This thesis examines the emergence of praetorianism in Pakistan and its relationship with militant Islamism from the establishment of Pakistan since independence in 1947. It analyses the evolution of civil-military relations in Pakistan, paying particular attention to the processes of state construction, inherent weaknesses of the country’s political and economic institutions, impact of significant regional events such as the Soviet-Afghan war, and chronic hostility with India. It focuses specifically on how these aspects of Pakistan’s historical experience impacted firstly, the phenomenon of military interventionism and, secondly, its evolving relationship with militant Islamism. This thesis also seeks to demystify the controversial relationship between the Pakistani military and Islamist militancy through a historically and conceptually grounded analysis. It does so by exploring the interface between praetorianism and militant Islamism in Pakistan through the lens of path dependency within a conceptual framework derived from historical institutionalism. Here it looks at the persistence of patterns in the course of the country’s institutional development as a reflection of the role of key players, their interests and strategies and the distribution of power amongst them. It factors in ideas of critical junctures, historical causation and increasing returns, to help to foment a deeper understanding of praetorianism and its evolving association with Islamism over time. Finally, it examines the constraints placed by Islamists, a combination of religiopolitical parties and militant groups, on the military’s expanding practical and political influence within the state. By bringing to light the historical role accorded to religious ideology within the Pakistani polity, it analyses the codification of a pervasive Islamist discourse within domestic and foreign policy. It reveals how powerful military regimes adopted and intensified the recourse to Islamism to augment their strategic and institutional ambitions, but in doing so were handicapped by this very dependence. Taken together the insights gleaned from this approach sets the thesis apart from the bulk of scholarship on civil-military relations in Pakistan, which has to date focused upon the overarching idea of military as a colossus or hegemon with few limitations on its power. This thesis advances two key arguments. First, it argues that the rise and entrenchment of praetorianism in Pakistan was based essentially upon the pathdependent trajectory of civil-military relations, incorporating Islamism as a selfreinforcing feature, to meet political, administrative and strategic needs. Second, it posits that this dependence in the long run served to limit the military’s power and influence over the state. By essentially re-contextualising the understanding of civil-military relations in Pakistan and situating the issue of Islamist militancy within this framework therefore, this thesis provides fresh insights on the contentious relationship between the Pakistani military and Islamist militancy.

Public administrative reform in Indonesia accelerated after the country experienced economic and political turbulence in 1999. As part of the reform policy, the central government introduced performance management systems in order to improve the capacity of public institutions, particularly local governments. The thesis uses semi-structured interviews to answer, how effective is the performance management system in Indonesian local government? How do rational/technocratic and political frameworks affect the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of performance management system? The evidence suggests the performance management system in the Indonesian public sector is ineffective. This is indicated by gaps between performance indicators and actual performance, by the non-use of performance information and by the behaviour of those who are supposed to be influenced. The ineffectiveness may be explained by both rational/technocratic factors, and political/cultural factors. Based on our findings, those elements affect effectiveness of the performance management system. However, respondents emphasised that political/cultural elements were more fundamental to successful use of performance information, but present more difficult and challenging issues to reform. Indonesian government agencies compete with each other to maintain a role in the context of decentralisation, each seeking to prevent too much accumulation of power by any other agency. Therefore, although the government agencies may favour a technocratic approach, they will resist any comprehensive technocratic scheme of system integration, particularly in the performance management system. The Indonesian public sector may thus represent a case of ‘political technocracy’ in which rationality is limited by political interests.

