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.

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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.

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