This thesis examines the role of ideas in relation to institutional change. It develops a critical constructivist analysis, drawing on neo-Gramscian political economy perspectives in IR, in order to understand how ideational factors such as beliefs, values and interests intertwine with material factors in order to understand processes of institutional transformation. It argues that ideology and hegemony, concepts sometimes associated with a structuralist position, can be usefully re-invigorated by introducing them into a socio-cultural constructivist analysis. The critical elements of the Marxist/Gramscian legacy and its strong credentials in analysing the development of capitalist social forms and modes of production provide its key contribution. Constructivism on the other hand can act as a corrective to the structuralist tendencies of some historical materialism as well as offering new methods of analysis which emphasize the importance of ideational and cultural factors. Following a discussion of the idealism/materialism and structure/agency dichotomies, the thesis argues that a discourse-historical approach presents a fruitful methodology to interrogate the transformation from Keynesian social democracy to neoliberal deregulation, privatisation and monetarism during the closing decades of the twentieth century. In addition, analysis of how neoliberal discourse represents those agents who oppose or question its fundamental principles and policy prescriptions gives an insight into the way in which a dominant discourse remains dominant in the face of growing evidence to counter its claims.

The US-Israel relationship reached a critical, institutionalizing juncture during the 1980s. Measurable in qualitative and quantitative terms, the Reagan administration had a transformative impact on bilateral ties, institutionalizing ad hoc forms of cooperation while modifying prevailing discourse to recognize Israel as an 'ally' and a 'strategic asset' in the Cold War. New bureaucratic agreements were signed, bilateral working groups formed and joint military exercises held throughout a decade that capped a long familiarization process between societies and political elites in the two countries. By the end of the 1980s, many of the bureaucratic frameworks that today still govern the US-Israeli relationship were institutionalized, as were those elements of preferential treatment commonly cited as proof for the 'special' or 'unique' nature of US-Israel ties. This study focusses on the institutional and bureaucratic dimensions of US support for Israel, examining the changing rationalizations for this support and the way this relates to the salient theme of a mutual struggle for influence and leverage over the policies of the other. Drawing on recently declassified documents, complimented with high-level interviews and other materials, the research answers three interrelated questions as to 'why' this institutionalization process was carried out, 'how' it would materialize and 'what effects' these processes would have on future US policy towards Israel and the Middle East. While predicated on an effort to enhance US leverage over Israel, the study argues that the institutionalization of the relationship would formalize interdependence between the two countries, consolidating a 'policy straitjacket' that has constrained presidential freedom of action towards both Israel and the broader Middle East. This has furthered the US's 'entrapment' in a quasi-exclusivist relationship with Israel that has enhanced a process of 'Israelization' of US approaches and viewpoints on Middle East developments, harming US influence while transforming the US into an active participant and major obstacle to a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the broader stabilization of the Middle East.

The aim of this thesis is to explain the dynamics behind the increased level of price volatility and speculation in the oil market over the past three decades. In contrast to mainstream accounts, which typically invoke the notion of global oil shortage and so-called ‘peak oil’ arguments, this thesis suggests that price volatility and speculation in the oil market originate from a decades-long process of financialisation punctuated by recurring oil price shocks. This thesis examines the evolution of the international oil market with a view to investigate how, and to what effect, the process of financialisation has transformed the structure and dynamics of the global oil market between 1980 and 2010. In tracing this phenomenon to the contemporary oil market, and specifically to the context of the oil shocks, I identify three periods of financialisation: low (1980–1990), early (1991–2001), and advanced (2002–2008). My research suggests that the process of financialisation is both cause and proof of a profound change in the structure of the global oil market, insofar as the addition of financial actors has turned the triangle of producers, consumers, and mediators that characterised the oil market until the 1980s into a four-tier structure. Propelled by breakthroughs in technology and finance, this fourth player is found responsible not only for transforming the relationship between the oil industry and the financial sector, but also for reconfiguring the political economy of the international oil market.

