An Analysis of Japan’s Diplomacy towards Israel since Shinzo Abe Era: Based on the Theoretical Framework of Neoclassical Realism

Neoclassical realism is an approach to foreign policy analysis that seeks to understand international politics by taking into account the nature of the international system—the political environment within which states interact. Taking neorealism as their point of departure, neoclassical realists argue that states respond in large part to the constraints and opportunities of the international system when they conduct their foreign and security policies, but that their responses are shaped by unit-level factors such as state–society relations, the nature of their domestic political regimes, strategic culture, and leader perceptions. Neoclassical realists have identified a number of important limitations to the neorealist model—for example, states do not always perceive systemic stimuli correctly, or the international system does not always present clear signals about threats and opportunities. Adherents of neoclassical realism insist that their approach represents a significant improvement on existing approaches to international relations and foreign policy, including “Innenpolitik” approaches. Nevertheless, neoclassical realism faces a host of criticisms, such as the claim that it is comparatively inefficient and that it is impossible to separate international and domestic variables. To overcome these challenges, neoclassical realists need to consider a few key avenues for future research, such as generating well-specified neoclassical realist theories of foreign policy and devoting more attention to the domestic politics of international cooperation in order to shed the “competition bias” of neoclassical realism.

NEOCLASSICAL REALISM, THE STATE, AND FOREIGN POLICY Steven E. Lobell, Norrin Ripsman, and Jeffrey W Taliaferro, editors New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 327pp, $34.99 paper (ISBN 978-0-521-73192-8)This volume is the most sophisticated endeavour so far to sketch a neoclassical realist theory of foreign policy. Given the specialized nature of its content, it will be of significant and lasting interest for students of international relations and scholars already familiar with the main concepts of neoclassical realism.Neoclassical realism claims to account for the way that states respond to systemic constraints. In contrast with neorealism, it does not focus on outcomes - what states end up doing due to the influence of the international system - but on outputs - what states are likely to do. Consequently, neoclassical realism presents itself as a theory of foreign policy, since in practice states behave in ways that contradict systemic requirements. The authors assume that while a government's ability to obtain privileged intelligence on international events offers it a special understanding of systemic pressures, there is no way to predict how a state will actually respond to such pressures. This is why neoclassical realism examines both international variables, such as the global distribution of relative capabilities, and domestic ones, such as the state's ability to mobilize resources. Thus neoclassical realism claims to offer the best of both worlds: it is more useful than neorealism because it examines domestic politics and is superior to liberalism because it pays attention to systemic constraints. Hence, the authors' mission is to pinpoint the line that separates international and domestic influences on states' international conduct.For scholars who prefer an agnostic, case-specific approach to foreign policy, establishing a priori whether international or domestic influences have the upper hand in a given context might be a moot point. Clearly, both variables have to be considered. However, formulating a general answer to this question is a laudable goal, even though the volume's contributors disagree about what the answer is. In this respect, the book suggests that neoclassical realism has evolved into a family of neoclassical realist theories, comprising three alternative positions (10, 283-87).The first interpretation hews closely to Waltz's orthodox neorealism. It argues that domestic variables only come into play when explaining state behaviour that is anomalous from a systemic viewpoint. For instance, Randall Schweller posits that the lack of a mobilizing ideology explains the absence of violent expansionism since the Second World War. In the intervening years, no ideology has been able to replicate fascism's ability to marshal the necessary public support for aggressive war.Jeffrey Taliaferro, Norrin Ripsman, and Colin Dueck seize the middle ground in presenting a second perspective. They argue that domestic politics do affect foreign policy, but only in specific circumstances and up to certain limits. The international side ofthe equation determines the content ofthe policy, but the domestic side shapes its style and its timing. …

