Although democracy promotion initiatives have spread around the world and supported transition, many countries have fallen back into autocracy or stalled on their way to democracy. However, the events in the Middle East and Northern Africa have revitalised the issue of democratization. On the other hand, this cry for democracy seems to be homegrown, casting doubts about the efficacy of external democracy promotion. Nevertheless, stalled and setback democracies cannot be blamed solely on the flawed strategies of democracy promoters or autocratic stubbornness of democracy targets. Similarly, labelling democracy promotion as “the grand failure” of the West is an argumentative overstretch, which lacks any practical application. This dissertation argues that democracy can be achieved from outside, but the obstacles associated with it are more serious than anticipated by promoters. More specifically, the chances of liberal democracy being exported from outside will increase provided the utility of domestic adaptation to democracy is at least moderate, promoters are actively involved in resolution of pressing national issues, and there is no regional actor that blocks democracy and receives support for its policies from the target country. By structurally and conceptually expanding Schimmelfennig’s international socialization framework, this study develops an analytical framework to decipher mechanisms, strategies, and subsequent outcomes of democracy promotion and democratization. While applied to Armenia, the proposed framework is a useful reference for both academics and practitioners as it provides tools for researching the outcome of democracy and democratization and provides policy recommendations. This dissertation introduces the concept of democracy blocker—a powerful authoritarian regional actor capable and willing to influence domestic policy choices of a democracy promotion target in order to block democratization. This study also makes an empirical contribution by comparing democracy promotion policies in a country that has long been neglected by the academic literature. Using process-tracing, within-case, and before-after analyses, this study compares democracy promotion policies of the EU and the USA within three different target-sectors in Armenia. The analysis of three different target-sectors of democracy promotion—elections, parties, and the media—shows democratic transformation on the macro level of a country and micro level of specific sectors. This study argues that increased political and economic interdependence and interconnectedness of different realms within a democratizing country has led to merging of international democracy promotion and domestic democratization. In addition, the mere adoption of a law or a code of conduct does not guarantee the establishment of democracy and democratic behaviour by domestic stakeholders. Consequently, a likely upgrade of a formal democratic transformation into a behavioural one, would require democracy promoters to guarantee consistency in their efforts and follow-up on their activities, without assuming that a formally adopted rule or a completed project will necessarily assure rule-based behaviour. Thus, democracy promotion needs to be simultaneously cross-sectoral, offering material incentives for democratic transformation. Democracy promotion has the potential to not only produce numerous academic and policy analyses but also to result in a genuine democratic transformation, if promoters rationally choose their strategies and base them on existing domestic conditions.

In the last decades, an increasing awareness of instances of grave violation of human rights on a massive scale has brought to attention the problematic that whether states and the international community have an ethical responsibility to react to such cases, and (when the conditions require so) to undertake humanitarian military interventions. In the immediate post-Cold War environment, this has taken place parallel to the shift of focus in the security literature from national security towards human security. The varying responses to the grave cases of the 1990s such as Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo reaffirmed the necessity to undertake decisive and timely collective action, reminded the question of an ethical duty on the part of the international community to react to mass atrocities. By December 2001, the introduction of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) set a new framework to take up this question with the aim of transforming the notion of the “right to intervene” into a “responsibility to react”. With all its controversies humanitarian intervention continues to be a part of international political conduct. At the current state of affairs, humanitarian intervention has become politically relevant within the context of the RtoP doctrine. In this context, this dissertation seeks to assess the role of moral/ethical motives in the decisions and/or behaviour of the international community. Accordingly, it takes the assumption of humanitarian intervention as a moral duty as its subject matter, and puts it into test in relation to its newly defined limits and conduct within the RtoP framework.

