In this dissertation I develop a theory that seeks to account for the variation in stability and conflict proneness we observe across regions. I propose that the observed variation in regional order in the international system is fundamentally rooted in the polar arrangements of the different regions. Specifically, I argue that regions that do not have clearly recognized regional powers are more prone to conflict, that their conflicts are more severe, and that these regions are more vulnerable to outside influence than those that do have such powers. Using an opportunity and willingness framework, I define regions as stable geographic spaces of interacting states behaving uniquely from the broader international system. In order to test these propositions, I make use of novel data defining both regional memberships and that identifies leading regional actors. The results show that not only do regional polarity have a strong explanatory effect, but they also suggest that it is necessary to take regional-level effects into account when analyzing international politics.

This thesis reviews the system of governance of professional baseball in Taiwan, which has developed since its inception in 1990. The analysis undertaken reviews three case studies of major events in the baseball world in Taiwan to provide an insight into the principal interests and forces in the governance system. In theoretical terms the study employs and evaluates classical theories of the state, strategic relations theory and governance theory to describe, evaluate and explain the processes evident in the three cases. The study concludes that the governance system is characterised by a tension between mechanisms of 'modem' liberal politics, and 'traditional' forms of political clientelism.

The purpose of this study is to explore the roles of social-emotional-oriented communication and work-oriented communication in enhancing organizational commitment in the context of the People’s Republic of China. Literature regarding the functions of different types of communication was reviewed and the human relations theory was applied as the main guidance of the current research. The study utilized the statistical method to analyze the data collected from questionnaires. A total of 69 employees working in a Chinese local governmental organization participated in the research. Horizontal and vertical social-emotional-oriented communication were examined separately by four indicators: employee’s perceived quantity of social interaction with peers (superiors) within the department, quantity of social interaction with peers (superiors) outside the department, quality of these interactions, and emotional coloring of the interactions. Work-oriented communication was measured by three indicators: employee’s perceived quantity of the organization’s strategic information regarding the policies and development, the employee’s perceived quantity of vertical interaction with management (downward and upward), and the employee’s satisfaction with management’s responsiveness to the upward feedback. Organizational commitment was tested by the three components model: affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. The findings from regression analyses revealed that social-emotional-oriented communication between subordinates and superiors is a positive predictor of affective commitment, and the perceived quantity of organizational strategic information and vertical interaction with management; and that work-oriented communication is a strong positive predictor of affective commitment and normative commitment. However, the results failed to prove the effects of horizontal social-emotional-oriented communication. The conclusion is that in Chinese governmental organizations, vertical communication and communication regarding work-related topics help to make employees want to stay with and contribute to the employing organization; and the better social-emotional-oriented communication the employees have with superiors, the better work-oriented communication they have at work.

The thesis investigates the basis of possible sources of shifts in the classical conceptualizations of political legitimacy of nation state as a result of the impositions of globalization. To this end, it first suggested that we should have a theory of globalization. Globalization in the fields of economy, politics, society, culture and identity along with fragmentation provides crucial changes in the roles and functions of the state, which result in fundamental transformation in the distinctive features of nation state, such as autonomy, capacity, unity, territoriality, sovereignty and identity. The depreciation in the classical roles and functions of nation state is observed in its decreasing capacity to cope with emerging global threats, such as environmental pollution, unequal development and international crimes. Economic globalization deprives nation state of its autonomy in determining its own economic policies. And identity/culture assertions of the locality disintegrate the unity and identity of nation state. Decreasing autonomy, capacity and unity lead to further depreciation in other two fundamental features of nation state, which are territoriality and sovereignty. These developments force nation state to find out new ways of legitimizing its position under the global context. In classical conceptions, political legitimacy of nation state had been constructed within the framework of the premises of its autonomy, sovereignty, territoriality, unity, identity and capacity. However, those fundamental characteristics of nation state seem to be depreciating under the global context. Actually, this depreciation will result in a new conceptualization of political legitimacy under globalization. Therefore, in this re-conceptualization of political legitimacy, individual, local and global impositions emerge as major sources. Nation state, which is eager to resituate itself in a legitimate basis in the twenty first century, should take into account emerging individual, local and global concerns.

