This thesis challenges the assumption that states are rational unitary actors by examining how, in the United States, the personality traits of the president determine whether or not he will choose military intervention when the domestic and international conditions align to render it a possibility. These conditions are filtered through the lens of the president's own cognitive schema, which cannot be purely rational and, moreover, is likely to include a mélange of traits that converge to create a marked preference for action, reinforced and incentivized by the domestic political system. If Bill Clinton provides an example of the interventionist impulse among U.S. presidents in his actions in Bosnia, Barack Obama offers an exception through his restraint in Syria. Today, the Trump presidency raises questions about the likelihood of U.S. involvement in the enduring Syrian Civil War.

In taking into account the vast body of literature that exists on the topic of international humanitarianism, this thesis aims to provide a contribution to the field by way of an analysis of the dubious manner in which states apply the principles of humanitarianism. It derives conclusions around the level of commitment and sincerity of the international humanitarian regime to the principles of humanitarianism by exploring the dynamic relationship between the two of the main areas of humanitarianism: humanitarian intervention and refugee protection. From this analysis stems the argument is that while the governments of the wealthy Western states are often amongst the loudest trumpeters of humanitarian principles, they fail to live up to their humanitarian obligations. For, rather than committing to humanitarian action on the basis of need, they are only willing to commit to humanitarian action in cases that serve in their own national interests; cases of human suffering from which they do not stand to benefit remain caught in the margins of the international humanitarian regime.

This study set out to examine the interplay of negotiations and military intervention in the resolution of the conflict in Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002, and to draw lessons from this process for the resolution of intrastate conflicts in Africa. To achieve this, a more detailed analysis was undertaken on: the evolution and progress of the conflict in Sierra Leone (Chapter two); the various military interventions (Chapter three); and the various peace agreements (Chapter four). What has come to light is that it is important to distinguish between the triggers to the conflict and the drivers of the conflict. In the case of Sierra Leone, the trigger was ECOMOG’s entry into Liberia – an event that was mistakenly seen as the main cause of the conflict and leading to wrong decisions on how to end the conflict. It is also clear that greed was at the centre of the conflict in Sierra Leone since control of natural resources appear to be the main push factors behind most of the fighting. Control of these resources gave the holders an advantage. Progress in negotiations was determined by demands and concessions by those in control of the resources. An additional dimension that was common to many conflicts in Africa was control of the country’s capital city. Possession of this bestowed visible power to the holders. It is because of this that Freetown became the centre of many bouts of conflict. The study highlighted a number of issues that impact on the duration and outcome of intrastate conflicts. The first concerns the risks of sidelining the army that had played a significant role in governing the country. To do so, in favour of a civilian militia, was inviting trouble. This mistake extended the conflict by at least another two years. Also important was the issue of the over-militarisation of society. As the state structures failed, patronage and resources acted as drivers for the formation of other armed factions. The proliferation of armed factions made finding a solution more problematic. Increasing militarisation was further driven by the role of by neighbouring countries. This complicated the search for a political solution, as members of the regional group, ECOWAS, actively supported various sides in the conflict. While it was encouraging to see ECOWAS attempting to resolve the conflict, it could not sustain the role of being both a player and referee at the same time. As a result of this, ECOWAS itself contributed to the prolonging of the conflict. The intervention by the United Kingdom demonstrated that actors with superior force are in a position to make decisive interventions to help end conflicts. At the international level, the question on leaving conflict management to regional bodies is not a panacea for solving intrastate conflicts. The United Nations Security Council initially relied on ECOWAS to manage the conflict, but was later forced to take over the active peacekeeping role. It was also only when the United Nations began reflecting on earlier peacekeeping failures, such as Rwanda and Somalia, that new peacekeeping approaches began to emerge. This reflection also generated the continuing debate on the “Responsibility to Protect” vulnerable populations in intrastate conflict. / Dissertation (MDiplomatic Studies)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts for humanitarian motives in a less threatening security context. To test these hypotheses, I compare U.S. military intervention in three temporal contexts reflecting more threatening security contexts (Cold War and post-9/11) and less threatening security contexts (1992-2001). Results of logit regression analysis reveal that a conflict’s connection to a threatening actor or ideology is the most statistically and substantively significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, both in more and less threatening security contexts. They also indicate that humanitarian motives are not a statistically significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, even in a more benign security environment. These findings imply that U.S. unilateral military intervention is reserved for more direct national security threats, even those that are less grave, and that the perception of the U.S. as “global cop” may be misleading, at least in terms of unilateral military intervention.

