Foreign Policy Formulation Research Articles

Taking Gender Seriously

All historians of American foreign relations know that, to date, women have had little, if any, measurable impact on the making and formulation of foreign policy. This historical reality was confirmed emphatically and unequivocally by former Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, who emphasized in a recent interview that in the realm of diplomacy “there has been very, very, very little participation by women at the really top policy levels of our government.”1 To rectify this gender imbalance at the institutional and bureaucratic level, American women—feminist and non-feminist alike—over the past two decades have mounted a serious challenge to the male-dominated foreign policy establishment. The two agencies that have been most responsible for the creation and implementation of the nation's foreign policy in the post-World War II era, the Department of State and the Department of Defense, are confronting societal and legal pressures to abandon their ethos of...

Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945-1975.

Harry Truman's administration began searching for an American response to the clash in Indochina between French colonialism and Vietminh communism in 1945. 30 years and five administrations later, Gerald Ford and his aides tried unsuccessfully to solicit additional aid for South Vietnam from a reluctant Congress. For Truman, Ford and every American leader in between, the dilemma in Vietnam hung ominously over the presidency. In Shadow on the White House, seven historians examine how the leadership of six presidents and an issue that grew into a difficult and often unpopular war shaped each other. Focusing on the personalities, politics, priorities and actions of the presidents as they confronted Vietnam, the authors consider the expansion of presidential power in foreign-policy formulation since World War II. In their analyses, they chronicle the history of executive leadership as it related to Vietnam, assess the presidential prerogatives and motives on war and peace issues, and clarify the interconnection between the modern presidency and the nation's frustrating and humiliating failure in Southeast Asia. Although other histories have been written about the Vietnam experience, this book is a systematic and comparative survey on presidential leadership as it relates to the war issue. It is organised by presidential administrations, giving a detailed examination of each president's decisions and policies. Based on the most recently opened archival sources, the essays provide a framework on which to hang the events of the war.

Friends in High Places

Abstract “Friends in High Places” is a group activity designed to integrate geography with other social studies disciplines such as government, political science, American history, and world issues. It is necessary to consider geography when shaping foreign policy because the formulation of foreign policy requires of its very nature reaching out from our borders like a worldwide network of nerve fibers. As chief diplomat, the President conducts foreign affairs including 1) the initiation of foreign policy, 2) the recognition of new foreign governments, and 3) the making of treaties.

Economic Interest Groups and the Formation of Foreign Policy in the Early Republic

sive and important. When one puts all these pieces together, the acquisition of territory through negotiation, purchase, and conquest; the assimilation and isolation of peoples of different cultures in North America; the establishment of commercial domination and spheres of influence and attempts to influence people overseas; and the attempt to extend American secular and religious culture-processes that involved a multitude of special interests and self-conscious communities-a strong argument might be made for a corporatist analysis of nineteenth-century American foreign relations. It also suggests the need for a revived and fresh examination of mid-nineteenth-century American imperialism. But that is a different subject.

Mgdnarodni Odnosi In Javnost

The study of international relations is, due to its importance as a mere matter of survival for every individual, every nation and every state. One of the tasks that the public is in charge of is influencing and altering these relations in accordance with the good of humanity. Public opinion is considered to express the views, opinions and mood of the public concerning questions of the general interest. As such it is seen to establish the contact of the public with either the totality of international relations or their individual, partial and specific aspects, through forms which from their very beginnings through of the 19th and 20th centuries have been very weak and limited. In particular this contact has been inappropriate to what we might understand as an articulation of the general interest. This historical development shows clearly that the scientific, philosophical, legal, ethical, or even political approach to this international phenomenon are conditioned by the development of international community and specific historical situations. In the period of antiquity, the feudal dispersal of sovereignty, and later in the time of the affirmation of national states, a great number of writers turned their attention to the problems of peace and war, national interest and the norms concerning the regulation of interactions between the states, but these considerations did not affect in vivo the existence of individuals and nations in a way which would have articulated the general interest. Today, we are faced with the task of furnishing a scientific explanation of the performance of the public and public opinion in this period of growing interdependence in the linkages between the internal and external processes of states, and in the global community more generally. The categories introduced by the realistic school of international relations - e.g., the national interest, power, and the equilibrium of power - penetrate the public, although not in a scientific and systematic way. Adding to this finding, more extensive consideration indicates that the circulation of these categories has been followed by the vulgarization and simplification of these concepts. All these assumptions would be confirmed or reflected when the role and the position of the general and attentive public are considered in the processes of the formulation and execution of foreign policy. There exists an interest by governments in winning the support of the general public in formulating the strategy of foreign policy, whereas the position of the attentive public is more important. A different situation appears when a strategic turning of foreign policy is on the agenda. This is the point where the general public operates as a constraint on policy innovation.