In the past few years, cultural diplomacy has become important among the priorities of European Union (EU) policies. In that political vision, European cultural relations should be based on transnational interactions between two or more cultures, be equal, unprojective and non-coercive, and guided by mutual cooperation of state and non-state actors. The paper examines the development of the European Union's (EU) cultural diplomacy agenda, from "culture in external relations" to "inclusive cultural relations" and the "new spirit of dialogue" as a political narrative and institutional logic, laying the foundations for contemporary priorities of European foreign cultural policy, its instruments and programs. The theoretical and empirical framework of the analysis is set by considering the dichotomies of discourse and political rhetoric surrounding EU cultural diplomacy. The methodology of the work is based on an analysis of the EU public policy discourse and documents, initiatives, contents and announcements related to cultural diplomacy and foreign cultural policy, in order to see their development phases, concepts and scope of activities for improving international cultural relations. In defining and interpreting the current European "narrative" and the paradigm of cultural diplomacy, the paper starts from the multiperspectival theoretical foundation of cultural diplomacy and related concepts. The analysis shows how the EU's decade-long effort to shape its foreign policy and cultural strategy has gained its explicit expression from the implicit one. At several stages of development, the EU has adopted a new model of cultural diplomacy that combines elements of several definitions - and theoretical frameworks - of public diplomacy and soft power, cultural policy, international cultural relations and cultural cooperation. This integrated EU strategic approach is based on a broad definition of culture, intercultural dialogue and cooperation, and a bottom-up approach. In order to balance the soft power projection dimension in EU cultural diplomacy policy and practice, it would be necessary to persist in advocating for a cultural perspective that would focus on collaborative approaches and field processes generated by cultural diplomacy projects and actors. It would essentially be an incentive for a "new spirit of dialogue" both between member states and with third countries that are on the European path.

Neoclassical realism offers insights into why particular foreign policy choices are made, and under what systemic conditions unit-level factors are likely to intervene between systemic stimuli and state behavior. Neoclassical realism brings a multilevel framework that combines both systemic incentives and mediating unit-level variables to arrive at conclusions about foreign policy choices in particular cases. It sets the relative distribution of capabilities in the international system as the independent variable and adds mediating variables at the unit level of analysis. Variables at the domestic level of analysis, such as the role of ideology, the foreign policy executive’s perceptions, resource extraction, and domestic institutions, add explanatory power to system-level approaches. Neoclassical realism accounts for state behavior in a way that a more parsimonious systems-level theory is unable to achieve. But this rich theoretical framework also faces controversies and criticisms: Is neoclassical realism distinct from other theories and what is its added value? Neoclassical realism overlaps only to a small extent with alternative theoretical approaches. The domestic level of analysis dominates Foreign Policy Analysis (a subfield of International Relations). Unit-level variables suffice to explain state behavior in bottom-up approaches, and opening the structure of the international system for fundamental rethinking is central to constructivism. Neither explains the system-level conditions under which unit-level variables mediate between systemic stimuli and foreign policy. Neoclassical realism analyzes and explains a given foreign policy that more parsimonious or alternative theoretical approaches cannot.

