What's Left for the MFA? Foreign Policy and the Management of External Relations in Norway

Abstract

How and to what extent could the participation of "domestic" branches of government in the management of external relations affect the substance of foreign policy? Arguing that in order to answer this question we need to know not only how much but also more precisely what is now being handled by these agencies, the author attempts to map the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and "domestic" agencies in the management of Norway's external relations. The events data analysis reported in this article indicates that their roles are different in substantive profile: "Domestic" agencies are more narrowly specialized in terms of the kinds of problems they address, more "parochial" in their heavy concentration on relations to close neighbors, and relatively more preoccupied with issues affecting interests rather than values and some specific domestic subgroup(s) rather than the nation at large. "Sector" agencies seem to differ in several respects from those responsible for public goods or services and general regulation of society. In a concluding section the author argues that this particular pattern of differentiation implies a risk of "vertical disintegration" of foreign policy — threatening, in particular, bold or visionary policies with a perspective beyond immediate self-interest.