Alan Fox's unitarist ideology provided a useful categorisation of managerial perspectives on managing employees and the nature of organisation. However, it was an intuitive framework, developed as part of a reformist argument for a pluralist system of industrial relations. It was not based on a systematic, empirical study of managers and, while applied to research, there has been little testing of the construct. The primary research question addressed in this thesis is whether managers in contemporary SMEs exhibit unitarist characteristics. A number of subsidiary questions follow. The first set explores managers' attitudes towards managerial prerogative, conflict, collective workplace relations and trade unions. Analysis of the data produced 11 unitarist dimensions. The second addresses whether organisational and personal characteristics and managers' perceptions of the limitations on management are significant for SME managers' ideological frameworks. The third identifies whether consultative, participative and collective practices are employed in work organisations. The definition of managerial ideology, including both managers' beliefs and values and also their workplace behaviour and practices, led to testing the relationship between the unitarist dimensions and managerial practice, and managers' satisfaction with employees. Finally, the thesis investigated whether there were any significant links between managerial practices and managers' satisfaction with employee performance. The methodology included a mail survey of SME managers in Eastern Australia with 206 respondents, and an interview programme of 20 SME managers in Brisbane, Queensland. The significant findings of this research are, first, that consultative or participative managerial practices do not necessarily reflect a pluralist ideology or orientation. SME managers limit the scope of decisions for involving employees, and usually shopfloor employees, utilising practices that do not compromise managerial power or managerial prerogative. Second, organisational and personal characteristics are relatively unimportant contextual variables in management behaviour in SMEs, unless it was described as a family business. Third, this thesis provides an alternative to the conclusions of some industrial relations scholars that managers employ a mix of unitarist and pluralist strategies. The adoption of apparently pluralist management practices in consultation and employee participation are revealed in this research as being predominantly non-threatening to managerial prerogative and organisational power structures in workplaces in terms of who is involved or excluded, and about what matters employees are consulted or involved. The overall results of managers' attitudes to collective workplace arrangements and trade unions confirm a general unitarist orientation in Australian SMEs. Fourth, the evidence does not suggest any clear binding of values and beliefs with managerial behaviour. Underpinning normative perspectives on management is an underlying commitment to protecting managers' power in the work organisation. It is this fundamental political commitment that both guides and constrains strategic choice in managing employees in SMEs. Unitarist ideology is thus central to the norms of management, and goes to the core of managerial prerogative. Finally, the results indicated that SME managers in the study usually did not demonstrate strong attachments to their views on the issues presented to them.

Defense diplomacy is the cooperative use of military forces through activities like officer exchanges and training exercises. Although individual practices have long existed, strikingly little scholarly attention has yet been paid to either defense diplomacy as a feature of international relations or its uses as a tool of statecraft. This study critically examines the concept of defense diplomacy and the underlying mechanisms that empower it. I argue that defense diplomacy functions as a military variant of soft power which relies on the processes of norm diffusion and state socialization to influence the strategic thinking of foreign governments. Specifically, by bringing soldiers from different countries into contact with one another in collaborative environments, defense diplomacy allows for the cultivation of transnational links capable of shaping worldviews. As with similar networks in civil society, the ties fostered by defense diplomacy form pathways which allow for the rapid diffusion of geopolitical norms, practices and priorities across borders. The key with defense diplomacy is that these networks span governing elites allowing for the direct translation of shared ideas into policy. This dissertation uses two case studies to illustrate how defense diplomacy has been employed by the United States as a foreign policy tool. The first case examines the use of defense diplomacy by the United States to rebuild its alliances with Australia and the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. Though initially envisioned as temporary measure to help restore trust after that divisive conflict, defense diplomacy emerged the basis for America’s regional engagement strategy. The second case concerns how defense diplomacy was employed by the United States in the Philippines during the Global War on Terror. Uniquely, the Philippine government restricted American forces operating within its territory to non-combat missions. This compelled Washington to rely on defense diplomacy as the primary means of combating groups like Abu Sayyaf. The ensuing focus on strengthening local institutions ultimately proved successful in helping to mitigate the militant threat within the archipelago. / 2020-09-29T00:00:00Z

abstract: The concept of recognition developed through the 20th century as a form of political legitimation has served a central if problematic role in understanding international politics. On the one hand, recognition aims toward establishing essential collective identities that must be conceived as relatively stable in order to then gain respect, receive political protection, and occupy both physical and discursive space. On the other hand, recognition tacitly accepts a social constructivist view of the subject who can only become whole unto itself – and in turn exercise positive liberty, freedom, or agency – through the implied assent or explicit consent of another. There is an inherent tension between these two understandings of recognition. The attempt to reconcile this tension often manifests itself in forms of symbolic and systemic violence that can turn to corporeal harm. In order to enter into the concept, history, politics and performativity of recognition, I focus on what is often viewed as an exceptionally complex and uniquely controversial case: the Israel-Palestine conflict. Undergoing a discourse analysis of three epistemic communities (i.e., the State/diplomatic network, the Academic/intellectual network, the Military-Security network) and their unique modes of veridiction, I show how each works to construct the notion of ethno-nationalism as a necessary political logic that holds the promise of everything put in its right place: Us here, Them there. All three epistemic communities are read as knowledge/power networks that have substantial effect on political subjects and subjectivities. Influenced by the philosophy of Hegel and Levinas, and supported by the works of Michel Foucault, Wendy Brown, Alphonso Lingis, Jacques Derrida, Patchen Markell, and others, I show the ways in which our current politics of recognition is best read as violence. By tracing three discursive networks of knowledge/power implicated in our modern politics of recognition, I demonstrate forms of symbolic violence waged against the entire complex of the Israel-Palestine conflict in ways that preclude a just resolution based on mutual empathy, acknowledgment, and (re)cogntion. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2016

