Child soldiers and military actors

The professional militaries of Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom have increasingly recognized that children can become part of opposing forces and face the operational and policy decisions regarding their detention. These Anglo-Saxon, consolidated, liberal democracies demonstrate a high level of similarity, in terms of their shared norms and values, and common security practices. Nonetheless, these three countries have developed distinct policies on the detention of child soldiers. This dissertation addressed the question: what explains the cross-national variation in the development of policies on the detention of child soldiers in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States?In order to answer this research question, I proposed a series of hypotheses to examine the role of three strategic actors in the policy process: military lawyers, government officials, and representatives from non-governmental organizations. I analyzed data that required both quantitative and qualitative methods to test these hypotheses. Specifically, qualitatively, I performed a content analysis of a total of 69 semi-structured interviews; and, quantitatively, I used NVivo 11 coding query tools to generate numerical data to present aggregate results. These methods allowed for comparing the roles of these three actors in each national context. I utilized the comparative case study method to identify causal patterns across these three countries to offer a second test of these hypotheses. My dissertation suggested an explanatory relationship between NGOs’ choice of strategies and the policy outcomes in each of these three countries. First, the NGOs’ choice between different types of framing and how to engage in framing contests, during the agenda-setting stage, had far-reaching implications for the policy-making process. It defined the key terms and demarcated boundaries of the issue in a policy domain that abounds with contested elements. Second, the selection of strategies and decision-making venues simultaneously influenced the NGOs’ ability to shape policy outcomes during the policy formulation stage. Third, the application of the strategy of ‘naming and shaming’ during the policy implementation stage remained effective only if the NGOs applied it in combination with other policy instruments, such as the use of domestic litigation. This dissertation hopes to make an empirical contribution to the debate on how policy actors engage and shape outcomes in contested policy domains, which require balancing national security and human rights agendas.

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