From the USSR to Russia on the Pacific

For Western powers, the end of the Cold War brought to the forefront the problems of the new international order and pressing domestic priorities. For the Soviet Union, 1991 was the year of complete disintegration. Before the Soviet Union broke apart, its authorities and institutions brought the country to the brink of catastrophe. The situation is akin to defeat in a protracted war. Only in a few ways is it different from the situation of Japan and Germany in 1945: (1) the end of the Cold War and subsequent internal disintegration came almost without destruction and violence; (2) the enormous stocks of weaponry, including 27,000 nuclear warheads, are still there; (3) there is no occupation of the territory by foreign powers; and (4) therefore, the responsibility for decisions lies primarily with the domestic political leadership which is formally independent, but clearly unable to overcome accumulated dif ficulties without large-scale external economic support. Contrary to the isolationist ideas the Soviet political leadership had immediately after 1945, the predominant trend in Soviet and Russian foreign policy formula tions in 1991 was integration into the world economy, including its Asia-Pacific sector, and the international community. But the world economy and the structure of international relations and institutions are today so different and so much more complex than those of the post-World War II period that it will take time, considerable domestic efforts, bold foreign policy initiatives and external assistance for Russia to secure a decent place in the emerging post-Cold War world.

Political Culture and Foreign Policy in Latin America: Case Studies from the Circum-Caribbean

It is the latter issue more precisely, the relations of the United States with Latin America that serves as the subtext of this study and, in fact, drives its principal arguments. The notion of political culture serves largely as a way to fix responsibility for the condition of under development on the 'culture' of the South rather than on the policies of the North. To this end, the authors discuss Latin American class structures, ideology, and paradigms of foreign policy formation and they do it well, supported with a score and more of tables, charts, and graphs. The discussion of United States foreign policy, however, is slightly less rigorous. In fact, it assumes the form of a metaphor. The authors adopt the image of the United States as caudillo of the western hemisphere: the North American presence rendered in a Latin American political form not neocolonialism, not imperialism, not hegemony, but a caudillo: a slightly benign patron looking after the unruly flock. It is not entirely clear why scholars who otherwise adhere scrupulously to social science methodologies resort to a thirty-year-old construct that, even at the time of its formulation, was unduly facile and wholly without empirical use and theoretical value. But its imprecision and ambiguity are its principal virtues, purposefully: metaphor as substitute for analysis. The 'United States as caudillo' device obviates the need to confront critically nearly a century of military intervention, political intermeddling, and subversion as if to suggest that such behaviour once attributed to a caudillo is less obnoxious, less reprehensible. It is a Latin 'thing,' after all, regrettable to be sure but caudillos will be caudillos.

The American Political Process

The American Political Process examines the democratic character of government and politics in the United States. It explores the American political culture, with its inherent tensions; examines the principal institutions; and analyses public policy-making using a case-study of the formulation of foreign policy. The political culture of the US, since the inception of the Republic, has been explicitly and almost exclusively that of a liberal democracy. The absence of other political traditions has had a profound impact on government and politics. Liberal democracy framed the reference within which the institutions of government were created and sets the parameters within which politics operates. This lucid, concise and distinctive account of the American political system provides students with a broad understanding of the institutions of government, placed within the context of the US political culture.

Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner

Personal dictators remain a key feature of contemporary regimes termed ‘authoritarian’ or ‘totalitarian’, particularly in their early consolidating phases. But there is still disagreement over the seemingly ideological, polemical and indiscriminate use of the term totalitarian dictatorship as an analytic concept and tool to guide foreign policy formulation. Jeane Kirkpatrick elevated the taxonomy to a vociferous level of debate with a 1979 Commentary article. Entitled ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, the work raised anew semantic hairsplitting concerning the qualitative differences between all previous tyrannies and those bearing organisational similarities with the Nazi, Fascist or Stalinist prototypes.

