The Obama Administration in the United States has announced and started implementing foreign policy that is distinctly different from that of its predecessor, the Bush Administration. A new foreign policy doctrine, based on the concept of ‘smart power’, is now emerging and acknowledges that a combination of ‘hard power’ and ‘soft power’ is required for the US to build an appropriate framework within which to tackle unconventional threats such as terrorism. In essence, the prioritisation of soft power indicates a return to intangible power resources, such as culture, ideology and institutions, and most importantly, prioritises diplomacy as an instrument of foreign policy. This study will determine why this dramatic shift has occurred, and will investigate the diplomatic fallout of the Bush Administration’s ‘war on terror’ during which ‘hard power’ tools were favoured and diplomacy was marginalised or, at best, combined with unilateral and even coercive tools of foreign policy. The study will also interrogate the preliminary assumption that the foregoing has convinced policy-makers in the US that the country, despite its superpower status, will not be able to achieve its long-term goals on its own and, if it acts unilaterally, will undermine those political alliances and institutions that are vital to its foreign-policy goals. This has arguably prompted the Obama Administration’s recent embrace of global diplomatic norms, inter alia, transparency, inclusiveness, multilateralism, respect for international law, and basic civility in international relations. / Mini Dissertation (MDIPS)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Political Sciences / Unrestricted

This study examined the relationship between the Turkish Islamic movements and the present government of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AK Party). Since the AK Party came to power in 2002 it implemented unparalleled political reforms and pursued to improve Turkey’s relations with the EU. Opponents argued that because of the dominance of the secular military in Turkish politics, the AK Party is forced to secretly advance its Islamic agenda using the language and symbolism of democracy and human rights. This study argued that the ideas of the AK Party show similarities with the “Ottomanist” thought of the late Ottoman era. With special reference to the preservation of the Ottoman State, Ottomanism in an eclectic way was able to incorporate Islamic principles like freedom, justice and consultation into the political arena which was increasingly dominated by the secular European concepts. Literature on Islam and politics in Turkey, however, disregards the Ottoman roots of freedom and pluralism and tends to reduce the relationship between religion and state into exclusively confrontational struggles. This conceptualization of the political process relies on particular non-Turkish Muslim experiences which do not necessarily represent Islam’s venture in Turkey. Contrary to the prevailing scholarship, Islamic movements in Turkey, namely, Naqshbandi, National View and Nur, which are discussed in detail in this study, are not monolithic. They all uphold the same creedal tenets of Islam but they have sharp differences in terms of how they conceptualize the role of religious agency in politics. I argue that this diversity is a result of three distinct methodologies of Islamic religious life which are the Tariqah (Tarikat), Shariah (Şeriat), and Haqiqah (Hakikat). The differences between these three approaches represent a typological hierarchy in the formation of the Muslim/believer as an agent of Islamic identity. Through these different if not conflicting modes, the AK Party reconnected itself with Turkey’s Ottoman heritage in a post-Ottoman, secular setting and was able to develop an eclectic political identity of Neo-Ottomanism that is evident in the flexibility if not inconsistency of its domestic and foreign policy preferences.

Japan is an important ally of the United States–the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues are observed. This dissertation explored Japan’s foreign and security policies based on Japan’s identities and unconscious ideologies. It employed an analysis of selected Japanese films from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, as well as from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. The analysis demonstrated that Japan’s foreign and security policies could be understood in terms of a broader social narrative that was visible in Japanese popular cultural products, including films and literatures. Narratives of Japanese families from the patriarch’s point of view, for example, had constantly shaped Japan’s foreign and security policies. As a result, the world was ordered hierarchically in the eyes of the Japan Self. In the 1950s, Japan tenaciously constructed close but asymmetrical security relations with the U.S. in which Japan willingly subjugated itself to the U.S. In the 2000s, Japan again constructed close relations with the U.S. by doing its best to support American responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by mobilizing Japan’s SDFs in the way Japan had never done in the past. The concepts of identity and unconscious ideology are helpful in understanding how Japan’s own understanding of self, of others, and of the world have shaped its own behaviors. These concepts also enable Japan to reevaluate its own behaviors reflexively, which departs from existing alternative approaches. This study provided a critical analytical explanation of the dynamics at work in Japan’s sense of identity, particularly with regard to its foreign and security policies.

American foreign policy think tanks are an important part of the American foreign policy elite. By gathering data, publishing research, and reaching out to the public and government, think tanks help set the public debate agenda. The question I asked was whether these American foreign policy think tanks exhibited a shared worldview during the past three election cycles. I analyzed 7,000 documents (half a million verbs) published by the seven American foreign policy think tanks active in the three general elections of 2004, 2008, and 2012: the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Cato Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Heritage Foundation, and the RAND Corporation. To measure the collective and individual worldviews of these seven think tanks, I used the Profiler Plus software, which answered Alexander George’s operational code questions based on the transitive verbs for the Self and the Other. My research showed that the collectivity of the seven think tanks had three separate worlds of action with three different worldviews. It also showed that the worldview of the American collective Self was very stable across time. Another empirical finding was that from the perspective of the seven think tanks, the United States’ actions were the most similar to the actions of other great powers: Europe, China, and Russia. It was also shown that from the perspective of the seven think tanks, China was the most cooperative nation and Terrorists were the most conflictual actors in the world.