States often invoke international norms to justify their foreign policy-making. In the last twenty years, a large body of literature has shown that norms matter in international politics since they provide frameworks for legitimate international action. Nevertheless, it is often overlooked that the absence of a centralized authority capable of enforcing and providing unambiguous interpretations of norms leaves states, particularly great powers, free to decide whether to recognize or reject the legitimacy of norms. In specific instances of foreign policy-making, states take actions that cohere with norms, while at other times they contest them. Operating in a decentralized system, international norms crucially depend on state support for their legitimacy, prominence, and effectiveness. Variations in the way states respond to norms call for an investigation into the domestic conditions that lead states to recognize or reject their legitimacy. These conditions will be investigated by comparing the attitudes of the United States and the United Kingdom towards the norms of humanitarian intervention and international criminal responsibility and by studying how these norms influence their policy-making. During the 1999 NATO intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, both countries invoked the norm of humanitarian intervention. In contrast, during the 1998 Rome Conference for the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, their behavior diverged with the UK endorsing the Court and the US rejecting it. The analysis aims to discover the domestic actors that are responsible for how international norms are interpreted at the state level and the mechanisms and transmitters through which norms come to be viewed by states as legitimate or illegitimate frameworks of behavior.

Over the past two decades, the European Union has taken important steps towards the establishment of a common European asylum policy. The question of the impact of this cooperation on domestic asylum policy has so far received surprisingly little attention. Most explanations have focused on how an agreement on restrictive policies was achieved at EU level, and assumed a relatively unproblematic implementation of these measures domestically. More recently, some scholars have contested these explanations by emphasizing the rights-enhancing effects of recent EU asylum policy legislation. This thesis argues that rather than focusing on the question of whether EU cooperation increases or decreases domestic asylum policy standards, we should focus on explaining how EU asylum policy affects domestic asylum policy. The question can only be addressed satisfactorily if the inter-related processes of arriving at these policies at EU level and implementing them domestically are taken into account. The theoretical account proposed here conceives of preferences as the crucial variable connecting the processes of uploading and downloading. The main argument of this thesis is that governments try to project their policy preferences which reflect their desire to change or retain domestic status quo and to download policies in accordance with these preferences. At the EU level, governments seek to upload or support policies in line with their domestically-shaped preferences and oppose those which contradict them or at least seek flexibility allowing them to maintain existing policies. At the national level, states download EU policy selectively, in line with their domestically-shaped preferences, leading to over-implementing, under-implementing or not implementing certain provisions. In addition, the thesis locates the sources of these preferences on asylum policy in public opinion, party ideology, and the number of asylum seekers. The dissertation shows that issue salience in the media and among the general public affects the relationship between these variables. Depending on the political-institutional context, the factors identify above interact with each other, resulting in differential impact of EU asylum policy on domestic policy. The thesis distinguishes between simple and compound polities, and shows how they differ in their responsiveness to the variables identified above, in the frequency and stability of reforms, and in the way they use the EU to facilitate domestic change. It also demonstrates that in compound polities preferences are mostly influenced by party ideology while in simple ones they are more likely to reflect public opinion. In order to trace the impact of EU cooperation in asylum policy on domestic policy, this dissertation employs process tracing and a three-step analytical framework which encompasses preference formation, EU-level negotiations and implementation. Such framework allows us to answer the question of the impact of EU asylum policy on national ones without under- or overstating the role of the EU. The dissertation applies this framework to study all major EU asylum policy agreements adopted between 1990 and the completion of the first phase of the Common European Asylum System in 2007, and their impact in Germany and Britain.

