Role In Foreign Policy Research Articles

Political Leadership and Foreign Policy: Study of Soekarno’s Confrontation Policy Against Malaysia

Leader plays important role in international relation and foreign policy making. This Paper tried to analyze Soekarno’s leadership style and the implication for Indonesian foreign policy. This paper focused on Soekarno’s confrontation policy against Malaysia in the early decade of 1960s.

Images of Europe and the Myth of Exceptionalism

The paper begins by recalling academic debates on foreign policy and identity and the ways in which state identity is produced, reproduced and challenged. The boundary-producing role of foreign policy is fore grounded as is its contribution to identity creation. The paper then assesses the extent to which such an analysis can be applied to the European Union. Does the Union possess a ‘foreign policy’ in the sense that we understand states to have foreign policies? Does the Union’s international activity create boundaries and identities comparable to those created by states’ foreign policies? The paper goes on to argue that the EU’s identity as a foreign policy actor is at least in part a function of contested national narratives, that the Union suffers from a weakly instantiated sense of self and foreign policy identity and that its fragile democratic legitimation is a partial outcome of that weakness. Thus, if their goal is a strengthening of the capacity, credibility and effectiveness of a ‘common’ foreign, security and defence policy, European policy elites are well advised to focus less on process and procedure and more on the strengthening of discursive political spaces from which discernable European narratives might be drawn.

The Role of Foreign Policy in the 2009 Campaign and the Black-Yellow Future

Foreign policy issues did not play a decisive role in the German general election campaign of 2009. While Chancellor Angela Merkel conducted a decidedly presidential campaign, her main rival, SPD Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, found it difficult to break out of his role as Merkel's partner in the Grand Coalition the two had led for four years. This was especially true with respect to issues on foreign policy, where both candidates had cooperated rather smoothly. Neither the issue of Afghanistan (despite the hotly debated Kunduz airstrike), nor the unresolved issues of the future of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty could antagonize the main political protagonists in Germany. The overwhelming foreign policy consensus among the mainstream political forces remained intact. Nevertheless, the changing international landscape and increased German responsibilities abroad will turn foreign policy into a relevant campaign issue, probably as early as 2013, when, presumably, the next Bundestag elections will be held.

Seeing the Glass Half Full

John W. Holmes, optimism, and making of Canadian foreign policyOptimism is an instrument of policy.John W Holmes, 1983'In an age in which Canadian foreign policy appears to be increasingly defined by pessimism, it is nice to hear voice of optimism, all more so when this voice represents some of finest traditions in practice of Canadian foreign policy. There will always be those (and there is strong vein of them here in Canada) who believe that optimism has no place in practice of foreign policy. And certainly, while hard power and military calculus will always have role in foreign policy, they are not only factors, or necessarily most important instrument, particularly for small country like Canada. Holmes understood this intimately, and his clever and narrow construction of optimism as tool of policy (and not basis of policy) contains wisdom that could enrich our present foreign policy debate.This article has three purposes. First, I use an extreme example to demonstrate that optimism can indeed be an instrument of policy. Second, I try to dissect few of conditions under which it might be both necessary and successful. Finally, I focus on present state of Canadian foreign policy and assess what role, if any, optimism may have to play.Optimism - a disposition or tendency to look on more favourable side of events or conditions and to expect most favourable outcome or the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in - is rare in world of international affairs. In classic international relations theory, citizens depend on their government to act rationally. In an anarchical society, states live under constant threat of being undermined, overrun, or exploited. Government should, if anything, look at world through pessimistic eyes in order to imagine and prepare for worst possible scenarios.This simple view of our country and world is, of course, contestable. Canada does not exist in state of total anarchy. Indeed, in both near abroad and across Atlantic we have friends and allies who generally act favourably towards us. Collectively, we agree to constrain our behaviours in mutually acceptable ways and as result enjoy somewhat narrower and more manageable (although not nonexistent) set of existential threats. So our relations with both our NATO allies generally and United States specifically mean that we must not always adopt most pessimistic outlook when confronting problems. Indeed, our history of cooperation with these allies has cultivated trust economy where we can have better than pessimistic expectations of their behaviour towards us, and one another, man some realist theories might predict. But even within these more nuanced structures of interstate relations there must be limits to optimism. The opportunities to exploit situation, for members to free-ride, and for balance of power to shift all mean that, as general rule, choosing optimism as basis for foreign policy would be unwise.This, however, is not what Holmes maintained. Holmes's reference to optimism is as an instrument. He saw optimism not as basis for foreign policy but as mental state we individually and collectively should not abandon as we tackle difficult issues. In his definition of optimism, Holmes argued that [a]n awareness of all difficulties is essential, but an attitude of confidence is indispensable.2 Holmes was, and is, correct. Optimism has long been an important tool for foreign policy for Canada and others, and an essential one at that.Holmes uttered this dictum in October 1983 during speech about United Nations, an organization that he believed at time had been jeopardized by actions of United States generally, and President Ronald Reagan specifically. And while Holmes had special ability to convince even most cynical to consider his ideas seriously, for those not yet persuaded that optimism is an instrument of foreign policy, United Nations is poor case study. …

