Cynthia Lockeyear, PhD, MA, AFHEA, MCIPR
Department: Politics
Discipline: Politics
Research Centre/Unit: Centre of Advanced International Studies
Project Summary
My doctoral research thesis was entitled: Wars of Words: An explication of the complex interface between Transnational Advocacy Networks and the contemporary international system. It contributed a new understanding to the role of modern communications technology and techniques in influencing the policies, strategies and effectiveness of transnational advocacy networks in the international policy-making arena as technology advanced in recent decades. This investigation involved taking a novel, interdisciplinary, approach using a combination of theory and methodologies from the International Relations, Communications, and Complexity paradigms. The thesis is available on the University of Exeter's online archive at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/17590
My MA dissertation was entitled: Troubled Waters: The role of communication in influencing tensions between Cornish Fishermen and the European Union. This involved reflections on 35 years of unresolved acrimony and periodic activism in the relationship between Cornish fishermen and the EU and the application of a novel, cross-disciplinary, approach combining International Relations and Communications theory and methodology. The extremely encouraging results obtained with this approach was a leading factor in applying the same basic approach to my doctoral subject, the tempting seeds of which emerged in the course of my Masters research.
Wider Research Interests
My research interests range widely across the Politics and IR landscape, particularly focusing on the application of complexity theory to international political analysis and contemporary debates on globalisation, development and security issues. They also include the development and communication of foreign policy and political messages in national, international and supranational situations; political leadership; the evolution of democracy concepts and practices; the fitness, significance and development of supranational organisations; interfaces between diverse cultures and political philosophies in globalised settings; institutional capacity-building in civil society; mediation and conflict resolution theory and praxis, and futuristic socio-political models.
