Cette thèse s'intéresse aux films américains réalisés en réponse à l'implication de l'armée nationale au Moyen-Orient depuis le début des années 2000. Elle cherchera à prouver que ces films sont intrinsèquement différents de ceux réalisés aux États-Unis en réponse à des conflits antérieurs.L'étude historique du cinéma de guerre américain montre qu'il a traversé un processus qui l'a conduit à partir d'un cinéma qui considère les guerres américaines comme des guerres obligatoires vers un cinéma qui considère les guerres américaines comme des guerres de choix, provoquées par une addiction : l'addiction de la société américaine et surtout des hommes américains au combat. Contrairement aux films sur la guerre du Vietnam, les nouveaux films ne pointent pas un doigt accusateur vers un élément particulier, tel qu'un mandat spécifique d'un certain président, mais vers toute la structure de la société américaine et surtout vers sa tête, le père américainAinsi, le cinéma sur la guerre en Irak est beaucoup plus percutant dans ses messages sur le lien entre la société américaine et son militarisme, davantage encore que le précédent cinéma de guerre, qui avait déjà été très critique de l'armée et la société américaines. / This thesis examines American films which were made in response to US military involvement in the Middle East, since the beginning of the 2000s. It will seek to prove that these films are different than those made in the United States in response to previous conflicts. The historical study of American war cinema shows that it has undergone a process of evolution - from a cinema which views American wars as those of necessity, to a cinema which views American wars as wars of choice. Lately, it has gone even further than that – birthing films which present American wars as events caused by the American society, in order to fulfill the needs of the people who head it - fighting-addicted American men. This process can be said to have expanded the subjects dealt with by the American war cinema.Thus, the cinema about the Iraq War is much more poignant than representations of past wars, in its messages about the connection between American society and its militarism. It manages to surpass all previous war cinema, which in itself had been the most critical towards American army and society.

The premiership of Shinzo Abe has had a significant impact on the debate surrounding Japanese foreign policy. In the autumn of 2020, Shinzo Abe resigned, ending what would become the country’s longest consecutive tenure in history, lasting from 2012 to 2020. Following the Second World War, Japan has per its 1947 constitution constrained its foreign policy unlike that of any other country of comparable size. During Shinzo Abe’s tenure, from 2012 to 2020, the academic debate surrounding the potential dismantling of said constraints has moved significantly towards finding a so-called remilitarization a likely outcome. International relations schools of realism and to some extent liberalism find that predictions of remilitarization might strike true while constructivist scholars find that this might be the case despite prior reservations. This is a significant shift in the debate consensus, especially on the part of constructivist analysis which often held that Japan’s unique character, be it norms or institutions, was inherently antimilitaristic. Through previous literature we learn that there was long a divide between authors arguing for a remilitarization being imminent while others take the opposite stance. A shift in Japanese foreign policy has a number of implications for international relations theory, previously a hallmark of constructivist argumentation surrounding identity and a thorn in the side of realist assumptions of power politics. A methodical approach of theory comparison sheds light on the empirical case of Japanese foreign policy by the means of assessing each relevant perspective’s arguments against each respective set of expectations in the event of a remilitarization. Through this study we find that contributions to the debate overwhelmingly argue for an increased possibility of a remilitarization taking place. Likewise, we find that this may come to play into the hands of both realism and liberalism as well as potentially doing so for constructivist analysis. Despite the case of an antimilitarist Japan being an example showcasing the strengths of constructivist analysis, it might instead provide an opportunity wherein it is able to showcase the flexibility and adaptability of constructivism as an analytical approach. The study also explores the possibility of whether there is room for employing a theoretically eclectic approach to the case at hand as a means to break the deadlock within the debate on the topic and offer analysis that escapes the pitfalls inherent in each theoretical perspective when employed on its own.

This thesis investigates the resistance of actors of civil society against perceived militarism, by means of a qualitative case study. As the title suggests, the establishment of a “Cyber Valley” in Tübingen, has not only been met with approval by local citizens. This thesis examines a protest movement against the Cyber Valley – a cooperative research project for technological advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The research reveals that this protest movement was not reliant on a firm organizational structure but was led by an open alliance of individuals, called the Bündnis gegen das Cyber Valley. The organizational approach resulted in various forms of civil resistance. The empirical research on these acts of resistance, adds a perspective for a more holistic approach. On their website (nocybervalley.de) the Bündnis gegen das Cyber Valley documented developments of the protests. These accounts constitute a large part of the written material this study is based on, complemented with semi-structured expert-interviews with four protesters. The interviews generated a conceptualization of militarism, as a driving motivation for the activists. Thereby, this study contributes to the contemporary definition of militarism in the context of civil resistance. The field of peace and conflict studies can benefit from this and similar studies in that they uncover conceptualizations of key conflicts, as perceived by actors of civil society.

Rarement réédité, peu représenté dans les fonds publics, Lucien Descaves offre l’exemple d’un écrivain méconnu, enfermé dans une image réductrice qui ne correspond guère à la richesse et à la diversité de son œuvre. De sa longue et importante carrière de journaliste, de romancier, de dramaturge et de membre de l’Académie Goncourt, l’histoire littéraire ne retient que ses débuts naturalistes et le tumultueux procès de Sous-Offs qui le rendit un temps célèbre. Si le premier Descaves reste en effet quelque peu prisonnier des lieux communs zolistes, et si le procès de Sous-Offs est un moment important dans l’histoire de la mobilisation des intellectuels en France, il ne reste pas moins que réduire la vie et l’œuvre de notre auteur à la décennie 1880-1890 est injuste, voire ingrat à l’égard d’un écrivain très engagé dans la vie littéraire de son temps, dans le journalisme de combat et dans la comédie sociale. C’est à une telle iniquité que cette thèse tente de remédier. Nous y menons une étude à la fois génétique et thématique où l’accent est mis sur le parcours intellectuel de Descaves à travers un retour sur les diverses causes auxquelles il a prêté son concours d’écrivain, de journaliste et d’académicien actif. Les deux termes clés qui figurent dans le sous-titre («  naturalisme » et « libertaire »), soulignent une transformation progressive dont l'observation constitue le but de notre travail. / Lucien Descaves was hardly ever republished and is rarely represented in public archives. He is the perfect example of the unsung writer, confined to a reductive image which doesn’t reflect the richness and diversity of his work. He had a long and important career as a journalist, a novelist, a dramatist and a member of the Goncourt Academy; however, literary history only teaches us about his early days as a naturalist and about the tumultuous trial that took place when his novel Sous-Offs was published, which helped to make him famous for a while. It is an indisputable fact that Descaves, in his beginnings, remained under the influence of Zola and that the Sous-Offs trial remains an important moment of the history of the intellectuals mobilization in France. Nevertheless, it seems unfair to reduce the life and work of Lucien Descaves to the 1880-1890 decade, since he was very committed to the literary life of his time, to active journalism and to social comedy. This thesis precisely tries to address such an injustice. We have been studying both the genetic and thematic aspects of the intellectual career of Lucien Descaves in order to identify the various causes he tried to stand up for as an active author, journalist and academician. The key notions of “naturalism” and “libertarian”, which appear in the subtitle, underline the development of a progressive conversion which is the outcome of our study.