| 1. |
- Higham, Ian, 1989-
(författare)
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Explaining Early Adoption : National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Diffusion of innovations theory concerns the process by which innovations are communicated through the members of a social system. Previous research has shed significant light on how public policies diffuse across governments over time, but there is little understanding of why they diffuse. The answer may lie in the motivations of early adopters. When governments are the first to adopt policy innovations, they lack knowledge about the political, economic, and other costs of adopting the policy. Given the potential risks, it is not obvious why a government would want to be the first to adopt a policy innovation. This thesis investigates the question of what explains early adoption of policy innovations. It contributes to the international relations literature on policy diffusion by proposing a theoretical framework for studying early adoption that consists of four motivations: 1) Normative – the government adopts a policy because of a normative position on a particular objective; 2) Reputation – the government seeks to improve its image or garner legitimacy in the international community; 3) Competition – the government seeks to gain a competitive edge on other states in “races to the top”; and 4) Domestic lock-in – the government adopts a policy to “tie the hands” of future national governments.The thesis has an empirical focus on public policies for regulating corporations on human rights issues: National Action Plans on business and human rights (NAPs). These plans are national governments’ strategies for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a set of global policy norms that provide guidance for states and corporations on addressing the human rights impacts of business. As this field is largely neglected by political scientists, the thesis makes an additional empirical contribution to the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature on business and human rights. The theoretical framework is applied in a two-step, mixed-methods research design that includes a global mapping of NAPs and hypothesis testing. The thesis then presents three sets of comparative case studies: Colombia/Ecuador, United States/Canada, and France/Sweden. In the first four case studies, the theoretical framework is used to compare early adopters and laggards. In the final case study chapter, two early adopters are compared to determine whether there is potential to explain variation within the adopter category.The findings lead to several conclusions. First, normative commitment can provide a strong motivation for early adoption, and domestic actors are particularly important for shaping a government’s normative preferences. Second, governments with concerns about their international reputations are more likely to be early adopters, especially if reputation gains are linked to a reward. Third, governments act strategically to trigger races to the top, especially when they are more economically powerful. They thus adopt particular styles of regulation early to influence the style of regulation adopted elsewhere. Fourth, the desire to lock a policy in place domestically is an especially powerful motivation for early adoption, although it is not essential. Governments may seek to lock policies in place both in advance of imminent political loss and in the wake of domestic political strife. Finally, interactions between these motivations may give them more explanatory power and may explain the relative stringency of the policy adopted. Reputational concerns and the desire to lock policies in place are especially mutually reinforcing.
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| 2. |
- Daléus, Pär, 1979-
(författare)
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Politisk ledarskapsstil : Om interaktionen mellan personlighet och institutioner i utövandet av det svenska statsministerämbetet
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines key characteristics and factors shaping the leadership style of Swedish Prime Ministers (PMs). Based on the research of the American presidency, an interactionist framework is developed which draws upon institutional theory and political psychological theory. The analysis is advanced by exploring multiple sources and is based on four cases of leadership styles: two single party Social Democratic PMs, Ingvar Carlsson and Göran Persson, as well as two center/right coalition PMs, Thorbjörn Fälldin and Carl Bildt. Leadership style is studied through a focused comparison of the PMs’ performance of four functions. Thus, the four PMs are studied as staffers and organizers of the cabinet and the Government Offices, decision makers, communicators and crisis managers. The results indicate that the office of the PM is elastic, accommodating a wide-ranging variation of leadership styles. The Social Democratic PMs display the most uniform leadership styles, but, rather surprisingly, they also have the most dissimilar leadership styles among the four cases. The center/right PMs’ approaches differ to a great extent from one another, displaying mixed forms of leadership styles. The analysis explains how the PMs’ leadership styles are shaped based on the interaction between their distinct personal characteristics and surrounding institutions. Thus, the dissertation concludes that leadership theories developed in a presidential setting are largely applicable in a parliamentary setting and that political behavior is not dictated by institutions such as formal structures or norms. The results encourage a reassessment of how personality, as an explanatory factor, is applied in mainstream political science. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the need for reconsidering the presidentialisation thesis and the notion of dominant leadership as there are alternative pathways to prime ministerial influence which are disregarded in the debate.
