This study examines the effects of US bilateral foreign aid policy on the internal security dynamics of aid recipient states. I draw upon the international security and contentious politics literatures to develop a theory of the coercive effect of foreign aid. I analyze how US foreign assistance affects the state capacity of recipient countries and, as a consequence, the government's ability to employ violence as a tool for ensuring its continued tenure. I argue that as a consequence of fungibility—the ability to use foreign aid as a general government resource—foreign aid may increase the likelihood of state coercion by funding increases in the state's coercive capacity, including changes in military expenditure, force structure and arms acquisitions. I test this argument through a statistical analysis of a cross-sectional time-series dataset of annual US bilateral foreign aid for 132 developing countries during the period of 1976 to 2005. This analysis is complemented by an in-depth case study of Indonesia and shorter analyses of El Salvador and South Korea. I find that the coercive effect of foreign aid is conditioned by the recipient country's political institutions and conflict history. This research links the study of political violence with the changing nature of international relations and provides considerable insight into international influences on intrastate conflict. The research further suggests that foreign aid undermines aid donor goals by creating conditions propitious to increased political violence in recipient countries. / Cette étude analyse les impacts de la politique d'aide étrangère des États-Unis sur la sécurité interne des États bénéficiaires. La documentation sur la sécurité internationale et les politiques conflictuelles m'a servi à développer une théorie sur l'effet coercitif de l'aide internationale. J'analyserai la manière dont l'aide étrangère des États-Unis affecte la capacité de gouverner des États bénéficiaires. J'analyserai particulièrement la capacité du gouvernement de l'État bénéficiaire d'employer la violence pour assurer la poursuite de son mandat. J'argumenterai qu'une des conséquences de la fongibilité – la capacité d'utiliser l'aide internationale comme une ressource gouvernementale – serait la possibilité d'augmentation de coercibilité de l'État en augmentant les dépenses dans les capacités coercitives de l'État, incluant les dépenses militaires, les forces de l'ordre et l'acquisition d'armes. Cet argumentaire sera démontré avec une analyse statistique d'un ensemble de données de l'aide bilatérale des États-Unis pour 132 pays en développement entre 1976 à 2005. Cette analyse est additionnée d'un regard en profondeur sur une étude de cas en l'Indonésie et d'analyses plus courtes de l'El Salvador et la Corée du Sud. Je démontre que l'effet coercitif de l'aide étrangère est conditionné par les institutions politiques et l'histoire militaire du pays bénéficiaire. Cette recherche fait un lien entre l'étude de la violence politique et la nature changeante des relations internationales, et expose un aperçu fascinant des influences internationales et des conflits interétatiques. La recherche suggère aussi que l'aide internationale va à l'encontre des buts du donateur de subvention en créant des conditions propices à l'augmentation de la violence politique dans les pays bénéficiaires.