The significance of India in the international system has been increasing not only because of its fast economic development. As one of the manifestations of India's growing position can be considered the expanding of interests to African continent, which is the pivotal topic of this diploma thesis. The presence of India in Africa and its foreign policy towards this continent was analyzed on the basis of the method of four level analysis, which means foreign policy of India towards Africa is examined on levels of international system, state, domestic influences and individuals. To show the position of India in Africa in full context the part comparing its activities with another Asian economic power -- China - is included.

This study is titled Colombia Foreign Policy Making: the influence of non-state actors and its main purpose is to analyze the influence of Non-State actors, violent type and Human Rights NGOs, in the Colombian Foreign policy behavior. It is divided into three respective sections -- a Constructive theoretical framework, the directions of the Colombia Foreign Policy, and the practical part to find the influence of Non-state actors in Colombia Foreign Policy behavior. It strives to answer how Colombian Foreign Policy behavior it's affected by Violent Non-state actors negatively and by Human Rights NGOs.

This paper analyzes contemporary foreign relations of Egypt. In the first part of the thesis theoretical basis of the Tahrir revolution is discussed. The second part analyzes the impact of this event on the foreign policy position of Egypt in international relations on the example of relations with the United States, the European Union, including a separate analysis of the Egyptian-Czech relations, and the countries of the Gulf and the Middle East. Although two groups of actors changed representing the ruling elite - the military, the Islamists and the army again, both of them eventually apply the same approaches in the context of the foreign policy. This approach is characterized by particularly strong ties to the country's traditional partners, especially the U.S. and the rich Gulf states.

The following dissertation is an attempt of analysis and understanding of the foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East region and its evolution through time. Considering the fact that the Middle East region is or at least used to be a vital region for the United States national interests, the dissertation presents an exhaustive list of major events that have been major shifts in the US foreign policy in the region. The more or less chronological timeline allows the reader to have a better understanding of the evolution of the US foreign policy. The result of the dissertation is the identification of different patterns of foreign policy and to put the spot on the reasons of the changes of these patterns. Nevertheless, the history of the Middle East region and the incredible number of major events through the 2Oth century and the early 21st century make impossible to deal with all of them. Moreover, analysis and comments are based on academic research, but the dissertation remains subjective and may lead to discussions and debates.

This thesis presents a Strategic-Relational (SR) analysis of the processes ofchange and continuity in Mexican foreign policy during the Fox government. In2000, the election of President Fox determined the victory of a new party after71 years of Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) rule, producing thedemocratisation of the country. Domestic and international changes generatedby the end of the Cold War, and the presence of new actors in the Mexicanscenario created momentum for the country, helped also by the introduction ofa new foreign policy paradigm. Despite the significance of these elements, thestudy of their reciprocal influence in foreign policy has been neglected. Thesetransformations and the discrepancy between the discourse of change and itsimplementation are considered an ideal scenario for the study of continuity andchange in foreign policy-making. This research focuses on the application ofJessop and Hay’s Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA), considered able togenerate an understanding of this complex process of interaction. However,although the SRA theorises the impact of these interplays in policy-making,scarce consideration has been given to this approach in the study of foreignpolicy change. Therefore, the thesis aims to understand the dynamicsgrounding Fox’s foreign policy, employing the SRA to identify those conditionsnecessary for the implementation of change and appreciate how the interplayamong different elements was manifest. After explaining the SRA and its relevance to the study of change in foreignpolicy, the thesis provides a historical framework explaining Mexico’s evolutionin the years up to 2000. Building on these chapters, three empirical casestudies presenting different degrees of foreign policy change are then analysedthrough the SRA. They respectively consider Mexico’s approach topeacekeeping operations, its participation in the United Nations SecurityCouncil and its refusal to support the Iraq War, and Mexico’s internationalapproach to human rights. The thesis compares how, in the presence ofconsistent general conditions, the processes of change and continuity weredifferently implemented. The interplay established among the fundamental SRelements is interpreted as pivotal in every empirical chapter for its capacity toaccount for the complexity of the foreign policy process and the generation ofconcrete change in foreign policy.

This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts for humanitarian motives in a less threatening security context. To test these hypotheses, I compare U.S. military intervention in three temporal contexts reflecting more threatening security contexts (Cold War and post-9/11) and less threatening security contexts (1992-2001). Results of logit regression analysis reveal that a conflict’s connection to a threatening actor or ideology is the most statistically and substantively significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, both in more and less threatening security contexts. They also indicate that humanitarian motives are not a statistically significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, even in a more benign security environment. These findings imply that U.S. unilateral military intervention is reserved for more direct national security threats, even those that are less grave, and that the perception of the U.S. as “global cop” may be misleading, at least in terms of unilateral military intervention.