Military Democratic Intervention is a common strategy of foreign interaction especially since World War II. However, the question why some interventions are successful in implementing democracy and others are still not answered satisfactorily. Whereas the scientific debate so far focused on mission specific characteristics including variables such as personnel or financial equipment of interventions, the underlying assumption of this work is that external democratized countries need to exhibit the same preconditions as countries internally democratized. Therefore, the transition and state-building literature is investigated and five clusters of preconditions for successful democratization is developed. With a Qualitative Comparative Analysis, a dataset comprising 27 cases, eight variables and the outcome variable, the author provides evidence for the significance of all five clusters. Most importantly, the level of human development and modernization as well as the predecessor regime type and the experience with democratic experience strand out. Further, the combination of the variables of high GDP, an ethnically homogeneous society and a democratically ruled neighborhood are identified as variables sufficiently influencing successful democratization after a military intervention. These results...

By some accounts, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) created a paradigm shift in American foreign policy whereby terrorist organizations receive a lot more attention than they did prior to 9/11, especially in terms of U.S. military intervention. Moreover, some argue that this represents a shift in international politics whereby non-state actors have more power than they did before 9/11. However, others maintain that terrorism in the post-9/11 era is indicative of continuity in international politics. They argue that despite any of the immediate consequences of using military force to respond to the 9/11 attacks, the distribution of capabilities among states in the international system has not changed from the pre-9/11 era. This thesis empirically tests the notion of continuity in international politics through a case study of U.S. military intervention and threat perception. This research analyzes how these two concepts evolve from the post-Cold War era into the post-9/11 era. To the extent that U.S. military intervention and threat perception are comparable before and after 9/11, this is indicative of continuity in international politics. Conversely, contrast across 9/11 indicates change in international politics. Though this thesis finds considerable empirical evidence supporting continuity in international politics in the post-9/11 world, it also finds empirical evidence for change which cannot be ignored. / Master of Arts / On September 11, 2001 (9/11), the United States was attacked on its own territory for the first time since Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The difference on 9/11 was that the aggressors were stateless terrorists and not uniformed military members of a rival nation state. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, and it could not stop a small band of religious extremists from destroying the symbolic World Trade Center towers, causing major harm to the Pentagon, and claiming thousands of innocent American lives. As a result, the U.S. launched two of its largest military interventions in history by sending tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan in 2001 and then to Iraq in 2003. These interventions were also two of the longest interventions in U.S. history. Does this mean that the U.S. perceives threats to its national security— especially those from non-state actors—to be greater after 9/11? And does this mean that the U.S. will use military intervention more in the post-9/11 era than it did before 9/11? This thesis empirically measures U.S. military intervention and threat perception from the end of the Cold War to the end of President Obama’s first term to determine how they compare before and after 9/11. This research then draws some conclusions from this analysis to determine to what extent the U.S.’s behavior after 9/11 indicates that non-state actors have acquired meaningful power in a way that causes nation-states to worry. This thesis finds ample support for the idea that the U.S.—and all nation states—still retain the overwhelming majority of the political power to be had by all actors, whether state or non-state. However, it also finds support for the notion that non-state actors have wielded real power as measured by the U.S.’s increased threat perception and use of military intervention after 9/11.

This research presents a comparative case study between the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the United State’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. It specifically examines how the two interventions were framed by the political executives. Frame theory and a qualitative content analysis served as theoretical­ and methodological benchmarks to assess selected speeches and public statements delivered by president George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, in order to detect similar motives and justification patterns for the armed occupations. Four distinct war frames emerged from the text material: prevention, common good, state liability and imposed war. The results demonstrate that state leaders are prone to strategically communicate their military ambitions and legitimize their policy agendas through corresponding framing processes.

