Abstract: There is a near-consensus among governments, scientists, and the media that climate change poses a genuine threat to state security. Despite this consensus, the results of cooperative efforts to deal with this threat have been unimpressive. This thesis attempts to explain the divergence between the discourse on climate change and state behaviour by constructing a neorealist theory of cooperation on climate change. The argument comprises two central hypotheses. First, as the vulnerability of a state to climate change increases, it will be more willing to cooperate. Second, as the military threat to national security decreases, states will be more willing to cooperate. These hypotheses are supported by secondary hypotheses that posit a relationship between system-level variables and the level of cooperation. Statistical methods are used to test these propositions. The results do not support the hypothesized relationships. / Résumé:Les gouvernements, les scientifiques et les médias sont presque unanimes au sujet des changements climatiques. Selon eux, ces changements menacent la sécurité étatique. Malgré ce consensus, les résultats de la coopération pour résoudre ce problème ont été décevants. Cette thèse vise à expliquer cette divergence entre les déclarations et les actions des états en construisant une théorie néoréaliste de coopération au sujet des changements climatiques. La thèse comprend deux hypothèses centrales. Premièrement, alors que le niveau de vulnérabilité d'un état aux changements climatiques augmente, l'état sera plus enclin à coopérer. Deuxièmement, tandis que la menace militaire diminue, il est plus probable qu'un état coopère. Ces deux hypothèses centrales sont complétées par des hypothèses secondaires qui proposent une relation entre des variables au niveau systémique et la coopération. Des méthodes statistiques ont été utilisées pour tester ces relations. En fin de compte, les résultats ne supportent aucuns des relations proposées.

The purpose of the present thesis is to investigate how socially embeddedinterpretations of Israeli identity influence Israel's warring foreign policy towardsPalestinians and conversely, how this warring foreign policy contributes tosecuring and stabilizing the underlying identity narratives of the dominant Israelinational identity. Based on an interpretative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)framework which adopts a Foucauldian conceptualization of discourse as socialpractice, this thesis argues that today's dominant Israeli discourse of identityprovides the interpretative framework for enabling and legitimizing the formulationof a warring foreign policy. It further contends that this formulation is pivotal tothe cultural governance of the Israeli state by reproducing the dominant Israelipolitical identity and dismissing alternative Israeli and Jewish subjectivities. Thecase under study is the 2008 Gaza War, bearing the Israeli code name OperationCast Lead. Borrowing from a CDA maxim which insists that analysis should bemultimodal, this thesis takes the “aesthetic turn” and provides a reading of theIsraeli film Waltz with Bashir (2008), showing how this popular cultural productionmay provide alternative critical discursive narratives about the Self and the Other,that may offer a challenge to war-as-policy. / L'objectif du présent mémoire est de questionner comment des interprétations socialement construites de l'identité Israélienne influence la politique étrangère guerrière d'Israël envers ses voisins Palestiniens, et inversement, comment cettedernière contribue à sécuriser et stabiliser les tropes et le narratif identitaire sousjacent. À l'aide d'un modèle épistémologique interprétatif que fournit l'Analyse Critique du Discours et qui adopte une conceptualisation Foucaldienne du discours comme pratique sociale, la thèse tu présent mémoire est que le discours identitaire Israélien actuel fournit le cadre interprétatif pour rendre possible et légitimer laformulation d'une politique étrangère guerrière et que cette dernière est un outil central pour la gouvernance culturelle the l'État Israélien afin de reproduire le discours identitaire dominant et rabattre des discours identitaires alternatifs et contestataires. À ces fins, le cas sous étude est la Guerre de Gaza (2008), aussi appeler sous le nom de code Israélien de Operation Cast Lead. En tenant compte de l'aspect multimodal de la CDA, ce mémoire prend le Aesthetic turn et fournit une lecture du film Israélien Valse avec Bashir (2008) pour démontrer comment ce produit culturel populaire peut offrir un discours identitaire critique à propos du Soiet de l'Autre ainsi qu'offrir un discours critique quant à la formulation de la politique étrangère guerrière.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3227922. Adviser: Thomas J. Biersteker. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 3149.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas A&M University, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3231619. Advisers: Charles Hermann; Nehemia Geva. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 3146.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of British Columbia (Canada), 2006. / (UMI)AAINR20118. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-12, Section: A, page: 4696.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4854. Adviser: Paul F. Diehl. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 363-376) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The current international system has been in place since the Treaty of Westphalia. However, states are no longer the only actors in International Relations. Non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations and individuals also take the stage in international relations. This thesis will make use of the English School of International Relations and the reconceptualization of the School introduced by Barry Buzan in From International to World Society? because it offers richer explanatory possibilities for the interaction and role of both state and non-state actors. Using the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations HIV/AIDS Program (UNAIDS), this thesis will assess Buzan's new model and answer the question that the title of his book asks: Is International Society moving toward a World Society?

