This thesis presents an analysis of Russia’s and Finland’s Arctic polities, and what effects their policies have for the future geopolitical situation. The argument of this thesis that the implication of Russia’s and Finland’s policies on the geopolitical situation in the Arctic will likely get increasingly tense in the future. Neoclassical realism was the chosen theoretical framework since the topic is concerned with a combination of domestic and systemic factors. The methodological approach was a comparative case study analyzing Russia and Finland with a most-different system design. This approach made it possible to compare three units that shaped these states Arctic policies. Conclusively, the results find that Russia’s economic decline and perception of the Arctic as an economic opportunity conflict with Finland who are in favor of policies to strengthen the regional organizational framework by broadening Arctic Council’s agenda to have a greater cooperation with Arctic and non-Arctic states on security politics.

Zeitenwende represents a turning point in German foreign and security policy which is analysed in this paper. The analysis is based on three variables from Rose's neoclassical realism which shapes a state's foreign and security policy. The three variables are Military Capability, Strategic Culture, and Threat Perception. The study is based on a qualitative text analysis with the aim of understanding zeitenwende and the German drive to integrate CFSP. The study considers Russia and the US as the two international actors that pressure Germany to act, how it perceives these two, and then shapes its responses towards the international realm is understood based on the neoclassical realist assumptions and variables. This study intends to answer the question: Why does Germany propose integrating military capabilities and majority decisions in the EU? & Can neoclassical realism explain zeitenwende? The study concludes that neoclassical realism can explain zeitenwende and that Germany’s strategic culture & military capability makes the CFSP a suitable framework for Germany.

In the wake of World War II, development aid became an important staple in alleviating impacted areas through external economic assistance by supporting infrastructure, income distribution, and inequality, and has become a global channel for less developed countries in an attempt to secure sustained development through the possibility of external inflows of resources. A rather crude measure of global foreign aid net flow for 2020 is around $194.1bn (The World Bank, 2022), and yet there is no consensus on how to measure or conceptualise the impact of aid. One of the main branches of foreign aid literature that follow the contemporary debate on aid impact is Moseley’s (1987) “micro-macro paradox” which contradicts the effectiveness of foreign aid. In an attempt to provide further depth to the discussion, this analysis uses a nuanced neoclassical realist framework to explain the interactions between key domestic and international systemic incentives, and their influences on official development aid strategies, in combination with a quantitative regression model to evaluate Swedish foreign aid engagement in Georgia. In conclusion, the micro-results are encouraging and quite clear, and time lags are an important dimension in the aid-growth relation, however, in terms of the larger magnitude of analysis, more expansive data panels are to be recommended to define clear causal links between official development strategies and the impact of aid.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans une perspective combinant le paradigme réaliste des relations internationales et la pensée clausewitzienne, afin d’évaluer l’impact des révolutions dans les affaires militaires (RAM) offensives sur les équilibres internationaux et la puissance militaire des Etats. Au sein d’un système international anarchique, une innovation offensive confère un avantage militaire à son possesseur devant lui permettre de façonner son environnement par un recours à la force pour transformer le statu quo et imposer plus aisément sa volonté à ses adversaires. Cette thèse propose d’évaluer l’impact des RAM offensives du XXe siècle sur la puissance militaire des Etats à l’aune de deux facteurs : la conservation par l’innovateur d’un avantage militaire sur ses adversaires et sa capacité à leur imposer sa volonté en leur infligeant une défaite décisive. La perspective réaliste et clausewitzienne adoptée amène ainsi à rappeler le caractère intrinsèquement interactif et compétitif d’un système anarchique. Source d’avantage militaire pour son possesseur, une RAM offensive est également source de menace et d’opportunité pour les acteurs l’observant. Son apparition et, plus encore, son emploi devraient ainsi susciter des réactions d’équilibre des puissances internes à l’origine d’une diffusion des capacités et d’une efficacité décroissante de l’innovation. Cette thèse rejette ensuite le postulat d’une relation de causalité simple entre RAM offensive et victoire. La capacité d’un innovateur à remporter une victoire décisive est avant tout conditionnée par des considérations politico-stratégiques telles que la définition des buts de guerre et la supériorité de la défensive sur l’offensive. Les hypothèses formulées sont testées à partir de l’étude de trois cas : la révolution des armes combinées de la Première Guerre mondiale, la « guerre-éclair », et la « guerre de précision » apparue au cours des deux dernières décennies. / This dissertation aims to assess the impact of Twentieh Century offensive revolutions in military affairs (RMA) on the distribution of military power in the international system. To do so, it combines elements from the realist paradigm of international relations and from clausewitzian strategic theory. In an anarchical international system, a state possessing an offensive RMA should be able to shape its security environment by changing the status quo and to impose its will on adversaries through the use of force. The impact of offensive innovations on states’ military power is assessed by looking at two variables: the ability of the innovator to maintain a military advantage over its adversaries, and its ability to impose its will by inflicting decisive defeats. Combining realism and clausewitzian theory leads us to reaffirm that an anarchical international system is intrinsically interactive and competitive. While an offensive RMA can offer a tremendous military advantage to its possessor, states facing it can see it as both a threat and an opportunity. Its disclosure and employment should trigger internal balancing policies, which would in turn cause a spread of military capabilities and decrease the RMA’s overall effectiveness. This dissertation also rejects the idea of a direct causal link between offensive RMAs and victory. Above all, an innovator’s ability to obtain decisive victory lies with political and strategic factors such as war aims and the superiority of defense over offense. Three case studies have been conducted to test the resulting hypotheses: the First World War combined-arms revolution, the blitzkrieg revolution, and the information technology revolution that occurred during the last two decades.

