RRecent years have witnessed increased French military activism in Africa. Despite efforts to normalise its post-colonial relationship and considerable downsizing of its permanent military presence, France remains a sought-after actor in solving African security problems. Notwithstanding French decision-makers repeated promises that the gendarme of Africa belongs to the past, French troops have participated in nine military operations since the turn of the millennium. Against all expectations, the Hollande administration has stood out for being particularly interventionist, concerting a military intervention in Mali and deploying a peacekeeping force to the Central African Republic within two years of assuming office. The ambiguity between an interventionist policy and a disengaged discourse suggests that French military interventionism in sub-Saharan Africa no longer follows the same automaticity as in the past. The two interventions in Mali and the CAR testify to the intense ideational struggles between different belief systems that had shaped French actorsâ minds and thus influenced decision-making processes and policy outcomes. Economic interests and neo-colonial continuity have been traditionally identified as the root causes of French interventionism in francophone Africa. For the past two decades the literature on French-African relations has been dominated by the so-called continuity vs. change debate, which scrutinises the presence of colonial / neo-colonial practices in the post-1990 French foreign policy. While ideational approaches to Franceâ s African policy are not rare, few studies have engaged with the decision-making processes that produce French military interventions. Most studies focus on policy outcomes, which are rooted in static conceptualisations of ideas that are aggregated at the level of the state. Starting from these observations, the present study argues that the mere analysis of policy outcomes tells us little about the actual motivations that drive French foreign and security policy in Africa. Instead of analysing French interventionism by relying on a predefined set of explanatory variables that are juxtaposed with a series of observable outcomes in order to falsify predefined hypotheses, this thesis explains French interventionism by drawing on actorsâ subjective perceptions and motivations. The study uses the actorsâ own utterances to explain why French decision-makers are ready to accept the considerable risks and costs involved in guaranteeing or re-establishing the security of African countries. Adopting an actor-centred constructivist ontology, this study not only identifies ideas as core explanatory variables but also traces their emergence and subsequent development throughout decision-making processes. This approach goes beyond the dichotomous view that reduces French motivations to material interests or post-colonial ambitions. Relying on discursive material such as official statements, verbatim reports of press conferences and parliamentary hearings, policy reports, and thirty-two high-level interviews with French decision-makers, the present study narrates military intervention in Mali and the CAR from the perspective of French foreign policy elites under the Hollande Presidency. This recent and largely unexplored empirical material provides new insights into Franceâ s foreign and defence policy. The study also demonstrates why and how the â Africa factorâ still matters in Franceâ s foreign policy considerations. The importance of Africa in Franceâ s security policy has less to do with neo-colonial ambitions per se, than with the understanding French policy-makers have of themselves and their country. More generally, the findings show how comprehensive explanations of foreign policy can be produced by considering actorsâ subjective perceptions. In so doing, the study not only explains Franceâ s current policies in sub-Saharan Africa, but also offers insights into foreign policy decision-making processes in general, and thereby provides further evidence about how ideational factors influence the making of world politics. Keywords: France, Africa, Mali, CAR, foreign policy analysis, international security, decision-making, political psychology, constructivism

This thesis examines the social construction of a global corruption problem by introducing a methodological framework from the field of sociology and adapting it to International Relations (IR). It provides an alternative explanation for the adoption of anti-corruption instruments in the period 1994-1997 and the international institutionalization of anti-corruption reforms. It challenges conventional views that point to the rise of non-state actors, such as Transparency International, and the end of the Cold War. By tracing the trajectory of the corruption problem, it shows that the dynamics of the 1990s can only be fully understood within the legacy of the 1970s and, in particular, the failed talks at the United Nations. The institutionalization of the global corruption problem in the 1990s was a product largely of historical contingency and state intentionality. While it appeared that a new issue has taken international organizations by storm, it was largely key state agents that were creating this change by building coalitions and maneuvering between venues. The thesis employs methods of discourse and practice analysis from sociological research for the empirical study of claims. The analysis makes use of archival data to open up the pre-negotiation talks on illicit/corrupt payments at the OECD and the UN and study the process of claims-making, as well as document discursive strategies such as controversy management and feasibility. By taking a step back from the study of norms to look at the social construction of problems, the thesis introduces new methodological tools into constructivist IR. It also provides for the integration of state agency in constructivist approaches by showing how state actors engage in ontological warfare over the definition and institutionalization of new problems. Studying the social construction of problems through the process of claims-making elucidates the power relations that inform the established definitions and the spectrum of legitimate solutions; it helps us better understand the makings of international reality.

