Recently, many authors from various theoretical backgrounds have written books or articles trying to clarify what the role of the sovereign state is within the wider political context of “global politics.” This thesis seeks to critically engage with the way in which this debate has been framed by the vast majority of these authors. Indeed, while most authors frame this debate as an essentially empirical disagreement concerning the objective composition of global politics, we will be arguing that it is really a debate that concerns the problem of political foundation and the possibly changing nature of the dominant ways of answering this problem in contemporary “global politics.” From this perspective, the vast majority of those involved in this debate simply pass over - as somehow analytically uninteresting - most of the questions that would really need to be explained and understood. This thesis seeks to address this crucial oversight

This study interprets the puzzling absence of war among the US, China, and Taiwan from 1990 to 2005, when identity politics across the Taiwan Strait caused high tensions. The application of realist constructivism theory to this case would produce a prediction of war there resulting from conflicting identities, which produce irreconcilable conflicts of interests over territorial claims. However, the application of four other, relevant international relations theories explains this absence of war during this period. A zero-sum game of competing identities was replaced by a positive-game resulting from three liberal theories promoting inter-state cooperation: complex interdependence; state trading identities; and issue-linkage functions and one alternative realist theory, offensive realism, which shows that the balance of power deters war. Assuming China’s increased defense spending does not alter the balance of power in its favor, the current relative peace will continue to prevail, at least in the short to medium term.

Intersubjectivity is underspecified in normative international relations theory. This underspecification inhibits normative IR methodology and discourse with interest-based theoreticians. Here new advances in embodied cognition, collectively called embodied cognition, are discussed as a possible methodological framework for normative IR. Specific interdisciplinary modeling techniques are offered.

The notion that each state in the international system approaches matters of war and peace somewhat differently because they each possess a unique strategic culture is not a new or obscure one – but it nevertheless remains controversial. While some scholars dismiss the utility or practicality of examining states’ cultures when seeking to explain or predict those states’ patterns of strategic decision-making, even amongst those who accept that we should pay attention to cultural differences between states when carrying out strategic analysis there remains a frustratingly eclectic range of offerings from scholars regarding how best to do so. In short, significant uncertainty remains regarding both whether strategic culture should be used as an analytical tool and, if it is so utilized, how one should go about doing so. This thesis therefore explores the concept of strategic culture in great detail, both theoretical and empirical. The opening three chapters examine why the more traditional rationalist/materialistic theories should not exclusively dominate strategic analysis, then the various existing strategic cultural offerings are considered and critiqued and, finally, a new conceptual model for strategic cultural analysis is proposed which draws from the hitherto largely neglected psychological and sociological literature. Both of these fields, it is submitted in Chapter 3, have spent more time and effort developing ways of understanding and analyzing culture than the field of IR has to date, and therefore the models and methods debated and developed in these fields should, it is argued, be ‘imported’ into IR to drive further strategic cultural research. The thesis then moves in the following six chapters to consider Australia’s strategic culture. The purpose of this part of the thesis is two-fold: first, it illustrates how the model offered in Chapter 3 works and, by implication, suggests how scholars may go about applying it to other cases. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the latter six chapters explore the twists and turns of Australia’s substantive strategic decision-making over the course of the last century or more, thereby explaining how Australia’s strategic history can be understood from a cultural perspective. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-15 11:17:19.326

Given the potential political, economic and reputational costs for violating international norms of sovereignty, we should expect to only rarely observe the adoption by states of risky foreign policies like destabilization (which is defined as the policy of changing the balance of power between a target government and its domestic opposition, with the aim of effecting the downfall of that target government.) Yet, history demonstrates that states regularly adopt destabilization as a foreign policy. My research addresses this puzzle: Why, given the high potential costs of violation of international norms, do policymakers opt to do so anyway? I argue that the answer lies in the breadth and intensity of conflicts of interest between destabilizing states and their targets. To illustrate my theoretical argument, I hypothesize the following: When policy makers perceive a broad and intense conflict of security, economic and ideological interests, they will adopt destabilization as a policy. In this dissertation, I look at US relations with Latin American states during the Cold War. To demonstrate my hypothesis, I perform three comparative case studies. Each comparison examines two cases which are similar in most ways except, notably, the breadth of conflict of interest perceived by the US. In each negative case, I demonstrate that two, but not three types of conflicts were present and the US did not destabilize the target government, but instead chose different policy options. In the affirmative case, I demonstrate that all three types of conflicts were present, and the US destabilized the target government. I then briefly explore South African policy toward its neighbors, to illustrate that my theoretical explanation is plausible outside of the context of US-Latin American relations. I conclude with a brief discussion on extension of the theory and implications of this study for foreign policy analysis.

