In this thesis I explore the attitudes, arguments, and actions of British political elites in connection with the development of human rights law in Europe and the UK. I do this by examining British input into five key episodes for the development of European supranational rights and their incorporation into domestic legal orders (namely the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, the drafting of the European Social Charter 1961, the acceptance of individual petition in 1966, the failed 1970s Bill of Rights debate, the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998, and recent developments such as the UK ‘opt-out’ to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the emergence of a new ‘British Bill of Rights’ debate). Casting light on British involvement in less examined periods in European rights development, I challenge existing, isolated, explanations for the more focal episodes (such as Simpson’s rational-choice post-colonial thesis for individual petition acceptance, and ideological accounts for New Labour’s post-1997 constitutional reform). Responding to the most recent literature in the area, central to my analysis is the question of how rights progress relates to inter-party conflict. By considering continuities and discontinuities in elite political discussion of rights I argue that while conflict is a significant underlying feature of every major episode of rights progress during the last sixty years, and is less evident in less progressive periods, other factors have had a greater influence over the form, timing, and extent of rights progress. Most significant amongst these is the constitutional ideological development of the Labour party and the critical connection between Labour’s elevation of the Convention within the UK constitutional space and revisionist shifts in party thinking.

The purpose of this thesis is to assess Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. I argue that the nature of the relationship was transformed by the region becoming the centre of Cold War conflict, and show how Pakistan’s role affected the development of the mujahidin insurgency against Soviet occupation. My inquiry begins by assessing the historical determinants of the relationship, arising from the colonial legacy and local interpretations of the contested spheres of legitimacy proffered by state, tribe and Islam. I then map the trajectory of the relationship from Pakistan’s independence in 1947, showing how the retreat of great power rivalry following British withdrawal from the subcontinent allowed for the framing of the relationship in primarily bilateral terms. The ascendance of bilateral factors opened greater possibilities for accommodation than had previously existed, though the relationship struggled to free itself of inherited colonial disputes, represented by the Pashtunistan issue. The most promising attempt to resolve the dispute came to an end with the communist coup and subsequent Soviet invasion, which subsumed bilateral concerns under the framework of Cold War confrontation. Viewing the invasion as a major threat, Pakistan pursued negotiations for Soviet withdrawal, aligned itself with the US and gave clandestine support to the mujahidin insurgency. External support enhanced mujahidin military viability while exacerbating weaknesses in political organization and ideology. Soviet withdrawal in 1989 left an unresolved conflict. Faced with state collapse and turmoil across the border, heightened security concerns following loss of US support, and intensified links among non-state actors on both sides of the frontier, the Pakistan government drew on its recently gained experience of working through non-state actors to attempt to maintain its influence in Afghanistan. There would be no return to the relatively stable state-state ties prevailing before 1979.

The thesis aims to address criticisms of cosmopolitanism that characterise it as an elite discourse, by exploring the role that it might play in Third World resistance movements. In doing so, it complicates the landscape of international normative theory, which has traditionally been mapped as a debate between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism. Part I of the thesis argues that cosmopolitanism and communitarianism can function as languages in which First and Third World states respectively justify exercises of power that impede the self-determination of Third World societies. These discourses of power frame the condition of postcoloniality, which might be understood – borrowing the terminology of International Society theorists – as an entrapment of Third World societies between 'coercive solidarism' and 'authoritarian pluralism'. A normative worldview committed to enhancing the scope for self-determination of such societies must be critical of the production of both external and internal environments that are hostile to the enjoyment of self-determination by Third World peoples. Part II of the thesis explores the political challenges of sustaining such a critique by studying four theorists of resistance who perceive themselves as manoeuvring between hostile external and internal environments. It analyses the political thought of Rabindranath Tagore and Edward Said, who were both leading figures of anti-colonial nationalist movements but also fierce critics of nationalism. It also studies the activism of two leaders in the field of 'anti-globalisation' protest – Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas in Mexico and Professor Nanjundaswamy of the Karnataka State Farmers' Association in India – who struggle against both national elites and global capital. Part II concludes that if resistance in the condition of postcoloniality must grapple simultaneously with both a hostile 'outside' and 'inside', it must speak in mixed registers of universalism and particularity. Cumulatively, the thesis demonstrates that the language of common humanity operates in ways that are both oppressive and emancipatory, just as the language of community is a source of both repression and refuge. Normative theory that does not seek to hold both in tension fails the needs of our non-ideal world.