La tesi indaga la risignificazione storico-concettuale del lavoro in rapporto alla cittadinanza nell'opera di Locke, evidenziando come l'attività lavorativa abbia operato come un dispositivo di inclusione differenziale degli abitanti del Commonwealth. Sulla linea della tipologia di lavoro, del rapporto di dipendenza/indipendenza e dello status Locke marca la distanza tra coloro che possono godere dei pieni diritti di cittadinanza, estesi anche ai ceti produttivi ma non nobili, e coloro che ne sono esclusi (i poveri e i salariati). Lo studio del pensiero lockiano, raffrontato con le considerazioni sul tema di altri autori della tradizione filosofica occidentale e del contesto inglese coevo, ci consente di vedere sotto un'altra luce il legame tra cittadinanza e lavoro, che storicamente ha contribuito non solo a comprendere nei termini della cittadinanza le classi subalterne, ma anche a consolidare le gerarchie sociali. Tale punto di vista risulta utile alla comprensione delle aporie del presente che interessano il nesso tra cittadinanza e lavoro, messo in crisi della trasformazioni sociali e produttive della contemporaneità.

The international interventions in Iraq and Libya are exemplary of a decline in the expectations that statebuilding fervour can contribute to the full-fledged transformation of societies intervened upon. From the intervention in Iraq under the banner of “armed liberalism” to the “post-interventionist” approach that guided the intervention in Libya, international actors have renounced the grand transformative narrative traditionally sustaining post-conflict initiatives. This study investigates the impact of this changing statebuilding paradigm on state formation in Iraq and Libya. Bridging scholarship on post-conflict transitions as well as on the Middle East and North Africa region, this study addresses the question of the interplay between statebuilding and state formation from a political economy perspective: the emerging forms of economic governance of Iraq and Libya are illustrative of the broader problems affecting these countries. Through a process-oriented approach, this study moves beyond a narrowly-conceived institutional analysis and brings into focus actors in transition. Based on the theoretical discussion and the empirical findings, the study shows that an actor-oriented analysis has far more explanatory power than an institutionalist analysis. From a political economy perspective, the study focuses on the role of the private sector as an agent for change in transition: the emergence and consolidation of the policy prescription of developing the private sector has heralded a re-definition of the statebuilding agenda. Relying on a broad range of sources and data including interviews, policy papers, programmes’ reports, and evaluations, the analysis contends that this novel approach adds to the contradictory character of statebuilding: private sector development remains trapped between internationally held normative models and domestic power dynamics. Most importantly, private sector development entails a more interventionist approach that contradicts the principles of the self-regulating capacity of the market. The thesis’ main argument is that by building parallel agencies and mechanisms, statebuilding deviates from the process of building states. In other words, statebuilding creates a mode of governance that undermines Weberian notions of statehood in post-conflict countries: while it penetrates deeply into society, statebuilding fails to generate state authority. Rather, it favours a dispersion of authority across levels of governance and different types of actors. The dispersion of authority in post-conflict transitions generates hybrid forms of political economy: adaptation and resistance to neoliberal norms, institutions, and models are continuously negotiated by competing actors. At the same time, the dispersion of authority contributes to undermining the distinction between the public and the private spheres: alternative forms of authority consolidate informal institutions and repertoires, and increasingly come to exercise state authority and functions. The disjuncture between state and stateness––the exercise of state authority and functions––shows the limits of analysing post-conflict transitions through the narrow lens of Weberian interpretation of the state and points to a re-evaluation of institutional analyses in light of notions of authority and legitimacy.

