Understanding Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

• Actions, decisions, and goals that states pursue toward the outside world
• Motives are the pursuit of national interest
• States adopt to achieve and promote their national interests
• Shaped by both external/systemic and internal factors

External/Systemic Factors

• International regimes and organizations
• Prevalence of great powers at the international level

Internal Factors

• Economic, technological, and military capabilities of states

National Interest

• The "raison d'état" (the reason of state) justifies actions and policies toward other states
• A set of values, orientation, goals, and objectives a country wants to achieve in its international relations
• Controversies exist on the exact meaning, scope, and contents

According to A. K. Holsti

• An image of the future state of affairs and conditions that governments aspire to through policymakers
• Achieved by wielding influence abroad and changing or sustaining the behaviors of other states

According to Seabury

• Normative sense: a set of purposes a nation should seek to realize in its foreign relations
• Descriptive sense: purposes the nation, through its leadership, appears to pursue persistently over time
• The question of whether it can be defined objectively (science) or is a subjective enterprise (art) is debated

Plato

• The public good could best be achieved by a philosopher king aided by learned advisors
• Ideas have inspired dictatorial forms of government
• These emphasize substance and wisdom of policies over procedural issues

Note

• Foreign policy decision is not necessarily a clear-cut and rational process
• Policies often generated through internal political and bureaucratic debates

Criteria Used in Defining National Interest: Operational Philosophy

• Depending on time, location, orientation toward the world, and actions of predecessors, one may choose one of two major styles of operation
• Act in a bold and sweeping fashion (synoptic orientation)
• Introduce major new practices, policies, and institutions and discontinue old ones upon taking office
• Assume enough information exists to confidently develop a major policy with predictable consequences
• Act in caution, probing, and experimental fashion (incremental)
• Follow the trial and error approach
• Assume complexity of political and economic problems and worry about their consequence
• Seek to perfect existing legislations, policies, institutions, and practices

Ideological and Moral/Legal Criteria

• Identify their friends or enemies, countries using the litmus test of ideology
• Act morally
• Moral behavior in international politics involves keeping promises (treaties)
• Living and letting others live (the poor and the disadvantaged)
• Avoiding exploitation and uneven development between developed and developing countries

Pragmatic and Professional Advancement Criteria

• Stand up for principles that are morally committed to and widely accepted in your culture
• Orientation is low key, matter of fact, not on emotions and professions
• Look at issues with prudence and rationality
• Act on the basis of scientific analysis of cost and benefit or merit and demerit in relation to your country's interest
• Do not consider normative issues involving judgment
• Consider professional survival and growth (personal success)
• Leaders might choose conformity to pressure from popular or strong elites whose support is indispensable for their political survival
• This attitude is referred to as the "go along to get along effect"

Partisan and Foreign Dependency Criteria

• Equate the survival and success of their political party, ethnic, or religious origin with the survival and success of their country
• Equate the interest of their organization with the national interest
• Foreign Dependency Criteria applies to less developing countries who fell under colonialism
• These countries kept colonial ties with their ex-masters even after political independence

Views on Determination of National Interest: Realist View

• Prioritize pragmatic criteria and define national interest as pursuits of power
• Power is about establishing control or influencing others through diplomacy or coercion
• International politics is a struggle among states and the prime interest of a state is survival and security
• National interest ensures state survival and security

Idealists View

• Strong belief in the relevance of legal, ideological, and moral elements
• Do not see legal and moral factors apart from "reality"
• Specific actions and objectives of foreign policy are derived from general moral and legal guidelines and principles
• Realists fail to recognize and prescribe solutions for addressing global problems because of the emphasis on state and national interest
• Idealists believe in the prevalence of common problems such as environmental pollution
• New institutions with global orientation may play a vital role in addressing global problems

Understanding Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Behaviors: Defining Foreign Policy

• Foreign Policy is something that a state wants to achieve in its external relations
• Involves the general purposes and specific strategies a state employs to achieve/promote its national interest
• Rochester: refers to priorities and percepts established by national leaders to guide action

Key Aspects

• Objectives, visions, and goals that a state aspires to achieve. They are related to capability or power.
• The scope and content of a state's foreign policy are determined by the capabilities of the state involved

Minimum Goals: Survival

• Protecting the physical, political, and cultural identities against encroachment
• Involves specific instruments and tactics that must be employed

Foreign Policy Instruments

• Widely employed instruments include diplomatic bargaining, economic instruments, propaganda, terrorism (sabotage), and use of force (war)
• Each instrument is used to affect behaviors of other states and has an element of power
• Diplomacy -affecting the behavior of others through bargaining with less power

Foreign Policy Objectives

• It sets short term, middle term, and long term goals and objectives achieved in proportion to a state's capability
• Classifications are based on value placed on the objective, time element for achievement and demands