The Role of Turkey Within Petroleum Between the Caspian Sea Basin and the Middle East

Petroleum plays a very important role in foreign policies and their international relations of Caspian and Middle East countries. The Middle East itself produces 32% of the world's oil, but even more impressive is they have 64% of the total proven oil reserves in the world. Turkey is at the crossroads of Europe and several volatile, strategically, and economically important regions, including the Caspian Sea basin region, the Middle East, and Russia. Its location on two continents plays a central part in Turkish history and gives the country a major advantage in serving the markets of Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. Turkey's geopolitical locale made possible an important role in regional politics, while domestic energy needs required it to do so.

Why Some States Participate in UN Peace Missions While Others Do Not: An Analysis of Civil-Military Relations and Its Effects on Latin America's Contributions to Peacekeeping Operations

Why do some states deploy troops to support UN missions while others do not? Although short from war, peacekeeping entails a military dimension of foreign policy in which uniformed personnel is deployed to accomplish diplomatic and political means. As such, decisions to commit troops to UN operations must have the implicit support of the armed forces in order to take place. Yet, military backing for peacekeeping participation is not universal; some military institutions are more willing to join such missions than others. This article accounts for variations in terms of peacekeeping commitments by focusing on security doctrines and the degree of integration between military and foreign policy roles. It hypothesizes that countries with externally oriented doctrines and integrated foreign and defense policies are more likely to commit troops to the UN than countries with national security doctrines and segregated military and foreign policy roles. Using evidence from the Latin American region, the paper suggests that the decision to engage in UN operations is the result of doctrinal policies and bureaucratic infighting.

Keeping ‘the Old Flag flying’: the British community in Morocco and the British Morocco Merchants Association, 1914-24

This article examines the British expatriate community in Morocco and specifically in Tangier at a formative time in the country's history. Growing French ascendancy in Morocco and the strains imposed by war exposed weaknesses in British prospects in Morocco coupled with declining official interest in Britain's future there. The British community, and merchants involved in the Morocco trade, sought to resist these developments. In doing so they were inspired by war-time patriotism as well as by self-interest. Their efforts took various forms including the establishment of the British Morocco Merchants Association. The article suggests that in view of Morocco's increasingly marginal role in British foreign policy after the First World War, these efforts were unlikely to have much impact. © Institute of Historical Research 2009.

Between Interest and Responsibility: Assessing China's Foreign Policy and Burgeoning Global Role

This article is situated within the contemporary debates about the nature and purpose of China's growing power. It uses the concepts of “national interest” and “international responsibility” as a framework of analysis for Chinese foreign policy, and develops a three-dimensional typology to conceptualize their relationship (antagonistic; instrumental; mutually constitutive). This article adopts two main arguments. First, a stronger China is one gravitating toward greater notions of international responsibility, albeit instrumentally. Second, observable trends in China's evolving worldview indicate, however, that it is conceiving its national interests more broadly, embracing further socialization and greater normative commitments to international society. One may therefore view China's burgeoning global role as a great power with a degree of “cautious optimism.”