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| 3. |
- Hede Skagerlind, Helena, 1984-
(författare)
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Governing Development : The Millennium Development Goals and Gender Policy Change in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Recent decades have witnessed an upsurge in the use of different forms of global performance assessments as a means to influence the behavior of states. Within the area of international development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reinforced the practice of development governance through global performance indicators (GPIs) and gained considerable agenda-setting power among the international development community. Yet, knowledge about the goals’ effectiveness in re-steering domestic policy as well as their mechanisms of influence has remained limited. This study provides a theoretical and empirical account of the workings and effectiveness of GPIs as an increasingly pervasive model of development governance. Focusing on MDG 3, intended to promote gender equality, the study uses a mixed-methods design and draws on international relations (IR) theories of international norms and domestic change to explore the extent and mechanisms of domestic gender policy adjustment. It does so by 1) comprehensively mapping MDG 3-related gender policy output across several policy dimensions in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries over the entire MDG period (2000-2015), and 2) employing process-tracing to assess the explanatory power of four different causal mechanisms of GPI influence – economic conditionality, social influence, rational learning, and persuasion – in the two country cases of Kenya and Ethiopia.The thesis presents three central findings. First, it demonstrates a significant and lasting gap between domestic MDG 3-related policy commitments and efforts to realize them, highlighting the risks of superficial GPI adjustment. Second, it shows that domestic adjustment to MDG 3 was driven primarily by the interaction of the two incentive-based causal mechanisms of GPI influence, namely economic conditionality and social influence, both of which were enabled by the intense MDG monitoring and reporting. Third, the finding of material and social incentives as the decisive triggers of domestic change, and of the limited MDG 3 socialization among government actors, helps explain why gender policy implementation was modest and characterized by continued resistance and contestation domestically. The results indicate that development GPIs can be effective tools for redefining domestic policy target-setting in developing countries and thus risk undermining national policy ownership and reinforcing North-South power hierarchies. Nevertheless, when policy change predominantly is incentive-driven, it might ultimately be unsustainable since policy is likely to be re-altered as new targets or priorities are introduced, irrespective of whether actual change has been achieved or not. The thesis makes an empirical and theoretical contribution to the IR literature on the role and power of performance assessments in global governance. The findings have important implications for research and practice pertaining to the use and effectiveness of global performance assessments, the international promotion of gender equality, and – crucially – the implementation of the current global development agenda with its the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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| 4. |
- Koliev, Faradj, 1986-
(författare)
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Naming and Shaming : The politics and effectiveness of social pressure in the ILO
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the current international system, the use of centralized, hard enforcement mechanisms is often deemed either politically impossible or too costly. As a consequence, many international organizations (IOs) rely on so-called naming and shaming strategies as tools of political influence. Naming and shaming is the public exposure and condemnation of states that violate international rules and norms. It is not designed to simply renegade violators, but to produce compliance through reputational and status concerns. But how does naming and shaming work and what impact does it have on state behavior? In this dissertation, I adopt a comprehensive approach to the study of naming and shaming by examining its underlying politics and determinants as well as its impact on state behavior. In search for answers, I focus on the naming and shaming strategies employed in the International Labour Organization (ILO) during the period 1989-2011. Drawing on the theories of international politics, I develop a set of hypotheses that are tested by means of statistical as well as process tracing techniques. The overall conclusions of the dissertation are fourfold. First, the results indicate that ILO naming and shaming is used to punish violators of international labor standards. This implies that IOs, under the right conditions, can thwart the politicization of naming and shaming that has been observed in other IOs. Second, I find support for my argument that the decision to engage in naming and shaming primarily is determined by the democratic character of states. This enhances our understanding of when states participate in pressuring targets and the patterns of inter-state shaming. Third, the dissertation finds that ILO naming and shaming can improve international labor standards. The impact of ILO naming and shaming is stronger when target states are democratic and resourceful. This implies that IOs can overcome international collective problems without hard enforcement mechanisms and that IO naming and shaming, under certain propitious conditions, can produce compliance. Fourth, while democracies are more likely to respond to international criticism, not all democracies do. This dissertation demonstrates that ILO naming and shaming is a powerful tool among democracies that have strong and united labor unions. This implies that IO naming and shaming of democratic states is likely to work through domestic pressure mechanisms.
