Traversing Boundaries: a Public Policy Approach To the Analysis of Foreign Policy

Abstract

HT HIS article traverses boundaries in two different senses: the conceputal division between foreign and other policy, and the political dividing line between the United States and Mexico. The ideas and frameworks used by scholars of public policy and foreign policy have remained separate even though complex interdependence has come to characterize world politics, and the line between domestic and international affairs has blurred (Hanreider 1970; Keohane and Nye 1977). Public policy scholars have mainly focused on domestic issues and rarely upon foreign policy. For their part, foreign policy scholars have noted and developed theories about the extent to which domestic politics has become mixed with international relations but have not generally utilized public policy categories and insights. This gap in analysis is unfortunate for the understanding of foreign policies with strong domestic implications. Among such policies are those related to bi-national problems arising between nations that share a boundary. The two thousand mile long boundary between the United States and Mexico has a profound impact on U.S. policy toward Mexico which causes it to be different from U.S. policy concerning most other nations except, perhaps, Canada. United States/Mexico relations present an extreme example of complex interdependence, where multiple channels link societies, multiple issues exist that are not arranged in any clear or consistent hierarchy, and military force is not used as an instrument of foreign policy (Keohane and Nye 1977: 24-29). Reflecting this multifaceted and complex relationship between the two countries, U.S. policy toward Mexico generally has lacked coherence and consistency (Bagley 1981). However, no conceptual framework yet exists to order and explain how and why a variety of policies arise. The large body of literature on border studies is expecially rich in explaining social and political behavior, and in documenting the handling of specific issues through individual case studies. U.S./Mexico scholars have found it difficult, however, to derive general rules that explain the particulars of inconsistent U.S. policy.