Le sionisme est un mouvement politique et une idéologie nationale. Son histoire, si elle est celle d'une libération nationale, est aussi celle d'une tragédie. C'est une tragédie partagée par deux peuples dont les aspirations sont tout autant légitimes. Afin de bien comprendre et éventuellement d'être en mesure de surmonter cette tragédie, une analyse morphologique du sionisme est entreprise. L'approche morphologique de l'étude des idéologies a été développée par Michael Freeden. Appliquée au sionisme, elle fait ressortir quatre concepts fondamentaux de cette idéologie : la nation, l'antisémitisme, galout et la renaissance nationale. L'analyse de ces quatre concepts permettra de suivre l'évolution conceptuelle du sionisme à travers le temps et ses différentes variations idéationnelles. De plus, cela permettra de montrer comment le sionisme en tant qu'idéologie nationale s'est transformé en fonction des contextes sociopolitiques auxquels il était confronté. / Zionism is a political movement, a national ideology. Its history is one of national liberation but also of tragedy, a tragedy faced by two peoples with equally legitimate aspirations to the same piece of territory. In order to help understand that tragedy as well as, one day, how it may perhaps be overcome, a morphological analysis of Zionism is undertaken. The morphological approach to the study of ideologies was first developed by Michael Freeden. Applied to Zionism, it reveals four core concepts of the ideology - nation, antisemitism, galout and national renaissance. Their analysis aims to account for the conceptual evolution of Zionism both diachronically and as regards its numerous ideational variations, thus providing an account of how it evolved through a changing sociopolitical context.

This work reinterprets the idea of progress at the heart of Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalism through the lens of secularization theory, which holds that modern philosophies of progress stand on religious foundations and represent secularized vestiges of biblical eschatology. Previous applications of this insight reveal a selective pattern: Whereas totalitarian and illiberal narratives of progress such as Nazism and Marxism-Leninism have received lavish attention and spawned extensive political religions literature, liberal progressivism has been ignored. This dissertation rectifies this neglect. Initial chapters present the biblical conception of history as the myth of salvation, introduce secularization through the writings of Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg, respectively its principal proponent and main critic, and test the limits of the concept to confirm its applicability to liberal progressivism. The main part aims secularization theory at Wilson’s idea of progress in the broader context of American liberal thought. From the 17th-century Puritan vision of a “city upon a hill” to the 19th-century doctrine of “manifest destiny”, biblical eschatology defined the way Americans envisioned history and their role in it, giving rise to a sort of liberal-republican millennialism. Wilson was no exception: Considering faith essential to authentic knowledge, he regarded history as a providential process, the United States as a divinely appointed redeemer nation, and himself as a Christian statesman performing God’s work in a fallen world. His foreign policy was fundamentally a religious mission to transform international relations according to the Bible, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of salvation. The dissertation demonstrates the eschatological foundations of his statecraft through specific examples and draws attention to their illiberal and totalizing implications. Final passages note the enduring relevance of Wilson’s principles and, based on their reinterpretation in this work, reflect critically on their suitability as a guide for future American foreign policy.