This thesis examines processes of peace-promotion in the Balkans since the end of the Cold War. It is conducted from the perspective of International Relations theory and as such identifies peace as a pattern of order defined by the analytical framework of security communities. In this respect, the thesis argues that the initiation of a security community in the Balkans is a result of the post- 1999 international socialisation of regional decision-making by the EU and NATO. It, therefore, advances the concept of an elite security community as the embryonic stage of securitycommunity- building. The focus on state-elites is an outcome of the procedural dynamics of socialisation, where it is the decision-making behaviour that signifies compliance with externallypromoted standards. The conjecture is that the promotion of peace in the Balkans is the result of the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security community. The inference is that both the EU and NATO tend to be more convincing agents of socialisation as a result of their association/partnership and accession programmes. Being a complex and context specific process, the conditioning of Balkan states into a security-community-pattern of relations is underwritten by the Euro-Atlantic exercise of socialising power. This notion of power, however, is not defined as the control of policy-outcomes, but instead emphasises the ability of external actors to cause change in decision-making behaviour. The thesis also argues that the process of international socialisation has different effects depending on the nature of statehood in the target entities - in integrated states the external agency is both more immediate to discern and implement, while in awkward states the process tends to be longer and more intricate. Yet, as the case of the Balkans attests, the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security community to the region depends on the viable (even if distant) prospect of membership in the EU and NATO. In this way the thesis contributes to understanding the early stages of initiating a security community, as well as the role played by international actors in its promotion.

In a context of neoliberal globalization, have the processes of elaboration and implementation of foreign investors’ responsibilities by intergovernmental organizations reached the realm of legality? By relying on an analytical framework and a methodology that combine international law with international relations, the present interdisciplinary dissertation provides a twofold answer to this question. At a macro-level, it demonstrates that the normative integration of foreign investors’ responsibilities in international investment law is fragmented and consistent with the interests of the most powerful actors. At a micro-level, it relies on the interactional theory of international law to assess the normative character of several international instruments elaborated and implemented by intergovernmental organizations. By shedding light on the sense of obligation that each instrument generates, the analysis shows that such a codification process is marked by relations of power between international actors and has resulted in several social norms, with relatively few legal norms. / Graduate

This study is essentially a critique of how the three dominant paradigms of explanatory international relations theory - (neo-)realism, liberalism, and systemic constructivism - conceive of, analytically deal with, and explain ethnic conflict and sovereignty. By deconstructing their approaches to ethnic identity formation in general and ethnic conflict in particular it argues that all three paradigms, in their epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies through reification and by analytically equating ethnic groups with states, tend to essentialise and substantialise the ethnic lines of division and strategic essentialisms of ethnic and ethno-nationalist elites they set out to describe, and, all too often, even write them into existence. Particular attention, both at the theoretical and empirical level, will be given to the three explanatory frameworks explanatory IR has contributed to the study of ethnic conflict: the 'ethnic security dilemma', the 'ethnic alliance model', and, drawing on other disciplines, instrumentalist approaches. The deconstruction of these three frameworks will form the bulk of the theoretical section, and will subsequently be shown in the case study to be ontologically untenable or at least to fail to adequately explain the complex dynamics of ethnic identity formation in ethnic conflict. By making these essentialist presumptions, motives, and practices explicit this study makes a unique contribution not only to the immediate issues it addresses but also to the wider debate on the nature of IR as a discipline. As a final point, drawing on constitutive theory and by conceiving of the behaviour and motives of protagonists of ethnic conflict as expressions of a fluid, open-ended, and situational matrix of identities and interests without sequential hierarchies of dependent and independent variables, the study attempts to offer an alternative, constitutive reading of ethnic and nationalist identity to the discourses of explanatory IR. These themes that are further developed in the empirical section where, explanatory IRA's narratives of ethnic group solidarity, ethno-nationalism, and national self-determination are examined and deconstructed by way of the case study of the relations between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Iraqi Kurdish ethno-nationalist parties in the wider context of the political status of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. With this ambition this study makes an original empirical contribution by scrutinising these relations in a depth unique to the literature.