With the growing importance of agencies in the EU executive space (i.e., agencification), civil society organisations (CSOs) have increasingly direct their advocacy efforts towards EU agencies. Currently, CSOs are represented in several consultative bodies of EU agencies (e.g., FRA, EASO, and Frontex). In general, the role of these bodies and platforms is to “merely” assist EU agencies on fundamental rights matters. However, access to EU agencies gives CSOs a privileged position to push their claims forward. Frontex (or European Coast and Border Guard) is peculiar among EU agencies for its operative competences, and growing resources. Moreover, Frontex has repeatedly raised concerns on its accountability on fundamental rights matters at the EU borders. Therefore, in 2011, Frontex revised Regulation introduced a Fundamental Rights Strategy, and two new bodies: the Fundamental Rights Officer and the Consultative Forum on fundamental rights (CF). Aim of this research is to establish whether and to what extent CSOs influence Frontex “from within” and what are the outcomes of this interaction in terms of both fundamental rights mainstreaming and agency accountability. These issues are addressed using the literature on CSOs’ participation to EU governance, CSOs’ mainstreaming of fundamental rights, and CSOs’ potential for the accountability/legitimacy of EU agencies. Empirically, this study analyses CSOs’ strategy choice to lobby Frontex from within and questions it in light of the outcomes of this lobbying activity. Even though findings are mixed, due to the absence of CSOs’ clear advocacy goals within the CF, the relationship between CSOs, members of the CF, and Frontex remains unique in terms of mutual learning and potential for the establishment of an effective accountability relationship on fundamental rights matters. Collection of data and analysis have been carried out through expert interviews and by applying an interpretive approach to the study of Frontex official and unofficial documents.

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks the US launched a macro-securitization program to combat terrorism and included government counter-terrorism measures (CTMs) that impeded on human rights and civil liberties globally. Scholarship has recently turned to the study of CTMs and their effects on civil society organizations (CSOs). This study analyzes the relationship between CTMs and CSOs in Hungary from 2010-2018. First, it examines Hungary’s security milieu, including the formation and implementation of Hungary’s CT laws, polices, and institutions, and the terrorism landscape. Second, it analyzes the effects of CTMs on CSOs and state-civil society relations. The study uses an exploratory and explanatory research design, and mixed methods of data collection and analysis. Using purposive sampling, 240 questionnaires were analyzed across four CSO categories: peacebuilding, development, human rights advocacy, and humanitarianism. Coded data is used from 70 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with CSO officers, security agents, military personnel, legal experts, politicians, and security, civil society, and development scholars. Secondary sources include: books, articles, and grey literature. Using Chi Square and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation at p≤0.05, the former determines if CSOs were pressured to join government CTMs whereas the latter establishes whether CTMs negatively impacted CSOs’ operational capacities. Descriptive statistics is used to analyze demographic data and ascertain CSOs’ level of support or rejection of government CTMs. The findings reveal that CTMs grant the state exceptional powers that restrict CSO operations. The quantitative findings show that CSOs were pressured into joining government CTMs (X2 = 220.919). Government CTMs have negatively affected CSOs’ operational costs (59.1%). The government denies CSOs access to information regarding CTMs (35.9%), thus preventing their involvement in CTM formulation processes and implementation. 72.1% of program officers indicated they do not support government CTMs. The interviews revealed growing mutual suspicion between the government and CSOs in the context of counter-terrorism.