This thesis explores how and why the United States (U.S.) support for Turkey&rsquo / s participation in the European Union(EU) shifted from being an asset to a liability for Turkey between the years of l995 and 2005. There have been some earlier studies that analyzed the impact of U.S. support for Turkey&rsquo / s inclusion in the EU on EU-Turkey relations. The purpose of this study is to contribute further to that literature with a plausible explanation for the shifting influence of the United States on EUTurkey relations, utilizing the multi-dimensional approach of neoclassical realism. This thesis focuses on the changing EU-U.S. relations in the altered international climate after the end of the Cold War / the attempts and strategy of the U.S. in supporting Turkish membership in the EU / and why the reactions of EU leaders and politicians to U.S. interventions turned in a much more negative direction during the early 2000s. By applying neoclassical realism and its flexible methodology, this thesis is highly sensitive to the multi-levels of influence behind given policy outcomes by balancing the role of external structural factors with domestic contexts and constraints. This analysis demonstrates that besides the international climate, a range of EU level and domestic factors operated together in influencing the EU decisions about Turkey and reactions to US interventions during the early 2000s. In turn, this analysis supplies evidence that, consistent with the perspective of neoclassical realism, external influences as well as a range of domestic influences should all be taken into consideration for a complete understanding of international policy outcomes and postures.

This Thesis is titled The Energy Geopolitics of Russia and its main purpose is to analyze the energy geopolitics of Russia and the country's shifting energeopolitical pivot to Asia, especially to China. The Thesis is divided into three respective sections -- a theoretical approach, Russian geopolitics of energy, and one descriptive and exploratory case study. It strives to answer three main research questions considering Russia's shifting energeopolitical pivot, Ukraine crisis, and the development of Russia's foreign policy in regard to her energy geopolitics.

The main focus of the dissertation is to examine the interactions between Egyptian foreign policy and the domestic, regional and international dramatic changes that shaped the environment in which that foreign policy was made and operated during the Arab Spring in Egypt from January 2011 to June 2013. The goal is to explore whether domestic, regional and international changes during the Arab Spring had resulted in a substantial change of Egyptian foreign policy in those three years regarding most foreign policy issues especially toward Turkey and Palestine. The dissertation's analysis, while rather qualitative and inductive in nature, employed the neoclassical realism as its theoretical framework. It allowed the researcher to identify major domestic players and issues such as ideology, strategic culture, political religion and the ability to mobilize national resources and study their impact on the foreign policy decision makers. The researcher concluded that the Egyptian foreign policy made several major changes during the Arab Spring especially toward Turkey and Palestine/Israel. These changes were due to domestic and regional variables more than to international systemic order's signals. Neoclassical realism proved to be ideal for the researcher's analysis. It helped him easily identify key...