The fundamental research topic of this thesis is: to determine the extent to which the emergence and evolution of factional groups and their politics have been conditioned by their conception of 'the role of people' in the political arena. It will also explore their perceptions of societal demands and expectations in a different period of the IRI's short history. In other words, it aims to trace and explain the evolution of popularisation of factional politics in the IRI. To answer this question, I also elaborate another related question: the extent to which the emergence and evolution of certain factional groups have been conditioned by the character of personal relationships between key, leading actors in each group. These two interrelated issues represent the most important omissions in the academic literature on factional politics in the IRI. Therefore, by definition, I will show how, with the death of Khomeini in 1989 and the consequent decentralisation of ideological production in the IRI, forcing factional groups to reach out of the institutional context and seek popular electoral support in order to successfully compete in factional struggles within the institutions of the IRI. As a result, societal demands and/or the elite's perception of these demands became an important element in the dynamics of factional politics in the post-Khomeini era. Various factions articulated their conceptions of 'the role of people' in the IRI's politics-rooted in and justified by their respective interpretations of Khomeinism. Theses competing conceptions of the 'role of people' in the IRI engendered the emergence of series of discourses and slogans within the framework of Khomeinism aimed to justify the factions' claims of being the representatives of popular demands and Khomeinism. Furthermore, the members of the elite of the IRI, both those who participated in the revolution and their offspring, have a long personal history with each other. Positive and negative feelings that emerged from any of these experiences, I intend to show, at some key points have played roles of various degrees of importance in the emergence and evolution of certain factional groups and their actions in vital political events, such as the controversial 2009 elections and its aftermath. The thesis will draw its theoretical base and methodology from the literature on hybrid regimes, faction in democratic and party-based systems, and faction in absolutist systems, in addition to the existing literature on factional politics in the IRI dealing with the institutional context.

Israeli foreign policy towards Iran in the period 1948-1979 has been generally explained through the Realist perspective, claiming that Israeli relations with Iran were established and developed due to converging strategic interests and common threats. This thesis argues that the existing literature does not fully appreciate the role that individuals, especially with their perceptions and misperceptions and human agency played in the formation and implementation of Israeli foreign policy. By not fully appreciating the role of human agency, the existing literature on Israeli relations with Iran has not fully explored the methods that made Israel’s foreign policy with Iran a success. For instance, the existing accounts do not examine how the actions of specific Israeli diplomats in Tehran such as Ambassador Meir Ezri prevented attempts from groups in Iran such as the Iranian Foreign Ministry and certain religious clerics to stop Israeli-Iranian relations. For three decades, the relationship between Israel and Iran, though discreet and often kept secret, flourished within the context of the Cold War and the rise of Pan Arabism. Many covert joint operations yielded widespread collaboration in the areas of trade, civilian technology, oil, agriculture, and extensive military intelligence collaboration on areas such as Yemen, Iraq and the Kurds. That changed with a shift in Israeli personnel in 1973, and ended completely after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. If Israeli-Iranian relations did solely stem from converging strategic interests, relations would have been more likely to survive the 1979 Revolution. Rather, the Israelis’ change in personnel in Tehran, their relationships with the Iranians, and their perceptions of world events greatly influenced the 1973 and 1979 shifts. This thesis concludes that any analysis of Israeli foreign policy formation and implementation towards Iran must include the multidimensional role of decision-makers, diplomats, and other foreign policy actors in order to complete the analysis presented by the existing Realist-leaning accounts. The thesis bases its argument on extensive International Relations-based examination of Israeli diplomatic history. Analysis of the role of prime ministers and diplomats such as David Ben Gurion, Tzvi Doriel and Meir Ezri; including their perceptions and misperceptions and human agency—forges a new understanding of Israeli foreign policy towards Iran from 1948 to 1979. Through the use of personal interviews, memoirs in Hebrew, English and Farsi, recently de-classified documents from the Israel State Archives, and unseen documents from private family collections, this thesis presents an argument that addresses the gaps in the existing literature.

