AbstractsPolitical Science

This thesis seeks seeks to answer the question of whether the Norwegian intervention in the Sri Lankan conflict from 2000 to 2008 can be conceptualised - that is, understood - as a strategic foreign policy project. Through an analysis of the guiding ideas behind the Norwegian intervention, it is argued that the claim that Norway intervened in order to make the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government settle their differences by non-violent means, needs some material grounding if it is to succeed as a strategic foreign policy project. However, it is argued that the popular conceptualisations of the Norwegian policy of engagement as a ‘globalisation policy’ and as ‘value-diplomacy’ rests upon an unjustified belief in the explanatory power of globalisation, and moreover a misconceived relationship between values and interests. As such these conceptualisations fails to materially ground the claim that Norway intervened in Sri Lanka in order to make the warring parties settle their differences by non-violent means. Instead, this thesis suggests that the Norwegian intervention in Sri Lanka should be conceptualised as a ‘projection strategy’, i.e. as policy designed to enable Norwegian policy makers to project an identity as a ‘good international citizen’ on the international stage, while at the same time enable them to deny responsibility for policy outcomes.