My thesis explores the roles in Albanian nation-building of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin, an early-twentieth century codification of northern-Albanian customary practices, and the Pajtimi i Gjaqeve, a late-twentieth century movement to conciliate blood feuds in Kosovo. To understand them, we need to know: what both were, in their own terms; their significance; and how they relate to other aspects of nation-building, and comparative examples. I draw on participant-observation fieldwork, archive work and extensive interviews. Nation-building is necessarily complicated and the Albanian case particularly so. The existence of an Albanian nation was contested by neighbouring peoples, and its characteristics, by Albanians themselves. In this complex context, the text of the Kanun, and the Pajtimi i Gjaqeve, give us good insights into Albanian understandings of the nation, and associated nation-building activities, at pivotal points in national history. While the nation-building projects of the region had many elements in common, prominent ideas of a ‘national’ legal tradition are a distinctive aspect of the Albanian case. Both the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin and the Pajtimi i Gjaqeve need to be understood as aspects of nation-building. In the context of a crumbling Ottoman Empire, by presenting Albanian customary practices in the form of a legal code, the Albanian codifier made claims about the contents and the people from whom they came. The Kanun demonstrated the existence of a distinct people with a tradition of self-governance and mediation; and made significant contributions to the crucial process of language standardisation. In the context of the 1990s break-up of Yugoslavia, ideas of an Albanian legal tradition re-emerged in Kosovo, in the Pajtimi i Gjaqeve which presented intra-Albanian disputes as national concerns, and drew on traditional values and customary practices to effect conciliations. Subsequently, the Movement itself has become a national resource, through reference to which important ideas about the nation are expressed.

Since the early days of 1979, the Islamic Revolution of Iran has been seen as a phenomenon unique in history, one which must be viewed as somehow separate from other political Islamic movements in the 20th century. In chapter 1, this thesis problematizes this interpretation of the Revolution by analyzing it through the lens of an earlier ideological movement, pan-Islamism, and applying methods from the study of conceptual history to draw linkages between this movement and the Islamic Revolution, rooting it more deeply in the region’s political and intellectual history, and casting light on the poorly-understood pan-Islamic aspects of Iran’s Revolutionary ideology. In chapter 2, it applies methodological innovations from the digital humanities, more specifically corpus linguistics, in carrying out a series of five case studies to examine the transformation of Iranian ideology over time, by analyzing a set of five text corpora comprised of individual leaders’ writings and speeches. It further illustrates how theoretical advances in discourse analysis and history seem to be moving towards the same point, and how the application of corpus linguistic methods advances these bodies of theory. Chapters 3 through 7 comprise the case studies, which are, in order: Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the two Supreme Leaders; Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani, Mohammad Khatami, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the three Presidents since 1989. These chapters illustrate through analysis of the textual data how each political leader has adapted the received political discourse to the exigencies of their times, and how pan-Islamism itself has remained a consistent, albeit dynamic, linking thread running through the period 1979-2009. By studying pan-Islamism in the Iranian context, we can explain several features of Iranian political discourse which otherwise seem incomprehensible, and better situate the Islamic Republic within the political and discursive transformations taking place at the regional level of the Middle East, and the global level of the Muslim umma.

This thesis investigates the relationship between Fascist Italy and the League of Nations (LoN) during the interwar period, with a particular focus on the years from 1922 to 1935. This relationship was contradictory, shifting from moments of active collaboration to moments of open disagreement. The existing historiography on the Italian membership of the League has not reflected this oscillation in policy, focusing disproportionally on the crises Italy caused at the League. However, Fascist Italy remained in the League for more than 15 years, ranking as the third-largest power, and was fully engaged in the institution's work. This dissertation investigates the dynamics that developed between Fascist Italy and the LoN through a systematic study of the Italians involved. In so doing, it contributes to the historiography of the LoN and of the Italian foreign policy in the interwar period. The thesis argues that there was more to the Italian membership of the LoN than the Ethiopian crisis. It reveals the extent of the Italian presence and activity in the institution from the beginning, and demonstrates that the organization was more important to the Italian government than previously recognized. Membership of the League was essential to guarantee Italy international legitimation and recognition. Through an active appropriation of internationalism, the Italian government hoped to obtain practical benefits in the colonial sphere. The thesis uncovers the depth and variety of interactions between nationalism and internationalism in the case of Italy and the League, establishing that they did not oppose each other but rather interacted. This dissertation illustrates the complexity of being an Italian working in the League, as well as the grey areas between nationalism and internationalism evident within individual experiences. Finally, it shows the continuity of actors and expertise in Italy's international cooperation between the interwar and the post-1945 period.

