Throughout the last sixty years, foreign aid donations have experienced various transformations. Due to significant changes with an increased involvement of the business community and strategic...Show moreThroughout the last sixty years, foreign aid donations have experienced various transformations. Due to significant changes with an increased involvement of the business community and strategic elements, such donations can be understood with a new theoretical framework from Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). The theoretical perspective contributes to a new understanding of governments’ foreign aid behavior. More specifically, this study focuses on one part of the theory, named Institutional Window Dressing, to investigate whether governments appy masked communication efforts to maintain legitimacy while changing the initial agenda or not. The investigation conducts a discourse analysis exploring Norwegian foreign policy documents. In addition, explores the opposing forces of altruism and self-interest while investigating the governments during three different periods. The results find multiple CSR stakeholder strategies in Norwegian foreign initiatives. In addition, the policies currently indicate a clear step away from initial and altruistic aid principles towards increased self-interest forces and business components in foreign aid. However, the most valuable finding is that the more self-interest and business elements indicated, the more CSR strategies detected in the policies. While considering the strong legitimacy of Norwegian foreign policies among its stakeholders, these results can signify that high levels of CSR strategies can give a legitimate view of states' foreign aid involvement. The reason is that the purpose of the strategy is to inscribe the government with legitimacy and benefits that gives considerable room for maneuvering.Show less
This study aims to probe China’s attitudes toward Taiwan. The current literature contrasts two ideas. Realism argues that Taiwan is strategically important to China. Constructivism contends that as...Show moreThis study aims to probe China’s attitudes toward Taiwan. The current literature contrasts two ideas. Realism argues that Taiwan is strategically important to China. Constructivism contends that as fewer Taiwanese identify themselves as Chinese, China moderates its attitudes toward Taiwan. However, China should have annexed Taiwan according to realism, or keep the moderate attitude as Taiwanese people recognize as Chinese less. This study attempts to explain China’s attitudes by role theory. By investigating Message to Compatriots in Taiwan from 1958 to 2019, this thesis offers a comprehensive presentation of China’s attitude. In conclusion, China has taken a more identity-based than a relationship based role.Show less
Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) are on their way to becoming the next step in the evolution of warfare and power projection. As the increasing proliferation of armed drones in recent years...Show moreUnmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) are on their way to becoming the next step in the evolution of warfare and power projection. As the increasing proliferation of armed drones in recent years suggests, UCAVs are starting to replace the conventional military units and introduce new dimensions to armed conflicts. This study seeks to understand how these new capabilities shape the foreign policy behavior of states. By introducing three causal mechanisms, namely cost efficiency, operational and strategic superiority, and risk reduction, the study suggests that some unique characteristics of UCAVs have profound effects on state behavior. With a focus on the case of Turkey, the study concludes that the introduction of the armed drones to the Turkish national inventory played a major role in the reorientation and paradigm change of Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) after 2016.Show less
In late 2019, Chile and Colombia witnessed mass protests of historic dimensions that united different generations, ideologies, and sectors of civil society in their dissatisfaction with their...Show moreIn late 2019, Chile and Colombia witnessed mass protests of historic dimensions that united different generations, ideologies, and sectors of civil society in their dissatisfaction with their governments, the current neoliberal model, its socio-economic policies and malaises like inequality, poverty, and violence. The mostly peaceful and brutally repressed protests vary in their immediate political outcomes. While the Chilean case can be considered a success story, which achieved the start of a constitutional reform process, Colombia’s protests did not induce any significant political transformation. Why do protests with similar characteristics lead to different short-term political outcomes? Applying a comparative case study of the most-similar cases of the 2019-2020 mass protests in Chile and Colombia, this study argues that classic explanations regarding endogenous and exogenous variables of social movements fall short of explaining these different outcomes. Instead, this article suggests that short-term protest “success” and “failure” can be better explained by a society’s history of repression and its consequences for collective experience with protest mobilization. This proposed hypothesis is based on a theoretical framework combining social movement literature and research on the repression-mobilization relationship and is examined in a document analysis of material from a wide array of sources on the protests.Show less