Moldova, which declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, is a young and very poor state with few diplomatic resources and with little in foreign policy compared with Romania, for example. (1) Moldova is a small state, consisting of a population of about 4.3 million. (2) Moldova also is a multiethnic society) with a population that is approximately 65 percent Romanian extraction, with the remainder consisting of Russians (about 13 percent) and Ukrainians (about 14 percent), numbering approximately 650,000 of Ukraninians. (4) There also are approximately 150,000 Gagauz, a Turkic--Christian group of people who live in the southern part of the country and have managed to acquire a certain degree of political autonomy. Moldova, which no longer shares a border with Russia (separated from Russia by Ukraine), is located in the former Soviet West and shares close historic and cultural ties with Romania, underscoring the existence of a special or privileged relationship between the two states. Most of current-day Moldova, previously known as Bessarabia, was once part of historical Greater Romania. (5) As a small state, Moldova finds itself in a weak and vulnerable position in the post-cold war international system. Moldova faces the problem of trying to preserve its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity while undergoing a difficult transition to democracy and a market economy. The victory of the Party of Moldovan Communists in 2001 marked a major change in the internal power structure of Moldova. The Communists gained control of a majority of seats in parliament in the elections of February 25, 2001. This occurred after parliament had been dissolved by President Petru Lucinschi, following the legislature's failure to elect a president on three separate occasions) On April 4, 2001, the single-chamber legislature elected the leader of the Moldovan Communist Party as president by a vote of seventy-one out of one hundred one. (7) The triumph of the Party of Moldovan Communists underscores the need to realize the importance of the relationship between the historical and cultural context of a country, especially the legacies of the approach, and to understand the foreign policy behavior of the Voronin administration. The historical legacy or path dependency of a country's past has an important effect on the foreign policy behavior of a state, as argued by the realist school of thought known as neoclassical realism. In short, the foreign policy of a country clearly has domestic roots. (8) An example of the influence of path dependency on Moldora occurred at the Fourth Congress of the Party of Moldovan Communists in April 2002, when President Voronin talked about the rebirth of socialism and the historic mission of the Communist Party of Moldova, the only country in Europe that returned the Communists to power. (9) As a further example of the grip of the Communist legacy on Moldova. President Voronin also expressed his great interest in the experience of the Communist parties of China, North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. (10) The return of the Communists to power in Moldora reflects the need to consider the importance of path dependency by previous rulers of the country, specifically by the Communists, to understand the nature and scope of Moldova's foreign policy. Voronin apparently believed that the collapse of Communism in Europe was only temporary and that the socialist system would be restored. Realism and Moldovan Foreign Policy Concepts Voronin's foreign policy also can be explained by classical realism and its variations, such as neoclassical realism and neorealism. Classical realism always has stressed the primary importance of the state as a rational, unitary actor, focusing on the pursuit of its foreign policy goals in the international system. The classical realist believes that the state is the most important actor in the international system; (11) however, classical realists have been criticized for not paying enough attention to the role of domestic factors to explain a state's foreign policy behavior. …

This article carries out a quantitative analysis of the military behaviour of Italy from 1946 to 2010 using neoclassical realism as the theoretical framework. By overcoming the limits of traditional explanations of Italian security and defence policies, neoclassical realism provides new insight into Italy’s involvement in militarized interstate disputes by taking into account both systemic and domestic variables. The method used is a combination of dyad analysis introduced by Stuart Bremer in 1992 and the analysis of unit-level variables, which is distinctive of neoclassical realism. An analytical model is developed, and bivariate and multivariate analyses are performed to explain the impact of the variables. By empirically testing a set of hypotheses, the study argues that Italian military behaviour is a function of the country’s relative power as well as the levels of elite instability and regime vulnerability, the extraction capacity of the state, and the degree of elite consensus. The study contributes to the existing scientific debate on the determinants of Italian international behaviour and to the literature on neoclassical realism by demonstrating that its main propositions apply to a case of middle power and that these propositions can be tested on a large scale through quantitative approaches.

ABSTRACTUnlike structural realism, neoclassical realism focuses on how the interaction between systemic and unit-level variables influences foreign policy. This article assesses neoclassical realism against two alternative accounts – balance of threat and economic dependence – to explain change in Georgia's foreign policy. While structural realism highlights how the external security environment shapes general tendencies in foreign policy, specific strategies depend largely on unit-level factors, specifically elite cohesion and state capacity. The analysis of primary sources and exclusive interviews with high-level policy-makers suggests that neoclassical realism affords a more nuanced and precise account of foreign policy change over time than structural realism.