State policies of pursuing compromise or conflict, and the extent of each, have been subject to wide variation in territorial disputes in South Asia, both across cases and within disputes over time. Existing works on the subject, however, which focus on the salience - strategic, economic, or symbolic – of the disputed territory, often prove inadequate in accounting for such variations. They fail moreover to explain some puzzling state behaviour – why, for instance, states choose to sometimes make large concessions on territories of great value, and adopt intransigent attitudes towards territories of little salience; or why stronger states sometimes make concessions larger than they need to, and weaker states bargain harder than their capabilities would justify. This dissertation argues that decisions by state leaders to pursue compromise or conflict on their territorial claims are influenced to a significant extent by a concern for the expected reputational implications of their actions. The theoretical framework offered suggests why we should expect reputational concerns to be independently important in the calculus of state leaders, and how they manifest themselves in decision making. In particular, it makes a novel case that states care not only for reputations for resolve, but also for that of reasonableness, and how contextual factors – bargaining strength and adversary tactics in particular – influence the assessments of what kind of reputation policy decisions are likely to engender. The study demonstrates the utility of the argument in explaining the policy variations and puzzles that characterized territorial disputes in the South Asian neighbourhood during the period from 1947-1965. Through in depth historical research of policy making in not only the more prominent disputes in the region, the Kashmir and Sino-Indian ones, but also territorial disagreements involving the smaller states such as Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma, this dissertation illustrates how reputational concerns often drive state behaviour. / Les politiques de l'État poursuivant les compromis ou conflits, et l'étendue de chacune de ces politiques, varient de façon importante en territoires en disputes en Asie du Sud pour cas variés et parmi disputes au fil du temps. Cependant, les travaux existants sur le sujet qui mettent l'accent sur la prédominance - stratégique, économique ou symbolique – du territoire en dispute, s'avèrent souvent inadéquats pour expliquer ces variations. De plus, ils n'arrivent pas à expliquer certains comportements curieux de l'État – pourquoi, par exemple,les États choisissent-ils parfois de faire de grandes concessions de territoires de grande valeur, et d'adopter des attitudes inflexibles par rapport aux territoires de petite importance, ou pourquoi les États plus puissants font parfois de plus grandes concessions, et les États moins puissants négocient plus sévèrement sans avoir les capacités apparentes pour justifier la sévérité. Cette thèse soutient que les décisions prises par les dirigeants d'États, par rapport aux compromis ou aux conflits portant sur disputes territoriales, sont influencées de façon importante par un souci des implications à leurs réputations suite à leurs actions. La théorie proposée suggère pourquoi nous devrions nous attendre à des préoccupations étant indépendamment importantes et impliquant la réputation parmi le raisonnement des chefs d'état, et comment celles-ci se manifestent dans la prise de décisions. Cela crée particulièrement un nouveau cas démontrant que les États ne sont pas uniquement préoccupés par leur réputation vis-à-vis les solutions, mais aussi à l'aspect raisonnable, et comment certains facteurs contextuels, tels que le pouvoir de négociation et tactiques d'adversaires, influenceront les genres de décisions politiques impliquant la réputation susceptibles à être prises. L'étude démontre l'utilité de l'argument en expliquant les variations en politiques et aspects inexplicables qui ont caractérisés les disputes territoriales en Asie du Sud entre 1947 et 1965. À travers une recherche historique approfondie sur l'élaboration de politiques non seulement parmi les disputes les plus importantes, notamment celles de Kashmir et des sinoindiens, mais aussi autres disputes territoriales impliquant de plus petits États tels que le Népal, le Bhoutan et la Birmanie, cette thèse démontre comment la préoccupation de réputation influence souvent le comportement des États.

What causes 'gas wars' between Russia and Ukraine? Answering this question, this paper argues, requires that we synthesize two prominent theories of international relations (IR), the bargaining model of war and practice theory. It applies these theoretical frameworks to the 2008-2009 Russia-Ukraine gas crisis using qualitative case study methods. Bilateral gas relations can be usefully modeled as crisis bargaining interactions — up to a point. Both Russia and Ukraine deploy crisis bargaining practices to secure natural gas supply and pricing contracts with each other. These practices are not, however, primarily aimed at revealing credible signals of resolve, as standard bargaining models would suggest. Rather, Russia and Ukraine use them to maintain political control over the negotiation process and flexibility over a range of potential outcomes. This tacit understanding poses difficulties when preferences shift such that signaling resolve becomes more important than maintaining political control and flexibility. In these situations, such as late fall 2008, both parties continue to deploy crisis bargaining practices that 'make sense' as ways to engage in negotiation but no longer fit their strategic goals for the process. The taken-for-granted means of practicing gas politics don't fit with the strategic ends sought; the result is a costly gas war despite strong incentives on both sides of the table to locate a compromise short of conflict. / Quelles sont les causes des conflits gaziers russo-ukrainiens? Cet article soutient que, pour répondre à cette question, il faut synthétiser deux grandes théories des relations internationales (RI) : le modèle de négociation de guerre et la théorie de l'action. L'article applique ces cadres théoriques à la crise du gaz de 2008-2009 entre l'Ukraine et la Russie, en se basant sur des études de cas qualitatives. Les relations gazières bilatérales peuvent être modélisées comme des interactions de négociation de crise - jusqu'à un certain point. La Russie et l'Ukraine ont tous deux recours à des pratiques de négociation de crise pour assurer leur approvisionnement en gaz naturel et pour obtenir des contrats l'un avec l'autre. Cependant, ces pratiques n'ont pas comme objectif principal la révélation de signaux crédibles de détermination, comme laisseraient à croire les modèles de négociation habituels. Au contraire, la Russie et l'Ukraine utilisent ces pratiques pour maintenir un contrôle politique sur le processus de négociation et pour préserver leur flexibilité par rapport à une gamme de résultats possibles. Cette entente tacite pose des difficultés lorsque les préférences changent et que la signalisation de la détermination devient plus importante que le maintien du contrôle politique et de la flexibilité. Dans de telles situations, comme le démontrent les événements de l'automne 2008, les deux parties continuent à utiliser des pratiques de négociation de crise qui seraient rationnelles si l'objectif principal était la négociation, mais qui ne correspondent plus à leurs objectifs stratégiques pour le processus. Les moyens habituels de faire de la politique gazière ne correspondent plus aux buts stratégiques visés. Le résultat est un conflit gazier coûteux, malgré les incitations fortes qui existent des deux côtés de la table à trouver une solution autre que le conflit.

