Abstract

This dissertation examines the emergence of revisionism in the foreign policies of the great powers: it is concerned with the rise of 'challenger' states. Current approaches to the rise of challengers are if generally useful also incomplete, leaving the emergence of several great power challengers not fully explained. This dissertation offers a new explanation, not as a replacement but as a complement to these theories, and in doing so accomplishes two tasks: first, it explains cases previously unaccounted-for; and second, it does so in a fashion that acknowledges the co-determination of domestic and international politics. The new model suggests that the seeds of challenges to international orders are often found in the wartime experience itself, in social pacts between elites and societal groups struck to achieve mobilization requirements. Violation of these pacts in the postwar period can in turn generate powerful political movements for the overthrow of both the domestic and international postwar orders. The explanation offered by this model is then applied to five cases of great power behaviour after major wars. While imperfect in its ability to account for great power behaviour in all these cases and thus requiring refinement, the model obtains sufficient support to warrant further exploration of these and other cases in future studies.