Over the last decade, EU–Russia gas relations have witnessed significant deterioration—the bilateral agenda has been narrowed down to ad hoc consultations, disputes over investment and long-term contract provisions have multiplied, and disagreements between the EU and Russia have significantly hindered the multilateral process of the Energy Charter Treaty (the ECT). This deterioration seems to be rather paradoxical in light of high gas interdependence between the EU and Russia and a rich history of well-established cooperation during the Cold War under profound ideological and strategic constraints. In addition, conflictual patterns in EU–Russia gas relations occurred in the beginning of the 2000s, during the period of high oil prices and growing global natural gas demand—the period when enhancement of cooperation would be a more expected outcome. Therefore, the core research question of the thesis addresses the puzzle: why, despite decades of cooperation during the Cold War between Western European countries and the USSR, have EU–Russia gas relations become conflictual since the 2000s? By answering this research question, the study seeks to contribute to the analysis of institutionalisation of energy relations and to reveal factors that lead to cooperative or conflictual outcomes. So far, IR research inquiries in the field have prioritised resource and normative determinisms in addressing the success or failure of energy cooperation, which assume a geopolitical-realist struggle for energy resources and a priori benevolence of free markets in line with the neoliberal economic agenda respectively. The broader geopolitical approach has explained energy conflicts by structural factors of unequal resource allocation across the world and attributed a direct impact of a state resource base (an energy-rich or energy-poor state) on states’ behaviour in the international arena. Another strand of the literature, ‘the market approach’, has also viewed problematic cooperation as a result of different interests of energy producers and consumers—but from a slightly different perspective. Limited institutionalisation of interactions has been explained by different models of gas markets producers and consumers choose. Thus, consumers favour a model of the competitive liberalised gas market (a market actor model), while producers would opt for a model of vertically-integrated monopoly and resource nationalism (a geopolitical actor model) in order to preserve control over resources. Pointing to a number of opposite cases, this study disregards the straightforward assumption that there is a direct link between a resource base and states’ strategies in the international arena. Bringing domestic conditions back to these debates, the study argues that increasing differences between the EU and Russia’s domestic institutional models of the gas market have been the main factor that has triggered conflictual patterns in EU–Russia gas relations since the 2000s. These domestic institutional changes have replaced attempts to build a strategic partnership with ad hoc consultations at the level of practical implementation, and have triggered broader deinstitutionalisation of multilateral gas governance in Europe. The three case studies analyse three instances of EU–Russia gas relations, tracing the crucial differences to determine the outcome—cooperation (a creation of a new or enhancement of an existing international institution), institutionalised conflict (disagreements regarding institutional settings of interactions, which are discussed and settled within the procedures of pre-existing or negotiated international institutions), or institutional conflict (expansion of disagreements beyond the pre-existing or negotiated framework of international institutions, which are no more accepted by the parties for conflict resolution) between the parties. The thesis contributes to ongoing debates about the impact of domestic institutions on actors’ policy strategies in the international arena, bringing insights from energy economics, energy law, and regulatory studies to IR. It argues that differences in domestic models under conditions of high interdependence might lead to politicisation of gas market issues and broader aspects of energy governance. The study also enriches debates about energy security, arguing that energy security depends also on a stable and predictable institutional framework for interactions, which inter alia requires compatibility of actors’ domestic models.

RRecent years have witnessed increased French military activism in Africa. Despite efforts to normalise its post-colonial relationship and considerable downsizing of its permanent military presence, France remains a sought-after actor in solving African security problems. Notwithstanding French decision-makers repeated promises that the gendarme of Africa belongs to the past, French troops have participated in nine military operations since the turn of the millennium. Against all expectations, the Hollande administration has stood out for being particularly interventionist, concerting a military intervention in Mali and deploying a peacekeeping force to the Central African Republic within two years of assuming office. The ambiguity between an interventionist policy and a disengaged discourse suggests that French military interventionism in sub-Saharan Africa no longer follows the same automaticity as in the past. The two interventions in Mali and the CAR testify to the intense ideational struggles between different belief systems that had shaped French actorsâ minds and thus influenced decision-making processes and policy outcomes. Economic interests and neo-colonial continuity have been traditionally identified as the root causes of French interventionism in francophone Africa. For the past two decades the literature on French-African relations has been dominated by the so-called continuity vs. change debate, which scrutinises the presence of colonial / neo-colonial practices in the post-1990 French foreign policy. While ideational approaches to Franceâ s African policy are not rare, few studies have engaged with the decision-making processes that produce French military interventions. Most studies focus on policy outcomes, which are rooted in static conceptualisations of ideas that are aggregated at the level of the state. Starting from these observations, the present study argues that the mere analysis of policy outcomes tells us little about the actual motivations that drive French foreign and security policy in Africa. Instead of analysing French interventionism by relying on a predefined set of explanatory variables that are juxtaposed with a series of observable outcomes in order to falsify predefined hypotheses, this thesis explains French interventionism by drawing on actorsâ subjective perceptions and motivations. The study uses the actorsâ own utterances to explain why French decision-makers are ready to accept the considerable risks and costs involved in guaranteeing or re-establishing the security of African countries. Adopting an actor-centred constructivist ontology, this study not only identifies ideas as core explanatory variables but also traces their emergence and subsequent development throughout decision-making processes. This approach goes beyond the dichotomous view that reduces French motivations to material interests or post-colonial ambitions. Relying on discursive material such as official statements, verbatim reports of press conferences and parliamentary hearings, policy reports, and thirty-two high-level interviews with French decision-makers, the present study narrates military intervention in Mali and the CAR from the perspective of French foreign policy elites under the Hollande Presidency. This recent and largely unexplored empirical material provides new insights into Franceâ s foreign and defence policy. The study also demonstrates why and how the â Africa factorâ still matters in Franceâ s foreign policy considerations. The importance of Africa in Franceâ s security policy has less to do with neo-colonial ambitions per se, than with the understanding French policy-makers have of themselves and their country. More generally, the findings show how comprehensive explanations of foreign policy can be produced by considering actorsâ subjective perceptions. In so doing, the study not only explains Franceâ s current policies in sub-Saharan Africa, but also offers insights into foreign policy decision-making processes in general, and thereby provides further evidence about how ideational factors influence the making of world politics. Keywords: France, Africa, Mali, CAR, foreign policy analysis, international security, decision-making, political psychology, constructivism