Can the concept of practice contribute to a realist analysis of world politics? All realists privilege the causal impact of the international system and its structural constraints as the principal drivers of international politics. The dominant group of realists, the structural realists, contend that the explanatory power to explain all that matters in international politics – principally international security competition and war – resides almost exclusively in the external structure. They deride theorists who pay attention to agency, by examining the role of leaders and other domestic actors, as reductionist and counterproductive. Recently, neoclassical realists have enriched realism, not by refuting the primacy of the international system, but by incorporating unit and subunit level variables to explain how structural constraints and opportunities get transmitted to state policy-makers and how policy responses are formulated. This has been an important theoretical advance, paying attention to both agency and structure, which can explain variations in the way different states respond to similar external challenges and anomalous foreign policy responses clearly at odds with systemic pressures. The focus on practice advocated in this volume offers an opportunity to increase the explanatory power of neoclassical realism by focusing on an important area that has as yet remained outside its purview: the space between agency and structure constituted by domestic political and international practices. In this chapter, I shall overview the neoclassical realist challenge to structural realism and explain how attention to domestic political practices can sharpen that challenge and improve neoclassical realist theory. I argue that national foreign policy practitioners can often have an important impact on whether and how particular states balance against threats by using their background systemic and cultural knowledge to determine what constitutes appropriate and competent foreign policy behavior and, consequently, to establish practices that shape policy responses. In line with Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot’s Chapter 1 in this volume, I argue that paying attention to domestic practices can explain some policy choices – even in the national security issue area – that a focus solely on external structures, domestic institutions, and domestic actors would not. To demonstrate this, I shall present an illustrative case study of the impact of the practice of non-partisanship, or bipartisanship, in American national security policy from 1945 to 1950. Bipartisanship stemmed from the recognition by the Administration and a core group in Congress, for a time, that competent foreign policy performance required both executive consultation with the legislature and congressional support for the Administration’s foreign policy agenda which resulted from consultation. This practice enabled a significant proportion of the Republican opposition to support a move away from isolationism after the Second World War toward anti-Soviet balancing, provided it occurred within an agreed-upon context of nascent international institutions such as the United Nations, the Economic Recovery Program, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Without attention to this consequential practice, it would be difficult to explain why American domestic institutional constraints prevented an activist foreign policy agenda after the First World War, but not after the Second World War. In addition, without reference to the practice of bipartisanship, it would be difficult to explain why Washington engaged in balancing against the Soviet Union within that particular institutional context.

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

The coverage of the factor of cultural international relations and the role of an instrument of foreign policy in modern conditions is revealed. It is indicated that changes in foreign policy achievements in the field of culture force participants in international relations to have their own options for studying cultural heritage in line with foreign policy. The aim is to analyze national approaches to building external cultural activities. The format of cultural diplomacy is considered as the main model of cooperation between cultures in international relations. The presence of studies of the relationship between culture and foreign policy in modern political science is stated, which lead to a discussion in considering the terms "foreign cultural policy" and "cultural diplomacy". The presence in the modern political discourse of studies of the relationship between foreign policy and culture is stated, which contributes to the discussion of the terms "cultural diplomacy" and "foreign cultural policy". It stands out that the cultural interaction of Russia with a number of countries is limited by the "cancellation of Russian culture" abroad and, as a result, leads to a decrease in Russian cultural influence. In conclusion, the need to update the priority areas of the State Cultural Policy Strategy for the period until 2030 is indicated, taking into account the current foreign policy situation. Within the framework of Russian cultural diplomacy, measures are proposed to counteract the practice of a “cancellation culture”. Materials of the periodical press are used, as well as special literature on the problem.

Within the international system, states focus on the realization of their national interests, evaluating their diplomacy, and regularly their cultural diplomacy. For instance, China exercises its cultural diplomacy, in order to promote its foreign policy’s goals. The present paper initially attempts to define the complex notion of cultural diplomacy, which is a multifactor way of promoting intercultural dialogue and augmenting states’ soft power. In particular, China’s cultural diplomacy was the most suitable case study since the Chinese state, following the Beijing’s Olympic Games, has been reintroduced in the international audience. Its reintroduction was achieved by practicing its cultural diplomacy successfully, mostly with Confucius Institutes’ function, while being dominant in the international financial system. In the case of China’s foreign policy towards Africa, Chinese cultural diplomacy was accompanied by financial diplomacy and led to a Sino-African rapprochement and to the creation of the Forum on China-Africa cooperation. It is vital though to consider if Chinese foreign policy towards the African continent is successful.

The article examines the case of Japan’s peacebuilding in South Sudan from 2011 to 2017 and asks how Japan’s shift towards a more proactive defence posture affects the place of human security in its foreign policy agenda. Using the framework of neoclassical realism, the article argues that human security remains a critical element of Japanese foreign policy despite changes in its strategic orientation because, international predicaments notwithstanding, Japan’s foreign policy decision making is still significantly constrained by domestic variables such as state–society relations, elite perceptions, elite consensus, and domestic institutional arrangements. Changes in Japan’s overall foreign and security policies do not diminish the importance of human security. Despite the shift to a more assertive foreign policy, Japan still retains the essential features of its diplomacy. External variables influence policymakers’ decision making, but domestic variables constrain policy choices and outcomes.