Internal and External Determinants of Foreign Policy: West Germany and Great Britain during the Two-Track Missile Controversy

The recognition of a theoretical link between the foreign policies of different states provides the basis for this study. A framework suitable for analyzing comparative foreign policy formulation is used to examine the years immediately following NATO's dual-track missile decision of 1979. It is hypothesized that the Soviet Union is capable of penetrating and influencing the foreign policy-making process in West Germany and Great Britain by affecting public attitudes in both countries. Soviet actions directed toward West Germany and Great Britain between 1979 and 1983 are added to models that explain public support for incumbent leaders. By demonstrating a causal link between public support and external variables, this study presents evidence that the policy process in the West can be affected by Soviet actions directed toward it.

New Dimensions of Soviet Arctic Policy: Views from the Soviet Union

Radically new approaches to the formation of both foreign and domestic Arctic policy have been established in the USSR. Design of a real Arctic policy founded on these approaches is proceeding at a slow pace, however, and all means of dealing with Arctic issues through departmental approaches have been exhausted. Of all the Arctic problems facing the country, questions related to a radical restructuring of the social outlook of the North and developing its infrastructure are being brought to the forefront. Development of the Soviet North has resulted in a deep conflict between the economic interests of industrial civilization and the Arctic ecosystems now functioning at critical levels. More important, the interests, the identity, and the very existence of small Northern aboriginal peoples are at stake. Yet a certain optimism is inspired by several factors: awareness of the challenge facing the Soviet Union in the Arctic; active involvement of a major scientific effort; institutionalized participation of the native peoples in decision making; and an ever expanding role played by a sphere of international cooperation.

American opinion toward terrorism: The Reagan years

Abstract Using a variety of public opinion sources, this article explores American attitudes during the two Reagan administrations toward terrorism. It establishes the salience of terrorism in the public's mind, the perceived causes of terrorism, opinion about preventing future terrorist incidents, and attitudes on negotiating with terrorists. The paper also examines sentiments about military retaliation options and reviews beliefs about media coverage of terrorism. In this overall attitudinal context, the study touches on the theoretical relationship between public opinion and foreign policymaking, contending that the American public is responsible and sensible enough to comprehend the general nuances and basic complexities of an issue such as terrorism. Public opinion is judged to be a capable and logical determinant in foreign policy formation. The paper also concludes that there must be some symmetry between U.S. policy and public opinion on the issue for the policy to be effective.

Michael Lawrence Dockrill. The Formulation of a Continental Foreign Policy by Great Britain 1908–1912. (Outstanding Theses from the London School of Economics and Political Science.) New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.1986. Pp. 407. $62.00.

Michael Lawrence Dockrill. The Formulation of a Continental Foreign Policy by Great Britain 1908–1912. (Outstanding Theses from the London School of Economics and Political Science.) New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.1986. Pp. 407. $62.00.

Ben‐Gurion and Sharett: conflict management and great power constraints in Israeli Foreign Policy

Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, its decision-makers have been fully aware of the impact of the international system on the ArabIsraeli conflict. Interests of external powers in the Middle East had to be taken into consideration in the formation of Israel's foreign policy. During the War of Independence the threat of British intervention on behalf of the Arab states was seriously contemplated, and a decision made to exercise self-restraint in order to avoid military confrontation.' David Ben-Gurion, Israel's Premier and Minister of Defense, was convinced that Israel must not provoke the intervention of a great power by means of its military action. While Israel had no other alternative but to fight the Arabs, war with a great power was far from inevitable.2 The question of external constraints in Israel's foreign and defense policy was rendered more acute in the early 1 950s, following the military deterioration along the armistice lines. This was aggravated by the failure of Israel's preliminary effort to obtain arms and security guarantees. The interrelationship between conflict management and consideration of great-power constraints produced two distinct schools of thought among Israel's decision maker in the early 1950s. Ben-Gurion espoused a hawkish and activist approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, while minimizing the prominence of external constraints. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett represented a doveish and more restrained line of conflict management, attributing great importance to foreign powers, the United Nations and international public opinion.3 This study aims to examine the emergence of these two approaches to management of the Arab-Israeli conflict, while analysing the actual impact of external constraints on Israel's foreign and defense policy between 1954 and 1956. It is argued that had the United States better understood Israel's defense problems, providing it with arms and security guarantees, it could have exercised greater influence over its foreign policy. Possibly the downfall of Sharett, the establishment of the Franco-Israeli alliance and even the 1956 war might have been prevented.

