States Foreign Policy Research Articles

The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States. Edited by Ian Manners and Richard G. Whitman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. 284p. $74.95 cloth, 424.95 paper

In a globalized world where states are opening up and borders becoming more porous, one may ask what is foreign and what is foreign policy. This question is even more relevant in the case of European states where European policies certainly are not foreign policies. Within the states of the European Union, socalled domestic ministries, the Ministries of Finance or the Ministries of Agriculture, primarily, conduct “foreign policy,” while the influence of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs seems to be dwindling. The outside is inside and Europe is part of us: European policies are devised by networks of various actors at all levels, European and national, governmental and societal. In other words, foreign policy in Europe is indeed a curious beast—which is the reason that a number of authors have in the past years delved into this topic.

O Crescimento da área de relações internacionais no Brasil

O artigo analisa a produção acadêmica brasileira no campo das relações internacionais nos anos 90, ressaltando as mudanças qualitativas ocorridas durante o período. Um breve histórico da disciplina no âmbito global é oferecido para que seja possível contextualizar a experiência brasileira. As principais tendências, características e ausências da bibliografia produzida no país durante esse período são consideradas. Os temas contemplados são: política externa dos Estados, instituições internacionais, natureza do sistema internacional e da política internacional e estratégia e política de defesa.

The Power of the Small: The Impact of Ethnic Minorities on Foreign Policy

Abstract: Ethnic minorities often have a greater impact on the government's foreign policy than their size may otherwise lead to believe. Before considering to what extent ethnic groups influence foreign policymaking, it is important to understand their interests—what ethnic identities may imply for external relations. In this regard, minorities face a variety of constraints, including repression, failure to mobilize, and a focus on domestic politics. However, ethnic minorities also possess some unique advantages. They may find it easier to organize by virtue of their small size; they are often more focused on a narrow set of issues; and they frequently face less opposition from majority groups on these particular issues. Ethnic groups have resorted to a variety of strategies to influence their state's foreign policies, which have implications for policymaking in general.

Theorizing practical geopolitical reasoning: the case of the United States’ response to the war in Bosnia

Abstract This article seeks to develop a discursive-argumentative perspective on practical geopolitical reasoning, using the United States’ policy dialogue towards the Bosnian war in the early summer of 1992 as an illustration. Foreign policy statements, press briefings and public policy actions by the President, Secretary of State and their staff are used to document this policy dialogue. Sources include The Public Papers of the President: George H. W. Bush , journalistic reports from leading newspapers and transcripts of State Department press briefings, most of which are accessible in the data archives of Lexis-Nexis. Memoirs, where they exist, are drawn upon to provide insight into the backstage of foreign policy making. The perspective outlined here draws upon the work of the argumentative approach in public policy, some social constructivist perspectives in IR, and a selection of the literature on rhetoric and meaning in social psychology. The article outlines a heuristic theory of how practical geopolitical reasoning works and can be studied in a critical geopolitical fashion. The emphasis is on geopolitical reasoning not state interaction so there is no consideration of the ‘grammar’ of strategic interaction and communication between the U.S., its allies and the various Balkan warring parties. The goal is to illustrate an important feature of the United States’ Bosnian policy discourse, namely its consistent internal tensions and conflicts. This is perhaps best expressed as the argument that the Bush administration, and succeeding administrations, never really had a unitary foreign policy toward Bosnia but rather had a foreign policy argumentative space. The theoretical approach outlined in the article develops a synchronic map of this policy space and documents empirically how it operated.

