In this research the law making power of the Iranian parliament is studied at two levels: Firstly, the power of the parliament according to the Constitution is explored. Secondly its power in real politics is analysed. It is shown that the law making power of the parliament as an elected institution can be limited by the unelected institutions which are enshrined in the Constitution. Also the political composition of the elected institutions (parliament and executive) whether they are Conservative-dominated or Reformist-dominated, can define the actual law making power of the parliament. It is concluded that the law making power of the parliament oscillates on a spectrum: at one end there is a weak law making legislature and at the other end one can see a policy influencing legislature. The main content of the chapters is as follows: The first chapter is dedicated to introduction where the research questions and thesis methodology is explained. In the second chapter the most important literature, especially that which considers the external and internal variables and typology of legislatures, is reviewed. In the third chapter the historical evolution of the Iranian Parliament in the Qajar, First and Second Pahlavi Eras is briefly discussed. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the Iranian parliament in the Islamic Republic Era. The key concepts which can explain the logic of the distribution of power within the Iranian Constitution, the relationship of the parliament to the executive power (elected institution) and other power centres ( unelected institutions), and the type of the political regime on the basis of the amended Constitution of 1989, is explained. Theoretical propositions are tested in chapter five. The Sixth and Seventh terms of the parliament, where the political composition changed fundamentally from one to the other, are chosen for case study and their law making power during the budget process analysed. The dichotomy of elected and unelected institutions is applied to the case in this chapter. Then the contribution of the elected and unelected institutions during the budget process is explained. The next part of this chapter considers the Sixth Majlis and its political context in general. The Majlis and executive interactions and the interaction of these two elected institutions with the Guardian Council and Expediency Council especially during the budget process, are analysed. The same approach is deployed for the Seventh Majlis which in terms of political composition was in stark contrast to the Sixth Majlis. It is shown how the political composition of the elected and unelected institutions can increase or decrease considerably the law making power of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The overall conclusion of the thesis is provided in chapter six.

The new prominence of authoritarianism ushered in a series of new studies that seek to explain the reasons behind the longevity of these regimes. An integral part of these studies is that the institutional arrangements contributed to the survival of autocrats and the maintenance of authoritarian regimes. In particular, they recently began considering the dark side of nominally democratic institutions under authoritarian regimes such as legislatures arguing that they predominantly serve as the means of regime survival. Given these facts, the overall goal of this study is to produce an understanding of the role of parliaments in the survival of authoritarian regimes by focusing on their institutional capacity and related performance. Using the Iranian parliament, Majles, as a case study, the major point of contention in this study are the conditions under which Majles contributed to the resilience of post-revolutionary Iranian regimes. Inspired by the legislative institutionalization approach, three main characteristics are identified to explain the authoritarian legislatures: subordination as opposed to autonomy, exclusiveness as opposed to representativeness and secrecy as opposed to deliberativeness. With respect to these criteria, it is demonstrated that Majles is marked as a subordinated institution, caught between powerful and influential formal and informal institutions. Majles also fell short of meeting the representativeness and deliberativeness identified as decisive criteria in distinguishing authoritarian from democratic legislatures. With respect to the Majles performance, it is shown that Majles has been at the centre of the regime co-optation strategies since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution to encapsulate the loyal oppositions and to exclude those were regarded as outsiders. Majles also acted as the main agent of manipulation of political institutions through its law making function and by this contributed to the stability of the Islamic Republic.