Foreign Policy Objectives Categorization

• Core Interests and Values (Short Range Objectives):
• Those kinds of goals for which most people are willing to make ultimate sacrifices
• Stated as basic principles of foreign policy and articles accepted without question
• Related to self preservation of political and economic systems, people, culture, territorial integrity and sovereignty

Other Ranks

• Others goals cannot be realized if the existence of the state and its political units are not ensured
• The definition depends on the attitudes of those who make foreign policy
• Extraterritoriality - the national interest and claims of a country extends beyond its geographical boundary

Additional Factors:

• States may think that their national interest is at risk when citizens/ethnic/religious groups are threatened in neighboring states
• Liberating/protecting individuals/groups is part of core national interest

Middle and Long Range Objectives

• Middle Range Objectives: unlike short range, vary across states due to varying levels of economics, technology, and military capability
• The bottom point that a state would like to achieve
• Action that impacts the domestic economic and welfare needs and expectation or welfare and economic development, self-help
• Interdependence satisfies domestic needs/aspirations when states interact
• Trade, foreign aid, communication facilities, and foreign market are necessary for increasing social welfare
• Long range goals plans, dreams, and visions of the international system/rules

Foreign Policy Behavior: Patterns and Trends

• States make particular demands against particular interest

Long Term Goals

• States make universal demands to reconstruct an entire international system to universally applicable plan or vision
• These long term goals, depend on countries capabilities and power

Foreign Policy Behavior

• Actions states take towards each other that are not as ends in themselves
• Tied in to larger purposes, from long range objectives to short term objectives

Foreign Policy Behavior Patterns

• Boils down to three possible patterns
• 1. self-preservation: maintaining the status quo for one own benefit
• Example: USA

Institutions

• International institutions (IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO) established post world war two have been shaped by USA
• Underlying philosophies and procedures serve global interests
• USA has become the sole defender of the international system.
• 2. self-extension: (revising the status quo in one's own favor)
• Changing the reality for one own benefit
• Newly emerging powers are competing to restructure to promote the national interest

Factors to Consider

• 3. self-abnegation: (revising the status quo in someone else's favor)
• Reflects foreign policy trends in less developing countries
• Challenges and compromises for temporary benefits
• Foreign policy behavior changes over time and with circumstance
• Alignment tendencies are the choice to ally with certain countries or to be neutral

Types of Agreements:

• Alignments have three different categories

Alliances

• formal agreements to provide mutual military assistance
• allied countries can pool resources, acquire access to foreign bases, and stake out territories
• alliance state risks interference by allies in its domestic affairs

Neutrality

• stance of formal non-partisanship in world affairs
• keeping a low profile may avoid associating with allies
• Example: Switzerland, extreme case in refusing membership to United Nations by 2002

Nonalignment

• a foreign policy pattern of developing states during the cold war
• Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) called for policy to disregard both West and East relations
• NAM noble agenda called for south-south connections

Scope-Refers to a Country's Activities and Interests

• There are three types. One is "global"
• Global actors- act on Global terms
• Interacting regularly with nearly every country in the world.
• Example: USA, China

Regional Actors

• Act in a regional setting
• Interacting primarily with neighboring areas
• The interaction concerns economic issues and some trades
• South Africa in Africa, India in South Asian region, South Sudan

Isolationism

• Scope of a country's foreign policy to become so narrow in scope that it becomes isolationism
• Resulted by key weakness, or geographic remoteness
• Few countries have been totally cut off
• This is less viable due to the foreign policy in this age
• Example: Burma in 1960 and 70s,

Instruments of Foreign Policy

• Method of operation to address different issues

Multilateral Means

• Tendency to seek solutions to forums such as United Nations
• Developing countries use this because of the collective power
• Establishing bilateral is often more costly

Operations To Consider

• Regardless of power, counties opt to use multilateral
• Examples :Germany, Scandinavian countries
• Play the "carrot and stick" diplomacy, and uses the threat of force

Unilateral Means

• The more unilateral a state is, the more initiative they will take in outside relations
• Diplomacy is between actors who exist within a system, and communicate using private and public speakings
• Diplomacy can improve trade, culture, wealth and knowledge, and is used to form a state's foreign policy
• Is a complex game to influence the outlook of others to one's own interest

Examples

• In past democracy, the manner was formal and limited
• In present day diplomacy, groups that aren't states take part like the IGO and INGO, and help influence

The Essence of Diplomacy:

• This is based on settling differences through proposals
• Used to reach an understanding and a setting where objectives are different, there can be rewards after the fact
• One seeks common ground, understanding each side, and will require patience and one must be truthful

Methods:

• "Carrot and stick"
• The 'Stick" seeks the action The "Carrot" is to show promise