The transformation of Turkish foreign policy: The rise of the trading state

AbstractRecently, Turkish foreign policy, compared to the 1990s, has manifested a number of puzzlements. They range from the rapprochement with Greece, the turnabout over Cyprus, mediation efforts involving a series of regional conflicts to a policy seeking an improvement in relations with Armenia and Kurds of Northern Iraq. These puzzlements have increasingly transformed Turkey from being cited as a “post-Cold War warrior” or a “regional coercive power” to a “benign” if not “soft” power. Academic literature has tried to account for these puzzlements and the accompanying transformation in Turkish foreign policy from a wide range of theoretical perspectives. This literature has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of what drives Turkish foreign policy. At the same time, this literature has not paid adequate attention to the role of economic factors shaping Turkish foreign policy as we approach the end of the first decade of the new century. This article aims to highlight this gap and at the same time offer a preliminary conceptual framework based on Richard Rosecrance's notion of the “trading state” and Robert Putnam's idea of “two-level diplomatic games” to explore the impact of economic considerations on Turkish foreign policy.

Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Atonement

Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Atonement By Allison Varzally “We are well aware that children all over the world need love and care, but our focus is presently on Vietnam due to the horror which is being perpetuated in our name there,” wrote Don and Augusta Sandstrom in a 1967 letter inquiring about opportunities to adopt a Vietnamese child. Fearing that their incentives might be misconstrued, the couple hastened to add “please don’t be concerned that ‘guilt’ is our motivation, it isn’t that simple when you have a great deal of love to share; but when you see an evil war being waged, it is hard to turn your eyes away without helping at least one little soul caught up in it. Unfortunately, the suffering of Vietnamese children continues, perhaps the child with whom we will eventually share our home and love is not even born yet!” The Sandstroms were not alone in their desire to mitigate by caring for a Vietnamese child the destructiveness of a war whose purpose and prosecution they opposed. Having discovered the plight of orphans through the graphic accounts of humanitarian organizations and the media, Americans in the late 1960s and 1970s were determined to act on the youths’ behalf. In professing responsibility and proposing adoptive parenthood as the solution for needy children, they recommended the Americanfamilyasasiteofinclusionandreparation.However,asscholars have long observed, ideas about the appropriate forms of family reveal larger truths about national identity and purpose.1 In the Vietnam era, couples determined to aid Vietnamese children were also commenting on the state of U.S. foreign policy, race relations, and gender roles. In a revision of the rhetoric and reasoning that had governed American adoptions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean children following U.S. interventions in other regions of Asia during earlier stages of the Cold War, American adoptions of Vietnamese children expressed a loss of faith in the containment policy specifically and the United States’ ability to do good in the world generally. Adoptions of the period were more explicitly, heatedly debated as political acts and increasingly represented as an apology for rather than the fulfillment and endorsement of the United States’ expansionist, anti-communist practices. As an interdisciplinary group of scholars has documented, Americans of the late 1960s and early 1970s were hardly the first generation to Adoption & Culture 2 (2009) 160 act upon a sense of obligation for children displaced and damaged by war. Nor were they the first to conflate personal desires for the security, affection and contentment of parenthood with their views of international relations. In her analysis of an article penned by Norman Cousins for a 1949 issue of Saturday Review, Laura Briggs noted the expressions of regret and attempts at compensation made by some Americans in the wake of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cousins declared the United States responsible for the sufferings of the Japanese, especially Japanese children. Since restrictive immigration laws made larger gestures of support, including adoption, impossible, he proposed that Americans make financial donations. This sense of obligation echoed through the statements of concerned Americans excerpted in Cousins’s piece. While one woman offered a “small tax payment for my share in the guilt of belonging to a race which dropped the first atomic bomb,” a former WWII pilot wrote that helping Japanese children financially might “soothe an elusive feeling of collective guilt” (187–88). Even though some Americans made an explicit, causal connection between U.S. military actions and attention to Japanese injured by those actions, most did not specifically blame the United States for Japan’s misfortunes. Such critical pronouncements ran counter to the widely accepted, positive narrative which emerged after World War II in which the United States appeared as a heroic nation whose just strategies had brought the war to a quick end and ensured a lasting peace. Even after the U.S. media, social workers, and high profile celebrities such as Jane Russell had made Americans aware of and demanded help for mixed-race children fathered by American soldiers in the 1950s, this celebratory narrative and a more abstract sense of responsibility persisted.2 Historians such as Arissa Oh, Rachel Winslow...