This research critically unpacks existing international norm diffusion and domestication theories and amends them, focusing on resistance, agency, and the pivotal role of domestic agents. It argues that domestic agency is marginalized by current theories of international norm diffusion and that current models place undue emphasis on the power of ‘critical States’, which are invariably Western. It is implied, though often explicitly stated, that international norms are created in and spread by Western States. This research argues that while this may be the case, the application of the same limited models create such a situation which hinders instead of helps the understanding of norm diffusion. Arguing that domestic agency is marginalized by current theories of international norm diffusion, this study investigated the SRHR norm in the Philippines as a case study to examine the limitations of current models and the benefits of introducing a local agency approach. This research is divided into two sections: the national and the sub-national, to provide a broad-lens perspective on the specific case of Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights (SRHR) in the Philippines using the framework of norm diffusion. Empiric research was conducted on two levels of analysis: first, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the national-level Congressional deliberations and debates on SRHR from the period of the 8th Congress to the 15th Congress; and second, a micro-comparative analysis of three selected municipalities, namely Manila, Cebu, and Davao, involving a case-study based process-tracing methodology of the local diffusion of the SRHR norm(s).The theoretical critique and empirical case study proved that there are indeed limitations present within current diffusion conventions and furthermore, that local agency is a powerful and understudied tool in norm diffusion. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is a project of intellectual history which focuses on the development of notions of power and the nation-state in realist thought. The main aim of the thesis is to offer a comprehensive account of how different conceptions of power in the work of various realist thinkers influence their perceptions of the nation-state. Although both power and the state are considered as central to realism, their connection has not been adequately discussed and remains largely implicit. The thesis aims at illuminating such a connection. The authors under examination are both key realist thinkers and representative of the diversity of realist thought as well as of the development from classical to structural realism. As such, the thesis focuses on the works of E.H. Carr, H. Morgenthau (as classical realists), J. Herz (as a transitional figure) and J. Mearsheimer (as a structural realist). The thesis engages with each realist’s theory in a three-step process. First, it analyses their conceptualisation of power and the role it plays in their ontological and epistemological assumptions. Then, using that conceptualisation of power as a starting point, it discusses its impact on the way the realist under examination understood the nation-state. Finally, the way the aforementioned realists engaged with the foreign policies of given nation-states is employed as an illustration of their theoretical framework. The thesis identifies a close interplay between power and the nation-state in all realists examined. Power plays a central role in each realist’s ontology and as such influences profoundly the way they conceptualised the nation-state. The latter can thus be approached as a manifestation of power which is unfixed in time. The realists examined approach the state as a historically conditioned entity. As such, it is argued that it is power that constitutes the core analytical category of realism rather than the state whose very conception is dependent upon that of power. In terms of the development of realism, a process of gradual narrowing down of the concept of power from classical to structural approaches is observed. The multifaceted conception of power advanced by early realists is abandoned in favour of an approach which understands power as material capabilities. While this approach is compatible with a scientific vision of politics as manifested after the second debate it reduces significantly realism’s analytical purchase both in understanding power and the nation-state. This is evident in the precarious balance that neorealists have to attain when theorising nationalism, the ideological corollary of the nation-state, which can more fully be accounted for by classical realists. Finally, by removing power from the field of epistemology, structural variants of realism lack the reflexivity of earlier realists and as such find it difficult to engage in foreign policy debates without compromising the core assumptions of their theory. The thesis is structured as follows: In the introduction, the thesis is put in the context of existing literature on realism and the way questions of power and the nation-state have been addressed in the past. Questions of methodology and selection of authors are also addressed in the introduction. The following four chapters are dedicated to analysing the theories of the selected realists. The concluding section summarises the findings and main argument of the thesis.

Recently, many authors from various theoretical backgrounds have written books or articles trying to clarify what the role of the sovereign state is within the wider political context of “global politics.” This thesis seeks to critically engage with the way in which this debate has been framed by the vast majority of these authors. Indeed, while most authors frame this debate as an essentially empirical disagreement concerning the objective composition of global politics, we will be arguing that it is really a debate that concerns the problem of political foundation and the possibly changing nature of the dominant ways of answering this problem in contemporary “global politics.” From this perspective, the vast majority of those involved in this debate simply pass over - as somehow analytically uninteresting - most of the questions that would really need to be explained and understood. This thesis seeks to address this crucial oversight

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This thesis investigates the historical relationship between understandings of human emotion, and how they manifest in our understanding of the political. Specifically, this thesis returns to the presentation of individual political psychology in ancient Greece (Thucydides, Aristotle), the 17th and 18th centuries (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant), and the 20th century (Schmitt, Fukuyama, Lebow) to illuminate how these understandings have shaped our idea of Sovereignty as an idea, institution, and practice. By turning to the rich history in political thought on emotion and affect, this thesis demonstrates a consistent and prolonged constitutive relationship between presentations of individual political psychology and international political order. This thesis also rehabilitates the full scope of affective insights into political phenomena— by turning to literature on rhetoric and aesthetics—in order to open up new space to critique common understandings of Sovereignty. Moreover, given that the institution and concept of Sovereignty is central to research in the disciplines of International Relations and Political Theory, this thesis also argues for a much-needed closure of intellectual space between these two branches of Political Science. In short, this thesis demonstrates the centrality of the politics of affect and the divergent and disparate pictures of individual political psychology that are taken for granted in defenses and critiques of the concept of Sovereignty. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)