This research addresses the establishment of the 'Jiang Zemin Era' whereby Jiang Zemin, and the Chinese Communist Party, have attempted to relegitimise the Party and have attempted to make the Party meaningful to the Chinese populace. What is fundamental to this research is how Jiang Zemin, as the ‘core leader’ of the third generational leadership, incorporated the political thought of neo-conservatism (xin baoshouzhuyi) into the framework of Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought (MLM) ideology in order to re-legitimise the CCP. The timeframe within the research is from Jiang’s appointment as the General Secretary of the CCP in 1989 until 1995. It is important that this was a time period whereby Jiang had to consolidate, and therefore legitimise, his ‘core leadership’, and provide a theoretical platform in order to bring forth his own ‘era’. The research is predominantly a historiographical narrative, utilising both primary and secondary sources, that examines the mechanisms Jiang utilised in order to create a strong government, with himself as the ‘core’, which pursued increased levels of marketisation. Indeed, after being appointed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 1989, Jiang Zemin had to achieve two goals in order to sustain and legitimate his position as ‘the core of the third generational leadership’. First, he had to secure his position as ‘the core’ through the creation of secured networks and alliances as well as legitimise of his ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ positions in the CCP hierarchy. In order to achieve this, Jiang had to first create a sustainable power base in order to retain, and therefore legitimise, his formalized positions as General Secretary of the CCP, Chairman of the Chinese Military Commission and the Presidency. In addition, he needed to be able to create alliances with both allies and protégés as well as differing power factions, be they conservative/elder or reformist, and with other leading figures like Li Peng and Zhu Rongji. Second, in order to further reinforce and legitimize his position as ‘the core’, Jiang had to develop his own ‘theoretical framework’ for governing the country – much as Mao and Deng had done previously. Therefore, the research also examines Jiang’s usage of the neoconservatism as a means of not only legitimising the CCP’s ideological framework but also as a means of providing his own ‘guiding thought’, thus enabling him to establish his own ‘era’. Indeed, after establishing himself as the ‘core’ through the aforementioned processes, Jiang had to develop such a theoretical framework that complimented Deng’s economic reforms, especially as he was designated by Deng, yet one that retained a smattering of Mao Zedong’s ‘Thoughts’ that could be applied pragmatically during the 1990s. It can be seen that Jiang Zemin successfully incorporated the political thought of ‘neo-conservatism’ within his platform in order to achieve these ends – including the establishment of a ‘Jiang Zemin Era’. This political thought, a successor to the political theory of ‘neo-authoritarianism’, already had several adherents within the higher echelons of the CCP. Indeed, it would be Jiang’s 1995 speech, entitled ‘Stressing Politics’, that would signify the incorporation of neo-conservatism within Jiang’s platform of (self) legitimation that would initiate the successful implementation of a ‘Jiang Zemin Era’.

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Neoconservatism has long had a tenuous relationship with International Relations theory. Despite an abundance of explanatory material and its influence in US foreign policy, few works in IR have attempted to build a stand-alone theory out of it. Furthermore, previous work on the topic has resulted in an under-developed and poor understanding of the movement’s core ideas. The thesis redefines neoconservatism as a trifecta of i) a set of explanatory ideas on world politics, ii) an approach to foreign policy, and iii) an ideology that stems from the European Enlightenment, all the way to the present day. Using this expanded conceptualization, the thesis builds a theory out of what can broadly be considered an ideology. The theory takes the form of an ideal-type construct and emphasizes hegemony in the international system. It offers an explanation for the causes of alliances, as well as regional and systemic conflicts. The theory also adopts a prescriptive function and offers an account of foreign policy analysis. It is highly recommended that the assumptions of the theory that are laid out here be tested in future work.

Le travail de thèse entreprend une reconstruction critique de la philosophie politique de Leo Strauss (1899-1973) en partant de ses écrits de jeunesse allemands, replacés dans leur contexte politique et philosophique d’émergence et particulièrement dans les mouvements de la « renaissance juive » des années 1920. Au lieu de comparer son œuvre à celle d’autres grands classiques de la philosophie politique du XXe siècle ou d’analyser ces textes de jeunesse à la lumière de sa réception aux États-Unis, où lui et ses disciples sont souvent associés au mouvement néoconservateur américain, il s’agit ici de voir comment son positionnement politico-philosophique spécifique se construit dans la confrontation au « dilemme théologico-politique » dans lequel la pensée juive-allemande est prise face à la radicalisation de l’antisémitisme allemand pendant et après la Première Guerre Mondiale : judaïsme national ou judaïsme religieux ? Dans ses premiers écrits des années 1920, Strauss transforme cette opposition en celle entre Lumières et orthodoxie, entre athéisme et théisme, opposition qu’il ne cessera de vouloir dépasser à travers la construction d’un « athéisme biblique ». Nous montrons que ce n’est cependant que dans les années 1930, après son « tournant platonicien », que Strauss trouvera, par l’intermédiaire d’une nouvelle interprétation de Maïmonide, sa solution au « dilemme théologico-politique », sur des bases philosophiques pré-modernes. Avec le retour à ces Lumières platoniciennes, Strauss tente d’harmoniser Lumières et anti-Lumières, la défense du rationalisme et la justification d’un ordre théologico-politique autoritaire, projet paradoxal qui forme le cœur de son néoconservatisme philosophique. / My thesis undertakes a critical reconstruction of the political philosophy of Leo Strauss (1899-1973) on the basis of his early writings, which I contextualize in the political and philosophical frame of the Weimar Republic and the “German-Jewish Renaissance” of the 1920s. My main hypothesis is that his concept of ”political philosophy” emerges from a confrontation with the “theological-political dilemma” that German-Jewish thought faced after the First World War, the radicalization of German Anti-Semitism and the problem of being torn between national and religious Judaism. I argue that in his early writings of the 1920s, Strauss transforms this dilemma into the opposition between Enlightenment and orthodoxy, atheism and theism that he tries to overcome in the form of an “biblical atheism”. In the 1930s, after his “Platonic turn”, Strauss finds another solution to the “dilemma”, now on pre-modern philosophical grounds, through a new interpretation of Maimonides. With the return to this “platonic” Enlightenment, Strauss tries to harmonize anti-Enlightenment and Enlightenment, pre-modern rationalism and the justification of authoritarian theological-political order. My argument ist that this paradoxical project is the core of his philosophical neo-conservatism.