Give or Take: Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy Substitutability

The article attempts to explain state donations of foreign aid with the application of a general theory of foreign policy. This places foreign aid within the context of a state's creation of a foreign-policy portfolio. The general theory is based upon the assumption that states pursue two goods: `change', defined as the ability to alter the status quo in desirable ways, and `maintenance', the ability to prevent changes in favored aspects of the status quo. By applying the `two-good' model of foreign policy toward an explanation of foreign aid, we are able to derive hypotheses regarding the relationship between state power and foreign aid donations, as well as further implications regarding foreign policy substitutability. The two-good model posits a more complex but better specified conception of foreign policy substitutability, and it implies that state donations of foreign aid are substitutable for other foreign policy choices, such as the initiation of interstate conflict and participation in certain types of alliances, that are directed toward the same goal, namely change. We test these hypotheses using data on official development assistance obtained from the OECD, and additional data from the Correlates of War (COW) Project for 21 states over the 1966-92 period. Our findings indicate that aid allocation is affected by other aspects of a state's foreign policy portfolio. The application of a general framework of foreign policy to the study of foreign aid is fruitful.

The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States

The Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States

Not Home Alone

Deputy Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba. This article is drawn from previously published works on Canada and ballistic missile defence and is part of a much large research project that compares Canadian policy on ABM, SDI, and NMD.THE SIMPLE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD ANSWER to the question of Canadian participation in national missile defence (NMD) is in. The more difficult policy issue for Canada is the means or optics through which Canada will express its willingness to participate and the implications of being in relative to other issues concerning Canadian defence policy. An expression of Canadian support, which would open the door to participation, will likely follow two important decisions. First, the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will shift their position to that of at least benign acceptance of United States missile defence plans. Preferably, NATO will come around to supporting a limited United States missile system for North America after the administration of George W. Bush merges national and theatre missile defence (TMD) programmes into a single global effort and offers it to allies, friends, clients, and potentially Russia and perhaps China. Second, Russia will agree, at a minimum, to revise the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to permit such a system, and/or agree to some form of interim agreed position pending a significant restructuring of the arms control regime for strategic weapons in which offensive and defensive systems are merged into a single package. Ideally for Canadian policy-makers, agreed revisions or a new arms control package will be accompanied by signs of direct co-operation between the United States and Russia on missile defence that builds on the current United States-Russian Joint Early Warning Programme and the article in the NATO-Russia Charter on missile defence co-operation. Although the issue of China will likely remain problematic, it will not be a major stumbling block to Canadian participation.Of these two decisions, the NATO factor is likely the key to Canadian support. Cold war history indicates Canada's preference for a situation in which its support of, and participation in, United States defence and foreign policy initiatives can be embedded within the alliance. The current government, like most of its predecessors, prefers not to be seen as home alone with the United States, not least because of fears of domestic political ramifications (many times unfounded, especially today) and the uncontested belief that Canadian internationalism and multilateralism are about obtaining counterweights to United States bilateral dominance.However, Canadian reluctance to get out ahead of the allies is also a function of unspoken concerns about the potential costs of a premature decision to support and participate. Notwithstanding the domestic public fear, such a decision could lead the United States to seek a substantial Canadian contribution beyond simply assigning the command and control/battle management (C[Symbol Not Transcribed]/BM) to North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD).(1) For example, in the absence of Danish agreement to modernize the Thule, Greenland, Ballistic Missile Early Warning (BMEW) radar for a more optimal missile defence function, the deployment of a BMEW radar in Canada's northeast arctic would be ideal. In fact, one could see such a request as a way to sidestep the Danes, not least because of their current reluctance to modernize. Other radars in central-northern Canada could enhance the effectiveness of the system by providing additional tracking and damage assessment prior to the release of a second, third, or more interceptor. Under NORAD arrangements, the cost of such facilities would likely be under the traditional capital funding formula - 60 per cent United States and 40 per cent Canada. However, under the current budget stress in the Department of National Defence (DND) and its proposed capital funding programme, either certain capital programmes would have to be delayed significantly, if not cancelled, or the government would have to provide additional funding, which it would be highly reluctant to do, especially for missile defence. …

Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered

President of the International Peace Academy (IPA) in New York. David Malone was Director General of the Policy Staff, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa, 1994-5, and co-ordinated preparation of the 1995 government foreign policy statement, Canada in the World. He is grateful to Robert Bothwell, Kenneth Calder, Chris Cooter, Nicolas Dimic, Alain Hauser, George Haynal, John Higginbotham, Steven Lee, Gordon Smith, Vernon Turner, and Patrick Wittmann for their suggestions. The views are his own, not those of the Canadian government or of IPA.THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE USEFULNESS of the foreign policy review as a mechanism for re-calibrating Canadian foreign policy. It focuses on the most recent major review, arising from the defeat of the Progressive Conservative government in 1993 and the advent to power of a Liberal majority government that year.The process set in place by the new minister of foreign affairs (a title that replaced secretary of state for external affairs - SSEA) involved public consultations, an examination of Canadian foreign policy by a joint parliamentary committee that produced a raft of recommendations, and the government's response thereto. The response took two forms: a relatively short presentation of the government's foreign and aid policies and an accompanying volume of detailed (but repetitive) responses to the parliamentary committee's recommendations, the vast majority of which were accepted.The review thus involved a dialogue between parliament (heavily dominated by the party in power) and government. It occasioned significant effort by the joint parliamentary committee and its staff. The efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) to codify an approach to foreign policy purporting to be substantially different from that of the previous government also engaged significant resources, involving inter-departmental consultation on attempts to forge a foreign policy more meaningful than the lowest common denominator of respective departmental positions. The foreign policy elements of the Liberal party's election platform, the so-called 'Red Book,' played an important role in the review, guiding both parliament and government up to a point.The outcome can be interpreted in a variety of lights. However, the review clearly failed to alter the essential thrust of foreign policy under previous governments and, to some degree, involved smoke and mirrors, particularly on policy initiatives reliant on financial resources (which the government was busy constraining in a successful attempt to eliminate the federal deficit). Not surprisingly, it failed to live up to high expectations in the rare quarters where they existed.The experience calls into question the usefulness of such elaborate reviews, which can create expectations of change in foreign policy they are unlikely to satisfy. The following draws on personal experience in the preparation of Canada in the World, a limited number of scholarly sources, and practice elsewhere in the world.AN OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY REVIEWSForeign policy reviews are nothing new to the Canadian government, although their form has varied considerably. The fist comprehensive overview of Canadian foreign policy appeared in a speech given by Louis St Laurent, the SSEA, in Toronto in January 1947. Thereafter, it was a question of amendments and redefinition, although some historians claim that the original formulation has never been bettered. At various times, ministers and senior officials asked for a re-examination of particular aspects of Canadian policy. Perhaps the most important early attempt was in 1951 when Professor Frederic Soward was given extensive access to departmental files (with the apparent exception of documents relating to discussions with the United States on free trade in 1947-8) and produced a high quality (if orthodox) essay on foreign policy. …

Review: The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States

Review: The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States

The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States

This comparative analysis of the foreign policies of European Union member states includes comprehensive coverage of the post-Maastricht period and the three newest members of the EU. In the only comparative study of its kind since 1976, the book analyzes the dual impact of the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union, and the post-Cold War environment on the foreign policy processes of the EU’s member states. The book argues for a new approach to the foreign policy analysis of EU states that recognizes the fundamental changes that membership brings after the Cold War, but also acknowledges the diverse role of policies which states seek to retain or advance as being “special.”