This thesis examines variation in the practices of al-Qaeda and the American counterterrorism community. It posits that the interaction of two permissive factors, background knowledge and relational structure, goes a long way in explaining shifts in the practices of both communities. Through a case study of the interaction of the two communities between 1991 and 2013, it analyzes changes in these two variables to explain shifts in practice during that time period. The thesis demonstrates that through a process of mutual reaction, changes in al-Qaeda practices modify background knowledge and relational structure in the American counterterrorism community, and vice versa, encouraging the adoption of new practices by both actors. / Ce mémoire examine les variations dans les pratiques d'al-Qaida et de la communauté américaine du contre-terrorisme. Il avance que l'interaction de deux facteurs permissifs, la connaissance pratique et la structure relationnelle, contribue considérablement à expliquer des changements dans les pratiques des deux groupes. Grâce à une étude de cas de l'interaction des deux communautés entre 1991 et 2013, il analyse des changements dans ces deux variables pour expliquer des changements dans les pratiques à travers cette période. Le mémoire montre que par un processus de réaction mutuelle, des changements dans les pratiques d'al-Qaida modifient la connaissance pratique et la structure relationnelle dans la communauté américaine du contre-terrorisme, et vice versa, encourageant l'adoption de nouvelles pratiques par les deux acteurs.

This dissertation examines the empirical underpinnings of the broader-deeper trade off. Policy makers often worry that the enlargement of regional trade agreements comes at the expense of further deepening (integration). Enlargement will lead to more preference heterogeneity and more economic divergence among members of the RTA, which will in turn stifle decision making. Yet, our empirical understanding of whether there is such a trade off is very limited. In this dissertation, I conduct a systematic analysis of whether the trade off exists and other related questions using a dataset on regional trade agreements from the post-1950 era. The main finding of the dissertation is that enlargement does not lead to a decline in the probability of deepening in RTAs when one takes into account the different issue areas of cooperation within RTAs. Therefore, the dissertation shows that policy makers' claims about the negative effects of enlargement are overly pessimistic. On the other hand, there is some evidence that such negative effects are contextual. They arise in individual issue areas such as in trade cooperation. In other words, enlargement does lead a slow down in deepening in this area.

Religious interest groups play a significant role in the formulation and/or implementation of educational policies in the Philippines and Malaysia. In the Philippines, the groups are very active in developing ways to affect the kinds of policies being passed in government as they pertain to the educational process. The groups use a variety of mechanisms to influence government, including the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books, monographs, etc. which clearly state their views on certain issues; extensive lobbying efforts at city hall and governmental agencies or offices; establishment of alliances with other groups of similar and sometimes even dissimilar religious persuasions; and frequent interaction with the members of the academic community. These are intended to make them more aware of the educational issues that they have to be concerned with, as well as their repercussions. The groups' active participation in government may be attributed to a variety of factors, including the separation of church and state as provided for in the constitution, the variety of religious denominations in the country, the importance of religion to the lives of the people and the absence of any restriction on the efforts of the groups to influence policies. In Malaysia, the groups are more concerned with policies after they have been implemented and react accordingly, with the intention of making government aware of their perception of the policies at hand. Like the groups in the Philippines, they utilize a variety of tools to achieve their stated objectives, as the formation of alliances, publication of journals, public rallies, among others. They have also developed ingenious ways to encourage their members to be more discerning with regard to governmental action. Thus, they form small discussion groups, which allow them to understand the necessity of Islamic education; hold prayer meetings; and even form Islamic communities where they live according to the tenets of their faith. These activities may be results of the process of Islamization going on in Malaysia, the restrictions imposed on any form of non-Muslim activity, the close relationship between ethnicity and religion and the political supremacy of the Malays in the country. These findings though preliminary, may lead to increased interest on the role of interest groups in the political process in Southeast Asia and the need to further investigate the increasing influence of religion in the various aspects of life in the countries in the region.

