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At the beginning of the 21st century, the US led invasions into Afghanistan and Iraq. While both invasions were initially framed as security imperatives, the subsequent occupations were situated within a narrative of democracy promotion, liberalism and development. The act of invasion and the imposition of democratisation, raises the question can ‘democracy by force’ be reconciled in international law and international relations? There is little agreement of a theoretical definition of democracy in any discipline. The democracy which this study examines is both specifically Anglo-American and ‘liberal’ in terms of its origins and structural understanding. The form of democracy brought to Afghanistan and Iraq was a specific construction undertaken by the occupier, containing ‘exceptional’ characteristics and values: ‘freedom’, ‘prosperity’, ‘capitalism’, and ‘peace’ It is this combination of norms reflexively described as democratic, that was subsequently adopted by the UN and the development community. Revisions to the international legal system sought to legitimise the use of force to prevent gross violations of human rights. This was accompanied by the reframing of the State as illegitimate, where it pursued illiberal policies. In the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq prohibitions on the use of force and transformative occupations were disregarded, in part to accomplish regime change, with far reaching implications to both international law and the international order. In addressing these events this thesis examines how democracy has been described over time, the form which has been exported and the claims made for it. It asks, where is democratisation situated in international law, and is this understanding affected by its imposition? Finally, it considers whether and what kind of democracy was delivered in Afghanistan and Iraq and how did the occupiers principles interact with overriding interests.

This doctoral thesis asks what ideational factors underlie parties' national role conceptions in narratives on violent conflict and crises abroad. It explores French and German parties' national role statements in the case of the 2011 military intervention in Libya. The thesis lies at the intersection of Foreign Policy Analysis research focused on domestic foreign policy actors, International Relations studies on ideas in international relations and Party Politics scholarship looking at international issues in party campaigns and competition. It develops a theoretical framework using role theory and combines it with scholarship on international norms and ideologies. It contributes to role research on domestic role contestation and role socialisation. It adds a study of parties' national roles to this scholarship. It also advances the conceptual development of the role theory approach through an exploration of the responsibility concept within national roles. The main finding of the thesis is that parties often agree on the national role but sometimes interpret the same role differently. Moreover, sometimes parties can propose alternative national roles. The theoretical framework permits to trace variation in role interpretation to foreign policy traditions, international norms and ideologies. The central argument is that parties do not necessarily agree on the national role and its interpretation even when confronted with the same situation and events. It suggests that variation in national role interpretation can matter because parties contest the national role and, thereby, may point to role conflicts and dilemmas that may have an effect on future role selection and performance.

This thesis investigates the factors influencing Soviet decision-making leading up to the 1988-1989 withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. It asks whether and how cognitive learning theory can explain why Soviet leaders made the decisions they did, and specifically why they agreed to withdraw troops under the conditions of the 1988 Geneva Accords, which contained provisions they had previously considered unacceptable. I use Soviet government documents drawn from two different digital archives to analyze the evolution of Soviet thinking on Afghanistan and to trace patterns of change and continuity across ten years and three successions of power. I evaluate the evidence for two different types of learning in Soviet decision-making: strategic learning, which includes changes in the overall perception of Afghanistan and the long-term goals of the Soviet intervention, and tactical learning, which involves learning about the conditions under which withdrawal is possible and the concessions that are necessary to secure it. I also compare cognitive learning theory against a competing explanation: changes in Soviet internal politics that empowered advocates of withdrawal. I conclude that both strategic and tactical learning influenced Soviet behavior in Afghanistan and contributed to the decision to withdraw under the terms set at Geneva. I suggest that cognitive learning explanations are not incompatible with the influence of internal politics, and that both factors played important causal roles. I then discuss the implications of this research for an understanding superpower intervention and withdrawal more generally.

The factors that influence American public approval for military humanitarian interventions are wide-ranging, with studies showing the importance of domestic and international effects. A gap in the current body of literature is the potential influence of the president’s partisan identification on public approval. This thesis investigates this connection using the cases of U.S. military humanitarian interventions in Somalia and Bosnia. The hypothesis of this work is that partisan identification with the president was an important factor in approval for the military humanitarian interventions in Somalia under George H.W. Bush and Bosnia under Bill Clinton. Informal comparisons between multiple polls from each intervention and measures of bivariate association found evidence of a positive relationship between partisan identification with the president and approval for the intervention. Multivariate logistic regressions provided mixed results. Other potentially important explanatory factors controlled for in the analysis include attitudes to domestic and foreign policies, age, sex, and education. Partisan identification with the president was not a statistically significant factor in approval in Somalia under Bush but was in Bosnia under Clinton. The divergent results lead to the conclusion that partisan identification with the president can be influential the formation of public opinion, but a different combination of demographic and attitudinal factors drove approval for each intervention.

In the late 1950’s, African nations began to gain independence from colonizers and as such, assistance was needed. France and the Soviet Union were among the nations that took advantage of the opportunity. In jumping in to assist the newly independent nations, they were given the opportunity to increase their status as world leaders and strengthen their global economies and politics. Beginning with an analysis on French and Soviet involvement on the African continent from 1960 to 1990, this essay explores the reasons for involvement, the policies implemented by each country, the advantages Africa provided, and the extent to which each was able to influence the budding nations. In its conclusion, this work compares the French and Soviet involvement in Africa’s post-colonialism.

