| dc.contributor.author | Black, David Ross. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:35:00Z | |
| dc.date.available | 1991 | |
| dc.date.issued | 1991 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINN71462 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/55257 | |
| dc.description | This thesis investigates the foreign policy roles and relevance of middle-sized Western states, or "middle power", primarily on the basis of a comparative analysis of the policies of Australia, Canada, and Sweden toward Southern Africa during the 1980s. It argues that these policies, and indeed Western middle power foreign policies more generally, have manifested distinctive "internationalist" behavioural tendencies. Borrowing from the work of Robert Cox, it argues that this "middle power internationalism" has developed as a result of pressures operating on the state from three crucial "spheres of activity": the "world order", or international politico-strategic environment; "social forces" generated by the world political economy; and values, interests, and capabilities deriving from their "forms of state", or state-society complexes. However, the internationalist behaviour which issues from these pressures has been somewhat selective and inconsistent, focused in "niches" which are particularly suited to the interests and capabilities of the state in question. The empirical analysis of the three case studies--Australian, Canadian, and Swedish policies toward Southern Africa--demonstrates that these policies can be explained largely on the basis of similar internationalist interests and behavioural characteristics, in combination with distinctive individual and political cultural influences in each. It also supports an argument that in certain propitious issue areas, middle powers can play foreign policy roles of superficially surprising significance. | en_US |
| dc.description | Part I explores the historical and theoretical underpinnings of "active internationalism" in middle powers. It also assesses the prospects for these states' internationalist tendencies in the context of a rapidly changing, "transitional" global order. Finally, it compares some key aspects of the international, regional, and domestic contexts within which the foreign policies of Australia, Canada and Sweden have been shaped. | en_US |
| dc.description | Part II describes the Southern African context towards which the regional policies of the case study states were directed in the 1980's, and the several policy avenues open to extra-regional states during this period. It then assesses Australian, Canadian, and Swedish policy in several key dimensions: sanctions, diplomacy, development, and security. The thesis concludes with a summary of the main empirical findings and theoretical and analytical implications. It also discusses the irony that, while the magnitude and nature of contemporary global changes suggest that the characteristics associated with middle powers could be increasingly important, these same global changes may be weakening the capacity and inclination of Western middle powers, at least, to respond creatively to them. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1991. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Political Science, International Law and Relations. | en_US |
| dc.title | Australian, Canadian, and Swedish policies toward Southern Africa: A comparative study of "middle power internationalism". | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