EU–Russia Energy Relations: Aggregation and Aggravation1

Reliance on energy resources is inextricably linked to energy security. Whether dependent upon energy imports or exports, all states, regions and companies strive to reduce the risks associated with resource dependence by linking energy with their own security. Ensuring access to energy resources involves negotiating with a variety of external actors. As a result, energy is deeply connected to the external affairs of political and commercial actors alike. Within this terrain Russia and the EU emerge as very different energy actors. Indeed, the two are polar opposites in their ability to tackle the geo-economic asymmetry of importers and exporters, the structural unevenness in market versus governmental authority over energy resources and the geopolitical imbalances arising from differing perceptions of energy's role in foreign and security policy. This article examines the rise and fall of the EU–Russia Energy Dialogue. Launched in 2000 as a sector-specific forum with the capacity to engineer change in a host of other areas, the dialogue is now all but defunct, the victim of increased diplomatic fallout between the EU and Russia over political and energy issues. An overview of the key policy papers of the EU–Russia Energy Dialogue illustrates that the generic demands of energy security take on particularist orientations depending on the geo-economic and geopolitical circumstances of a given energy actor. Dialogue documents illustrate that the two sides ultimately understand energy security in very different ways. Now a viable component part of Russian national and foreign policy in its post-Cold War reconstruction, energy security is perceived by the EU in a rather more holistic way, and remains an unwieldy policy instrument.

The Council Secretariat’s Role in the Common Foreign and Security Policy

The Council Secretariat, under the leadership of Javier Solana, has become an indispensable actor in the context of the CFSP. This article gives a comprehensive overview of this institution’s development path since the beginning of European Political Cooperation (1970). It argues that with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the parallel Cologne European Council (both 1999), the Secretariat received at once a political and a military dimension. This has been the basis for a significant expansion during the last decade. From a wider perspective it shows that the Council Secretariat fills the political absence of the European Commission in the field of the CFSP. The Council Secretariat is basically strong in areas where the Commission is weak. These inter–institutional dynamics are important with a view to the Lisbon Treaty, which will see a partial merger of the CFSP services in both institutions. Lastly this article argues on a theoretical level that while these developments are significant, the rationale behind the Council Secretariat is different from the role of the Commission in the first pillar and this limits its potential.

Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy 1948–1967 (review)

