From the barrel of a gun: A regional and normative analysis of regime intervention, 1815--2001

This dissertation examines regime interventions, those military interventions explicitly directed at regime change in a target state. I look at all regime interventions occurring between 1815 and 2001 and argue that these interventions are best understood as directed at broad regional stability. These are not interventions with a simple dyadic motivation. Furthermore, I argue that changes to norms of sovereignty, humanitarianism, and multilateralism have affected the practice of regime intervention and have, among other things, made it more difficult over time for states to achieve the signaling that drives the interventions' intended effects. I use both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to prove these claims and end the dissertation with a case study of the current American regime intervention in Iraq.