Foreign Policy Alignment Research Articles

Turkey and the EU: waning foreign policy alignment in a changing international context

ABSTRACT The current relationship between the European Union (EU) and Turkey is dragged outside the standard EU accession framework and is increasingly shaped by Turkey’s positions and actions regarding a set of regional and global foreign policy issues. For the EU to carry forward Turkey’s long-stalled accession negotiations, Turkey is expected to show progress on multiple fronts, including a satisfactory level of policy alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This article provides an in-depth analysis of Turkey’s poor alignment with the EU’s CFSP positions since 2014. It looks into regional as well as international issues that occupied the agenda of EU foreign policy and explores the utility-based and normative explanations behind Turkey’s (dis)engagement in policy cooperation.

Cambodia’s foreign policy (re)alignments amid great power geopolitical competition

In recent decades, Cambodia has gained geopolitical significance in the competition among great powers in the Indo-Pacific—China, Japan, and the United States—forcing Cambodia to align and realign its relations with these powers. Comprehensive, comparative, systemic analyses of Cambodia’s relations with these three great powers remain limited. This is despite the shifting geopolitical context associated with China’s rise, the United States’ changing international liberal agenda, and Cambodia’s domestic political development. Utilizing various qualitative methods that include data from news reports in Khmer, English, and Chinese and interviews with diverse stakeholders—scholars, journalists, leaders of civil society organizations, representatives of multilateral institutions, and diplomats—this article seeks to fill this gap by providing an up-to-date, empirically rich, and theoretically grounded analysis of Cambodia’s relations with these three great powers. This study will delineate economic, security, and domestic causes of change and continuity within an integrated analytical lens that combines international relations and comparative politics to provide a multi-level (state and systemic) and multi-actor (state and non-state) analysis.

COVID-19, Anti-Chinese Sentiment, and Foreign Policy Attitudes in South Korea

COVID-19 generated significant anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. Domestic elite-level narratives regarding China at the pandemic’s onset were highly polarized: conservative parties advocated border shutdowns, emphasizing China as originating the virus, while progressive parties warned that this would incite xenophobia. Did these narratives shape anti-Chinese sentiment, and what are their foreign policy effects? Using social media data, I show that despite the polarized narratives at the elite level, attitudes of both conservative and progressive voters became unfavorable toward China following COVID-19’s onset. Furthermore, statistical analyses of survey data show that this blame is strongly associated with negative perceptions of China. Although substantively not directly linked to foreign policy, blame of China is strongly associated with rejection of foreign policy alignment with China and a shift toward supporting alignment with the US. These results have implications for understanding public support of South Korea’s foreign policy amid US–China bifurcation.

The Contagion of Foreign Policy Convergence: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Chinese Leadership Visits, 1978–2014

Abstract Previous research on the sources of foreign policy convergence has focused exclusively on changes at either the dyadic level, between sender and receiver countries, or monadic level of these states. Although such approaches are helpful to understand how states affect foreign policy change in other countries, they generally overlook the third source of foreign policy convergence, that is, the indirect impact of significant events in neighbouring countries. I investigate whether and how leadership visits—a major diplomatic phenomenon—affect foreign policy convergence within and beyond host countries. Specifically, I argue that leadership visits directly facilitate foreign policy convergence in host countries and indirectly produce favourable diffusion effects in their neighbourhood. I develop an original dataset that tracks the visits of high-level officials between China and its foreign counterparts from 1978 to 2014. The results from spatial panel models support my proposed direct and indirect effects whereby Chinese leadership visits are positively associated with foreign policy alignments with China in both host countries and their neighbours.

Foreign Policy Alignment and Russia's Energy Weapon

AbstractScholars of international relations disagree whether trade in natural gas between Europe and Russia provides the latter with a source of foreign policy power. Because a reduction in trade of natural gas is costly for importers, the potential economic power of Russia's energy weapon could alter strategic calculations about diplomatic conflict with Russia. Consequently, we hypothesize that increases in dependence on Russian natural gas will lead to more foreign policy convergence with Russia. Using a panel of European states from 1995 to 2013 and a time series of Germany from 1979 to 2013, we find support for our argument that greater dependence on Russian natural gas correlates with more similarity in voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly. Our research suggests that Russian natural gas imports to Europe shape broader political alignments, adding to the growing body of research on the potential ramifications of Russia's energy weapon.