Why is there apparent inconsistency in U.S. presidential military intervention decisions when cases exhibit similar characteristics that other scholars have argued should be determinant, such as the magnitude of the conflict, economic ties, or domestic political support? For instance, President Clinton committed troops in Haiti (1994) but not in Rwanda (1994); and likewise, President George H.W. Bush intervened in Somalia (1992) but not in Bosnia (1992). Previous studies have held an implicit assumption: if the demand for action is high enough, an intervention will occur. This study moves the operative element of the decision calculus from demand to feasibility, attempting to answer the primary research question: what impact does operational feasibility have on U.S. presidential military intervention decisions? This research identifies what I call “feasibility factors,” which are based on military planning considerations and provide observable measures for the expectation of intervention success. Successful interventions are those that achieve the intervention mission within a short time horizon at acceptable costs. Using a mixed methods design incorporating both Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and an examination of National Security Council and presidential meeting archives, the study finds that the seemingly inconsistent behavior disappears when feasibility is included. Demand for intervention is necessary, but insufficient; only when there is enough demand and the operational feasibility factors are positively aligned do presidents intervene. This study provides three main contributions. First, it argues for feasibility’s inclusion in future intervention-focused studies. Second, this work elucidates the most prominent feasibility concerns for the policy community: the conflict type, whether there is a regime to intervene on behalf of, the enemy’s organization, and the logistical accessibility of the crisis region. Finally, this work provides an alternative logic for why presidents choose inaction despite overwhelming demand for intervention. Advisor: Ross A. Miller

Conventional wisdom assumes that national security justifications are the most effective way to bolster support for military action and uniformly persuade the domestic audience. Using an original dataset of justifications for all potential U.S. interventions, 1990-2013, I show that contrary to these expectations U.S. presidents employed humanitarian justifications in every military intervention of the past 25 years. Why are humanitarian justifications prevalent, even in popular, security-driven interventions? To what extent do these justifications facilitate the use of military force? Combining content analysis, survey experiments, and archival research, I focus on the domestic audience to argue that humanitarian justifications are necessary to build a coalition of support from a public with diverse foreign policy beliefs. In particular, humanitarian claims resonate with individuals who are unconvinced by security justifications and are otherwise active opponents of intervention. As a result of their broad appeal, presidents have an incentive to emphasize humanitarian claims as often as possible; however, the same constituents that make humanitarian justifications necessary also constrain their use. Specifically, individuals with cooperative internationalist values are uniquely influenced by humanitarian claims, but punish leaders who misuse humanitarian explanations. The findings have implications for whose support matters most in the build-up to military interventions and the conditions under which presidents can use moral appeals to obtain this support.

By some accounts, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) created a paradigm shift in American foreign policy whereby terrorist organizations receive a lot more attention than they did prior to 9/11, especially in terms of U.S. military intervention. Moreover, some argue that this represents a shift in international politics whereby non-state actors have more power than they did before 9/11. However, others maintain that terrorism in the post-9/11 era is indicative of continuity in international politics. They argue that despite any of the immediate consequences of using military force to respond to the 9/11 attacks, the distribution of capabilities among states in the international system has not changed from the pre-9/11 era. This thesis empirically tests the notion of continuity in international politics through a case study of U.S. military intervention and threat perception. This research analyzes how these two concepts evolve from the post-Cold War era into the post-9/11 era. To the extent that U.S. military intervention and threat perception are comparable before and after 9/11, this is indicative of continuity in international politics. Conversely, contrast across 9/11 indicates change in international politics. Though this thesis finds considerable empirical evidence supporting continuity in international politics in the post-9/11 world, it also finds empirical evidence for change which cannot be ignored.

This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts for humanitarian motives in a less threatening security context. To test these hypotheses, I compare U.S. military intervention in three temporal contexts reflecting more threatening security contexts (Cold War and post-9/11) and less threatening security contexts (1992-2001). Results of logit regression analysis reveal that a conflict’s connection to a threatening actor or ideology is the most statistically and substantively significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, both in more and less threatening security contexts. They also indicate that humanitarian motives are not a statistically significant determinant of U.S. military intervention in civil conflicts, even in a more benign security environment. These findings imply that U.S. unilateral military intervention is reserved for more direct national security threats, even those that are less grave, and that the perception of the U.S. as “global cop” may be misleading, at least in terms of unilateral military intervention.

Ethnic conflicts that lead to civil wars or other forms of internal turmoil elicit myriad forms of military intervention from the global community. Sometimes the United Nations decides to deploy peacekeeping troops to a region or authorize individual states to use their military resources to quell a conflict. Usually, a state will unilaterally decide to launch an intervention before the United Nations makes a decision, a situation that generally occurs when the state has a direct interest in the conflict. Although many external factors play into these decisions regarding intervention, four internal factors have been identified as having a strong influence on these decisions: the failed state status of the region in conflict, the duration of the conflict, a request for external help, and whether a major world power is already involved. The United Nations is more likely to intervene in a critically failed state whose ethnic conflict has been enduring for years, where a state will send its military in unilaterally if the conflict is new (months old) and a request for military help is made from one of the parties already involved.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to explain the reasons for both interventions and examine the background that led to these actions with respect to events that had taken place in Russia in 1917 and 1918 and the reaction to these events by the Allies, the American Government, and the American public.