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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Robert D. Linder / This dissertation considers American Protestant perceptions of U.S. foreign policy directed toward Soviet Union during the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency (1953-1961). The question of what a culture dominated by Protestant denominations thought of its global adversary has not yet been sufficiently explored by scholars of either American religious history or diplomatic history. Most scholars who deal with the intersection of religion and foreign policy during the Eisenhower Administration tend to accentuate the close relationship that existed between government policy and general religious attitudes. That is to say, a general, widespread Protestant support of foreign policy objectives stands as the prevailing interpretation. Most historians conclude that America’s Protestant church leaders—preachers, pastors, and bishops—either actively supported government foreign policy objectives or sought to insert their own stances into existing policy. More recently, historians have published monographs that further explore Protestant Christianity with regard to foreign policy in the 1950s. By acknowledging the different strands of Protestant Christianity, scholars have raised significant questions that have heretofore gone unanswered. The primary question is the one that this dissertation seeks to answer—how widespread was American Protestant denunciation of communism and, simultaneously, how broad was American Protestant support for foreign policy objectives? Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Garfield Bromley Oxnam represent the three most prominent representatives of Protestant Christianity’s three major strands. These three acknowledged opinion makers that serve as the focus of this dissertation were not uniform in their perspectives of U.S. foreign policy, yet they all denounced communism and—to a degree—supported America’s efforts to combat the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence throughout the course of the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961). This conclusion helps explain the tremendous perseverance of containment as a strategy by attributing its success, in part, to the large, Protestant body of supporters that continued to sustain and encourage Washington’s policies directed toward the Soviet Union.

This thesis investigates Japan's contribution to United Nations (UN)-sponsored peacekeeping operations (UNPKO) by locating sources of activism and passivism in Japan's foreign policymaking process. In particular, it examines the influence of factors, such as Japan's traditional post-W.W.II commitment to pacifism, its relationships with the US and its East Asian neighbours, and the role of the UN. The introduction provides a broad overview of the remit of the thesis as well as clarifying its ontological commitments and justifying the topics of focus, Japan and the UN. Chapter One constructs a detailed theoretical approach to this topic by rejecting traditional realist, liberal, and Marxist interpretations of international politics and, instead, highlighting the study of norms in international society. Chapter Two centres on the topic of UN peacekeeping operations and explains how this practice has become a norm of international society. Chapter Three introduces the topic of Japan's foreign policy by examining traditional approaches and interpretations. It also utilises the approach outlined in Chapter One and examines Japan's contribution to PKO from the time of admission to the UN in 1956 through to the eve of the outbreak of the Second Gulf War. Chapter Four looks at Japan's response to the Second Gulf War from the financial contribution through to the legislation adopted to facilitate the despatch of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF). It demonstrates the initial power of traditional norms in shaping policy and how this changed with the rise of the influence of the UN. Chapter Five takes the first despatch of the SDF to Cambodia as its case study and reveals how the traditional norms of domestic-rooted pacifism and the opposition of East Asian nations to Japanese re-militarisation continued to be eroded. Chapter Six looks at the most recent of the SDF's despatches to Mozambique, Rwanda and the Golan Heights and demonstrates the continued influence of the US as well as the consolidated power of the UN, in contrast to the declining influence of pacifism and Japan's East Asian neighbours. Taking this empirical investigation into account, the conclusion reappraises the importance of norms in Japan's foreign policy making process, and highlights the influence of the UN.

Investigation of the European Union’s foreign policy towards Hamas acquires its significance as a topic from the undemocratic way in which the (supposedly) democratic EU pursues its strategy since, according to its own rhetoric, this should have been normatively undertaken. In examining inconsistencies and paradoxes in the EU discourse towards Hamas, and the determinants underlying such contradictions, the study scrutinizes questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’, focusing mainly on identities and self-interests as lenses borrowed from constructivism and neorealism, as well as the influence of external actors on the way the EU functions towards Hamas. Behind such inconsistency stands a cultural-historical heritage, part of the mind-set of the European decision-makers. The contradictory status of the association between the two actors is formed by the main interactively-constructed and conflictual socio-political components arising from the reality of the EU as a stability-seeking and security-driven actor in Palestine, and the self-definition of Hamas as a freedom-fighter striving for the liberation of its lands. Being defenders of the culturally-drawn meanings given by the EU to Palestine as a ‘promised land’ for the Jews within a two-state solution, and those given to it by Hamas as an ‘Islamic Waqf’ is another field of identities’ clash between the two actors. The Israeli factor, regarded in practice as a fixed, constant and purely Western and European interest in the Middle East, along with the dominant influence of the US on its EU partner, are emphasized as main determinants of EU policy towards Hamas. On the macro and micro levels, the determinants of the EU decision making process, and the way the EU functions when its perceived interests are threatened must be understood when any decision on relations with the EU is taken, particularly by the Palestinian resistance factions. At the same time, the EU should also examine its own inconsistencies in dealing with Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ organization and boycotting its democratically-elected government, in order to avoid repeating the ‘trial and error’ approach with the new powers rising in the ‘Arab spring’ countries, and to adapt itself to change in Palestine accordingly.