US policy towards Iran in the context of the growth of regionalism

The article identifies Washington's priorities on the way of its policy implementation towards Iran in the context of the Ukrainian crisis. An analysis of the US approaches to Iran regarding the events in Ukraine is given, the reasons for the increased interest in this country from both the US and the EU are identified. Currently, Tehran, despite extremely tough sanctions from the West - the US and the EU - has significantly strengthened its position on the global arena both in the context of the growing importance of the regionalization factor, as well as one of the main gas suppliers in the world market. Under the sanctions regime, Tehran's main concern will primarily relate to the prospects associated with the JCPOA, which will influence the choice of the country's foreign policy priorities in the future. Thus the foreign policy alignment of this country will depend on whether its rapprochement with the US and the EU will become situational or will it be of a long-term and strategic nature. In its turn, currently Washington is of great concern about the penetration of China into the Middle East, in general, and into Iran, aimed at real connection with the Silk Road Initiative, in particular. And although at present this process is determined by the economic dimension, it is clear that this is far from the limit, which the United States cannot but understand.

Do Intergovernmental Organizations Have a Socialization Effect on Member State Preferences? Evidence from the UN General Debate

AbstractThe question of whether intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have a socialization effect on member state preferences is central to international relations. However, empirical studies have struggled to separate the socializing effects of IGOs on preferences from the coercion and incentives associated with IGOs that may lead to foreign policy alignment without altering preferences. This article addresses this issue. We adopt a novel approach to measuring state preferences by applying text analytic methods to country statements in the annual United Nations General Debate (UNGD). The absence of interstate coordination with UNGD statements makes them particularly well suited for testing socialization effects on state preferences. We focus on the European Union (EU), enabling us to incorporate the pre-accession period—when states have the strongest incentives for foreign policy alignment—into our analysis. The results of our analysis show that EU membership has a socialization effect that produces preference convergence, controlling for coercion and incentive effects.

Pak-Iran Relations as it could be developed

Pakistan and Iran are extremely vital countries in the region and their relations had seen several ups and downs since the inception of Pakistan in 1947. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution the relations between Pakistan and Iran had seen several low points due to the foreign policy alignment of Pakistan towards Saudi Arabia, border issues, Afghanistan crisis and sanctions on Iran by the United States. Iranians have the opinion that the terrorists infiltrate into Iran from Pakistan and attack the Iranian forces. The fear of U. S sanctions mixed with geo-political sanctions has not allowed Pak-Iran trade to grow for over two decades now. The link between the ports of Gwadar and Cahaba could be a win-win venture and mutually beneficial for Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan and Iran also disagree on the war in Afghanistan as they had supported rival actors in the country. The article analyses the relations between Pakistan and Iran and suggests certain recommendations for rapprochement between them.

First impressions: How leader changes affect bilateral aid

This paper investigates a new mechanism to explain politically induced changes in bilateral aid. We argue that shifts in the foreign policy alignment between a donor and a recipient country following leadership changes induce reallocation of aid. Utilizing data from the G7 and 130 developing countries between 1975 and 2012 and employing high dimensional fixed effects models, we show that incoming leaders in recipient countries, which politically converge towards their current donors, receive more aid commitments, compared to those that diverge. Accounting for donor leader change, we additionally find that incumbent recipient leaders have an opportunity to get even more aid when political change in donor countries moves them closer to the donor's foreign policy position. Thus, leadership turnover in recipient and donor countries makes otherwise inconsequential deviations in foreign policy alignment highly consequential for aid provision.

