The world faces many complex and difficult problems at the global level – problems that are increasingly recognised as requiring political as much as technical solutions. While such issues are often taken to concern, in broad terms, global governance, more specifically, the political aspects of such governance are fundamentally linked to interactions between the United Nations system and the power exercised by the United States of America (US). One important and distinctive arena within which these interactions can be viewed is the international food aid regime, and its central organisation, the World Food Programme (WFP) - an area lacking in concerted political science study in recent years. This thesis is concerned with the role of the US in shaping the legitimacy of the WFP within the institutional context of the international food aid regime. Legitimacy is defined as deriving from the three elements of inclusion, accountability and effectiveness. The WFP and international regime are, it is argued, well respected, relatively effective, and enjoy high levels of legitimacy. At a micro level there are many specific historical and localised factors resulting in this legitimacy; at the macro level many of these factors can be linked to the interaction of norms and interests between the US and the regime. / In particular, the regime’s development and success has been closely related to both a congruence between the US domestic feed-the-hungry norm and the regime’s international feed-the-hungry norm, and a process of divergence between those norms. It is this normative interplay that has enabled US power to be deployed and constrained in a manner resulting in high levels of legitimacy for the WFP. While in many respects this has limited WFP’s capacity to do more with the problem of global hunger than merely ameliorate it, the nature of the problem is much bigger than the capacities of any single operational agency of the United Nations.

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Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universität, Dresden, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-406).

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005. / Thesis research directed by: Government and Politics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Thesis (M.A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-99). Also available on microfilm.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 300-314). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (South Asia))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Knopf, Jeffrey W. ; Lavoy, Peter R. "March 2008." Description based on title screen as viewed on May 16, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-103). Also available in print.

Thesis--School of Advanced Airpower Studies, 1996. / Shipping list no.: 98-0921-M. "November 1997." Includes bibliographical references. Also available via Internet from the Air University Press web site. Address as of 10/10/03: http://aupress.au.af.mil/SAAS%5FTheses/Clark/clark.pdf; current access is available via PURL.

Univ., Diss.--Göteborg, 2003.

Inaug.-Diss.--Cologne. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves iv-viii.