This thesis examines the social construction of a global corruption problem by introducing a methodological framework from the field of sociology and adapting it to International Relations (IR). It provides an alternative explanation for the adoption of anti-corruption instruments in the period 1994-1997 and the international institutionalization of anti-corruption reforms. It challenges conventional views that point to the rise of non-state actors, such as Transparency International, and the end of the Cold War. By tracing the trajectory of the corruption problem, it shows that the dynamics of the 1990s can only be fully understood within the legacy of the 1970s and, in particular, the failed talks at the United Nations. The institutionalization of the global corruption problem in the 1990s was a product largely of historical contingency and state intentionality. While it appeared that a new issue has taken international organizations by storm, it was largely key state agents that were creating this change by building coalitions and maneuvering between venues. The thesis employs methods of discourse and practice analysis from sociological research for the empirical study of claims. The analysis makes use of archival data to open up the pre-negotiation talks on illicit/corrupt payments at the OECD and the UN and study the process of claims-making, as well as document discursive strategies such as controversy management and feasibility. By taking a step back from the study of norms to look at the social construction of problems, the thesis introduces new methodological tools into constructivist IR. It also provides for the integration of state agency in constructivist approaches by showing how state actors engage in ontological warfare over the definition and institutionalization of new problems. Studying the social construction of problems through the process of claims-making elucidates the power relations that inform the established definitions and the spectrum of legitimate solutions; it helps us better understand the makings of international reality.

The international interventions in Iraq and Libya are exemplary of a decline in the expectations that statebuilding fervour can contribute to the full-fledged transformation of societies intervened upon. From the intervention in Iraq under the banner of “armed liberalism” to the “post-interventionist” approach that guided the intervention in Libya, international actors have renounced the grand transformative narrative traditionally sustaining post-conflict initiatives. This study investigates the impact of this changing statebuilding paradigm on state formation in Iraq and Libya. Bridging scholarship on post-conflict transitions as well as on the Middle East and North Africa region, this study addresses the question of the interplay between statebuilding and state formation from a political economy perspective: the emerging forms of economic governance of Iraq and Libya are illustrative of the broader problems affecting these countries. Through a process-oriented approach, this study moves beyond a narrowly-conceived institutional analysis and brings into focus actors in transition. Based on the theoretical discussion and the empirical findings, the study shows that an actor-oriented analysis has far more explanatory power than an institutionalist analysis. From a political economy perspective, the study focuses on the role of the private sector as an agent for change in transition: the emergence and consolidation of the policy prescription of developing the private sector has heralded a re-definition of the statebuilding agenda. Relying on a broad range of sources and data including interviews, policy papers, programmes’ reports, and evaluations, the analysis contends that this novel approach adds to the contradictory character of statebuilding: private sector development remains trapped between internationally held normative models and domestic power dynamics. Most importantly, private sector development entails a more interventionist approach that contradicts the principles of the self-regulating capacity of the market. The thesis’ main argument is that by building parallel agencies and mechanisms, statebuilding deviates from the process of building states. In other words, statebuilding creates a mode of governance that undermines Weberian notions of statehood in post-conflict countries: while it penetrates deeply into society, statebuilding fails to generate state authority. Rather, it favours a dispersion of authority across levels of governance and different types of actors. The dispersion of authority in post-conflict transitions generates hybrid forms of political economy: adaptation and resistance to neoliberal norms, institutions, and models are continuously negotiated by competing actors. At the same time, the dispersion of authority contributes to undermining the distinction between the public and the private spheres: alternative forms of authority consolidate informal institutions and repertoires, and increasingly come to exercise state authority and functions. The disjuncture between state and stateness––the exercise of state authority and functions––shows the limits of analysing post-conflict transitions through the narrow lens of Weberian interpretation of the state and points to a re-evaluation of institutional analyses in light of notions of authority and legitimacy.