This thesis presents a foreign policy decision-making analysis of Kazakhstan's foreign relations in the initial post-independence period. The study applies a neoclassical realist theoretical framework in order to provide the understanding of Kazakhstan's external behaviour. The thesis conceptually assumes that the integration of the presidential decision-making element in the analysis of the republic's foreign policy is essential to account for Kazakhstan's foreign strategies, which would otherwise appear to be anomalous from the deterministic perspective of the structural theories of international relations. The set objective of the work is to produce a theoretically informed historical narratives of Almaty's policymaking during three episodes in the republic's diplomatic history – the elaboration of a distinct balancing strategy; the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal; and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace mission. The reconstruction of events behind the decisions made by president Nursultan Nazarbayev and his key advisors through the assessment of primary materials sourced from the archives of Kazakhstani foreign policy demonstrates that foreign decision-making process played a crucial role in the identification of national interests and development of appropriate policy responses in each of the episodes under examination. Chapter IV illustrates how the nation's policymakers developed a unique balancing strategy to ascertain the country's sovereignty and eliminate security risks under overwhelming geopolitical pressures that emanated from Russia and China. Chapter V discusses the episode when Nazarbayev was subjected to direct international pressure to surrender the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal on the terms imposed by the USA, in response to which Nazarbayev devised a deliberately ambivalent and protracted strategy in regard to the republic's nuclear status. Chapter VI reveals the adaptability of the republic's policymaking to the changing international context as the regression of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace initiative demonstrates. The exposition of intricate policy planning and profound diplomatic endeavours reflected in archival documents reinforces the thesis's premise about the non-deterministic nature of Kazakhstan's foreign policy.

This thesis asks why Japan decided to procure BMD if it meant building an infrastructure which, because of its technological nature, had the potential to disrupt Japan’s preferred security strategy of hedging, that is, maintaining ambiguity of commitment, vis-à-vis China and the US. The investigation was divided into three parts dealing with the following questions – Why did Japan's BMD procurement matter? Who mattered? Why were the BMD and related decisions made? Such a structure of research was informed by “neoclassical realism,” according to which the relative material power of a country sets the parameters of its foreign policy, but the policy choices within these international constraints are made by political elites. A range of policymaking heuristics were used to investigate the domestic element of the approach. In addition to the conventionally specified policymaking actors such as MOD, MOFA, Prime Ministers, an original attempt was made to identify the possible influences of several elite networks. On the basis of the notes from the Japan-US Security Strategy Conference, two elite networks were analysed, namely the Japan’s Congressional National Security Research Group and Japan-US Centre for Peace and Cultural Exchange. It was concluded that they have probably had some influence on shaping Japan's BMD decisions. The conclusion of this research is that BMD was procured despite its disruptive potential because it was a tool of shifting Japanese policy from one hedging policy to another, that is, from one based on self-imposed restraints toward one exercised from the position of military strength. An analysis of international relations in East Asia in 1994-2007 and an analysis of the views of the security elites make Japan's transition toward a military strength-based hedging appear rational and confirm BMD's utility as a tool in this transition. Some negative consequences of a possible disruption to hedging, induced by BMD, can be contained exactly because of such a reformatting of hedging.

The following master's thesis focuses on the development of the position of Russia towards the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from 1991 till 2016. The relation is examined in four periods: 1991 - 2000, 2000 - 2008, 2008 - 2012 and 2012 - 2016. Based on the theory of neoclassical realism, I analyse the relative material capabilities of Russia as the independent variable, the intervening variables and the relation of Russia as the dependent variable in each of these four periods. The thesis is elaborated as a qualitative case study while the congruence method serves as the main method for comparing the variables.