Human Security and Asia's Financial Crisis

A critique of Canadian policyMORE THAN THREE YEARS AFTER the onset of Asia's financial crisis, several of the region's economies have been showing signs of recovery. As interest rates continue to decline and exchange rates in the region show signs of strength, many analysts argue that the region is poised to resume its journey towards economic growth and development. Because of improvements in the regional economy, some believe that the worst is over and that standards of living and social conditions in Asia will continue their long march upward.The complete story, however, is less sanguine. In some countries, industrial capacity continues to decline and private investment is far from pre-crisis levels. These persistent challenges promise even more unemployment and continued social difficulties. When coupled with the likelihood of continued economic hardship in some economies through 2000 and 2001, the popular argument that Asia's economic and political troubles are over seems less convincing as the declining social security/welfare situation is not likely to see consistent improvement.(1) Even if the least afflicted economies manage to post strong growth through the remainder of 2000, their situation will remain precarious, and economic stability will not be assured. Consequently, they will be less able to provide their citizens with the sorts of opportunities for economic advancement that were available prior to the crisis.(2) The absolute number of people living either on or below the poverty line will remain large, and the human welfare challenges posed by the crisis will persist. As a result, Canadian policy-makers will have to remain vigilant and continue to monitor the situation in Asia closely.The purpose of this article, however, is to go beyond the income-related effects of the crisis and draw attention to some of its more specific implications on human security concerns in three Southeast Asian countries - Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Using data uncovered during fieldwork - through interviews/consultations with personnel from government, academe, and non-governmental/activist groups, as well as a review of primary and secondary data most readily available in these countries - the article provides a critique of how the Canadian policy establishment conceptualizes and articulates human security in the 1995 foreign policy statement, Canada in the World.The decision to focus on Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam was driven by two key considerations. First, the violence and remarkable political transformations that took place in Indonesia and, to a lesser degree, in Thailand and South Korea has meant that other countries affected by the crisis have received relatively less attention and analysis either from academe or from the international media. Second, each of these countries is experiencing social, economic, and political transformations that began before the onset of the crisis. By focusing on these three countries, it is possible to examine how an exogenous/systemic shock (the crisis) affected domestic/endogenous processes of social and governmental change and the implications of this interaction on human security concerns.The article makes two arguments. First, Asia's financial crisis had a considerable impact in countries already undergoing transitional processes. On their own, these internal transformations posed serious human security challenges to citizens in each country, and the onset of the crisis exacerbated their effects. In some cases, key institutions faltered and human security was compromised in ways that go beyond the income-related effects of the crisis. Second, the observations and conclusions drawn from the fieldwork, in most cases, present a direct challenge to how Canadian policy-makers conceptualize human security. Based on the data uncovered during the course of research, the argument is that Canada should rethink its understanding of human security if its efforts are to be effective over the longer term. …

Agreeing to Disagree: Domestic Institutional Congruence and U.S. Dispute Behavior

Domestic and international politics are linked so that domestic structure and domestic political preferences affect international conflict behavior. In particular, states' policy preferences can be characterized by the congruence of policy preferences between political institutions. As a state's policy preferences become more congruent, as policy preferences between political institutions are more similar, the state's conflict behavior changes. I hypothesize that as the domestic political institutions in a state share similar policy preferences or policy goals, disputes become more likely and tend to last longer. I employ event count and continuous-time hazard models to analyze U.S. conflict propensity and conflict duration during the period 1945-1992. Using the Militarized Interstate Dispute data set (version 2.1), I model U.S. militarized dispute behavior as a function of congruence between the policy preferences of the U.S. President and the Congress. The models reveal a strong relationship between preference congruence and both the amount of conflict and the duration of the disputes in which the U.S. engages. The congruence hypotheses are robust across a variety of measures. The results add substantial strength and substance to claims that domestic political characteristics affect international conflict. The theory and empirical analyses also refine the domestic-international linkage by allowing scholars to consider the effect of normal political change in a single state on that state's foreign policy decisions.

Globalization and the Study of International Security

In spite of the plethora of literature on security and globalization, there is relatively little work written by security specialists that interconnects the two. In the case of security studies, this has been in no small part because the field remains entrenched in the `foodfight' of competing realist, liberal, and constructionist research programs. In the case of the globalization literature, it has stemmed from a relatively stronger focus on the social and economic processes of globalization. This essay explores how the processes of globalization have fundamentally changed the way we think about security. It argues that non-physical security, diversification of threats, and the salience of identity are key effects of globalization in the security realm. These security effects translate into certain behavioral tendencies in a state's foreign policy that have thus far not been studied in the literature. First, globalization creates an interpenetration of foreign and domestic (`intermestic') issues such that national governments increasingly operate in spaces defined by the intersection of internal and external security. Second, globalization puts unprecedented bureaucratic innovation pressures on governments in their search for security, and creates multilateralist pressures to cooperate with substate and transnational partners rather than traditional allies. Third, globalization makes the calculation of relative capabilities extremely complex and non-linear. Finally, globalization compels contemplation of new modes of fighting as well as renders commonly accepted modes of strategic thinking and rational deterrence increasingly irrelevant. The `new' security environment in the 21st century will operate increasingly in the space defined by the interpenetration between two spheres: globalization and national identity.