This thesis aims to demonstrate that economic security is also a significant pillar of safeguarding national security. Aside from military security measures, adopting peaceful economic engagement and economic measures can be an alternative security policy choice through which a state may achieve its national security agenda. To facilitate an understanding of economic security, this thesis submits a working definition of economic security, which has been delineated as 'the protection of a core value from all forms of potential or actualised threat by using economic measures and policies'. The core value refers to national interests and security Objectives. With this framework, the current thesis takes Taiwan as a case study to assess Taiwan's effort of implementing economic security strategy to accomplish its national security agenda within the context of the complex and hostile cross-Strait relations yet growing economic integration. This research intends to answer three categories of questions. Firstly, how large is the cost to Taiwan of pursuing economic security vis-a-vis China, and what is Taiwan's capability to afford such cost? Secondly, what factors would contribute to or undermine Taiwan's efforts in practising economic security, and to what extent? Thirdly, do cross-Strait economic ties strengthen or weaken Taiwan's economic security with respect to its economic performance, and to what extent? From three perspectives, this study analyses the above questions. Firstly, it analyses how Taiwan has employed economic power to construct its national security within the international system. Secondly, it examines how Taiwan has utilised economic measures to resist China's political and economic influence. Thirdly, from an economic perspective, it examines whether Taiwan's economic security objectives, in the context of its capability of sustaining economic prosperity, have been enhanced when it has engaged in economic exchange with China.

Background Maritime History of Korea As is true of all countries, Korea's geography is a major factor in shaping its history. Korea is a peninsula, which extends southward from the Eurasian landmass between Russian Siberia and Chinese Manchuria. It is surrounded by the two great hind powers (China and Russia) and one great maritime power (Japan). During its history, neighbouring countries have invaded Korea over 900 times, in incursions both great and small, by land and sea. 1 This has been a sad history of victimisation by foreign intruders as the Koreans have virtually no record of aggressive ambition outside their peninsula.2 The first recorded maritime activity of Korea relates to King Jun of Ancient. Choson. In 193 B.C. Wee Man, a former officer of the Kingdom of the Chinese Yen, took over the throne of Ancient Choson. 3 King Jun moved by sea down to the southwestern part of the Korean Peninsula with his several thousands followers and became the King of Han (not to be confused with the Chinese Han Dynasty) after being victorious in war against the Mahan.

This thesis examines the challenge of coordinating civilian and military efforts within a so-called ‘whole-of-government’ approach to stability operations. The empirical analysis focuses on British and American attempts to implement an integrated civilian-military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2010. Unlike many existing analyses, the thesis consciously avoids jumping to the search for solutions to fix the problem of coordination and instead offers a nuanced explanation of why it arises in the first instance. Empirical data was gathered through personal interviews with a wide range of civilian and military practitioners between 2007 and 2011. Together with the in-depth study of official documents released by, and on, the defence, diplomatic and development components of the British and American governments, they provide the basis for a fine-grained analysis of obstacles to interagency coordination. The thesis offers a framework for analysis that is grounded in organisation theory and distinguishes between material, bureaucratic and cultural dimensions of obstacles to interagency coordination. It identifies organisational cultures as a crucial force behind government agencies’ reluctance to participate and invest in an integrated approach. The empirical chapters cover interagency dynamics within the government bureaucracy and in operations on the ground, including the role of specialised coordination units and Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the pursuit of coordination. The thesis concludes that stabilisation remains an inherently contested endeavour for all organisations involved and that the roles and expectations implied by contemporary templates for coordination clash with prevailing organisational identities and self-perceptions. These findings caution against the procedural and technocratic approach to interagency coordination that permeates the existing literature on the subject and many proposals for reform. While the thesis examines a specific empirical context, its conclusions have broader implications for civilian-military coordination and the quest for an integrated approach to security in the twenty-first century.

