Foreign Policy Practice Research Articles

Indexing news after the cold war: Reporting U.S. ties to Latin American paramilitary organizations

According to Bennett's indexing hypothesis, the range of voices and viewpoints in news and editorials is “indexed” to “the range of views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic.” This seems particularly true in news concerning U.S. foreign policy goals and practices. This article suggests that journalism in the post‐Cold War environment has greater latitude in including dissident voices and ideas that previously would have been “marginalized” from the mainstream press. Two comparative case studies are offered in support of this argument. We also expand on the notion of “news icons” as vehicles for the introduction of previously marginalized issues.

Theory and practice in foreign policy making: national perspectives on academics and professionals in international relations

Journal Article Theory and practice in foreign policy making: national perspectives on academics and professionals in international relations Get access Theory and practice in foreign policy making: national perspectives on academics and professionals in international relations. Edited By Michel Girard, Wolf-Dieter Eberweinand Keith Webb. London: Pinter. 1994. 178pp. Index. £37.50. ISBN 1 85567 185 9. Michael Smith Michael Smith 1University of Loughborough Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 71, Issue 2, April 1995, Page 360, https://doi.org/10.2307/2623443 Published: 01 April 1995

Bridging the gap: theory and practice in foreign policy

Journal Article Bridging the gap: theory and practice in foreign policy Get access Bridging the gap: theory and practice in foreign policy. By Alexander L. George. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. 1993. 170pp. Index. $24.95; ISBN 1 878379 23 2. Pb.: $14.95; ISBN 1 878379 22 4. Trevor C. Salmon Trevor C. Salmon 1University of St Andrews Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 70, Issue 3, July 1994, Pages 522–523, https://doi.org/10.2307/2623713 Published: 01 July 1994

Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy. By Alexander L. George. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1993. 170p. $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy. By Alexander L. George. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1993. 170p. $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.

The Two Cultures of Academia and Policy-Making: Bridging the Gap

Different approaches to foreign policy taken by academic scholars and practitioners of foreign policy are identified. The gulf between these two cultures can be bridged by focusing on the relationship of knowledge to action in the conduct of foreign policy. Thus, in order to select viable strategies in dealing with other countries, policymakers need three types of knowledge that academic scholars can help to produce. These three types of knowledge are (1) conceptual models of each strategy (e.g., deterrence, coercive diplomacy, crisis management, crisis resolution, cooperation, etc.); (2) general (generic) knowledge of conditions that favor successful employment of each strategy; and (3) actorspecific models of the values, mind-sets, behavioral styles, internal politics, and culture of actors toward whom the strategies may be directed. The essay points out how these three types of knowledge can help to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of foreign policy.

Bridging the gap: theory and practice in foreign policy

Bridging the gap: theory and practice in foreign policy

Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines

Much of the criticism directed at post-positivist international relations has called for more detailed exploration of its implications for specific areas of investigation. At the same time, the study of foreign policy has been largely unaffected by the critical insights offered by post-positivism. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by examining three approaches to foreign policy analysis and the metatheoretical issues underlying each of them. It is suggested that an approach informed by post-positivist insights can provide a useful alternative to traditional ways of studying foreign policy and can facilitate a more critical interpretation of foreign policy practices. The first two approaches, the Cognitive Decisionmaking Approach and the Social Performance Approach, were chosen as a way of differentiating and highlighting the ontological and theoretical issues that are relevant to understanding and situating the Discursive Practices Approach. After examining the three approaches, I use the Discursive Practices Approach to analyze United States' counterinsurgency policy in the Philippines circa 1950.

Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy

Bridging the gap that separates the two cultures of academia and policymaking is the central purpose of this pathbreaking study. George examines six U.S. strategies toward Iraq in 1988-1991. He urges policymakers to make better use of scholarly knowledge and challenges scholars to develop the types of knowledge that can be employed effectively by policymakers.

Australia's foreign relations in the world of the 1990s

Part 1 Dynamics: the changing international environment the evolution of an independent foreign policy elements in foreign policy making the politics of foreign policy the practice of foreign policy. Part 2 Issues: the search for global security security in the Asia Pacific region trade and investment imperatives development assistance responsibilities the new internationalist agenda. Part 3 Relationships: the South Pacific South-East Asia Indo-China North-East Asia South Asia and the Indian Ocean the Middle East and Africa Europe the Americas. Part 4 Challenges: Australia's role in the world of the 1990s.

Rethinking Revolutions: The Cold War in the Third World

The article critiques recent research on the foreign policies of late 20th-century revolutionary movements, and attempts to identify some basic elements in the ideology and organization of these policies. The author finds the search for foreign great power allies to be a vital element in the foreign policy practice of revolutionaries, and seeks to analyze how Great Power interests and local revolutionary aspirations interplayed in different cases (China, Iran, Angola). In conclusion, the author looks at how the Cold War international system influenced the chances for revolutionary success, and finds that the character of the Soviet-American conflict in many countries enhanced the potential for revolution by making it impossible for established regimes to monopolize foreign support.