Disinformation in international politics

AbstractConcerns over disinformation have intensified in recent years. Policymakers, pundits, and observers worry that countries like Russia are spreading false narratives and disseminating rumours in order to shape international opinion and, by extension, government policies to their liking. Despite the importance of this topic, mainstream theories in International Relations offer contradictory guidance on how to think about disinformation. I argue that disinformation is ineffective in terms of changing the policies of a target as regards to its foreign policy alignments and armaments – that is, the balance of power. To be strategically effective, disinformation must somehow overcome three powerful obstacles: first, the fundamental uncertainty that international anarchy generates over any information broadcasted by adversaries; second, the pre-existing prejudices of foreign policy elites and ordinary citizens; and third, the countermeasures that are available even amid political polarisation. I examine the most likely case of there seemingly being a conscious and effective strategy that emphasises disinformation: the Russian campaign that has targeted the Baltic states, especially since the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The available evidence strongly suggests that the strategic effects of disinformation are exaggerated.

Disinformation in International Politics

Concerns over disinformation have recently intensified. Policy-makers, pundits, and observers worry that countries like Russia are spreading false narratives and disseminating rumors in order to shape public opinion and, by extension, government policies to their liking. Yet existing international relations theories are inadequate for understanding disinformation. I argue that disinformation is ineffective in terms of changing the foreign policy alignments and armaments of the target—that is, the balance of power. Drawing on neoclassical realism, I explain how international anarchy induces both uncertainty and skepticism, especially between adversaries. Although neoclassical realism takes the state as the primary actor in international politics, it permits the possibility that public opinion—the target of disinformation campaigns—can affect a state’s ability to mobilise resources for its international strategy. I show that disinformation campaigns must overcome the powerful partisan and ideological attachments that shape how average citizens process information in order to influence public opinion. These challenges persist even when the target society is politically polarised. As a plausibility probe, I examine the Russian campaign that has targeted the Baltic states since at least the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The evidence strongly suggests that the strategic effects of disinformation are exaggerated.

International student accommodation and changing foreign policy alignments in 1950s Australia

Australia’s popularity as a study destination increased markedly from the 1940s, with growing demand for tertiary education in postcolonial Asia. The advent of scholarship initiatives, including the Colombo Plan’s Technical Cooperation Scheme in 1951, further increased interest in Australia as an educational provider for both sponsored and privately funded students. This article explores the print media’s commentary on international student accommodation shortages in the 1950s. While Australian housing availability was impacted by wartime cessation of construction and postwar immigration, print media coverage generally attributed international student accommodation shortages to discrimination within the rental market. Overwhelmingly, this alleged discriminatory treatment was condemned within the print media, with the dual rationale of moral and diplomatic objections prominent in newspaper discourse. This media censure is examined within the context of shifting foreign policy alignments, growing national and international condemnation of the so-called ‘White Australia policy’, and the broader political agenda of Australian Colombo Plan involvement.

Ethnicity, extraterritoriality, and international conflict

ABSTRACTThe world has more ethnic groups than states and many ethnic groups are split across two or more states. One implication is that many ethnic conflicts are international phenomena in which transborder ethnic kin are involved. States concerned with co-ethnics or co-religionists in neighbouring countries are pursuing interests not included in our standard models of international politics. States that pursue such extraterritorial interests define national security and national survival in terms broader than merely maintaining the physical and territorial integrity of the state. Threats to their ethnic and religious brethren are seen as threats to them. And because such threats are seen as particularistic they also affect foreign policy alignments and the functioning of the balance of power.

First Impressions: How Leader Changes Affect Bilateral Aid

We present a new mechanism to explain politically induced changes in bilateral aid. We argue that shifts in the foreign policy alignment between a donor and a recipient country arising from leadership changes induce reallocation of development aid. Utilizing data from the G7 and 133 developing countries between 1975 and 2012, we show that incoming leaders in recipient countries that politically converge towards their donors receive more aid commitments, compared to those that diverge. Additionally taking donor leader change into account, we find that incumbent recipient leaders have an opportunity to get even more aid when political change in donor countries moves them closer to the donor’s foreign policy position. Thus, leadership turnover in recipient and donor countries constitutes a potential breaking point in foreign relations. Otherwise inconsequential deviations in voting alignment become highly consequential for aid provision.

Common Foreign and Security Policy Alignment in the Southern Caucasus: Convergence, ‘Pick and Choose’ or Indifference?