The rules of the international economic order have traditionally sought to reduce trade barriers between national markets; domestic policy autonomy has been viewed as an inviolable sovereign freedom. The 1994 WTO Government Procurement Agreement requires Member States to introduce a series of administrative procedures for their tendering processes, as well as institutional avenues through which individual suppliers can invoke indirect "rights" they gain from these "common rules"; its positive disciplines represent a departure from the traditional, negative GAIT regulatory "methodology". This thesis involves a study of what these institutional changes have to say about economic policy-making and enforcement processes in an interdependent world. Part I presents an institutional history of the GPA and an analysis of how it works. Part II examines the kind of domestic intervention associated with the Agreement, concluding that the most significant interference with sovereigns' autonomy is neither strictly legislative nor administrative. The GPA's enforcement mechanism - in conjunction with the individual "rights" arising from its procedural obligations - "constitutionalises" the rights to national treatment it engenders. This implies a US style relationship between property and the state. Executive and legislative powers are separated and both are limited by law. Judicial-like entities, in turn, fulfill an arbitrator's role, charged with determining whether a government entity has acted in a manner consistent with its legally-delimited powers. The final section presents reasons why GPA Member States may have been willing to accept the "intervention" that is implicit in the Agreement, developing an argument that the GPA is a "means" to Members' "shared end" of facilitating the integration of markets and, most importantly, ensuring their subsequent integrity. States, in implementing the "common rules", act as agents on behalf of the economic order because, in a globalising world, cooperation is consistent with citizens' welfare. The way in which this cooperation is structured allows for heterogeneous political interests to be accommodated. To the extent that the GPA protects individual rights for "collective ends", it is not inconsistent with unitary state notions of sovereignty.

How does the international community understand and apply the right of self-determination? Who holds this right: individuals, peoples, nations, states, ethnicities, minorities, majorities? What limits are there to the exercise of this right and which claims are ‘valid’ and which are not? This thesis addresses these issues as it seeks, above all, to answer the question of when, why and in what ways the international community’s understanding of and normative responses to self-determination have evolved. To do so, Part I explores critically the theories and history of nationalism, human rights, sovereignty and self-determination to explain the challenges of ‘emerging nationalism’ (defined herein as nationalism within established multi-national states aimed at altering the constitutional and/or social standing of the nation vis-à-vis the larger political entity). This part identifies the genesis of the interconnected ideas of identity, human rights, and sovereignty and begins to trace the evolution of the norm of self-determination over time as it has been conceived and employed by international society. It suggests new approaches to these concepts based within the liberal democratic tradition, which are, arguably, more philosophically coherent than other explanations for self-determination. Part II assesses international normative responses to state fragmentation and national liberation prior to the end of the Cold War to determine how much they have resembled the interpretation of national self-determination suggested in Part I, contending that the conceptual evolution of selfdetermination can only be interpreted accurately by understanding the parallel evolution and development of international society. Part III examines the evolution of self-determination and emerging nationalism in the post-Cold War era, asking whether the norms generated by the present-day society of states are consistent with the theoretical and historical observations made earlier. The recent case of Kosovo is examined in detail as it best suggests the present trajectory of international norms and responses to emerging nationalism.

While the promotion and growth of global public-private partnerships (PPPs) is indisputable, the same enthusiasm has not fuelled their disciplined study; thus, their potential to deliver on their promise of being effective and legitimate governance entities is far from established. Addressing this lack, this work investigates the universe of transnational PPPs in form, functioning and effects. It suggests that as PPPs are institutional innovations, partnership analysis can benefit from applying theoretical constructs from international regime research complemented with adjacent literature from management and organisational studies. Building an analytical framework based on the notions of input and output legitimacy, the work analyses how variation in partnership inputs (focus, actors involved, organisational dynamics and institutionalisation) interacts with varying internal management processes to result in varying outputs. The thesis utilises the operational notion of effects rather than the more subjective notion of partnership effectiveness, and considers effects related to goal attainment and problem solving. Applying a systematic methodology, the work also defines and describes the universe of PPPs, creating a transnational partnership database (TPD) which pulls together all existing sources, thus encompassing 757 partnerships. The resultant analysis reveals a marked variation across the universe of transnational partnerships as well as distinct differences in their operational capacity. It also highlights that while highly institutionalised PPPs are more likely to produce tangible outputs and effects, the extent of these is highly dependent upon internal management. By building a cumulative understanding of these institutional models, the work furthers debates regarding the role of PPPs as legitimate and effective governing actors.

This thesis offers a philosophical defence of military humanitarian intervention (MHI). To do so, it develops the ‘other-defensive conception’ of MHI. The other- defensive conception of MHI draws an analogy between so-called rescue killings in domestic society and MHI. In a domestic rescue killing, a rescuer defends a victim against an unjust aggressor. In fact, the thesis argues that the rescuer has a right to intervene on behalf of the victim. This right is correlated to a negative duty falling upon the attacker not to resist the intervention. By analogy, a state that is guilty of committing Atrocity Crimes against those under its rule forfeits its equal sovereign standing in international society. As a result, an intervening state does not violate negative duties not to aggress the ‘target’ state. Further, like a rescuer in a domestic rescue killing, the intervening state is holder of a (moral) right to intervene. The latter obliges the target state not to resist the intervention. The thesis supports this claim through two additional arguments. First, it argues that because Atrocity Crimes constitute grave moral evils, a military response to them is proportionate. Second, states that commit Atrocity Crimes do not perform their sovereign function of preserving the peace amongst those under their rule. Accordingly, the purpose of MHI is not merely to halt Atrocity Crimes, but also to reconstruct stable political institutions in the target state. On this basis the thesis explores the following four issues: 1) the relationship between the declaration of war and its conduct, 2) the problem of non-combatant immunity, 3) the foundation of a duty to intervene, and 4) the ethics of humanitarian occupation. In doings so, it offers a comprehensive discussion of central problems in contemporary just war theory and the ethics of killing and saving.