The EU enlargement policy aims to transform applicant countries into fully-fledged member states, committed to abiding by the EU acquis and able to take part in the EU decisionmaking and policy implementation processes. However, the contestation of the state, or contested statehood, has been identified as the key variable hindering Europeanisation in the Western Balkans. This has led the European Union (EU) to fall into cycles of mismanaged conditionality, such as in the police reform process and the constitutional reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet, the EU has learned to adapt, enacting practices of state building to cope with contested statehood. By bridging the literature on European integration, state building, and Europeanisation, this study traces the transformations of sovereignty and of the state throughout European integration, and identifies the polity ideas that underpin EU practices of ‘member state building’ in the notion of sovereignty as participation. Member state building is interested in reinforcing administrative capacities with the aim of participation in EU processes, while also enhancing the legitimacy of institutions via the export of consensus-generating mechanisms. Two case studies, exemplifying the two statehood dimensions of legitimacy and capacity, allow examining how the EU interacts with Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the framework of the Structured Dialogue on Justice and of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, the EU introduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina consensus-generating mechanisms, aimed at restoring both administrative capacities and domestic legitimacy of institutions. The role of the EU as an interested mediator and the emancipatory potential of the accession perspective set member state building apart from ‘liberal peace’ international state building. Member state building thus emerges as an enlargement-specific form of EU-led state building, allowing the EU to cope with contested statehood in its candidate countries and potential candidates and to build member states while integrating them.

Over the last fifteen years, the energy policy of the European Union (EU) has changed significantly. It has become more cooperative and integrated across the borders of EU Member States and less preoccupied with the state-centred discourse of energy-supply security. The European Commission, in particular, has policised EU energy policy by re-framing it as a complex patchwork of many energy-related policy interventions. This shift took place in the aftermath of several critical events that affected Europe’s energy supply and jeopardised its energy security. Energy policisation occurred, in other words, when it was reasonable for EU Member States to securitise rather than integrate their energy policies. The core research question of this thesis addresses this apparent paradox: to what extent has EU energy policy become more integrated, and why has this change occurred when it was least expected? This study argues that the shift towards energy policisation has been discursive. The European Commission has been able to harness unprecedented windows of opportunity created by recent crises to re-frame energy policy according to its overarching understanding of EU integration and public policy-making. The Commission has promoted—for over forty years—a vision of energy policy that spans energy security, market competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and energy efficiency. Based on a bibliometric test, this thesis identifies the type of discursive ‘vehicles’ used by the Commission to diffuse its policy ideas and create consensus about its policy agenda. This thesis also argues that the Commission has been able to use diverse discursive tactics to challenge the prevailing energy policy narrative of the Member States and drive the policy-making process towards more integration. The two case studies analyse two instances of instrumental energy policisation. The case of the wind-power offshore grid projects developed in the North Sea during the last decade shows how the Commission managed to socialise other energy policy stakeholders into its own policy agenda and urge national governments to adopt a more integrated perspective on the issue at stake. The case of the Energy Efficiency Directive negotiations, ended successfully in late 2012, shows that the Commission has also been able to challenge the governments’ state-centred discourse more ‘frontally’. The Commission re-told the story of EU-wide energy cooperation as being so necessary as to force Member States to back away from their resolve, approve the Directive, and accept the binding constraints it contains. Ultimately, this thesis tells a story of continuity and change in EU energy policy. There has been continuity in the decades-long Commission’s advocacy for a more complex and integrated EU energy policy and in its guiding belief that public policy in Europe is, under all circumstances, best made at the EU rather than at the national level. There has been change in the sudden and unpredictable effect that crisis and shocks have had on the preferences of policy actors. By telling a story of variation in EU energy policy and successful discursive re-framing by the Commission, this thesis contributes to the on-going debate on the impact of non-material factors such as ideas, meaning, goals, and visions on the outcomes of policy-making. By combining bibliometric, process-tracing, and discourse analysis techniques, this thesis has sought to provide a more reliable and replicable operationalisation of ideational elements and has expanded the prospective agenda for more cross-policy research in EU studies and public policy analysis.

