This paper has researched the different national role conceptions of two American presidents, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with the purpose of seeing how their national role conception of the USA could affect the relationship between the USA and NATO. The theory used in this paper is national role conception from an article written by K. J. Holsti. The presidents inaugurations-speeches, first State of the Union-speeches and the presidential debate from Nashville have been used as material in this paper. It concludes that the presidents have partly different national role conceptions, with one role being the same and two being different. This paper also concludes that different national role conceptions could potentially affect the relationship between the USA and NATO.

No description available.

This study aims to investigate the financial aspects of terrorist groups through a case study consisting of ISIS, Abu Sayyaf Group, Naxalite and the Communist Party of the Philippines - New People’s Army- In particular, it seeks to examine whether recruits receive financial compensation for their participation in each case. The theory is based on  Jeremy Weinstein’s research on rebel groups, in which he classified recruits as either idealists or opportunists. Weinstein’s research shows that rebel groups with rich natural resources attract opportunists, whose motives for joining are financial rather than ideological. In rebel groups with poor natural resources the recruits are classified as idealists, whose main motive for joining the terrorist group are ideological. With inspiration from collective action theory, the free-rider problem and research on ideologies impact on terrorist recruitment, a further development has been made to Weinstein’s theory in order to make it applicable to terrorist groups. The method of choice in this thesis is structured, focused comparison which provides questions to each and one of the cases. The conclusion and main finding of this study is that each of the observed terrorist groups uses financial compensation as a method of recruiting, and that thus the recruits can be classified as opportunists. Further studies are recommended to primarily ensure the dissertation’s conclusion and increase generalizability.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

AUKUS is a security pact between Australia, the U.K and the U.S that will help Australia build and acquire nuclear-powered submarines and facilitate Australia in becoming a more capable player in the region. The aim of AUKUS is to protect the three members from the complex security challenges in the Indo-Pacific. On the day of the announcement of AUKUS the Australian Government abandoned a previously brokered contract of acquiring diesel-powered submarines with France. France did not learn of this cancellation until AUKUS was publicly announced. France responded to the AUKUS agreement in a particularly emotive way. Australia counter-responded in a similar manner. These emotions indicated that AUKUS challenged their identities. This thesis shifts the focus away from “physical security” implications of attaining a security agreement. This thesis proposes that in addition to physical security, states also seek ontological security or “stability in the identity”. The dialectical relationship of ontological and physical security will be applied to analyse the reactions of France and Australia in response to AUKUS. This paper applies a qualitative method of critical content analysis to analyse the empirical material of publications, speeches and statements from key political actors representing France and Australia. This thesis argues that France had the goal to reassert its power in the Indo-Pacific and that AUKUS created an instability in France’s identity. Australia on the other hand became more ontologically secure in response to AUKUS. The pact not only increased their physical security but also cemented their collective identity within the Anglosphere. This thesis aims to offer a critical and more nuanced reading of how ontological security and perceptions of physical security can be applied to develop more understanding of a state’s behaviour.

As Western democracies moved from a corporative to a pluralistic system of governance, the lobby organisations have gained a greater influence in the political process. These organisations have increasingly come to replace the previously institutionalised channels that represented the interests of citizens. Scholars disagree whether this is a desirable development or not. A central part of the research on lobbyism, and on the interactions between elected officials and organised interest groups, has been studying the character of the interactions and to what degree they satisfy the criteria of ‘ideal deliberation’, as defined by normative theories of deliberative democracy. However, previous studies usually only take one of the actors into account in exploring the interchange, either the elected politicians or the lobbyists, and thereby arrive at different conclusions. This thesis therefore aims to examine, within the framework of one study, how both elected politicians and lobbyists perceive their interactions, based on three dimensions of deliberation. By taking Habermas’s deliberative theory of democracy as a starting point, in addition to complementary empirical research within the field, this essay works out three analytical dimensions; (i) the motive, (ii) the means and (iii) the character of the conversation. Through interviewing nine elected politicians from the Committee on Environment and Agriculture in the Swedish parliament and six lobbyists from various environmental lobby organisations, as well as applying the three analytical dimensions to the collected material, I will examine how the real interactions meet the deliberative ideals. The results demonstrate that the responses of the politicians are generally more in agreement with the deliberative ideals than those of lobbyists. At the same time, the results reveal both similarities and differences in how they view the interactions. Expounding on this, my results are compared and contrasted to previous studies.

No description available.

No description available.