Most scholarly research and international policy initiatives on small arms control (SALW) tend to focus exclusively on the supply side of arms control, while the demand side for small arms remains relatively unexplored. The general assumption is that by regulating the international and regional supply of SALW, and by preventing and tracking the illicit flow that drift into the open markets, armed violence can be reduced. However, empirical evidence suggests that attempts to control and reduce the supply of weapons through sanctions, embargoes, and regional commitments alone have hardly stopped or mitigated armed conflict. In looking at the global arms trade, one sees that often countries subjected to supply side restrictions have managed to acquire arms through finding willing sellers, black market acquisitions, and/or domestic production. This dissertation examines the factors that drive the demand for SALW in weak states by identifying the important gaps in literature on demand, providing a consistent and systematic framework to address these gaps, and applying the framework to a single country case study. The main argument in this study is that in order to understand group arming behaviour, its relationship to the dynamics of armed conflict, and the kind of incentives integral to the design of interventions that seek to influence behaviours associated with arms acquisitions during post-conflict arms management, there needs to be a better understanding of the independent variables shaping the demand for SALW. Too often, analysts conflate the reasons why groups acquire SALW with the reasons why groups go to war. However, if the act of acquiring SALW occurs at a different point in time from the process of organising and planning armed conflict, the two events need to be analysed separately. This study uses a human security analytical approach to understand sources of threats to security at the household level. It employs a nationally representative rapid household survey (n=1200) on SALW ownership, acquisition and attitudes, and focus group discussions (n=77) implemented in select locations to unpack responses which have not been thoroughly addressed during the survey. In-depth interviews with key informants, civilian firearm permit records, and public health data were also collected to supplement primary data. The design is applied to a single case study, the Casamance in Senegal. This study illustrates that an increased level of weapons accumulation does not always necessitate an automatic rise in SALW related violence or local level arms races at the outset of armed conflict. This works contributes to the growing body of literature on SALW by advancing an analytically applicable concept of demand to increase our understanding of what motivates the choices groups make in acquiring and using small arms. Lastly, this study develops a replicable template that can be applied to further research on SALW demand in conflict-ridden regions.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore and describe how bilingual programmes are organized and implemented within the unique linguistic and socio-economic case of Qatar. Specifically the thesis explored bilingual programs offered by two types of primary schools in Qatar: international schools and independent schools. Qatar launched a new initiative for educational development in 2001 but with hardly any research linked to these changes. The study was positioned within a qualitative interpretive tradition drawing on elements of ethnography and grounded theory as tools of methodology. However, quantitative methods were also incorporated within the design. The research design is structured within two main phases: phase one included statistical analysis of secondary data investigating three variables: average teaching time in the first and the second language, students’ and teachers’ nationality. Phase two utilized a multi-case study design. One school from each type was examined in depth over a period of nine weeks. Data were collected by means of school documents, interviews, and non-participant observation of English and Arabic classes. The first phase made an initial impression of the model of bilingual education followed by international and independent schools compared to bilingual typologies found in the literature. The analysis of the two cases examined revealed various differences across the two types. Findings reveal that the international school followed a partial immersion type of programme while the independent school followed a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) type of programme. The study reveals that the Qatari bilingual schools context was one of heteroglossia, with three codes in operation: Modern Standard Arabic, Colloquial Arabic dialects and English. Findings reveal that teachers and students in the international school adopt a strict separation policy between the two languages following a monoglossic belief. Language teachers and students in the independent school were found to apply a flexible language policy inside English and Arabic classes. The study revealed a gap between claimed programme features and implementation of these features. An absence of a clear language policy in the schools was also a main finding relating to the practice of these schools. In light of these findings, adopting a clear and explicit language-in-education policy should be a priority for policy makers in Qatar. The study revealed how the diglossia situation in Qatari schools is unique and therefore schools must be aware of the languages at the disposal of students and teachers. Schools must also concentrate on developing academic language skills needed for success in L2 schooling.