The dissertation covers 1689-1712 in English political history. It deals with the debate between the Whig and Tory parties, and their internal conflicts, over the strategy necessary to defeat France in the two wars of this period: the Nine Years' and Spanish Succession Wars. It describes the widespread hopes for a quick victory, centred on the 'descent', in the early years of William's reign; and how this optimism was exploited to secure support for the Continental .war. It traces the development of an alternative 'Country' strategy in response to the failures to mount an invasion of France and the build up of English forces in Flanders. The consolidation of Whig support behind the Contin~ntal war in 1693-95; and the failure of the Country attempt to draw away mercantile support from the European war by exploiting the anger over privateering losses are analysed. The explosion of Country/Tory bitterness in 1697-98 which ied to the precipitate disbanding of the army is discussed with reference to the strategic hopes and dis- , appointments of :the previous war. The approach of the Spanish Succession War in 1698-1702 is analysed against the background of the expectations of both Whigs and Tories that England would now fight as naval auxiliaries; and attenti-on is drawn to the wide-spread interest in Caribbean warfare. The internal disputes within the Tory ministry in 1702-04 over war strategy are analysed, and the strategic ideas of the main political figures - Nottingham, Godolphin, Marlborough and Harley - are examined. The importance of the Spanish theatre to public and political opinion and the revival of interest in Caribbean warfare from 1706 on are both documented. Harley's changing attitude to the war in the years 1704-08 is discussed. The rise to dominance , of the Junto war strategy 1708-10 is cpnsidered, and the Tory response. The war strategy of the Tory ministry of 1710 is examined, with particular reference to the hold of the Spanish war on Tory loyalties, and Harley's West Indian and St John's Canadian schemes. The fierce pamphlet debate between Whig and Tory in 1710-12 over the conduct of the Succession War is analysed.

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.

With its departure in the challenge of avoiding conflict-issues becoming politics, the present study merges the literatures on reconciliation and post-conflict politics, and asks why a difference in post-conflict political moderation can be observed in individuals. It uses questionnaire- and interview-material gathered in Mostar during spring 2013 to do a comparative case study, testing the hypothesis that reconciliation makes individuals more politically moderate with respect to war-related issues. Results in line with the hypothesis are found, and the relationship appears to be causal. However, the causal mechanism requires additional work, and the issue of confounders needs to be addressed by future studies to ensure robustness. In conclusion, with these caveats in mind, the answer to the question is that the level of reconciliation affects the levels of political moderation.

This thesis examines urban political conflict in the late Middle Ages (c. 1370-1440) in Europe’s most heavily urbanised regions, Italy and the Southern Low Countries. Conflicts have frequently been viewed in the context of an emerging state-controlled political order, and have been interpreted either as forms of disruptive disorder, or as affirmations of political processes shaped by states. This thesis suggests that urban conflict should be studied not in the context of a state-controlled political order, but within the political framework provided by the numerous semi-autonomous jurisdictional institutions inside and outside cities (such as guilds, parishes or contending outside powers). This pluralistic order of politics gave rise to a form of political order sui generis which expressed itself in two ways. According to a general logic of conflict (Part One), particular rationales for justifying conflict (Chapter One) and specific political practices ranging from concealed protest to urban warfare (Chapter Two) were embedded in this multi-faceted and shifting political framework. Action groups could be negotiated and renegotiated around the resources provided by the city’s multiple legitimating institutions (Chapter Three). At the same time, such political institutions were configured differently in different cities, and this also generated a particular logic which lay at the basis of different systems of conflict (Part Two). Levels of conflict could, in fact, vary greatly between Bologna and Liège (Chapter Four), Florence and Tournai (Chapter Five), and Lille and Verona (Chapter Six), where, on the basis of different underlying political institutions, diverse practices of conflict and forms of association prevailed. The pluralistic order of politics itself was, therefore, a form of political organisation which crystallised around conflict. It gave rise to a logic which put conflict at the centre of the political order of late medieval cities.

Much current literature on management and strategy still describes strategy work as a linear, top-down, management-based, rational, logical, structured and planned change activity with clear and predictable goals. It is described as an activity in which individual managers are addressing key questions and implementing an important, management-based plan. By using the right tools and techniques, skilled managers can transform plans into reality through good leadership and systematic rollout. This way of thinking about leadership is based on an understanding of leaders as rather powerful, knowing, heroic individuals who can stand outside of their organization to plan an ideal future, and who are equipped to make employees follow their instructions in order to reach desired goals. In this thesis I research into my experiences of what is happening in an organization, taking seriously the experience of developing a new strategy. It is an organization working in the public sector in Denmark which is right now trying to find a strategy and its way through a series of 'wicked problems' not easily handled. Through the use of autobiographical narrative-based inquiry and a focus on everyday local interactions between people working together, I research into what is 'really' going on in strategy work. Drawing on the theory of complex responsive processes of relating and reflexivity, I describe and analyse the interactions in our leadership team's efforts to change the organization's strategy. In doing so themes of power, power games and power differentials, politicking and some of the paradoxes in management - such as inclusion/exclusion, local interaction and global patterning, unpredictable predictability, and conflict and cooperation - are investigated. The complex responsive process perspective views organizations as patterns of interaction and conversations between people working together. By analogy from complex adaptive systems models, sociology, psychology and philosophy, it argues that generalizable population-wide patterns emerge in unpredictable ways through exactly these local complex interaction and interplays of people's intentions, thoughts and actions. This leads me to propose generalizable new contributions to knowledge about strategy work. Examining my own experience, I problematize the 'heroic', individualistic, view of what leaders do when working with strategy, preferring to see strategy as a co-created activity that emerges in complex and paradoxical interactions between people in the organization, in the leadership team, in daily cooperation with employees, and through the interface with customers. The understanding of co-creation here being that together we co-create our social life and our social life is co-creating us, our selves, our personalities at the same time. This inseparable paradox of the individual and the group, of the one and the many is investigated. Finally, I suggest that strategy work is inseparable from the everyday messy conflictual power games of organizational life, and that leaders - through actively engaging in ongoing conversations and co-creating meaning - participate in developing new understandings of identity and culture. In talking with one another about what it is we are doing, in influencing and being influenced, and reflecting on this, we are already changing what is going on; this itself is strategy work. The narratives show that to work with strategy effectively, we need to negotiate our intentions in convincing ways through forming strong power alliances. Taking experience seriously also demonstrates a close connection between power, ethics and action, and that it is impossible to decide the 'good' thing to do before acting. Developing reflexivity, both as an individual and in collaborative work, is a prerequisite for working in an ethical way, aware of our mutual interdependence. Finally, the thesis describes some of the consequences of taking experience seriously as a strategy. It has changed the way our staff understand what they are doing, and is beginning to change the kind of assignments we take on, and how we deal with them. One spin-off has been producing two books (with more to come). We also have new and more reflexive contacts in business and knowledge-creating environments, such as universities and business schools. The thesis shows a number of results from working with strategy in this way. This indicates that the act of taking your experience seriously in itself implies a kind of transforming causality, and hereby a strategy of change.

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