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| 5. |
- Oraby, Tarek, 1982-
(författare)
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A Darwinian Theory of International Conflict
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation aims to advance the current understanding of the general conditions affecting the likelihood of military conflicts and wars between states. To that end, the dissertation develops a Darwinian theory of international conflict. This theory is developed by generalizing Darwinian principles as they are used in the study of biological entities, and applying those principles to study states and their behavior. Though states are markedly different from life forms, the same Darwinian principles—at a high level of abstraction—provide a parsimonious explanation of states’ conflict behaviors. Based on this Darwinian theory, the key substantive argument of this thesis is that military conflicts between states are more probable when the use of force is likely to enhance the material power of the involved states. The specifics of this argument entail novel predictions about the likelihood of conflict occurrence that differ in important respects from existing claims in the study of international relations. Among other things, and contrary to the prediction of the influential neorealist tradition, this thesis predicts that states are more likely to join the strong side of an ongoing conflict than the weak. This, and other Darwinian-based predictions are statistically evaluated in this thesis using all incidents of conflict initiation, conflict reciprocation, and conflict joining occurring in the international system over the period from 1816 through 2010. The results of these statistical analyses are largely consistent with the Darwinian-based predictions. Moreover, the variables derived from the Darwinian framework are found to have a large substantive effect in predicting whether a state will participate in conflict. Indeed, the substantive effects of the Darwinian variables match (and occasionally exceed) the substantive effects of some of the most important determinants of conflict identified in the literature, such as those related to geographical proximity, the democratic character of states, and the presence of military alliances between states.
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| 6. |
- Sundström, Karin, 1982-
(författare)
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Watchdogs or Lapdogs? : National Human Rights Institutions in Africa
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- National human rights institutions (NHRIs) have important roles to play for the protection, promotion, and monitoring of human rights. These institutions are set up by governments that have a special role in upholding human rights but at the same time violate these rights. This book tells a story of the choices that governments have made when it comes to establishing and changing their NHRIs and how these choices affect the ability of the institutions to be effective and to fulfil their roles.The book argues that while previous research has emphasised the homogeneity of NHRIs, these institutions vary considerably in their type, design, and strength – and, at least partly as a consequence, in their capacity to hold actors to account for violations and transgressions. While some institutions have been designed to be little more than lapdogs, firmly controlled by the government, others have been designed, and proven to function, as true watchdogs, holding governments to account for their actions.Drawing on an ambitious mixed-methods research design, using quantitative methods to describe and explain the establishment and change of NHRIs and qualitative methods to trace how the design of NHRIs matters for their effectiveness, the dissertation makes three main contributions. First, theoretically, it presents a new conceptualisation on NHRIs, their design, and their strength. Second, it studies institutions that have rarely been studied and thereby makes an empirical contribution through both a descriptive and explanatory analysis using a new dataset on the design of 88 institutions in all African countries, from 1960 to 2014, and in-depth case studies on the NHRIs in Namibia and South Africa. Finally, the study presents a methodologically innovative approach to the research on NHRIs, especially in Africa, in its careful combination of quantitative techniques, used to describe and explain the variation within and among institutions, and qualitative techniques, used to trace how design matters for effectiveness.The dissertation presents three principal sets of findings. First, it finds that practically all countries have come to have an NHRI, with many having two (or even more) institutions. These institutions, however, have differed in terms of type, design, and, as a result, strength, even if institutions tend to be increasingly strong already when established. The analysis indicates that ties to other countries, whether in the shape of membership in international organisations (IO) or diffusion from other countries, may affect the establishment of NHRIs. Second, it finds that NHRIs are far from static as most see their design change, typically in ways that makes them more independent and more authoritative. Diffusion, official development assistance, and the respect for human rights are linked to regimes having stronger NHRIs, while IO membership see the opposite relationship. Such membership, however, is linked to a higher propensity to change institutions. Finally, the study finds that the variation in the design of institutions matters for their effectiveness, but that it often interacts with other factors, such as regime type. These findings have implications for both research and policy, for instance for the study of politicisation and backlash of both human rights in general and for NHRIs specifically.