This article examines the issue of Common Foreign and Security Policy alignment—a procedure by which governments from the European Union's neighbourhood may support previously adopted Common Foreign and Security Policy documents. It provides a comparative theory test of Common Foreign and Security Policy alignment in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In doing so it seeks to elucidate why they engage in alignment as well as how cross-country and cross-issue variance can be theorised. After reviewing the explanatory potential of power-based and sociological institutionalist theory, domestic variables are assessed. The essay shows that, contrary to frequently expressed assumptions, convergence is even possible in less institutionalised high politics fields. But it emphasises that it is largely conditioned by domestic institutional configurations, the preferences of individual or collective actors and overall state gains.

What Friends are Made of: Bilateral Linkages and Domestic Drivers of Foreign Policy Alignment with China

With China's emergence as a global power, it is commonly assumed that the Chinese leadership's influence in international politics has increased considerably. However, systematic studies of China's impact on the foreign policy behavior of other states are rare and generally limited to questions regarding economic capabilities and the use of coercive power. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on China's global political rise by taking a broader perspective. Drawing on voting data from the UN General Assembly for the last two decades, it explores the plausibility of different explanations for foreign policy similarity: economic, diplomatic and military linkages; domestic institutional similarities; and parallel problem-solving processes. The logistic regression analyses find that high levels of foreign policy similarity correlate with shared regime characteristics and comparable patterns of political globalization. The results further indicate that foreign aid seems to help buy support in global politics.

Shedding Light on Canada's Foreign Policy Alignment

Abstract.The purpose of this article is to explore the issue of alignment in Canadian foreign policy. The main research question is whether Canada's responses to foreign crises aligned with those of its allies, and if so, which allies and why. The study proceeds in two steps. First, it tests four major theoretical perspectives that could explain Canada's behaviour: continentalism, transatlantism, the Anglosphere argument and unilateralism. By performing a computer-generated content analysis, the article assesses these propositions by focusing on and comparing Canada's official declarations to those of the United States, France and Britain to six foreign crises that occurred between 2004 and 2011. Second, the analysis identifies whether there is a difference between the Harper and Martin governments' responses to foreign crises. The research provides quantitative and qualitative evidence suggesting that Canada's foreign policy alignment primarily tends toward a transatlantic orientation. It also shows that the Harper government was less in line with Washington than was the previous Liberal government of Paul Martin, which challenges the conventional wisdom of Canadian foreign policy.Résumé.Cet article explore l'enjeu de l'alignement en politique étrangère canadienne et pose la question de recherche suivante : est-ce qu'à l'égard des crises étrangère le Canada s'aligne sur les positions de ses alliés et, si oui, lesquels et pourquoi? Tout d'abord, l'article présente quatre perspectives théoriques susceptibles d'expliquer le comportement du Canada : le continentalisme, le transatlantisme, la thèse de l'anglosphère et celle de l'unilatéralisme. En ayant recours à une analyse de contenu assistée par ordinateur, cet article teste la validité de ces propositions en comparant les déclarations officielles du Canada à celles des États-Unis, de la France et de l'Angleterre à l'égard de six crises survenues entre 2004 et 2011. Ensuite, l'analyse cherche à identifier s'il y a une différence entre les réponses des gouvernements Harper et Martin à l'égard de ces crises. L'étude fournit des données empiriques de type qualitatif et quantitatif qui suggèrent que le Canada a eu une orientation transatlantique lors de la gestion de ces crises internationales. Elle montre également que le gouvernement Harper est moins aligné sur les positions de Washington que ne le fut le précédent gouvernement libéral, ce qui ébranle certaines idées communément admises en politique étrangère canadienne.

What Friends are Made of: Bilateral Linkages and Domestic Drivers of Foreign Policy Alignment with China

With China’s emergence as a global economic and political power, it is commonly assumed that its leadership’s influence in international politics has increased considerably. However, systematic studies of China’s impact on the foreign policy behavior of other states are rare and generally limited to questions regarding economic capabilities and the use of coercive power. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on China’s global political rise by taking a broader perspective. Drawing on voting data from the UN General Assembly for the last two decades, it explores the plausibility of different explanations for foreign policy similarity: economic, diplomatic and military linkages; domestic institutional similarities; and parallel problem-solving processes. The logistic regression analyses find that high similarity levels correlate with shared regime characteristics and comparable patterns of sociopolitical globalization. The results further indicate that foreign aid and arms trading seem to help buy support in global politics.

