In the past decade, the relationship between the United States and Iran has been through significant changes, particularly playing out in the realm of nuclear proliferation. The establishment of...Show moreIn the past decade, the relationship between the United States and Iran has been through significant changes, particularly playing out in the realm of nuclear proliferation. The establishment of the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under the Obama administration, thought to be the start of a new chapter of US-Iran relations, was uprooted by the Trump administration almost immediately after the change in leadership. In order to understand how this radical policy shift is possible, this thesis analyses and compares the policy discourses on Iran of the Obama and Trump administration in terms of Self-Other identity construction. Taking a poststructuralist approach to policy discourse analysis, the ontological link between discursive identity and policy decision making is the central subject of study. The thesis concludes that the decisions to establish and withdraw from the JCPOA are constituted by discourses which in fact construct a highly similar radical Self-Other relationship between the US and Iran, within which the US is positioned as having to change the behaviour of the Iranian regime as arbiter of the Middle East and ally of the Iranian people. Crucially, they differ when it comes to the use of orientalist binaries, the capacity for change attributed to the Iranian regime (temporal identity) and the position of the US vis-a-vis the international community (ethical-spatial identity), which is congruent with the diverging policy decisions on the JCPOA.Show less
Vladimir Putin has become one of the most significant Russian leaders. He has been at the head of the largest country in the world for nearly twenty years and has brought autocracy, according to...Show moreVladimir Putin has become one of the most significant Russian leaders. He has been at the head of the largest country in the world for nearly twenty years and has brought autocracy, according to his critics, and stability, according to his supporters. This research will remain focused on Putinism as an influential mechanism on other heads of state, informing the research question: To what extent has Putinism influenced the policies of Viktor Yanukovych and Ramzan Kadyrov from the year 2000? This topic is relevant as Putin’s charisma does play a severely important role in modern geopolitics, which has affected not only political opinions, but also wars and revolutions such as the Euromaidan Revolution, the annexation of Crimea and the war with Chechnya. Putinism is therefore presented as the theoretical framework of this research. For the purpose of this thesis, a comparative case analysis is put in practice, using the cases of Ukraine and Chechnya in order to answer the research question. Lastly, the conclusion will sum up the findings proving that both Yanukovych and Kadyrov were heavily influenced by Putinism.Show less
The world looks away as blood flows in Burundi’ (Graham-Harrison, 10th of April 2016, The Guardian). Since 2015 the safety situation in Burundi is deteriorating, yet the international community...Show moreThe world looks away as blood flows in Burundi’ (Graham-Harrison, 10th of April 2016, The Guardian). Since 2015 the safety situation in Burundi is deteriorating, yet the international community doesn’t act upon it, even though scholars and political observers warn that it is important to sustain international attention to Burundi (Lotze and Martins, 2015, p. 268). Moreover, Burundi is ranked in the top 3 of under-reported crises of 2017 (Ratcliffe, 2018). whereas, at the same time the country is also reported to have one of the highest rates of children with stunted growth caused by hunger or undernourishment, namely 55,9 percent (Global Hunger Index 2018, p. 16-17). Thus, while the international press hardly mentioned the country, on the 14th of June 2019, there was a briefing of the Security Council on Burundi in which the Assistant Secretary-General, Mr. Fernandez-Taranco, voices his concern over human rights and the humanitarian situation in the country. With the upcoming elections in 2020 Mr. Fernandez Taranco is worried about the ‘many reported violations of fundamental civic and political freedoms’ and the increasing food insecurity (Taranco, Briefing Security Council on Burundi, 14th of June 2019). Aren’t these enough reasons to wonder why there’s no UN peacekeeping operation (PKO) deployed in Burundi? Intervention, in the form of a peacekeeping operation can, in some cases, meet a lot of criticism; intervening in another country is a difficult task. Yet, sometimes intervention by a UN peacekeeping mission is the only option to bring enduring peace. But how does the UN Security Council (UN SC) decide in which country they will deploy a PKO? This thesis will focus on two aspects: first, the role of the member states of the Security Council, in which national interest often plays a role in their contribution during the UN SC meetings (Jakobsen, 1996). Second, this thesis will focus on another actor that might influence the decision-making process of the Security Council: the media. This thesis aims to focus on an understanding of the decision-making process of the UN Security Council that goes beyond regular realist interpretation in which the member states are central; this thesis will focus on the construction of the discourse. Therefore this research question is proposed: How does the discourse used in the UN Security Council meeting records and international media contribute to the context in which the UN Security Council decided to start MINUSCA and end ONUB? Can these discourses explain why there’s no Peacekeeping Operation deployed in Burundi recently? This will be investigated by analyzing UN Security Council meeting records and media coverage of these two situations. I will use a post-structuralist approach because its focus on language and discourse can reveal constructed ideas of how respectively the members of the UN Security Council approached the MINUSCA and ONUB debate, and how the media portrayed the situation in CAR and Burundi.Assuming that the discourse used by the members of the Security Council and in the media contributes to the decisions made about PKO’s, results of this research will be interesting for states who believe deploying a PKO in their, or a neighbouring country, is necessary. In that case, it might be beneficial to seek attention from international media, preferably media in countries that are UN SC member. Furthermore, I hope this research will contribute to abolish inequality in cases like Burundi; even if there’s little attention in the UN SC and little media coverage, deploying a PKO could still be justifiable. After elaborating on my methodology, I will discuss the ethnic conflicts in both Burundi and CAR and end with the similarities and differences between those cases. Secondly, I will elaborate on the first and second generation of PKO’s. Thirdly, I will elaborate on media influence on foreign policy, and in particular on PKO’s and the Security Council. Subsequently, this thesis will analyze the UN SC meeting records and media coverage and end with the conclusion in which I present recommendations for future decision-makers on PKO’s and further research.Show less