One of the most enduring questions for the study of politics relates to what, if any, inde- pendent power international institutions have to affect the behavior of sovereign states. This dissertation addresses this question by examining the politics underlying one supranational judicial body’s exercise of authority—the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Dispute Set- tlement Mechanism (DSM). International courts are strategic legal actors that operate in a highly political context. Politics matter for judicial outcomes—the rulings of courts—but legal constraints moderate the impact of politics in fairly systematic ways. The dissertation specifies the conditions under which one dynamic prevails and demonstrates that power pol- itics do not dominate international judicial interactions. Rather, courts are sensitive to the degree of institutional support they enjoy among the collective membership and a broader set of relevant stakeholders. Collective support for or challenges to a court’s institutional legitimacy—what I call a court’s political capital—affect judicial outcomes more than the preferences of dominant stakeholders. The second chapter develops the dissertation’s theoretical argument, while the third chapter describes the political context within which the WTO’s judicial bodies operate. It applies methods of automated text analysis to an original dataset of all member statements made within the WTO Dispute Settlement Body from 1995-2013 in order to construct measures of the DSM’s political capital. I supplement this evidence with a series of interviews with member representatives and WTO Secretariat officials. The fourth chapter employs original measures of dispute outcomes to identify how WTO panels respond to shifts in the DSM’s political capital. It finds that dispute panels are po- litically savvy, as they tend to signal less deference to national regulatory choices only when the DSM enjoys relatively greater support among the membership as a whole. However, the legal constraints of appellate case law moderate the influence of these political pressures on dispute outcomes. Through their rulings, panels seek to maximize support among their legal and political audiences simultaneously. The fifth chapter turns to the relationship between the Appellate Body (AB) and dis- pute panels. How panels review domestic laws and policy choices can be—and has been increasingly—challenged on appeal by parties. This chapter describes how the AB initially directed panels to engage in searching review of domestic policy choices, but that it has encouraged greater deference to national authorities in recent years. It identifies when the AB reverses panel findings on these grounds, with a focus on when it takes into account views expressed by governments. The final chapter turns to the impact of the WTO’s judicial authority on state behavior, specifically compliance with its judgments. Employing original measures of dispute judg- ments and compliance outcomes, this chapter demonstrates that the WTO’s judicial bodies use the content of their rulings to ease the domestic political costs of trade policy changes, thereby acting as ‘partners in compliance’ with a government’s executive branch. Yet the extent to which these strategies successfully facilitate swifter implementation is conditional on the domestic politics of compliance. The political cover provided within adverse rul- ings has no observable impact on the fact or timing of compliance for disputes that can be implemented through executive action alone. However, relatively greater validation of a trade measure does increase the probability of compliance and swifter implementation when legislative action is required. This suggests that the WTO’s judicial bodies successfully fa- cilitate compliance through the content of their rulings, thereby improving the effectiveness of the dispute settlement system. / Government

Does greater certainty about an adversary’s attributes cause peace? What states believe they can secure through force dictates the diplomatic settlements they will accept. In prevailing accounts which preclude assessment errors, certainty promotes peace as states can readily identify agreements preferable to war. Yet, empirically, high-certainty assessments often contribute to bargaining failure, rather than success. This dissertation resolves the tension. Assessments are not objectively given; leaders must form them through subjective processes. Consistent with behavioral studies, leaders are often more certain than available information warrants. Incorporating these overprecision errors, I show certainty can increase the risk of war. Hence, the relationship between certainty and war is conditional. Whether estimates are overprecise depends on the information leaders receive from advisers who have specialized expertise due to a division of labor. Failure to tap into this expertise generates overprecise estimates. This is particularly likely when leaders fail to gather information pertinent to an adversary’s political (versus military) attributes by marginalizing a state’s diplomats—such as US State Department officials. Bureaucracies affect state behavior through the substantive expertise they provide, not through parochial preference divergences which dissipate during crises. To test the argument I construct a measure of certainty using an original corpus of declassified security documents from US Cold War crises. Quantitative tests using the measure demonstrate that State Department officials provide assessments with less certainty than counterparts and the relationship between certainty and conflict is conditional on the State Department’s role. When State Department officials are heavily involved, certainty leads to peace; when marginalized, certainty is likely due to overprecision and leads to war. Case studies of the Bay of Pigs and Iraq War assess implications that elude quantitative testing. Presidents marginalized diplomats, privileging CIA estimates in 1961 and Pentagon estimates in 2003. Each agency offered high-certainty estimates over political attributes affecting conflict outcomes: popular uprisings in Cuba and stability in post-Saddam Iraq. Overprecision is not a matter of hindsight as marginalized advisers invoked greater uncertainty before hostilities commenced. Integrating behavioralist and rationalist approaches offers greater explanatory power in quantitative tests and provides insights into historical cases that are puzzling for extant theories. Moreover, the dissertation shows that certainty is not strictly welfare enhancing and flags policy conditions conducive to assessment errors and costly foreign policy blunders. / Government

This study examines the foreign policy decisions of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan in the complex international relations environment of the Caspian Sea region. Specifically, this investigation attempts to answer how regional and global international relations are affected due to the decisions made by these two small energy-rich Caspian Sea countries straddling the saltwater basin. Additionally, Russia has demonstrated that it considers the Russian near abroad to be under its sphere of influence and the future plans that Moscow may have for the region are uncertain. China, the West, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, India, Israel, and Georgia all play a role too, and from this cauldron of interests the leaders of the two Caspian Sea countries must choose their path. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are playing delicate balancing acts within their increasingly complex foreign affairs environments. Moreover, each of these two countries is slowly moving in an opposite direction, Turkmenistan is meandering to the East while Azerbaijan continues to look to the West with certain caveats. Conflicting goals of global and regional powers make missteps dangerous. A complex model including variables of identity, geography, resource, and legacy path dependency explains the actions of west-facing Azerbaijan and isolated Turkmenistan. Thus far Turkmenistan has ably negotiated to improve its circumstance as it drifts towards China. Azerbaijan is in a more precarious position and a future conflict is a possibility.