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| 7. |
- Tamas, Kristof, 1966-
(författare)
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Migration Statecraft : The European Migration and Development Regime
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- For decades the European Union has cooperated with partner countries on the nexus between migration and development. The EU has thereby attempted to merge parts of migration policy and development policy into one framework. The logical inconsistency here appears to be that one policy in the nexus seeks to reduce migration while the other aims to promote it. This approach also constitutes a puzzle for opposing theories around the role of power versus ideas. In order to explain and understand this cooperation, the thesis explores its emergence and evolution during 1985-2020. The starting point is the assumption that the EU is influenced by domestic and global normative structures. Such normative structures may provide reasons for actor-centred statecraft. Diverging patterns of cooperation with partner countries emanate from it.The thesis applies the concept of an international regime to analyse whether cooperation rests on two incompatible core norms. Through a congruence analysis of alternative theoretical approaches, three modes of statecraft are identified. Power statecraft based on classical realism focuses on the national interest of upholding sovereignty and other domestic norms in migration control policy. These motivate the EU to use strategic action. It does so by putting pressure on third countries to reduce unwanted migration through development in accordance with a root causes norm. Ideational statecraft grounded in mainstream constructivism reveals that the EU has been socialised by the global idea that migration can bring more development through a development agent norm. Knowledge is a prominent factor in this regard. Leveraged (migration) statecraft inspired by realist constructivism is pursued so that both power and ideas are used in an amalgamated way by the EU.These findings are arrived at through a systematic analysis of narratives in Commission Communications, and by scrutinising a range of EU external dialogue processes and funding. There is a gap between narratives and practices. The regime norms are regularly subject to contestation. The EU is a norm-maker regarding migration policy and a norm-taker in development policy. It is engaged in strategic social construction through the externalisation of migration control, the mainstreaming of migration in development policy, and the conditionality of practices. The substantial empirical material in the thesis confirms the usefulness of its novel theoretical model for studying the relation between statecraft and normative structures in the quest for order and wealth. It shows how realist constructivism is relevant for both explaining and understanding EU external cooperation in this issue area.The implication is that the thesis adds to International Relations (IR) theory development by demonstrating how a synthetic theoretical approach brings added value to the study of strategic social construction. In addition, the thesis also affirms that actors and structures are co-constituted in the European migration and development regime. The EU interacts intersubjectively with third countries through a logic of the social. Mutual recognition is of key importance for international cooperation but is not always exercised by the EU. Migration statecraft has, nevertheless, made this inconsistent regime possible.
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| 8. |
- Uhre, Andreas Nordang, 1982-
(författare)
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On Transnational Actor Participation in Global Environmental Governance
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The formal access of transnational actors (TNA) to international organizations (IO) has increased steadily over the past five decades, and a growing body of literature is at the moment concerned with the theoretical and normative implications of these developments. However, very little is known as of yet about who the TNAs in global governance are, where they come from, which issue areas they focus on, and when and where they choose to participate. Using analytical tools from interest group theory, in particular a subfield called population ecology, this study describes and explains the chronological development of two populations of TNAs in global governance, namely the observer communities of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. TNAs’ financial resources and their geographical proximity to global governance venues emerge as important factors influencing their capacity to participate, causing these TNA populations to be stratified and volatile.