This thesis investigates the effects of village economic wealth and economic autonomy on the authoritarian control of local government over village elections in China. With new data - qualitative evidence and quantitative data collected from the extensive fieldtrips to a county in Guangdong Province, this study finds that given that village elections operate within China’s one party authoritarian regime and the official purpose of the elections is to solve the grassroots governance crisis, local government have the incentive to control the elections in their favour, that is, to have incumbents and/or party members elected. Using the election of party members to the village committee chairman position and the re-election of incumbent chairmen as proxies for the inclusiveness and contestation dimensions of village elections, this study demonstrates that collective village wealth triggers fierce electoral competition, as collective village wealth represents the lucrative benefits candidates can obtain from holding the office. However, the success of authoritarian control hinges on village economic autonomy - the opportunities for economic development beyond the control of local government. If economic resources are controlled by local government, economic development might strengthen the capacity of local government to control the elections in their favour. Even if opponents win the elections, they are inclined to be co-opted by the local government - becoming party members, because their economic gain and maintenance of power are affected by the authoritarian local government control over economic resources. In most villages in the sample, authoritarian control prevails in village elections. The findings of this thesis suggest that until now the elections have been maintained within the boundary of the CCP’s authoritarian governance. In rural China, for elections to serve the function of promoting democracy and fostering checks and balances of power - neither manipulation by the local government nor manipulation by rich opponents - the key lies in the economic empowerment of villagers.

The aim of the thesis is to examine the implications of the internationalisation of regulation in China as a developing country. To achieve this, variations in different Chinese food regulatory regimes are compared, ranging from those for domestic consumption to export. In particular, the three control components of a regulatory regime, namely standard-setting, information-gathering and behaviour-modification are analysed. This study finds a pattern of changes in the Chinese food regulatory regimes. At the initial stage, Chinese national food standards were less stringent than international standards, and the gap between established national standards and local enforcement was significantly high. In recent years, it is observed that Chinese national food standards have witnessed an upward movement to converge with international food standards. In the meantime, regulatory enforcement in the localities has undergone continual adjustment to strengthen enforcement force towards areas under public concern. This thesis aims to explain this trend of changes in terms of the internationalisation of regulation. It argues that while coercive international pressure is mainly exerted on the Chinese exported food regulatory regime, the domestic food regulatory regime in China has also been increasingly influenced by global forces over the past decade, in terms of policy transfer from developed countries and policy learning from the transnational professional networks. Regarding domestic food standard-setting, normative influence from the international community has induced a generally higher level of Chinese national food standards. With respect to regulatory enforcement, while enforcement work has been constrained by the incapacity of regulators and the inextricably linked interests in the localities, these domestic factors are becoming less influential under the context of internationalisation of regulation. In particular, food safety crises prompt the Chinese government to push forward regulatory changes in spite of strong resistance in the localities. This has been attributed to the aim of the Chinese government to safeguard the reputation of products ‘Made in China’ under the context of internationalisation of regulation, and build up an international image that China is a committed and responsible trading partner and world leader.

This thesis explores how Kurdish nationalists generate sympathy and support for their ethnically-defined claims to territory and self-determination in international society and among would-be nationals. It combines conceptual and theoretical insights from the field of IR and studies on nationalism, and focuses on national identity, sub-state groups and international norms. In so doing, this thesis presents a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the self-determination claims of sub-state nationalist groups and their interaction with international society. Such assertions for the control of a specific territory typically embrace, either implicitly or explicitly, ethnic conceptions of national identity. A three-fold argument is proposed and developed to explain why these ethnic claims to self-determination gain sympathy and support. Firstly, political assertions regarding the identity of a specific piece of land and its cartographical depictions are powerful in influencing outsiders’ perceptions because of the normative context in which they are framed. The norms related to sub-state nationalist groups involve both a specific interpretation of self-determination and the norms of human rights and democracy. Secondly, such claims are further reinforced by the perception that the history of a territory is identical to the history of the people living on it. Although a political association between a people and a territory is a relatively novel link, such associations are often assumed and accepted to exist throughout all of history. Kurdish nationalists use the maps of Kurdistan effectively to convey the message. Finally, the diasporal activities of nationalists who, thanks to their location outside the homeland and their ability to communicate their ideas directly to international society, play an important role in asserting the rightfulness of their demand for self-determination and in promoting the idea of an ethnic territory.