Reviewed by: Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy 1948–1967 Robert O. Freedman Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy 1948–1967, by Uri Bialer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. 240 pp. $39.95. In recent years religion has played an increasingly important role in Middle Eastern foreign policy. On the one hand, since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, a radical interpretation of Islam has been a motivating factor in Iran's foreign policy, leading the Islamist regime to take a bitterly anti-Israeli stance. On the other hand, Evangelical Christianity has been a significant factor behind the Bush Administration's pro-Israeli policy from 2001 to 2007. While both Iran's Islamists and America's Evangelical Christians became politically influential after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, religious issues were also important in Israeli foreign policy well before that conflict, as Uri Bialer demonstrates in this very well researched and very well written book. Indeed, Bialer highlights a neglected topic in Israeli foreign policy as he outlines the often troubled relations between Israel and the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches on such topics as the possible internationalization of Jerusalem, the future of Church property, and Christian missionary work in Israel. In considering these issues, Bialer shows the dilemmas facing Israeli decisionmakers as they weighed different options in dealing with the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches and their backers in Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States. In the early years of the State of Israel, the main problem was the Catholic Church and its Pope. Israeli policymakers were deeply suspicious of the Catholic Church, often seeing its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist as reflecting nearly 2,000 years of, if not downright religious bigotry, then at least the fear that the rebirth of Israel would raise major questions about Catholic doctrine which, before 1965, saw the destruction of the Second Temple in [End Page 168] 70 CE by the Romans as proof that God's grace had shifted from the Jews to the Christians. Indeed, as Bialer points out (p. 4), L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, published a Vatican statement that asserted, "Modern Zionism is not the true heir of Biblical Israel . . . therefore, the Holy Land and its sacred sites belong to Christianity which is the true Israel." At first, however, recognition was not the central issue between Israel and the Vatican but rather the internationalization of Jerusalem, which the Vatican was energetically advocating. Bialer describes in detail how Israeli policymakers, having been caught by surprise by the Vatican's success in pushing through the United Nations in December 1949 a declaration for the internationalization of Jerusalem, worked, in tacit cooperation with Jordan, which then occupied East Jerusalem, to thwart the Vatican-led declaration. In this Israel was ultimately successful, as the issue of the internationalization of Jerusalem became a dead letter—at least as far as the UN was concerned. Israel also had problems with the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches. In the Russian case, while the Soviet Union had recognized Israel and provided it with diplomatic support and military assistance (via Czechoslovakia) during Israel's war of Independence, there was the vexing problem of Russian Orthodox ecclesiastical property in Israel. Complicating the issue, as Bialer notes, were the various claimants to that property, which included the Soviet government, the Russian Ecclesiastical mission, and the Palestine Orthodox Society. Initially, Israel favored Soviet claimants, but after relations between Israel and the USSR chilled when Moscow switched its backing to the Arabs, negotiations slowed, and a partial agreement was not reached until May 1964. One of the most interesting aspects of Bialer's book is his discussion of how the Israeli government handled missionary activity. While on the one hand Christians feel the duty to propagate their faith, on the other hand, for centuries Jews have been on the receiving end of forced conversions. With the establishment of the State of Israel, its Jewish leadership had to balance its abhorrence of Christian missionary activity with the desire not to alienate the countries from which the missionaries came, a dilemma...

Germany and the Art of Coalition Building

Due to its particular foreign policy role concept as a ‘civilian power’, Germany has frequently assumed the role of a ‘coalition‐builder’, both within the European Union and beyond. Looking at the two cases of Iraq in 2002/3 and Iran in 2002–2006, this article explores the concept of Germany as a coalition‐builder more closely and identifies conditions under which Germany was (a) successful and (b) effective as a coalition‐builder. Next to America, Germany has traditionally been particularly successful and also quite effective as a coalition builder, and it shows signs of again returning to form under Chancellor Merkel and her grand coalition government. But a changing international context makes effective coalition building more difficult than in the past, and Germany will need not only the political will and the necessary resources, but also cooperative partners and vibrant international institutions to make its future coalition‐building efforts effective.

One-Way Traffic or Highway to Mutual Benefit? Part 1: China and Africa in the Era of Mao Zedong

The period since the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched its new Africa policy in January 2006 has not only been the period of the most intense diplomatic interaction ever between the emerging Asian giant and the African continent, but also a period in which the two-way trade between China and Africa has continued to increase at an amazing rate. In this article the development of China-Africa relations during the reign of Mao Zedong from 1949 to 1976 (the so-called ‘first wave’ of China-Africa relations) is investigated from a historical perspective. There is no doubt, when one studies the trends, patterns, continuities and discontinuities in China-Africa relations, that a solid foundation on which these relations could be built, was laid in the Mao era. To put the current relations between China and Africa in their proper historical and international relations context, it is therefore necessary to study their beginnings under Mao's leadership. The Chinese emphasised the mutual benefits of a seemingly unequal relationship. African benefits were tangible. Projects such as the Tanzam railway brought considerable material advantages to the continent. Chinese benefits were more intangible and indirect. African friendship helped China to attain political goals. As the region of “greatest secondary importance” Africa played a major supporting role in the PRC's foreign policy (Hutchison, 1975: 4, 278, 282). Africa had come to play a crucial role in China's fight against “American imperialism” and “Soviet revisionism” and her bid for international legitimacy and power.

