por relações de poder. Por intermédio de uma leitura espacial do discurso, eu proponho que o lugar discursivo onde as subjetividades são produzidas seja chamado de espaço intertextual; este sendo o lugar onde poder e conhecimento se encontram nas formações discursivas. Analiticamente, a abertura do espaço intertextual do sovietologismo é alcançada por intermédio do uso de insights críticos, genealógicos, arqueológicos e hermenêuticos. O sovietologismo é caracterizado por um modo de apreender a subjetividade de União Soviética no qual as noções de padrões de cultura, Estado totalitário e personalidade social desempenharam um papel importante. Esses eram os três discursos mais importantes entre os que habitavam o espaço intertextual do sovietologismo, por que eles foram responsáveis por delimitar os contornos da subjetividade emergente da URSS. Como eu pretendi demonstrar, a emergência da União Soviética como um sujeito coletivo dotado de uma natureza imutável esteve intimamente relacionada a eles. Eles criaram as condições de possibilidade para que a subjetividade da União Soviética fosse representada e se mantivesse como inferior, expansionista e contraditória. / [en] The aim of this PhD dissertation is to demonstrate and describe how power-­‐knowledge discourses create subjectivities. Specifically, it deals with the relation between the production of knowledge and the production of the Soviet Union as a subject by describing the conditions of emergence of sovietologist discourse in the 1950 s. The term discourse comes from Foucault s study of the power-­knowledge nexus, while the term sovietologist comes from the influence that sovietology, a subfield of political science / international relations that took the USSR as its object of analysis, had over this discourse. Theoretically, my analysis relies on the Foucauldian inspired figuration of power-as-­productive and on the presupposition that discourses are traversed by power. Through a spatial reading of discourse, I propose that the discursive locus where subjectivities are produced is the intertextual space, which is the place where power and knowledge conjoin in discursive formations. Analytically, the opening of sovietologism s intertextual space is achieved through the deployment of critical, genealogical, archaeological and hermeneutical insights. Sovietologism is characterized by a mode of apprehending the Soviet Union s subjectivity in which notions of patterns of culture, the totalitarian State, and social personality play an important role. These were the three most important discourses amongst many others that inhabited the intertextual space of the sovietologist discourse, because they were responsible for delimiting the contours of the USSR s emergent subjectivity. As I intend to demonstrate, the emergence of the Soviet Union as a collective subject with an unchanging nature was intimately related to these discourses. They created the conditions of possibility needed to maintain portrayals of the Soviet Union s subjectivity as inferior, expansionist, and contradictory.

The diploma thesis focuses on great power politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The studied phenomenon is viewed through the lens of defensive, offensive a neoclassical realist perspective. The key goal of the thesis is to determine, whether contemporary streams of the realist international relations tradition can provide plausible explanation of great powers relations. The research is also embedded in the fourth great debate, which entered the international relations discipline during the course of 80's, and as such it tries to reflect current ontological and epistemological debate. Research results then show that realism is still a valid scientific discourse. On the other hand, neoclassical realism's research agenda, as is shown, takes over other theoretical perspectives features.

This study uncovers the reactions and responses of Swedish civil society organisations to the abolition of the Swedish feminist foreign policy. Sweden, a pioneer in 2014 as the first country to develop and adopt a feminist foreign policy, took a surprising turn in 2022 by becoming the first to abolish it. Through qualitative methods of document analysis and key informant interviews, this study aims to understand how these crucial foreign affairs actors responded to this policy shift. The findings reveal deep-seated disappointment and concern about the negative development of Sweden’s foreign affairs, as the government dismantled Sweden’s gender equality commitments without offering new, measurable strategies. By engaging with feminist international relations theory, the results illuminate potential regression in global gender equality achievements, human rights, and democratic values as the government severs dialogical and financial ties with civil society.

[pt] Utilizando as contribuições de Karen Barad como quadro ontológico, esta dissertação trata das consequências éticas e políticas da adoção de teorias liberais, construtivistas e novo-materialistas para o estudo do papel da Comunidade Econômica dos Estados da África Ocidental (CEDEAO) na crise do Mali entre 2020 e 2021. / [en] Using Karen Barad s contributions as an ontological framework, this dissertation inquires about the ethical and political consequences of adopting liberal, constructivist and new-materialist theories in the study of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) role during Mali s crisis between 2020 and 2021.

Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s theses on liberalism and war, and Dillon and Reid’s extensive engagement thereof, this thesis offers a critical conceptualization of drones and drone warfare. I argue that deployment of drones specifically over and against bodies and communities in conflict zones in and between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and until recently, Libya, is the material practice of a legal and political doctrine and precedent that has been established and policed most prominently by the United States and its military and intelligence apparatuses since the end of the Cold War. This novel precedent, however - due to its necessarily mutually constitutive relationship with a perceived danger said to be emerging from specific spaces, bodies, and communities in the decolonized and still-colonized worlds - locates its ontological and thus political genealogy in the anthropological knowledge that legally justified the (in)humanity of peoples and communities in these spaces during the era of high imperialism that lasted roughly from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. I theorize this as a mode of political, tragic nihilism through a reading of some key theories of Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, and Nietzsche and specifically, their import to the field of critical security and international relations theory. I demonstrate that the semiotic image of the drone is a highly pertinent point of departure through which we can understand these political stakes of strategic discourses enunciating the imperatives of both the Revolution in Military Affairs as well as recent global counterinsurgency/counterterrorism operations, specifically as they relate to claims about what it is drones are said to productively offer such militaristic projects. Ultimately, I argue that it is through the semiotic image of the drone as a clean, precise tactic that furthers the strategic goals of counterterrorism to target specific bodies that we can begin to politically theorize a particularly malignant political nihilism symptomatic of contemporary liberal societies. However, I also suggest that it is through Nietzsche’s politics of nihilism that we can begin to think about radical critical interventions that resist such a dangerous mode of politics. / Graduate

The purpose of this study is to identify similarities and differences in preparations by Sweden and Finland to ensure food supply in a crisis. Previous research consisting of separate studies have showed a decreased ability to ensure food supply in crisis in Sweden, and an increased ability in Finland. In a time of raising awareness, changing security concerns and political will, the contribution of this study is to simultaneously investigate the two countries and provide an understanding of the historical- and present approaches. By using comparative case study as method and applying International relations theory, a broader understanding of the different approaches by otherwise similar countries is achieved. The approaches of Sweden can be explained by using realist, neorealist, liberal and neoliberal theories while Finland’s approach best can be explained by realist and neorealist theories. The study is relevant for the field of humanitarian action and conflict since it provides an understanding of the countries contingency plans regarding food. Threat assessments from both countries identifies man-made conflicts such as terrorism, cyber-attacks, use of military force and war to have the possibility to create disruptions in the normal cycles of the society and those of surrounding countries. If these threats were to occur, basic needs must be met, one being food supply.