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| 9. |
- Vikberg, Carl, 1991-
(författare)
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Non-State Participation in International Organizations : Patterns, Drivers, and Consequences
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Over recent decades, one of the most prominent developments in global governance has been the expanded involvement of non-state actors (NSAs) in the policy-making bodies of international organizations (IOs). This trend is expected to have positive implications for democracy and effectiveness in global governance by improving participation, accountability, and representation, and by allowing IOs to draw on NSA resources to improve policy-making. Yet to date, we lack systematic knowledge about three factors with fundamental implications for the extent to which promises of democracy and effectiveness hold true. First, we know little about the patterns of NSA participation in IOs. Second, we know little about the drivers of NSA participation in IOs. Third, we know little about the consequences of NSA participation for IO policy-making. Across five independent papers, this dissertation offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the patterns, drivers, and consequences of NSA participation in IOs. Empirically, the dissertation adopts a comparative approach and engages in extensive new data collection on NSA participation in IOs. Theoretically, the dissertation develops novel theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the drivers and effects of NSA participation in IOs. The dissertation generates three main findings. First, patterns of participation display considerable variation across issue areas, policy stages, and time. The typical population of NSA participants in an IO body is small, and mainly includes NSAs representing specific interests and NSAs from the global North. Yet the patterns across issue areas and policy stages suggest that existing research on NSA participation have focused on IOs, issue areas, and policy stages where participation is particularly high, and where participation patterns are comparatively less skewed. Second, access rules, governance problems, and issue salience are important drivers of participation patterns. Reforms expanding NSA access to IOs have positive effects on NSA participation, but different types of access reforms have markedly different effects. Specifically, a deepening of the level of access has a positive effect on NSA participation, whereas a broadening of the range of NSAs with access has a negative effect. Furthermore, the nature of the governance problems and the salience of the issues an IO body addresses are central drivers of what categories of NSAs participate in IOs. Whereas participation from specific interest NSAs is comparatively high in IO bodies addressing technical issues, participation from diffuse interest NSAs is comparatively high in IO bodies addressing publicly salient issues. Third, increased NSA participation generally has positive consequences for IO policy-making performance. However, the effect of increased participation is conditional both on the initial level of participation, and on the categories of NSAs that participate. Together, these findings have implications for scientific and policy debates on NSA participation in IOs, NSA access to IOs, and democracy and effectiveness in global governance.
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| 10. |
- Waltman, Max, 1974-
(författare)
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The Politics of Legal Challenges to Pornography: Canada, Sweden, and the United States
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation analyzes obstacles and potential in democracies, specifically Canada, Sweden, and United States, to effectively address empirically documented harms of pornography. Legislative and judicial challenges under different democratic and legal frameworks are compared.Adopting a problem-driven theoretical approach, the reality of pornography’s harms is analyzed. Evidence shows its production exploits existing inequalities among persons typically drawn from other forms of prostitution who suffer multiple disadvantages, such as extreme poverty, childhood sexual abuse, and race and gender discrimination, making survival alternatives remote. Consumption is also divided by sex. A majority of young adult men consumes pornography frequently; women rarely do, usually not unless initiated by others. After consumption, studies show many normal men become substantially more sexually aggressive and increasingly trivialize and support violence against women. Vulnerable populations—including battered, raped, or prostituted women—are most harmed as a result.The impact of attempts to address pornography’s harms on democratic rights and freedoms, specifically gender equality and speech, is explored through the case studies. Democracies are found to provide more favorable conditions for legal challenges to pornography’s harms when recognizing substantive (not formal) equality in law, and when promoting representation of perspectives and interests of groups particularly injured by pornography. State-implemented approaches such as criminal obscenity laws are found less effective. More victim-centered and survivor-initiated civil rights approaches would be more responsive and remedial—a finding with implications for other politico-legal problems, such as global warming, that disproportionately affect disadvantaged populations traditionally largely excluded from decision-making.
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| 11. |
- von Bahr, Johanna, 1979-
(författare)
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International organizations and children’s rights : Norm adoption, pressure tactics and state compliance
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the attention given by international organizations (IOs) to children’s rights has increased. This dissertation seeks to identify what this means for the global promotion of children’s rights, by addressing three interrelated questions: 1. Why do IOs adopt children’s rights norms?, 2. What tactics do IOs use to pressure for children’s rights and why?, and 3. What explains state compliance with children’s rights? These questions are studied across four self-contained essays, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, and with a particular focus on the European Union (EU). The first essay provides a within-case analysis of the mainstreaming of children’s rights across EU external policy sectors. The second essay explores the content and pressure tactics of the EU external strategies for children’s rights. The third essay offers a comparative case study of UNICEF and EU pressure tactics towards the autocratic state Vietnam. The fourth essay examines the impact of international and national factors on state compliance with children’s rights. The main findings of this dissertation are four-fold. First, several global regimes affect which children’s rights norms IOs prioritize. Second, EU external policy has increasingly adopted children’s rights but not mainstreamed the issue. Third, EU institutions provide material support to international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in exchange for children’s rights policy advice. Fourth, state compliance with the right of the child to physical integrity is influenced by international factors (membership in a regional human rights court, development aid) and national factors (women's political participation, legal and religious contexts) but not regime type. Combined, this dissertation has two important research implications. First, it shows that institutionalist theory explains variations in IO adoption of and pressure tactics for children’s rights. Second, established explanations regarding IO pressure in the area of human rights, and regime effects on state compliance with human rights, do not hold for the case of children’s rights. With regard to policy, the main implication of this dissertation is that more pressure for child empowerment rights is needed at international and national level.
