The Origins of Overthrow Hegemonic Expectations, Emotional Frustration, and the Impulse to Regime Change Payam Ghalehdar Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Florence, 20 March 2015 European University Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences The Origins of Overthrow Hegemonic Expectations, Emotional Frustration, and the Impulse to Regime Change Payam Ghalehdar Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Examining Board Prof. Christian Reus-Smit, University of Queensland (supervisor) Prof. Jennifer Welsh, European University Institute Prof. Roland Bleiker, University of Queensland Prof. Michael Cox, London School of Economics © Payam Ghalehdar, 2015 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Acknowledgments I remember quite vividly how I was glued to the TV on February 5, 2003, when Colin Powell, George W. Bush's first Secretary of State, presented the US case for regime change in Iraq in his much-anticipated speech to the United Nations Security Council. Owing to its significance, the meeting was broadcast live on German TV, a fate not shared by many other UNSC meetings. It was that time, when I was, like many others, closely following the unfolding events eventually leading to the invasion of Iraq a month later, that stoked my interest in a topic that I have remained fascinated by ever since, and embarked on researching in 2010 when I decided to do a PhD; a decision I have hardly ever regretted. I owe a debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Christian Reus-Smit, without whom my interest in regime change would have remained as raw and diffuse as it was when I entered the EUI in September 2010. I am grateful for his decision to supervise me and to continue to do so even after his departure from the EUI in 2013. It was him who gave me enough creative space to develop my own ideas and arguments, never imposing his own analytical framework or theoretical lens and always encouraging me to think big. It was him who allowed me to benefit from his vast experience in producing sound and convincing research. It was him who from across continents made me meet deadlines I would surely not have failed to miss. In short, it was him who showed me how to write a dissertation, guiding me through each and every step from the research question to the obligatory cover letter attached to the final version of the thesis. Whatever flawed result I offer in the following pages would not even have been half as good without his guidance and mentorship. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of my thesis committee: Jennifer Welsh, Roland Bleiker, and Michael Cox. They provided incisive and constructive feedback on my final draft, feedback I hope to be able to do justice to in future revisions. I should add that I appreciate Jennifer's kind and useful assistance with regard to career prospects, and I will not forget Roland's simple, but eye-opening piece of advice he shared with me in March 2014 on what it takes to be a successful academic. We will see how much of it I really understood. Beyond my thesis committee, I would like to thank Pascal Vennesson and Adrienne Héritier for being the first EUI faculty members guiding me through the PhD program in the initial weeks. I also owe thanks to Olivier Roy who proved very helpful in preparing my research i visit to Washington, DC. Finally, I am grateful to Daniel Deudney, Walter Carlsnaes, and Stefan Seidendorf for having introduced me to international relations during my years as an undergraduate, to Klaus Schönhoven for having ignited my interest in international history, and to Berthold Rittberger for having taught me how to do research. Much of the interest I have had in regime change and military intervention was triggered by John M. Owen's book called Clash of Ideas in World Politics , for which I would like to give him credit. The European University Institute is a unique institution and I could not have possibly known how lucky I was when I was admitted to its PhD program in 2010. Apart from the regular ways in which the quality of graduate schools is typically measured, there are other indicators testifying to the immeasurable value of the EUI. What makes it truly special is its negation of conventions, for better or worse. Not belonging to any one specific national tradition, research-related or otherwise, there is no better place for creative and innovative thinking than the EUI. In the words of my friend Bosko, "the most wonderful thing about the EUI is that it actually doesn't belong to anyone", as "the institution [the EUI] is what we make of it".1 Thanks to the generous scholarship of the DAAD, the German grant authority, I have been lucky enough to benefit from this community in many different ways, and to grow not only as a graduate student, but also as a person. I owe special thanks to my closest friends Bosko and Milena Tripkovic, Alexis Galan, Kristian Voss, Trajche Panov, and Andrea Warnecke, who, wittingly or unwittingly, taught me to become a better version of myself, and were there for me when I needed their advice, reassurance, or company. Our regular lunch meetings that more often than not led to heated discussions about random subjects, will stick in my mind for some time to come. I must thank Moritz Deutschmann, Rana Sajedi, Noelle Richardson, Nicole Jenne, Ewan Mellor, Kasia Granat, Maciej Borowicz, Sarah Auster, Kivanc Atak, Alejandro Garcia, Oliver Westerwinter, Kevin Köhler, David Kleimann, Barbara Badell Sanchez, Markos Vogiatzoglou, Argyri Panezi, Nisida Gjoksi, Jurek Dudek, and Guilherme Sampaio for providing much-appreciated distraction from my thesis, as well as Maja Spanu, Maria Birnbaum, and Patrick Herron for the meetings we had to discuss our work and for giving me the feeling that we were going through the different stages of our dissertations collectively. Last but not least, I am grateful for having been a member of the EUI rowing club. Writing a doctoral thesis requires a lot of discipline. Waking up early in the 1 "Welcome to the European University Institute!", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9N_5pVINsc (watch from minute 3:02), accessed on February 20, 2015. ii morning for an outing on the quiet Arno was not only one of the best ways to start the day, but also a constant reminder that life is beautiful when body, mind, and soul are in balance. This thesis equally benefited from two research stays away from the EUI: one at the George Washington University in Washington, DC and one at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. At GWU, I was fortunate enough to spend the third year of my doctoral research as a visiting scholar at the Elliott School's Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, one of the most vibrant places in the field of international relations and security studies. There, I was given the opportunity to present parts of my work in the institute's weekly workshop and to receive incisive comments. I would like to thank all participants of the workshop, especially Charles Glaser, the institute's director, as well as Henry Nau, Alexander Downes, Stephen Biddle, Martha Finnemore, Elizabeth Saunders, Michael Barnett, Harris Mylonas, and Lindsey O'Rourke, who were all kind enough to provide advice and comments in one-on-one meetings. At the University of Queensland, I was a visiting PhD researcher at the School of Political Science & International Studies from February to April 2014, where I presented the first draft of my theory chapter in the History and Theory Reading Group. I would like to express my gratitude to the reading group's participants for their insightful comments, and to Emma Hutchison for her useful advice on how to grasp emotion both empirically and conceptually. A special 'thank you' goes out to Lorenzo Cello, Nico Taylor, Linda Mantovani, Emily Tannock, Bronwyn Crook, Nienke van der Have, Meru Sheel, and Dyonne Pennings for helping me get my work-life balance right. Many people contributed to this thesis without being in the spotlight. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Maureen Lechleitner and Gabriella Unger for their administrative assistance and for putting up with my occasional sloppiness. I owe many thanks to the EUI library staff, especially to Ruth Gbikpi and Jiri Vankat, for their excellent service and good- morning smiles, and the library staff at the Library of Congress, the National Security Archive, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. In the most fundamental sense, this thesis would not have been possible without my parents and my sister, without their unconditional love and never-ending support. I thank my sister for being the backbone of my moral and intellectual rectitude and my parents for instilling in me the intellectual curiosity that guided this project. More importantly, I am forever indebted to them for giving me and my sister the opportunity to realize our hopes and dreams, sparing us from the heavy burden of the sense of displacement they themselves have had to bear ever iii since their hopes and dreams turned into a bitter nightmare. In terms of perseverance, integrity, and steadfastness, they are my ultimate role models. I wish I could make them half as proud as I am of them. iv Abstract Why has regime change, defined as military intervention aimed at forcibly transforming a target state’s domestic political authority structure, been a long-standing practice in US foreign policy, used roughly two dozen times since 1900 despite its limited success in producing peace, stability and/or democracy? Extant theories fail to provide sound answers.