New Zealand's Green Party and Foreign Troop Deployments: Views, Values and Impacts

Abstract

this thesis reviews and analyses the Green Party of New Zealand‘s views on the use of force in international relations, particularly when that involves the deployment of NZ troops. It addresses three key questions: 1) When does the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand believe it is legitimate to use military force overseas? 2) How have the Greens attempted to influenced the public debate and the parliamentary decision making process regarding to foreign troop deployments? 3) What impact (if any) did their actions have in the three cases of Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands?

In order to answer these questions adequately, the thesis begins with an introductory review of New Zealand‘s foreign relations, highlighting key relevant events in the country‘s diplomacy. This chapter will be followed in chapter three by a brief introduction of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, its origins, evolution and influences. The main part of the thesis, however, will focus on the country‘s recent foreign troop deployments in East Timor (chapter four), the Solomon Islands (chapter five) and Afghanistan (chapter six) and the actions the Greens undertook to support or oppose those deployments. How the particular political circumstances shaped the nature of these conflicts and the responses to them will be examined in the individual chapters. Finally, in the conclusion I sum up what I believe is the Green Party‘s position and influence on the use of military force. I argue that the Greens have developed a coherent approach to the issue, giving greatest importance to the international legitimacy of the intervention. They have, however, been pragmatic in some respects when it has come to the source of that legitimacy, preferring United Nations support but accepting regional endorsement in the case of the Solomon Islands. Second, I argue that in practice, the Greens had a limited influence on New Zealand‘s military deployments. This has been the case even when the party has been involved in supportive relationships with the government.