Foreign Policy Analysis

That Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) enjoyed central place in the early study of international relations (IR) can be considered as the starting point for understanding the evolution of this major sub-field. An analysis of the role of foreign policy in different conceptual frameworks points to its centrality for realists but its diminished saliency for pluralists and structuralists. The balance of interacting influences between those who aspire to ‘truth’ (academics) and those whose concern is with ‘power’ (practitioners) is crucial if we are to understand for whom FPA is relevant and their needs, and the uses to which it is put. Does FPA reflect or determine policy? What does FPA have to say about current global problems? Precious little is the response. In the United States (US) this is in part due to a dismaying parochialism. But others in Europe have broken out of the traditional mould and new approaches are developing beyond the Western world. Moreover, a role for FPA still remains in the analysis of the effects of spanning boundaries.

Peace and Security in the 2006 Election

The issue of peace and security has long been regarded as the primary focus of Israeli politics. In the 2006 election, the Labour party leader, Amir Peretz, sought to challenge the received wisdom ...

Foreign policy, trade and health: at the cutting edge of global health diplomacy

Under its Constitution, the World Health Organization (WHO) works with its members towards the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. The context in which WHO and its Members pursue this goal has radically changed since 1946. The interdependence produced by globalization has broken down traditional ways of conceptualizing and organizing the medical, economic, political and technological means to improve health. Nowhere is this transformation more apparent than in the rise of health as a foreign policy concern. As the papers in this issue of the Bulletin demonstrate, the relationship between health and foreign policy is vital, complex and contested. To craft health policy today, governments, international institutions and nongovernmental organizations must find mechanisms to manage health risks that spill into and out of every country. These endeavours create the new world of global health diplomacy. Critical to global health diplomacy is the relationship between health and foreign policy. Even though much of what affects health today is transnational in nature, countries remain core actors that must reorient their health and foreign policies in ways that align their national interests with the diplomatic, epidemiological and ethical realities of a globalized world. This alignment involves governments adjusting to globalization by overcoming fragmented policy competencies in national governance systems. The trade and health relationship unfolds on the cutting edge of global health diplomacy and offers lessons for the health and foreign policy nexus. The World Heath Assembly recognized this significance in a May 2006 resolution on International Trade and Health, in which the Assembly called for foreign, trade and health ministries to move towards coherency in formulating national policies on trade and health. The Assembly tasked WHO to collaborate with other international organizations to generate and share evidence on ways to align trade and health. This trade and health linkage highlights the new prominence of health within foreign policy; however, the linkage itself is not new. These enquiries allow us to see how countries historically dealt with health in their trade and foreign policies, particularly with respect to ensuring that health measures did not unnecessarily restrict international commerce. The trade and health relationship is also at the centre of international lawmaking, particularly in the World Trade Organization. International trade law allows us to analyse how countries calibrate their national interests regarding economic growth and protection of health. The trade and health arena has also seen involvement by nongovernmental entities promoting trade and health interests; these actions provide avenues for understanding how countries adjust their foreign policy strategies when non-state actors intervene. The window into global health diplomacy provided by the trade and health relationship reveals controversy, but also increasing efforts between those in trade and health ministries towards coherent policies within and among countries. WHO’s work on trade and health policy coherence reveals increasing country-level commitment to, and sophistication about, strategies to promote trade and protect health in ways that are politically feasible, economically attractive, epidemiologically informed and ethically sound. Through these efforts, health ministries are identifying how they can best inform pre-negotiation trade positions, provide input during negotiations, analyse the health costs and benefits of proposed compromises and monitor the health impacts of trade agreements. WHO is collaborating with its members and other international organizations to advance this integrated approach to foreign policy by developing a new trade and health diagnostic tool. This tool is being designed to help health and trade ministries more systematically assess trade and health issues, to empower health ministries to give better advice to their trade counterparts and to enhance health policy input into the trade community’s pursuit of integrated frameworks, trade policy reviews and aid initiatives to bolster trade capacities in developing countries. The cutting edge of global health diplomacy raises certain cautions regarding health’s role in trade and foreign policies. Competition among countries’ national interests sometimes impedes policy coherence, which makes attainment of health goals more difficult. As the trade and health relationship makes clear, health ministries, experts and advocates can affect this competition constructively by combining their epidemiological skills and ethical principles with sharpened political and economic sensibilities about global politics. Securing health’s fullest participation in foreign policy does not ensure health for all, but it supports the principle that foreign policy achievements by any country in promoting and protecting health will be of value to all. ■