The existing studies on determinants of alliance reliability focus exclusively on alliance types and alliance attributes. One big weakness of this approach is that it depicts the decision making of upholding or disregarding alliance commitments as largely externally determined, and thus downplays the role of individual states. The present study assumes that states are rational utility maximiers and contends that the decision of whether or not to uphold alliance commitments is determined by the utility calculations at the time when an alliance is formed and the time when an ally is called upon. An ally will assist its defense pact partner under attack only when the expected costs of upholding commitment are lower than the expectations held at the time of alliance formation. Empirical testing, however, fails to lend strong support for the expectation. A discussion of the performance of the model leads to some interesting conclusions about the existing literature and possible future studies.

The occurrence of third-party intervention is a hallmark of many of the most devastating conflicts in world history, because the entrance of third parties into a conflict expands the scope of the violence, amplifies the severity and duration of the fighting, and increases the overall amount of death and destruction. Even in international conflicts in which intervention does not occur, the possibility that third parties may intervene can affect the behavior of disputants and therefore shape the way disputes evolve and are eventually resolved. This dissertation develops a theory of intervention by laying out a story about how strategic third parties and disputants make interdependent decisions in the context of an ongoing militarized dispute, and then formalizing this story into a simple-game theoretic model. The theory produces a general, causal explanation for third-party intervention that specifies the precise conditions under which it does and does not occur. Overall, the theory predicts approximately two-thirds of cases correctly when subjected to rigorous empirical tests. In addition, the theory produces theoretically-interesting, empirically-supported insights about the relationships between the resources of the actors involved in a militarized dispute and the likelihood that intervention occurs. The dissertation concludes with an application of the theory to the debate in the international relations literature over whether balancing or bandwagoning is the more common form of intervention. The application shows that the theory produces a more powerful explanation for the occurrence of balancing and bandwagoning than the existing literature offers, and suggests that the debate is misspecified.

Traditional approaches to the study of international disputes and war have generally aimed at providing very simple and broad explanations. Dominant among theories has been the explanation that war is a result of power politics between states competing in the international system. This type of explanation though, overlooks the study of how states make choices and how the resulting actions influence international relations. In this dissertation, I take a different theoretical approach by considering the influence of domestic factors as an important component for understanding international relations. I contend it is important to understand how the domestic political process influence foreign policy choices to best understand international affairs. In particular, I focus on the influence of institutional relationships and the role of the stakeholders as they relate to foreign policy decision-making. I present a general theory of foreign policy development that addresses the specific role of domestic political institutions and selectoral constraints. I treat the foreign policy process as a modified principal-agent model where three important actors have an influence on the development of policy: the chief policy maker, the primary oversight institution, and the relevant stakeholders of a state. I consider policies to be the result of the interaction between these three actors. In empirical examinations, I find moderate support for the expectations drawn from the theory. I find that domestic institutional relationships have an influence on foreign policy behavior, however the scope and strength of the influence still warrant further investigation. My primary theoretical contribution is the notion that the key domestic political factors that affect policy are institutional relationships combined with leadership selection factors. The theory presented in this research fully specifies this relationship and sheds light on how domestic political relationships affect policy development, and how the resulting policies influence international dispute behavior.

This thesis extends the existing research on alliance disintegration by more fully specifying the values which motivate states' foreign policy behaviors. Previous research held that security is the foremost good which states pursue. An implication of this assumption is that states forge alliance commitments solely in an effort to gain this good. I contend that not only do states desire security, they also desire proaction, defined as the ability to implement changes in those aspects of the status quo which are less than satisfactory. Furthermore, states may pursue one or both of these goods through their alliance activity. From this altered set of assumptions, more precice predictions are made with respect to the timing of alliance disintegration. I find that asymmetric alliances have the greatest probability of terminating when both parties are losing power while symmetric alliances are more likely to break up when only one state is decreasing in strength.