Comparative military interventions : the question of legitimacy

Abstract

This thesis examines theoretical explanations for why military interventions have taken place in the 'long-decade' following the end of the Cold War. International relations paradigms are evaluated in terms of whether their theoretical precepts provide a potential logical motivation for intervention in each case, based upon the available physical evidence and rational modelling. For the first time the importance of normative justifications for intervention will be assessed in terms of the likelihood of them forming the actual motivation for key decision-makers to make the decision to intervene, using the very rational and empirical methods utilised by critics of new world order claims and that have hitherto been shunned by its advocates. This thesis will attempt a measurement of the fit between theoretical models and empirical evidence in the form of analysis of case studies of "humanitarian intervention" or normative war fighting; a category particularly apt for study, as it can be made to fit with the world-views of all competing paradigms.