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| 12. |
- Westergren, Martin, 1979-
(författare)
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The Political Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions : A Justice-Based Account
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One of the most prominent political developments in recent decades is the expansion and strengthening of global governance institutions (GGIs). Our lives are increasingly governed by rules for trade, fiscal and monetary standards, intellectual property law, and norms of good governance, developed and overseen by global institutions. An important task for contemporary political theory in relation to this development is to seek to clarify the normative issues arising for and from these institutions. In particular, it is important to clarify how the problem of political legitimacy should be understood in the context of GGIs: if, and in virtue of what, there is a problem of political legitimacy in global governance institutions, what the nature of this problem is, and what political legitimacy should be thought to require in this setting. Traditionally, the problem of political legitimacy is understood as arising as a consequence of the kind of coercive power and authority exercised by the state over its citizens. Coercive power, it is standardly presumed, requires a special defense because it stands in tension with individual freedom and autonomy. As a result, state power is legitimate only if heightened normative demands are satisfied. This thesis advances the view that a similar problem arises in the context of GGIs. Despite that GGIs lack strong enforcements capabilities and coercive powers in a strict sense, and despite that they may facilitate inter-state cooperation and produce benefits for states and individuals that would be lost without them, there are problematic forms of power vested in these institutions that gives rise to demands for special justification. The background conditions in the global political economy creates a situation in which states and individuals find themselves dependent on, and vulnerable to, decisions made in global institutions. In an important sense, these relationships of dependency give rise to constraints on freedom that are prima facie normatively problematic and that require justification, the thesis argues. Thus, a problem of political legitimacy is generated at the global level. The thesis argues that in order to be legitimate GGIs must fulfill duties of justice. Only if the distribution of resources and opportunities that GGIs give rise to through their rules, policies and programs, pass an appropriate justifiability test can the constraints of freedom they give rise to be legitimate. In this way, important duties of distributive justice are generated at the global level as a consequence of the need to justify existing global governance institutions.
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| 13. |
- Blomdahl, Mikael, 1970-
(författare)
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The Political Use of Force : Beyond National Security Considerations as a Source of American Foreign Policy
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In addressing the question of what explains the tendency of the presidents of the United States to use military force on many occasions to solve international problems the realist perspective has been strongly dominant in political science. This study sets out to address and challenge whether what may be called realist privilege still qualifies as an understanding of this American phenomenon. The key research question is to investigate whether or not the understanding of the U.S. use of force can be reduced to international factors solely. This study presents the argument that perspectives or theories that do not consider and cover domestic political processes and factors in their explanations must be regarded as incomplete. Two frameworks based on realism and domestic politics are developed and used in order to answer why U.S. presidents use military force at the international level. The author applies a decision-making approach derived from foreign policy analysis in order to compare and examine the U.S. missile actions against Libya in 1986, Iraq in 1993 and Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998. This study finds clear support for the significance of domestic political factors for the understanding of the U.S. use of force. This work concludes that since domestic political factors matter, even at times of heightened concern about national security, this contradicts and poses a serious challenge to realists’ assumptions regarding the motives of states. When using a decision-making approach that opens the so-called black box, the book demonstrates that domestic political factors, such as the U.S. Congress and American public constrain presidents when authorizing the use of force. To reduce the understanding of the U.S. use of force to international factors solely is, therefore, to overlook significant contributions from the U.S. domestic political context as a source of the presidential use of force.