British Foreign Policy in the Caribbean Basin 1938–1945: Oil, Nationalism and Relations with the United States

The formulation of foreign policy is at best an inchoate process. The very term implies an orthodoxy of identification, pursuit and maintenance of perceived interests which is often patently lacking in reality. When a nation is beset by a declining capacity to exert influence in a particular region as a result both of competition from other powers and of incipient assertiveness on the part of local interests, the foreign-policy process may be reduced to one of administering ad hoc responses to particular developments which appear to lack any overall rationale.

Malaysia and the Soviet Union: A Relationship with a Distance

Malaysia's relations with the Soviet Union represent a good case study of small power-big power interaction arising from differences in ideological orientation and political systems, size and strategic geography, and also disparities in foreign policy objectives, priorities, and national capabilities. Indeed these differences stem from, and are reflected by the structural character of the international system in which the nationstate remains the primary actor. Systemic opportunities and constraints tend to define the parameters for the formulation and execution of foreign policy for big and small states alike. Thus the pursuit of national interests will be governed largely by rational strategies that attempt to maximize the capability for national survival in the strategic, political, economic, ideological, and diplomatic spheres. Malaysia's geopolitical location, historical and cultural evolution, level of economic development, and its multiethnic racial composition are all factors that exert a considerable influence on its domestic and foreign policies. Similarly, the Soviet Union's status as the most powerful Communist nation, its unique geographical attributes which legitimize its claim to be a European and Asian power, plus its economic and military capabilities, are all equally important factors that determine its role and influence in world affairs. Some basic comparisons would help in putting the Malaysian-Soviet relationship in the right perspective. Malaysia has a population of 15.8 million spread over 128,000 square miles of territory, as opposed to the Soviet Union's 280 million people. With a geographic area of over 8.6 million square miles, the USSR is the largest country in the world, nearly 2 1/2 times the size of the United States. Malaysia's GNP in 1985 was US$25.4

Bowman's New World and the Council on Foreign Relations

Bowman's New World and the Council on Foreign Relations

Charles-Francois Dumouriez and the Revolutionizing of French Foreign Affairs in 1792

Although the National Constituent Assembly, during 1789-91, subjected French internal institutions to a thorough revolutionary reorganization, it intended to leave the formulation and administration of foreign policy to the king. Nevertheless, external events obliged that Assembly to take cognizance of international relations and foreign policy. By May 1790 the Nootka Sound controversy raised the question of whether the family compact with Spain, which reflected the interests and goals of the Bourbon dynasty, was consistent with the interests and goals of the sovereign people of France. In August 1791 the petitions of the people of Avignon and the Comtat-Venaissin for annexation to France led the Assembly to decide that the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people required that these territories be annexed to France, even though under the international law of the Old Regime they belonged to the pope. Finally, the suspected collusion between Louis XVI and a European counterrevolutionary movement provoked a growing conviction among the deputies of the Left that the foreign policy of the French crown and the aims of the representative assembly of the French people were in direct conflict. Thus, the idea that the formulation and conduct of foreign policy could remain in the hands of the king alone became increasingly incompatible with the revolutionary idea that the interests and will of the people, or the nation, were primary.

The Influence of Parliament on Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy

Despite much excellent scholarly literature written in recent years concerning Canadian foreign policy, surprisingly little has been written about the role of Parliament in foreign policy, and almost nothing about Parliament and human rights.' Among the literature that does touch on the role of Parliament there is evident a general perception that the Canadian legislature has very little influence on the formation of foreign policy.2 There is general truth to portrayals of Parliament's limited intervention into decisionmaking. Nevertheless, the main contention of this paper is that Parliament has managed to influence the development of Canada's human rights policy in a variety of ways and on a number of different levels.

American Defense Annual: 1985-1986

Hinckley examines the effect of public opinion upon foreign policy, influencing, as it does, many vital issues including changing US-Soviet relations, arms control and SDI, terrorism, and the MIddle East. He calls for more attention to be paid to the measurement of public opinion. He reveals that the current popular theories, which argue either that the public is ignorant and cannot be expected to hold serious opinions on policy matters or, alternatively, that the public is responsible, rational, and the most important determinant in foreign policy formulation, are both too sweeping, and he shows that the truth lies somewher in between these views. Hinckley argues that greater attention must be paid to the ever more sophisticated measurement of public opinion as it brings into sharper focus the relationship between the press, the public, and policymakers.