This thesis examines the approaches taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the protection of civilians during internal armed conflict, both at the level of global policy and at the level of implementation in the Colombian context. The thesis explains how the ICRC and UNHCR approach protection, why each has adopted its particular approach, and how and why the effectiveness of each approach is limited. In doing so, it offers a theoretical framework for explaining the approaches taken by international organizations (IOs) to new tasks within their mandates as well as policy implications for the ICRC, UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies. From a theoretical perspective, this research shows that factors internal to the IO carry greater explanatory power than external factors. Most significantly, when an IO expands into a new issue-area, it frames the new task in terms of the existing tasks within its mandate, replicating the specific goals and the means of pursuing those goals. The extent to which the approach is then adapted to the specificities of the new issue-area depends on the ‘bureaucratic personality’ of the IO, and specifically the extent to which decisions are informed by field-level experience. Internal conflicts by definition include armed non-state actors, and the analysis in this thesis emphasises both their significance in determining civilian security and their neglect in existing approaches to protection. While the ICRC seeks to reduce the threat posed by all armed actors (state and non-state) in its work at the field level, it relies heavily on an international legal framework which prioritises states and this partially undermines its attention to non-state actors at the field level. UNHCR retains a state-centric focus at both the field level and the level of global policy. From a policy perspective, therefore, the thesis advocates greater attention to armed non-state actors both at the level of practice and in the development of protection norms.

Paragraphs 138 to 140 of the Outcome Document of the 2005 UN World Summit not only elevated the element of prevention to a prominent place within the principle of “responsibility to protect” (R2P), but also restricted the scope of R2P to four specific crimes under international law: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This thesis explores the conceptual and practical consequences of linking R2P to the concept of international crimes, with a particular focus on the preventive dimension of R2P, the socalled “responsibility to prevent”. To date, much of what has been written about the “responsibility to prevent” borrows primarily from conflict prevention theory and practice. Such conflict prevention inspired accounts of the “responsibility to prevent” tend to depict the principle as a long-term agenda that seeks to build societies resilient to atrocity crimes; that rests primarily on pillars one (state responsibility) and two (international assistance and capacity-building); that is supportive rather than undermining of state sovereignty; and that can largely adhere to the traditional conflict prevention principles of impartiality, consent, and minimal coercion should more direct prevention efforts become necessary. Drawing on literature from criminology, this thesis develops an international crimes framework for operationalizing the preventive dimension of R2P. The framework, combined with three case studies of international crime prevention (Bosnia 1991-1995; Kenya 2007-08; and Libya 2011), challenges key assumptions of the conflict prevention accounts, arguing that linking R2P to the concept of international crimes turns the “responsibility to prevent” into a principle that is more focused on the short-term, rather than on so-called root causes of atrocity crimes; more focused on individuals, rather than on state structures and capacity; more partial regarding perpetrators and victims; and more coercive, intrusive, and controversial than is commonly acknowledged in academic writing and policy debates on the subject. More broadly, the thesis concludes that taking R2P’s focus on the prevention of international crimes seriously requires re-rethinking the “responsibility to prevent” in important respects.

This work reinterprets the idea of progress at the heart of Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalism through the lens of secularization theory, which holds that modern philosophies of progress stand on religious foundations and represent secularized vestiges of biblical eschatology. Previous applications of this insight reveal a selective pattern: Whereas totalitarian and illiberal narratives of progress such as Nazism and Marxism-Leninism have received lavish attention and spawned extensive political religions literature, liberal progressivism has been ignored. This dissertation rectifies this neglect. Initial chapters present the biblical conception of history as the myth of salvation, introduce secularization through the writings of Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg, respectively its principal proponent and main critic, and test the limits of the concept to confirm its applicability to liberal progressivism. The main part aims secularization theory at Wilson’s idea of progress in the broader context of American liberal thought. From the 17th-century Puritan vision of a “city upon a hill” to the 19th-century doctrine of “manifest destiny”, biblical eschatology defined the way Americans envisioned history and their role in it, giving rise to a sort of liberal-republican millennialism. Wilson was no exception: Considering faith essential to authentic knowledge, he regarded history as a providential process, the United States as a divinely appointed redeemer nation, and himself as a Christian statesman performing God’s work in a fallen world. His foreign policy was fundamentally a religious mission to transform international relations according to the Bible, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of salvation. The dissertation demonstrates the eschatological foundations of his statecraft through specific examples and draws attention to their illiberal and totalizing implications. Final passages note the enduring relevance of Wilson’s principles and, based on their reinterpretation in this work, reflect critically on their suitability as a guide for future American foreign policy.