This study explains the causes of war outcomes from the perspective of the decision-making process. It challenges the “democratic victory theory,†which contends that democracies are more likely to win wars because they make better decisions about initiating wars and have wider public support. Existing criticisms of this theory contest its assertion that voluntary public support and caution about initiating wars are unique to democracies and its reliance on statistical correlations. This study shows that these criticisms have not been adequate, and identifies significant flaws in the democratic victory theory in scope, application, and method and offers an alternative explanation of the quality of the decision-making process and war outcomes. I use the groupthink and organizational theories to establish criteria for assessing the quality of the decision-making process independently from regime type. I propose an alternative explanation of the quality of the decision-making process drawing on the balance-of-power theory and group dynamics. The main argument is that when external environment poses a serious threat to a state’s security and a state’s leadership is cohesive, its leaders are more likely to engage in a high-quality decision-making process, which offers a greater chance of victory. This argument not only offers a more persuasive account of why democracies win wars, but also explains why non-democracies can win wars or achieve standoffs. These propositions are tested in a case study analysis of four Arab-Israeli wars – June 1967, Attrition 1969-70, October 1973, and July 2006 – using process-tracing and counterfactual methods. The analysis reveals that democratic and non-democratic regimes do not operate in the way hypothesized by the democratic victory theory. Instead, the quality of the decision-making process is influenced by the extent to which a state is facing a serious security threat and its leadership is cohesive. The case studies also show that war outcomes vary – victory, draw, or defeat – according to the leadership’s performance of the decision-making criteria, which plays an important role as relative to other factors affecting war outcomes, such as material power, weapons technology, military strategy, civil-military relations, and national culture.

This research focuses on civic participation and its role in an emerging democracy context, and examines the forms, patterns, trends, obstacles to and opportunities for civic participation, as well as the impact of civic participation on democratization and development processes in Armenia, a post-soviet country in the South Caucasus, that has embarked on simultaneous transition toward democracy and free market economy since its independence in 1991. The dissertation suggests that civic participation is a key ingredient for successful transformations and effective reforms in both political and economic sectors in the post-soviet context of Armenia, and, therefore, more attention, as well as more vigorous efforts and resources should be directed to building civic capacity of the people and organizations in this setting. It is argued, that while, obviously, not a panacea for all development and democratization related challenges, civic engagement has a strong potential to foster those processes and contribute to the achievement of more effective, inclusive and sustainable solutions in the areas of democracy promotion and development in the transition countries. The original contribution of the thesis is an empirical study of civic participation in Armenia and assessment of its determinants and the impact on democracy and development related outcomes in the country. The primary research includes a study of civic participation in 10 rural and small urban communities across the country, and provides comprehensive information and insights into civic participation forms, pattern, determinants, obstacles and opportunities at the community level. Civic participation is further studied by examining the major civic initiatives and campaigns that took place in the country over the recent five years (2010-2015) and assessment of their outcomes and impact. The study looks closely at the determinants of civic participation, both the individual level factors and the obstacles and opportunities provided by the institutional context, and, in particular, examines the relationship of civic participation with social capital, civic education, and use of internet and communication technology (ICT). Civic participation habits and trends among the youth are explored by means of surveys conducted in 2013 and 2014. An innovative measure – a Civic Participation Score (CP Score) is introduced and computed, based on a pre-defined and operationalized set of indicators, and a Civic Participation Index (CP Index) is calculated for monitoring the changes, in separate indicator categories and overall, and analysing civic participation trends over time. The research sheds light on civic participation practice and trends in Armenia and builds a framework for analysis of civic engagement in an emerging democracy context, by identifying the participants, their motives, forms of civic engagement, its impact, as well as challenges and opportunities for participation. The study highlights the specific needs and opportunities for further civic capacity building and lays down a roadmap for further research and action in this direction.