This thesis studies variation in Russian hegemony in the post-Soviet region. The concept of changing hegemony is used as a starting point to examine how regional hierarchy has changed in the post-Soviet period. Russian hegemony tightens and loosens depending on the time, territory and type of power logic being exercised. This systemic condition characterised by change arises not only because the way that Russia exercises its power changes, but also because the responses of the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to that power fluctuate. Depending on the consent and dissent shown by the other CIS countries to the attenuation of their sovereignty, Russia’s regional hegemony either grows or lessens in intensity. This study uncovers dissent from those who do not fit within or are unprepared to adapt to the status quo of hegemony, and consent from those who accept diminishing sovereignty. Thus, hegemonies in the context of this study are characterised by regular and open-ended dialogue between states that remain independent enough to constantly negotiate the system through their consent and dissent to hierarchy. In making these claims, this study examines concepts such as sovereignty, hierarchy and legitimacy in the context of the CIS region as well as key developments in the CIS region. Specifically, it makes conclusions on how regional hierarchy around Russia is perpetuated, the factors that determine the extent of that hegemony, how bilateral and group relationships have developed between other CIS countries and Russia, and how the CIS system of states is best classified at different periods in time.

This thesis is a study of US-Syrian relations, and the legacy of mistrust between the two states. While there has been a recent growth in the study of Syria’s domestic and regional politics, its foreign policy in a global systemic context remains understudied within mainstream International Relations (IR), Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), and even Middle Eastern studies, despite Syria’s geo-political centrality in the region. The primary purpose of the thesis is to analyse and understand the driving factors in US-Syrian relations, both the continuities – distinctive in the context of the region’s dynamic political landscape – and the rarer instances of discontinuity. By analysing the causes and constituents of US-Syrian relations, the thesis will also challenge a purely realist and power-political explanation that has dominated the discourse on Middle Eastern foreign policy; without discarding the value of alternative conceptual explanations, the thesis will argue that Syria’s position towards the US has been significantly (though not exclusively) influenced by a politically embedded set of ideas and principles that have evolved from an anti-colonial Arab nationalist ideology. Though recent constructivist debates have (rightly) brought the role of identity and social structure back to the fore, ideological or value-laden motives are still at times treated dismissively as an instrument of power politics (particularly in relation to Middle Eastern regimes) or, conversely, as a sign of regime irrationality. The apparent methodological impasse in credibly connecting ideational motives with foreign policy implementation and the perceived incompatibility between ideas and pragmatic decision-making have prevented a deeper and more sophisticated exploration of ideological influences within IR. Thus the second aim of the thesis is to redress this imbalance by introducing a methodological framework of analysis for studying ideology in foreign policy-making; this will be operationalised by historically charting the development and influence of ideas on Syria’s position towards the US, drawing upon original archival material that has hitherto not been utilised in existing literature on this subject. I argue that in Syria’s case state interests and security concerns are not dichotomous to ideational values; rather the two are coterminous goals in Syrian foreign policy. In doing so the thesis employs historical analysis and FPA methods to assess the significance of the following factors in influencing Syria’s ideology, and thereby its relations with the US: Syria’s colonised past and contemporary US interventionism in the region; the policies and ideology of Israel; and finally the structure of the Syrian regime, and its connection to public opinion.

This thesis examines the special treatment of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The categorisation of the LDCs by the United Nations in 1971 not only created a new classification of counties, but also created an international norm of special treatment for these countries. The norm of special treatment for LDCs has, since then, slowly spread throughout the international system and has been institutionalised in many international organisations, including the WTO. Evidence of the institutionalisation of the norm within the WTO can be found in its founding documents and agreements, as well as in the Doha Development Agenda. This institutionalisation of the norm has meant that LDCs have been provided with special treatment in the trade regime, which is not provided to other categories of member. This thesis will trace the development and institutionalisation of the international norm of special treatment for LDCs and will focus specifically on its institutionalisation within the GATT/WTO. The thesis uses the concept of the norm lifecycle to demonstrate how the norm of special treatment for LDCs has grown in strength over time and become institutionalised, but has yet to be fully internalised. Through the use of case studies looking at accession, market access and cotton, it argues that the recent agency of the LDCs means that they can be seen as norm entrepreneurs helping to further the norm of special treatment by their appeals to it.