The literature on escalation situations and audience costs suggests that democratic executives tend to increase commitment to a foreign policy in response to negative feedback. However, real-world cases from international politics suggest otherwise. Specifically, executives do not appear to respond uniformly to failing situations. While scholars have begun to unravel the audience cost mechanism, up until know, we know little about reasons for the variation in how executives use policy feedback to update commitment to a foreign policy. In this dissertation, I adopt an integrative approach and present a model of sequential decision-making that explains the conditions under which leaders escalate and de-escalate commitment in response to feedback. I attempt to break down the audience cost mechanism to explain why democratic executives do not respond uniformly to negative feedback. While the literature on the escalation of commitment suggests decision-makers tend to increase investment in the face of negative feedback, my theory suggests that under certain conditions, executives may find it politically advantageous to back down from a failing policy. My theory emphasizes the relationship between citizens, executives, and foreign policy effectiveness. Next, I suggest that the foreign policy tool of military intervention provides a suitable test case for a theory of sequential decision-making. I first test hypotheses derived from the theory regarding the preference formation process of democratic citizens during the course of such an episode. Understanding the response of citizens to feedback is an important first step to understanding the updating decisions of democratic executives. While previous work has relied on aggregate survey data, experimentation provides me with the ability to analyze how an individual citizen?s preference over commitment is impacted by policy feedback. The results of the experimental analyses suggest that citizens act as investors: they favor increasing commitment to military interventions when viewing negative feedback, up to a point. I then test the main hypotheses derived from the theory regarding executive decision-making on a dataset of major power military interventions from 1960-2000. Overall, the results support the hypotheses: public approval conditions the manner in which executives use feedback to update intervention commitments. In the conclusion, I summarize the study by highlighting key results, present the broad implications for the study of democratic foreign policy making, and discuss avenues for future research.

Nos últimos anos o termo diplomacia presidencial tornou-se conhecido por todos devido a sua presença tanto na mídia, quanto nos meios acadêmicos e diplomáticos. O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar o conceito de diplomacia presidencial no Brasil, cunhado por estudiosos para nomear a nova atitude – mais ativa – de alguns presidentes em política externa. Essa análise é importante para uma melhor compreensão da ação dos chefes de Executivo nacionais no cenário externo. Para isso, comparam-se publicações que abordam o conceito e aquelas que o definem, o que contribui para a compreensão do seu estatuto teórico. Além disso, confronta-se o conceito de diplomacia presidencial com outras abordagens que tratam da ação da Presidência da República na formulação de política externa. / In recent years the term presidential diplomacy has become widely known due to its constant presence in the media, the academic and diplomatic circles. This paper aims to analyze the concept of presidential diplomacy in Brazil, coined by researchers to describe the new and more active attitude toward foreign policy of some presidents. This analysis is important to better understand the actions executed by the head of the Executive in the international arena. Publications that approached the concept and those that defined it were compared in order to contribute to the comprehension of its theoretical statute. Furthermore, the concept of presidential diplomacy was confronted with other approaches that deal with the direct intervention of the Chief-of-State in the formulation of foreign policy.

Nos últimos anos o termo diplomacia presidencial tornou-se conhecido por todos devido a sua presença tanto na mídia, quanto nos meios acadêmicos e diplomáticos. O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar o conceito de diplomacia presidencial no Brasil, cunhado por estudiosos para nomear a nova atitude – mais ativa – de alguns presidentes em política externa. Essa análise é importante para uma melhor compreensão da ação dos chefes de Executivo nacionais no cenário externo. Para isso, comparam-se publicações que abordam o conceito e aquelas que o definem, o que contribui para a compreensão do seu estatuto teórico. Além disso, confronta-se o conceito de diplomacia presidencial com outras abordagens que tratam da ação da Presidência da República na formulação de política externa. / In recent years the term presidential diplomacy has become widely known due to its constant presence in the media, the academic and diplomatic circles. This paper aims to analyze the concept of presidential diplomacy in Brazil, coined by researchers to describe the new and more active attitude toward foreign policy of some presidents. This analysis is important to better understand the actions executed by the head of the Executive in the international arena. Publications that approached the concept and those that defined it were compared in order to contribute to the comprehension of its theoretical statute. Furthermore, the concept of presidential diplomacy was confronted with other approaches that deal with the direct intervention of the Chief-of-State in the formulation of foreign policy.

This thesis seeks to answer the following question: How and to what extent does identity and Self-Other perception influence the foreign policy of the EU and Russia toward the establishment of a sovereign and viable Palestinian State? The thesis scrutinises the assumption that identity and Self-perception as well as perception of ‘otherness’ play a vital role in defining foreign policy-making, with policy toward the Middle East being no exception. The investigation focuses on how the EU’s and Russia’s desire to reinforce their ‘global actorness’ on the international stage informs their involvement in the Middle East peace process. This assumption brings into the analysis the dynamic of constructivism in the shaping of foreign policy. Through a constructivist approach, the thesis attempts to explore how Self-Other perception informs foreign policy-making, specifically by the EU and Russia, in relation to Palestinian statehood. Thus the thesis problematises existing views about the role of established IR schools in understanding foreign policy-making (namely, in terms of peace-making). The study seeks to deepen our understanding of the role of identity and Self-Other perception in EU and Russian foreign policy-making by going beyond conventional understanding of foreign policy-making that are fixated on ‘power’, with special reference to the question of Palestinian statehood. In this vein, I advance the argument that, contrary to the old assumptions of schools such as realism and liberalism, there is a role played by identity and ideas that needs to be assessed in the context of EU and Russian peace-making in the Middle East. The thesis tests these assumptions using a qualitative methodology to investigate the making of foreign policy by the EU and Russia. Discourse analysis is the main method employed to interpret the role of identity and Self-Other perceptions. This is done through a study of discourse made up of official documents and statements as well as interviews with diplomats with current and past involvement in the formulation of EU and Russian foreign policy.

With its national strength, the United States is, more often than not, a major State initiating the making of important international multilateral treaties and shaping the final outcome by wielding its influence in the negotiation processes. Nevertheless, three major international multilateral treaties concluded in three different domains all appear the same situation in which the U.S. participated actively in the negotiations but ended up rejecting to sign or ratify due to their inconformities with American ¡§national interests.¡¨ The purpose of this thesis is to examine the American proposals and interventions made in the negotiating processes of three important international multilateral treaties, i.e., the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Kyoto Protocol and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, so as to understand American negotiation stances as well as the issues to which the U.S. attached importance to and the derive the substantive contents of the ¡§national interests¡¨ that the U.S. held dear. Furthermore, this thesis takes one step further to analyze who were the actors that shaped and defined the ¡§national interests¡¨ which the U.S. valued and held tight.