Migrant integration has become a pressing policy concern ever since governments perceived an economic, political, and social distance between the migrant groups and native citizens, which resulted...Show moreMigrant integration has become a pressing policy concern ever since governments perceived an economic, political, and social distance between the migrant groups and native citizens, which resulted in a backlash against multicultural approaches. In Western Europe, this has led to a civic integration approach, which aims to hand civic tools to migrants in order to emancipate them to participate within the receiving society. Through integration procedures, courses and contracts the policies aim to establish social inclusion of immigrants. These civic integration policies often share the demand of the adoption of values rooted in liberal, democratic principles but at the same time take on different shapes depending on the political and historical context. While scholars largely agree on the existence and differing shapes of civic integration policies, only few consider it as a form of nationalism. This research interrogates what notions of national identity and the role of immigrants in society are apparent in both civic integration policies as well as related political discourses. Exploring how, in what context, and by whom notions of the Dutch identity and integration are discursively deployed in parliamentary debates, this research aims to shed light on the relationship between liberal values and nationalist narratives. I argue that references to moral universal and liberal principles within the debate of integration policy can be understood as a part of a broader civic nationalist narrative and sometimes shows aspects of cultural nationalism. This thesis considers the distinction between civic and cultural nationalism as ambiguous and illustrates that the intertwinedness of the two concepts can explain the transition from multiculturalism to a rejection of this approach. This research finds that civic and cultural nationalist narratives can coexist.Show less
This thesis addresses the question How has the Transatlantic Atlantic relation, in terms of security and defence, developed since Obama until Biden, and what explains the main uncovered changes...Show moreThis thesis addresses the question How has the Transatlantic Atlantic relation, in terms of security and defence, developed since Obama until Biden, and what explains the main uncovered changes with special emphasis on the threat from China and Russia? By using neorealism and balance of threat the thesis uncovers, through the use of process tracing with in-depth interviews and primary records, that structural changes have greatly influenced the relationship and will continue to do so in the future. The thesis concludes after the initial decline, transatlantic relations between the EU and USA have now mainly been driven by the Chinese and Russian threats, with a more pragmatic coordinated strategy that benefits both the USA and Europe.Show less
The European Commission aims to tackle the climate crisis with the European Green Deal (EGD). To accomplish this task, the Commission requires expertise which interest groups are able to provide....Show moreThe European Commission aims to tackle the climate crisis with the European Green Deal (EGD). To accomplish this task, the Commission requires expertise which interest groups are able to provide. These groups which represent private and public interests provide information through lobbying and exert influence in the policy process. This paper provides insight into the private actors' lobbying strategies concerning the Green Deal. The theoretical frameworks that will be utilized to describe the lobby strategies are the access of interest groups in European policies through their expertise, the institutional framework of the EU and the policy issue characteristics. These frameworks are explained to provide a better understanding of the empirical findings. For the empirical research, qualitative content analysis will be applied to four energy private associations’ documents that are available in the public sphere. Finally, the findings will lead the study to argue that private associations are highly active in the policy process of the EGD and they apply informative lobbying to target the European Commission. Further research in the lobbying behaviour and influence of the energy sector in the implementation of the EGD is also suggested.Show less
Most nations are a mix of various ethnicities and backgrounds, especially prevalent within the European Union. With the emphasis that is currently based on nationality and ‘belonging’, the European...Show moreMost nations are a mix of various ethnicities and backgrounds, especially prevalent within the European Union. With the emphasis that is currently based on nationality and ‘belonging’, the European Migrant Crisis, brought these sentiments to the forefront. With the sudden rise in asylum applications, the shock was reverberated throughout the continent. Since its creation, the EU and its member states have always been a goal destination for those seeking asylum. When member states aim to join the union, they must adhere to certain regulations with regards to various concepts, such as the right to asylum. As each nation had its own asylum system that was not unified under supranational regulations, the communication between the nations were blocked. With the realisation that a unified asylum system had to be created, the EU set out to complete this. But with the unification of asylum processes and regulations, the member states had to change their national asylum systems in accordance with EU regulation as well. But unifying more than 20 asylum systems proved difficult. As an emphasis is primarily based on the EU perspective, this research will be conducted from a member state perspective. This an attempt will be made to further identify and consequently understand the causes of variation within the member states. Instead of focusing on the EU aspect of this, an emphasis will be made in understand the variation from a bottom-up aspect, essentially from the view of the case studies.Show less