Ignorant armies: The state, the public, and the making of foreign policy

A state's foreign policy is constrained by parameters that inhere in the structure of the international system and in the nation's own political‐constitutional, social, and economic systems. The latter, domestic parameters, include “public opinion.” Because the public is largely ignorant of foreign affairs, policy‐making elites have wide scope for acting more rationally than would otherwise be possible, although public opinion operates on the second‐order effects of foreign policy (e.g., taxes, casualties)—inviting mismatches of objectives and means. The prevalent nonrational theories of foreign‐policy derivation are themselves largely ignorant of the dominantly rational processes of the state, particularly in its foreign and military functions.

Ethnopolitical Parties and Development Cooperation

What are the effects of ethnopolitical cleavages within the state on its foreign policy? This question has not received much attention in the literature. The coalition participation of ethnopolitical parties in Belgium offers a unique opportunity to empirically evaluate the implications of ethnic politics for a state's foreign policy. Twice, nationalist politicians held the post of minister of development cooperation. The rhetoric and policy behavior of these individuals is compared with that of a “mainstream” minister of development cooperation. The article derives its expectations from the literatures on foreign assistance donor motivation, national identity, consociationalism, and coalition theory. The findings suggest that there is no statistically significant difference between nationalist and mainstream ministers of development cooperation. A potential explanation for this finding is advanced.

Zhelyu Zhelev, V goliamata politika (In High Politics). Sofia: Knigoizdatelska kashta Trud, 1998, xiii, 239 pp., including select foreign policy statements + photographs, maps, chronology of foreign visits, name index.

Zhelyu Zhelev, V goliamata politika (In High Politics). Sofia: Knigoizdatelska kashta Trud, 1998, xiii, 239 pp., including select foreign policy statements + photographs, maps, chronology of foreign visits, name index.

U. S. Tourism Potential in a New Cuba

The purpose of this paper is to explore international tourism potential in Cuba. While Latin America has been a particularly high growth area in world tourism, Cuba has not experienced commensurate growth. United States (U. S.) foreign policy has impeded Cuban tourism growth and caused a lost profit potential for U. S. corporations. The paper notes that the Cuban government has recently made great strides in attracting foreign capital, but that U. S. foreign policy continues to discriminate against Cuba. A variety of ways and means are described to maximize tourism in Cuba should there be a rapprochement between Cuba and the U. S. The conclusion suggests that the continuing imposition of sanctions against Cuba is harmful to the interests of the U. S., its tourism businesses, and to regional stability and peace.

Continuing Controversies over State and Local Foreign Policy Sanctions in the United States

Continuing Controversies over State and Local Foreign Policy Sanctions in the United States

Continuing Controversies Over State and Local Foreign Policy Sanctions in the United States

Recent state and local government sanctions on business with Burma and certain Swiss banks renews a debate over foreign policy powers in federal systems that operate in an integrated global economy. International business promotion has become an accepted function of state and local governments. More controversial is the imposition offoreign policy sanctions, where economic involvement becomes a lever to pursue political goals rather than an objective in itself. When compared with past cases, including South Africa and the Arab boycott, recent state and local initiatives demonstrate both continuity and fresh departures in federalism's evolving adjustment to the global economy. These developments can be used to examine theoretical concepts such as constituent and multilayered diplomacy. They also argue for improved practical cooperation among the multiple and diverse actors engaged in foreign policy issues.

Regional identity and the sovereignty principle: Explaining Israeli‐Palestinian peacemaking

(1998). Regional identity and the sovereignty principle: Explaining Israeli‐Palestinian peacemaking. Geopolitics: Vol. 3, Boundaries Territory and Postmodernity, pp. 177-196.