In Indonesia, successful democratisation from military authoritarian rule has pushed the military ‘back to the barracks’ and restored the rule of law. This process of moving from authoritarian-military to civil-juridical authority has taken place in multiple ways across the political system, however most notably in the rise of the police as an institutional actor, the restoration of their authority over domestic and national security and law enforcement. Scholarship shows how criminality and the criminal contingent have been crucial in every way to state formation in Indonesia. Throughout history, the security institutions have mediated those forms of criminality and the state’s overarching relationship with the illicit. One of the ways the relationship between the state and criminal practices has manifested itself has been in the mechanisms of illicit extraction and accumulation broadly known as “corruption”. Despite the regularizing effects of democratisation, the security sector continues to be resourced primarily by a vast illicit economy, called the off-budget economy. I show how Polri’s new authoritative role in security and law enforcement has opened up the spoils of this economy to the police in two important criminal economies; the gift economy of indigenous Chinese traders and the illegal gambling economy in Jakarta. This thesis demonstrates how the transformation from military-coercive to civil juridical modalities of power has not improved the quality of Indonesia’s democracy or rule of law. Rather, democratisation has caused a restructuring in the political economy of security and facilitated the rise of Polri as a perverse political actor within the Indonesian state and society. The intimacy of the Indonesian state with illicit practices has been reconfigured anew.

This study analyses politics in Pakistan viewed from the perspective of Bhutto and The Pakistan People's Party in the period 1967-1977. This involves a detailed consideration of the nature and performance of the PPP, in terms of its social composition, organisational development and its role in the political system, and of leadership patterns in Pakistan with special reference to Bhutto. In the process of this inquiry we examine the origin and rise of the PPP, its electoral performance in 1970 and the repercussions of the 1971 crisis on the party. In analysing the Bhutto regime in the period 1971-1977, we look at both the internal dynamics of the PPP in terms of its development as a patrimonial-clientele type party exhibiting some 'mass party' features, and Bhutto's relations with the political opposition, the civil bureaucracy and the military. This study attempts to apply the patrimonial model to Bhutto's political system. As a heuristic tool, this concept enables us to explain and relate a wide range of phenomena such as personalism, factionalism, patronage and corruption. The phenomena of a dominating figure as reflected in Bhutto's patrimonialism is viewed against the background of the country's colonial Viceregal tradition and related to its culture and social structure. Bhutto's patrimonial system is viewed as an adaptation of the Viceregal model. Patrimonial features such as the personalisation and concentration of power, the manipulation of clientele support from rural landed groups, and the primary reliance on bureaucratic, rather than participatory and representative instruments of rule are essentially those identified with the Viceregal pattern of governance. It is argued that Bhutto's patrimonial strategy not only resulted in a failure to develop the PPP into an institutionalised party of the type associated with 'modern' political systems, but served to inhibit political development and reinforce Pakistan's praetorian tradition. The materials used in this thesis include official publications, political party literature, Urdu and English language newspapers and magazines as well as information derived through personal interviews with prominent personalities.

Despite the rise of Islamist parties and movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, there is a dearth of studies addressing their political communication strategies and approaches. In consideration of this fact, this doctoral thesis examines the political communication strategies of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, henceforth the AKP), from 2002 to 2017. Drawing on social movement theory and approaches to political communication, it analyses the transformations that have taken place within the AKP and Turkey and how these have been informed by religion, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s charismatic leadership. The thesis describes how the author carried out ethnographic research during the 2014 presidential election; interviewing key personalities from politics, the media, academia and think tanks, and conducting observations at AKP headquarters and campaign rallies. A quantitative content analysis of Erdoğan’s speeches was then performed to triangulate the findings from the qualitative data, ensuring effective coverage of the entire period under consideration, and to provide continuity. The research reveals how the effective communication of a party’s message is fundamental to its political success. Furthermore, in relation to the AKP it clearly identifies two distinct policy periods: 2002 to 2009, when the party promoted a liberal political ideology and pro-Western foreign policy; and 2010 to 2017, when a pro-Muslim agenda emerged. It also highlights the significance of Erdoğan’s dominance of the AKP, and the consequent lack of institutionalisation within the party, before discussing the implications of the study findings for the AKP, Turkey and the wider MENA region. Of particular interest is how the changes in the AKP’s policy appear to have been reinforced by Erdoğan, who has consistently made effective use of a variety of political communication strategies, including Americanisation, and references to pertinent local images and symbols, to create a sense of collective identity amongst the AKP’s supporters.