Motivational-Ideational Analysis of Stalin’s Foreign Policy

Professor Tucker's twofold task in Emergence of Stalin's Foreign Policy is both to describe Stalin's about foreign policy and to explain Stalin's practice of foreign policy, particularly toward the WNest. With regard to Stalin's thinking, Tucker's approach takes place on two levels. On one hand, his investigation of Stalin's attitudes, motives, and purposes leads to basically psychological phenomena. These are largely unconscious and implicit in Stalin's writings and speeches. Specifically, Tucker assigns importance to two identity formations: (1) Stalin's self-identification as leader of the successor state to historic Russiacausing him to favor internal and external policies that would make Soviet Russia a world power-and (2) Stalin's self-identification with and competitiveness witlh Lenin-compelling him to aspire to bring about a better Brest-Litovsk providing Soviet Russia with additional territory and ultimate security in the form of contiguous socialist states. On the other hand, Professor Tucker's examination of Stalin's conceptual framework for foreign policy-Russia's position in the world, goals, strategy, tactics, and so forth-deals basically in ideational and ideological constructs. These are for the most part conscious and explicit in Stalin's utterances. On this plane of analysis, Tucker concludes that Stalin believed that Soviet Russia might survive in a hostile international environment where war was inevitable and might eventually attain a commanding world position by u'sing divisive diplomacy in order to: (1) avert war while building military strength, (2) precipitate war at the right moment, and (3) avoid participation during the war's early stages. Russia would enter such a war only when to do so would result in territorial aggrandizement and the expansion of socialism through guided revolution in adjacent countries. Although Professor Tucker skillfully interweaves the psychological and ideological levels into a single motivational-ideational interpretation of Stalin's thinking, the two psychological identity formations serve an important function for the whole. The Lenin identification suggests why Stalin uniquely stressed war as the manner in which Russia would regain territory and spread revolution. The Great Russian national-historic identification explains why Stalin considered that the path of territorial aggrandizement and revolutionary advance would be in areas near the present Russian borders. And not least important, both identity formations lend support to the view that Stalin's commitment to the goals of territorial and revolutionary expansion was real rather than ritualistic. Concurring with Professor Tucker's overall formulation of Stalin's thinking about foreign policy, I would make some observations concerning certain details. If, as Tucker suggests, Stalin changed his 1926 concept of armed revolution into one that was centered on his own Red Army, this revised notion was perhaps the more compelling because it was consistent with one of Lenin's passages that Stalin frequently cited in support of his own theory of socialism in one country. In 1915 Lenin had written:

New Light on Mao: His View of the World

As much as one-quarter of the contents of the two Wan-sui volumes deals with matters relating either to the theory or the practice of foreign policy. Very little material of this kind had emerged in the earlier “unofficial” collections of Mao's speeches and writings which came to our knowledge after the Cultural Revolution, and this latest acquisition breaks entirely new ground. As far as the “official” record is concerned, we have until now known more of Mao's views on international affairs before 1949 than after the Liberation. During the 1950s there were a few formal statements on Sino-Soviet relations – telegrams, greetings and the like which required very close analysis to reveal the complex web of tensions beneath the surface. There were some brief and fairly stereotyped descriptions of the international scene in Mao's published speeches to Party and Government conferences. The second decade of the People's Republic was served rather better in the “official” record, but only if one regarded the major documents in the Sino-Soviet polemic as either written by Mao or expressing his views. There were some well-publicized reports of Mao's various meetings with Third World visitors in the 1960s though the level of conversation with, in the main, overawed and deferential amateurs clearly never taxed Mao's intellect. One could perhaps have pieced together the scraps of documentary evidence to construct the bare bones of Mao's outlook on the world, but it would have lacked all the flesh and substance now imparted to it by the Wan-sui documents.

A Political Theory of Foreign Aid

Of the seeming and real innovations which the modern age has introduced into the practice of foreign policy, none has proven more baffling to both understanding and action than foreign aid. The very assumption that foreign aid is an instrument of foreign policy is a subject of controversy. For, on the one hand, the opinion is widely held that foreign aid is an end in itself, carrying its own justification, both transcending, and independent of, foreign policy. In this view, foreign aid is the fulfillment of an obligation of the few rich nations toward the many poor ones. On the other hand, many see no justification for a policy of foreign aid at all. They look at it as a gigantic boon-doggle, a wasteful and indefensible operation which serves neither the interests of the United States nor those of the recipient nations.

Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy in Great Britain

Parliament has today perhaps less supervision over foreign policy than over any other field of governmental activity. Such has been the case for over a generation, and such is still the case in spite of the Labor party's efforts to democratize the control of foreign affairs. That such a situation should exist is particularly strange, since the generally accepted theory of the English constitution assumes that foreign affairs are under the strict control of Parliament. Indeed, the governmental practice of the last forty years has largely violated theories formulated somewhat earlier. How this situation originated, and what its significance is, can best be understood after some examination of the theory and practice of foreign policy control.What may be called the classical theories of the English constitution are largely the product of the writings of Bagehot and J. S. Mill working on the imagination of the generation which Gladstone dominated, and given emphasis by the Liberals of the seventies. Somewhat unthinkingly, perhaps, these theories won acceptance by Liberals and Conservatives alike. Authoritative statements of the constitutional theory of the control of foreign policy will be found, for instance, in Anson's Law and Custom of the Constitution and Halsbury’s Laws of England. Both of these works express a Liberal conception of foreign policy control; yet both ate the works of Tories.