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| 14. |
- Larue, Thomas, 1973-
(författare)
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Agents in Brussels: Delegation and democracy in the European Union
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores delegation and democracy within the European Union (EU). The EU now constitutes one of the cornerstones of the democratic systems of its member states. The most vital instrument of democracy is lawmaking, which increasingly occurs at the European level. Many different actors contribute to the shaping of EU legislation. Among the most important of these are national bureaucrats representing their member states in Council negotiations. This thesis focuses on these bureaucrats. In particular it analyzes the delegation and accountability relationship between member states’ governments and their national bureaucrats stationed at the permanent representations (PRs) in Brussels. It is based on semi-structured elite interviews with 80 French and Swedish senior civil servants in Brussels, Paris and Stockholm.Using an explorative and descriptive comparative case study of two EU member states, France and Sweden, the dissertation seeks to describe and analyse how delegation between member states’ capitals and Brussels are affected by: i) the coordination and preparation of EU issues in member states’ government offices, ii) the organisation and functioning of the permanent representations, and, most importantly, iii) existing accountability mechanisms. Applying a principal-agent approach, this study shows that the delegation between governments and their Brussels-based bureaucrats is adequate, despite relatively weak delegation and accountability designs. The study identifies institutional divergence between France and Sweden as regards the design of national systems of EU delegation, particularly monitoring and reporting requirements, where Sweden seems to have a more developed system. Both countries have similar contract design and screening and selection systems for employing national agents stationed at the PRs. The impact of domestic coordination of EU affairs is important in order to understand processes of both preference formation precedent to delegation and of preference transfer through instructions. In this case it is obvious that French coordination is more efficient. The functions of the permanent representation also influence delegation between national and European levels. For example, administrative procedures in the PRs in Brussels have had effects on the drafting of instructions, something that is particularly notable in the Swedish case.The study identifies several central problems as regards delegation between bureaucrats in Brussels and governments in member states’ capitals. The first problem has to do with the ongoing blurring of political and bureaucratic dimensions. This inhibits the ability of principals (in our case member state governments) to hold their agents (Brussels-based bureaucrats) accountable. The second problem identified by this study as regards the working of democracy is the distinction between formal and informal processes. One conclusion is that informal processes should be formalised or made more transparent. Opacity in lawmaking processes has detrimental effects on long-term legitimacy of democratic systems. Holding de facto lawmaking bureaucrats, caught in a cross-pressure between national demands and European ambitions, accountable is essential for democracy. The dissertation includes practical suggestions as to how to improve delegation, and argues that additional research on both the roles and power of bureaucrats as well as issues of cross-pressure is necessary.
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| 15. |
- Lundgren, Magnus, 1976-
(författare)
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International organizations as peacemakers : The evolution and effectiveness of intergovernmental instruments to end civil war
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Across four self-contained essays, this dissertation seeks to identify which features make international organizations (IOs) effective peacemakers in modern civil wars. The first essay introduces an original dataset on the institutional design of 21 peace-brokering IOs between 1945 and 2010. The second essay contains a statistical study of 122 IO civil war mediation episodes, examining how variation in institutional design affects outcomes. The third essay presents an in-depth case study, comparing interventions by the Arab League and the United Nations in Syria in 2011 and 2012. The fourth essay is a statistical examination of how IO member state biases influence mediation effectiveness. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that the performance of peace-brokering IOs cannot be accurately evaluated without taking institutional variation into account. IOs display considerable heterogeneity in design and capabilities and this variation has implications for the nature and effectiveness of IO interventions. Quantitative evidence reveals that IOs with strongly centralized instruments for supporting mediation and, in particular, peacekeeping operations are more likely to end civil wars. Qualitative evidence shows that IOs with such capabilities can engage in interventions of greater scope and credibility, enhancing their ability to shape the calculations of civil war disputants. Combined, the studies suggest that although institutional capabilities are necessary for sustained intervention effectiveness, they are conditioned on other organizational attributes. IOs with high preference homogeneity can signal intervention durability, giving them an edge over IOs with divided memberships. IOs that contain member states that have provided direct support to civil war disputants outperform IOs that lack such member states.
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