Thesis advisor: Hiroshi Nakazato / Ethnic conflicts that lead to civil wars or other forms of internal turmoil elicit myriad forms of military intervention from the global community. Sometimes the United Nations decides to deploy peacekeeping troops to a region or authorize individual states to use their military resources to quell a conflict. Usually, a state will unilaterally decide to launch an intervention before the United Nations makes a decision, a situation that generally occurs when the state has a direct interest in the conflict. Although many external factors play into these decisions regarding intervention, four internal factors have been identified as having a strong influence on these decisions: the failed state status of the region in conflict, the duration of the conflict, a request for external help, and whether a major world power is already involved. The United Nations is more likely to intervene in a critically failed state whose ethnic conflict has been enduring for years, where a state will send its military in unilaterally if the conflict is new (months old) and a request for military help is made from one of the parties already involved. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Este trabalho tem como principal objetivo analisar as mobilizaÃÃes das elites polÃticas cearenses no estado, atravÃs dos jornais, em torno dos acontecimentos que ficaram marcados pelo embate polÃtico-ideolÃgico entre as direitas e as esquerdas brasileiras levando ao isolamento do governo JoÃo Goulart e que, posteriormente, culminaram com o golpe civil militar de 1964. Neste trabalho, estamos compreendendo a imprensa nÃo apenas como lugar de expressÃo de opiniÃes e posicionamentos, mas, sobretudo, como produtora de acontecimentos e atribuiÃÃes de sentidos. Deste modo, o nosso olhar esteve direcionado para analisar a construÃÃo e repercussÃo dos acontecimentos os quais estiveram situados entre a renÃncia de JÃnio Quadros e as mobilizaÃÃes em oposiÃÃo ao presidente JoÃo Goulart e que, de modo bastante tenso, culminaram no Golpe civil-militar de 31 de marÃo de 1964. Assim, preocupamo-nos em compreender o modo como a imprensa cearense esteve marchando em direÃÃo ao Golpe tornando-se um espaÃo de embate e conflito entre as direitas e esquerdas e de legitimidade para o movimento golpista. No CearÃ, os principais acontecimentos polÃticos da conjuntura nacional causaram desdobramentos fundamentais para que os grupos polÃticos locais se reorganizassem e passassem a defender o projeto de conspiraÃÃo golpista contra JoÃo Goulart. Deste modo, buscamos compreender a forma como os grupos polÃticos se reorganizaram durante os primeiros meses apÃs a concretizaÃÃo do golpe de 1964, especialmente quando esses, organizaram as âMarchas da VitÃriaâ, manifestaÃÃes ocorridas entre os meses de abril e maio, visando comemorar a vitÃria do golpe. AlÃm disso, compreender o modo como a imprensa cearense exerceu o papel de mobilizaÃÃo e reconfiguraÃÃo das alianÃas polÃticas imediatamente apÃs a intervenÃÃo militar. / The main objective of this work is to analyze, through the newspapers, the mobilizations of political elites in Cearà around the events marked by the political and ideological struggle between the right and the left in Brazilâs politics that led to the isolation of the government of JoÃo Goulart and, later, led to the civil-military coup of 1964. In this work, we comprehend the press not only as a vehicle of expression of opinions and positions, but also as a producer of events and assignment of senses. Hence, we directed our attention to analyze the construction and transmission of events situated between the resignation of JÃnio Quadros and the movements of opposition to the president JoÃo Goulart that culminated in the civilmilitary coup of March 31, 1964. Thus, we were concerned to understand how the press in Cearà was marching towards the coup, becoming a space of conflict between the right and the left, and of legitimacy to the movement. In CearÃ, the major political events of national conjuncture caused fundamental developments for the local political groups to reorganize and to start defending the project of conspiracy against JoÃo Goulart. Therefore, we seek to understand the reorganization of the political groups during the first months after the Coup of 1964, especially when they organized the âMarches of Victoryâ (Marchas da VitÃria), between the months of April and May, to celebrate the victory of the Coup. In addition to that, we aim to understand how the press of Cearà influenced the mobilization and the reconfiguration of political alliances immediately after the.

This doctoral thesis asks what ideational factors underlie parties' national role conceptions in narratives on violent conflict and crises abroad. It explores French and German parties' national role statements in the case of the 2011 military intervention in Libya. The thesis lies at the intersection of Foreign Policy Analysis research focused on domestic foreign policy actors, International Relations studies on ideas in international relations and Party Politics scholarship looking at international issues in party campaigns and competition. It develops a theoretical framework using role theory and combines it with scholarship on international norms and ideologies. It contributes to role research on domestic role contestation and role socialisation. It adds a study of parties' national roles to this scholarship. It also advances the conceptual development of the role theory approach through an exploration of the responsibility concept within national roles. The main finding of the thesis is that parties often agree on the national role but sometimes interpret the same role differently. Moreover, sometimes parties can propose alternative national roles. The theoretical framework permits to trace variation in role interpretation to foreign policy traditions, international norms and ideologies. The central argument is that parties do not necessarily agree on the national role and its interpretation even when confronted with the same situation and events. It suggests that variation in national role interpretation can matter because parties contest the national role and, thereby, may point to role conflicts and dilemmas that may have an effect on future role selection and performance.