Is Ottawa following Washington's Lead in Foreign Policy?

INTRODUCTIONIs Canada's foreign policy aligned with that of the United States? This question frequently comes up in foreign policy circles and was recently raised during the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Some observers have maintained that Ottawa's policy with regard to the Spring followed that of Washington.1 This criticism is in keeping with the perception that, since coming to power in February 2006, the Harper government has strategically aligned Canada's policies more closely with those of the United States.2 Some positions of the Harper government, in particular with respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, and the North American security perimeter, have reinforced this idea.3The question of Canada's foreign policy alignment with the United States has also been the subject of much debate within the academic community. Some see such an alignment as the best strategy for enhancing Canada's national interests.4 Others feel that it is detrimental to the country.5 Beyond impressions and normative debates concerning the values and strategies that should guide foreign policy in Canada, there is a need to empirically and systematically assess whether the existence of such an alignment is indeed supported by fact. This article presents a study of the responses of Canada and the United States to the popular uprisings and revolutions that marked Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya in 2010-2011. These crises, which helped define the Arab Spring, are the ones to which Canadian and US diplomatic responses had ended at the time this article was written and which therefore lent themselves to a complete analysis of events.By conducting a chronological and a content analysis, this study examines all the official statements (statements, news releases, and remarks) issued by the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada (PMO), the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the White House, and the US Department of State regarding these crises. In all, 67 statements are analyzed.6 The analysis shows two recurring patterns in the way Canada responded to the Arab Spring. First, the Harper government generally issued its statements after the Obama administration had stated its point of view. Second, once Washington had made its positions known, Ottawa adopted the same stance. These findings suggest that Canada's statements were most of the time aligned with those of the United States and sometimes fashioned in cooperation with Washington. However, this apparent alignment of Canada represents one part of the story, since our study shows that the Harper government did not always emphasize the same themes, values, and principles as the US while responding to these foreign crises. For instance, Ottawa was consistently more concerned with the issue of stability than Washington. The Harper government also put more emphasis on the need to protect the State of Israel during the Egyptian uprising than did the Obama administration. Finally, the study indicates that the White House was particularly concerned with multilateralism in the resolution of these crises, while Canada has not shown the same interest in a multilateral approach.ALIGNMENT AND CONVERGENCEWhat exactly do we mean by alignment? Steven David explains that alignment occurs when one state its policies into close cooperation with those of another state.7 For David, this behaviour is usually motivated by a relationship of dependence of one state on Gordon Mace brings additional clarification to this concept by opposing it with that of convergence. He explains that alignment can be said to have occurred when only one actor has modified its position to bring it in line with that of another. However, when each actor modifies an initial position X and adopts a new position Y, this can be described as convergence.8 Convergence results therefore from coordination among governments to arrive at a common position. …

Cross-National Patterns in FCPA Enforcement

This Note undertakes an empirical examination of U.S. enforcement actions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in order to explore the cross-national patterns associated with the United States’ international antibribery enforcement. I investigate a number of possible determinants of FCPA enforcement, including variation in the level of U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI), cross-national variation in corruption levels, the level of foreign regulatory and enforcement cooperation with the United States, and U.S. foreign policy interests. I find that higher levels of U.S. FDI and higher levels of corruption are significantly associated with increased FCPA enforcement, as is the presence of bilateral mechanisms of enforcement cooperation. In contrast, other variables — including the level of foreign policy alignment between the host nation and the United States — do not appear to be associated with variation in FCPA enforcement. In addition, I find that cross-national variation in the number of FCPA cases in a given country is much more closely associated with actual recorded experience with corruption (as measured by cross-national survey instruments) than with more widely used measures of corruption perceptions. Finally, I employ data on past enforcement actions to generate a cross-national measure of the “FCPA enforcement-action intensity” of U.S. FDI, and I consider the potential use of such an index as a measure of FCPA country risk.