With the growing importance of agencies in the EU executive space (i.e., agencification), civil society organisations (CSOs) have increasingly direct their advocacy efforts towards EU agencies. Currently, CSOs are represented in several consultative bodies of EU agencies (e.g., FRA, EASO, and Frontex). In general, the role of these bodies and platforms is to “merely” assist EU agencies on fundamental rights matters. However, access to EU agencies gives CSOs a privileged position to push their claims forward. Frontex (or European Coast and Border Guard) is peculiar among EU agencies for its operative competences, and growing resources. Moreover, Frontex has repeatedly raised concerns on its accountability on fundamental rights matters at the EU borders. Therefore, in 2011, Frontex revised Regulation introduced a Fundamental Rights Strategy, and two new bodies: the Fundamental Rights Officer and the Consultative Forum on fundamental rights (CF). Aim of this research is to establish whether and to what extent CSOs influence Frontex “from within” and what are the outcomes of this interaction in terms of both fundamental rights mainstreaming and agency accountability. These issues are addressed using the literature on CSOs’ participation to EU governance, CSOs’ mainstreaming of fundamental rights, and CSOs’ potential for the accountability/legitimacy of EU agencies. Empirically, this study analyses CSOs’ strategy choice to lobby Frontex from within and questions it in light of the outcomes of this lobbying activity. Even though findings are mixed, due to the absence of CSOs’ clear advocacy goals within the CF, the relationship between CSOs, members of the CF, and Frontex remains unique in terms of mutual learning and potential for the establishment of an effective accountability relationship on fundamental rights matters. Collection of data and analysis have been carried out through expert interviews and by applying an interpretive approach to the study of Frontex official and unofficial documents.

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks the US launched a macro-securitization program to combat terrorism and included government counter-terrorism measures (CTMs) that impeded on human rights and civil liberties globally. Scholarship has recently turned to the study of CTMs and their effects on civil society organizations (CSOs). This study analyzes the relationship between CTMs and CSOs in Hungary from 2010-2018. First, it examines Hungary’s security milieu, including the formation and implementation of Hungary’s CT laws, polices, and institutions, and the terrorism landscape. Second, it analyzes the effects of CTMs on CSOs and state-civil society relations. The study uses an exploratory and explanatory research design, and mixed methods of data collection and analysis. Using purposive sampling, 240 questionnaires were analyzed across four CSO categories: peacebuilding, development, human rights advocacy, and humanitarianism. Coded data is used from 70 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with CSO officers, security agents, military personnel, legal experts, politicians, and security, civil society, and development scholars. Secondary sources include: books, articles, and grey literature. Using Chi Square and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation at p≤0.05, the former determines if CSOs were pressured to join government CTMs whereas the latter establishes whether CTMs negatively impacted CSOs’ operational capacities. Descriptive statistics is used to analyze demographic data and ascertain CSOs’ level of support or rejection of government CTMs. The findings reveal that CTMs grant the state exceptional powers that restrict CSO operations. The quantitative findings show that CSOs were pressured into joining government CTMs (X2 = 220.919). Government CTMs have negatively affected CSOs’ operational costs (59.1%). The government denies CSOs access to information regarding CTMs (35.9%), thus preventing their involvement in CTM formulation processes and implementation. 72.1% of program officers indicated they do not support government CTMs. The interviews revealed growing mutual suspicion between the government and CSOs in the context of counter-terrorism.