Neoclassical realism (NCR)’s opponents have considered it an incoherent and indistinctive approach because of its interest in addressing ideational and institutional factors. Specifically, they have denounced NCR’s fuzzily established internal and external conceptual boundaries, corresponding to central dimensions of this approach’s ‘indistinguishability’ problem. Even though NCR has responded in a sophisticated manner to its critics, such a response still falls short of advancing some subtle strategies to forge NCR’s theoretical identity and research design. To fill this gap, I distinguish several neoclassical realist theories (Types I, II, IIA, IIB and III) to clarify NCR works’ common ground and the several options available to the analyst to cope with the indistinguishability problem’s internal dimension. Furthermore, I compare neoclassical realist theories with organizational, bureaucratic, realist, liberal and constructivist approaches to foreign policy to discuss the indistinguishability problem’s external dimension. Dealing with this dimension entails acknowledging that neoclassical realist theories provide a top-down, as compared to a bottom-up approach to explain foreign policy as a policy rather than a process. It also provides a thorough explanation rather than a parsimonious account aimed at distinguishing independent and intervening variables. With different intensities, neoclassical realist theories embrace specific, refined logics of consequentialism rather than appropriateness to explain distinct state preferences rather than assuming power maximization or security seeking as pre-fixed state goals.

This thesis investigates the continuous use of no-fly zones across different US administrations. In doing so it seeks to advance theories of international relations and foreign policy, conceptualizations of foreign policy executive decision-making processes, and the empirical study of US administrations from 1991 to 2016. No-fly zones were ostensibly employed both for the protection of civilians in intra-state conflict and/or for coercive diplomacy. However, based on theoretical accounts as well as empirical observations, the no-fly zone is not in fact suited for these purposes. As the existing literature on coercive diplomacy, air strategy and no-fly zones is frequently grounded in rationalist and (structural) realist thought, it cannot easily account for continuous “sub-optimal” choices. Therefore, this thesis turns to neoclassical realism, and demonstrates the compatibility of ideational variables with realist ontology, epistemology and methodology. It employs ideas as an intervening variable in the transmission belt from systemic conditions to foreign policy choice to explain no-fly zone use in US foreign policy. In a permissive international environment, decision-makers use ideas to guide their interpretation of systemic conditions, and to wield them as tools of persuasion in foreign policy deliberations. Decision-making in the US foreign policy executive is then conceptualized as a competition between diverging ideas about systemic incentives and constraints, as well as about appropriate strategies to mobilize state power. Absent agreement or presidential leadership and under pressure to act quickly, decision-makers use the no-fly zone to patch over ideational divides in the foreign policy executive and “do something”. This suggested causal mechanism is investigated in three detailed case studies on US foreign policy towards northern Iraq, Bosnia, and Libya. Three deviant case studies on decision-making vis-a-vis Kosovo, South Sudan/Darfur, and Syria delineate scope conditions and illustrate the causal primacy of systemic factors in determining US foreign policy.

This study investigates Indonesia's strategic interest in prioritizing the automotive sector within the Indonesia-Mozambique Preferential Trade Agreement (IM-PTA), its inaugural African bilateral pact. Contrasting with the agreement's dominant agricultural focus reflected in the tariff schedules for both nations, as both countries have plenty of competitive advantages in the agricultural sectors, this paper explores the unique phenomenon of Indonesia lobbying for the automotive sector as part of the manufacturing industry. Employing Neoclassical Realism (NCR) through a qualitative case study, we analyze how systemic pressures—including global trade uncertainties and Africa's market potential—interacted with domestic variables like elite vision (President Jokowi's economic diplomacy), state capacity, and automotive industry influence. Findings suggest the automotive focus emerged from a convergence of leadership goals and industry requirements. Mozambique was selected due to potential as a strategic gateway. Conclusively, NCR provides a robust framework explaining this foreign economic policy decision as an outcome of interacting systemic and domestic influences.