American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy, and: The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life and Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father (review)

American Machiavelli: Alexander and Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy. By John Lamberton Harper. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 347. Illustrations, Cloth, $30.00.)The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: Life and Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father. Edited by Douglas Ambrose and Robert W. T. Martin. (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006. Pp. x, 299. Cloth, $45.00.)Reviewed by Kevin M. GannonGiven current deluge of books about The Founders-their virtues, relationships, honor, public lives, private lives, accomplishments, legacies, scandals, duels, and seemingly anything else Founder-related-it is appropriate to ask whether this burgeoning literature really needs two more volumes about Alexander Hamilton. Numerous critics have characterized surfeit of books about as Founders chic a fad that serves only to obscure much of wider and more meaningful aspects of early republic's history. Yet still they come, and people still buy them. Clearly there is an abiding interest in Revolutionaryera elite that seems unlikely to wane any time soon. But criticisms associated with pejorative Founders chic are, in cases, salient. Books on founding elite run real risk of focusing so narrowly upon a small (albeit disproportionately powerful) group of individuals (almost always men) as to eclipse thoughts, ideals, motivations, and actions of other 99 percent of population. question is one of balance. founding elite was made up of powerful men, and their ideologies and actions had a profound influence on public sphere that belied their small numbers. But they did not operate in a vacuum, and paying attention to this reality is factor that defines better, and more worthwhile, treatments of founding elite.The two volumes under review here fall into that category. For a number of reasons, Alexander has become a figure of fascination for scholars and wider public. His advocacy of an active and powerful government in face of locally oriented opposition speaks directly to tensions between liberty and order central to American polity, then and now. His significant (some would argue dominant) role in shaping foreign policy and defining U.S. international interests resonates loudly with current concerns. His Caribbean background and cosmopolitan worldview seem to render him in, but sometimes not entirely of, Founding elite. These two volumes-one a partial other a collection of essays stemming from a conference on Hamilton-address many faces of Alexander and facets of his impact upon a diverse array of fundamental issues involved in shaping of early republic.Diplomatic historian John Lamberton Harper says that there is still room for valuable work on Hamilton; indeed, he asserts, the new literature, like old, is mostly hostile or partisan (2). (It should be noted that Harper's work slightly antedates Ron Chernow's biography, which is neither of those.)1 While Chernow's work is meant as a comprehensive life-and-times treatment of its subject, Harper's primary (though not exclusive) focus is on Hamilton's role in shaping and implementing foreign policy for infant American republic. Where Harper's study is truly original is in its explicit paralleling of and sixteenthcentury Florentine politico Niccolo Machiavelli. According to Harper, Hamilton and Machiavelli, father of continental realism, inhabited same moral and intellectual world, one where emerging states had to adapt themselves to law of jungle and look to successful models to survive (5). two shared remarkably similar views on human nature, politics, and statecraft, as well as a personal set of visceral likes and dislikes; in particular, they deplored 'middle path' (5). comparison is suggestive not only because of similarities Harper identifies-though they are quite striking-but also due to each man's particular context. …

Italian Foreign Policy in the ‘Second Republic’. Changes of Form and Substance

The birth of the ‘Second Republic’ was at least partially due to the changes in international relations in Europe and the rest of the world. The instablity in the Balkans forced Italy to face security issues close to home, while instability in the Middle East meant that Italy had to reconsider its energy security policy as well as military security in the region. The change in the form of government in Italy under both the centre-right and centre-left has involved the Prime Minister taking on a much more important role in foreign policy. The two traditional pillars of Italian foreign policy—Atlanticism and an attachment to the European institutions—have remained largely unchanged, but their relative importance and emphasis have altered markedly with the alternation of administrations. During the course of the Second Republic we can therefore conclude that Italy has moved from being a ‘consumer of security’ to being a ‘producer of security’ due to a combination of external necessities and internal reforms.