The impact of the global war on terror on the primary institutions of international society

This work builds upon Holsti's model of institutional change to develop an analytical framework for studying normative transformations within the English School tradition. This framework is used to probe how the Global War on Terror (GWoT) impacted the primary institutions of international society. The model uses primary institutions as markers of change and also adopts Holsti's categories of change. However, it further incorporates any increase/decrease in the capacity of norms, rules and values of primary institutions to mediate social reality as a variable to evaluate the direction of change. Additionally, the model uses three analytical-lenses to study primary institutions: the creational environment (i.e. the socio-political context in which norms are created and embedded), the substantive content (i.e. the cognitive content of these norms and values) and operationalisation (i.e. how these norms and values are interpreted and applied). This model is then applied to study how the GWoT impacts six primary institutions: international law; great power management; war; diplomacy; liberal markets and environmental stewardship. This empirical application reveals that while the GWoT significantly affected the first three primary institutions under study, the latter were only marginally impacted by it. It concludes that actions adopted under the GWoT, and most importantly state reactions to the GWoT, both constructed a creational environment favourable to normative institutional changes. Secondly, state actions under the GWoT also added new norms to the substantive content of the institutions studied and generally tended to reinforce statehood, increase pluralism and compound the existing hierarchy in interstate society. Finally, the operationalisation of norms and values under the GWoT also aggravated existing normative tensions and contradictions in interstate society. While this work's specific conclusions may be restricted to this particular case study, this model can also be applied as a broad analytical framework to study institutional change in interstate society.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo