Understanding Of Foreign Policy Research Articles

Hawkish Biases and Group Decision Making

AbstractHow do cognitive biases relevant to foreign policy decision making aggregate in groups? Many tendencies identified in the behavioral decision-making literature—such as reactive devaluation, the intentionality bias, and risk seeking in the domain of losses—have been linked to hawkishness in foreign policy choices, potentially increasing the risk of conflict, but how these “hawkish biases” operate in the small-group contexts in which foreign policy decisions are often made is unknown. We field three large-scale group experiments to test how these biases aggregate in groups. We find that groups are just as susceptible as individuals to these canonical biases, with neither hierarchical nor horizontal group decision-making structures significantly attenuating the magnitude of bias. Moreover, diverse groups perform similarly to more homogeneous ones, exhibiting similar degrees of bias and marginally increased risk of dissension. These results suggest that at least with these types of biases, the “aggregation problem” may be less problematic for psychological theories in international relations than some critics have argued. This has important implications for understanding foreign policy decision making, the role of group processes, and the behavioral revolution in international relations.

De-Europeanisation of Czech policy towards Eastern Partnership countries under populist leaders

ABSTRACT Europeanisation alters the conduct, content and norms of EU member states’ foreign policies. This has also been true for Czech policy towards Eastern Europe, where the country actively supported EU frameworks and promoted European norms. With the rise of populists, however, the adherence to EU norms and structures has decreased to the extent that makes de-Europeanisation possible. This article analyses Czech policy towards Eastern Partnership countries after 2013 when populists entered the government. Based on three elements of potential de-Europeanisation, the adherence to European framework, professional norms and role of EU expertise, and deviation from foundational norms, the article concludes that Czech foreign policy towards the region remains highly Europeanised. Czech populists have concentrated on domestic matters and showed little interest in and understanding of foreign policy. Any changes to foreign policy will occur as a by-product of domestic politics, not a result of deliberate change in course in the future.

Towards a two-dimensional analytical framework for understanding Georgian foreign policy: how party competition informs foreign policy analysis

ABSTRACT Studies explaining Georgian foreign policy present Tbilisi’s options as a dichotomy between the West and Russia, focusing either on power politics or personal characteristics of decision-makers. To paint a more nuanced and holistic picture, this article departs from these models and uses content analysis to explore what foreign policy visions political parties present to voters in their manifestos for parliamentary elections between 1992 and 2016. Grounding conclusions in empirical data, the article elaborates a novel analytical framework with two dimensions: alignment and orientation. This framework advances the understanding of foreign policy in two major ways. First, the framework reveals changes in foreign policy behavior that would normally be overlooked. Second, it shows that parties sometimes form pairs of circular foreign policy preferences (i.e., A > B > C > A). An added value of the framework is its potential application to other small states in the post-Soviet space and beyond.

Динамика национальной идентичности Украины в дискуссии по вопросу евро- атлантической интеграции

This paper analyses changes of meanings of identity in competing projects of national identity in case of debates among the Ukrainian elites on the issue of Euro-Atlantic integration in 2008 and 2018. The author identifies three projects of identity, which are based on a different understanding of foreign policy in relation to Euro-Atlantic integration. The most significant change of identity is the dominant position of the pro-Euro-Atlantic discourse that was contested in 2008 by the opponents of NATO membership. However, after the transformation of the political context in Ukraine in the post-2014 period, some representatives of the elites continue to support the project of identity in which Ukraine is constructed as a non-bloc state. In both periods the elites reach a consensus on Ukraine's representation as a European and democratic country. Despite changes in the domestic and international contexts, discursive representations of Ukraine as a victim and a colonial state, where Russia or the United States presented as aggressors and colonizers, continue to exist. The changes in dynamics of national identity are as follows: expansion of an identity representation on a larger audience, a “shift” of a representation into another category within the same discourse, and “borrowing” and adoption of a representation by competing identity discourses.

Is faster better? Political and ethical framings of pace and space

AbstractConsidering the recent ‘temporal turn’ in International Relations scholarship, this article proposes that space and time are concepts that ‘thicken’ one another in several ways, with significant implications for understanding foreign policy and world politics. In the discourse of security and governance, space–time frames work together to facilitate and legitimize certain policies, actions, and reactions, and imply distinct perspectives on ethics. Drawing on the examples of United States (US) drone use, reactions to the event that has become known as ‘Benghazi’, and fears of the global spread of disease, this study investigates how temporal and spatial framings conceptualize effective and ethical security and governance. Arguing that space–time frames take shape from the resonance of political, theoretical, and cultural texts, four frames are elaborated including ‘space–time liberations’, ‘space–time oppressions’, ‘space–time strategics’, and ‘space–time reflexivities’. The article concludes by suggesting that contradictions and tensions between the frames along with postcolonial and decolonial perspectives can be leveraged to interrogate and displace dominant notions of pace and space in the practice and study of world politics, and that this is a form of scholarly and political reflexivity.

Foreign Policy Analysis and the study of Indian foreign policy: a pathway for theoretical innovation?

ABSTRACTThis article proposes that the study of Indian foreign policy and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) offers a “win-win situation” for scholarship. On the one hand, this bridge-building exercise leads to a better understanding of the making and substance of Indian foreign policy. On the other hand, it advances FPA in both theoretical and empirical terms, thus contributing to overcoming FPA’s US/Western bias and to decentering the field more generally. Framing the argument in terms of levels of analysis, we offer specific contributions to the understanding of foreign policy in areas such as leadership traits, poliheuristic theory, coalition politics, and state-society influences. Moreover, this line of research suggests the contours of a new comparative foreign policy agenda which could emerge from this examination of Indian foreign policy.

To Balance or Not to Balance: How Denmark Almost Stayed out of NATO, 1948–1949

This article proposes a theoretical model for understanding foreign policy formation and change, especially regarding alliances and what might be called “balancing” foreign policy behavior. The article combines a realist focus on power with the perceptions of actors based on their experiences and the lessons they draw from them. When uncertainty about threat level is high, the “lessons” that actors or groups draw from the past play an indispensable role in helping them make sense of the world. The model is applied to the case of Denmark's decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, which was arguably the most significant shift in Danish foreign policy of the twentieth century. The model explains why Danish officials decided to joined NATO only after the Scandinavian Defense Union had failed.

THE INFLUENCE OF ISLAM IN INDONESIAN FOREIGN POLICY: CASE STUDY ON ROHINGYA CONFLICT

This article attempts to argue that Islam, in its political activism, has arguably informed the shape of Indonesian foreign policy, especially during President Yudhoyono administration. In order to build the case, this research focuses on the Indonesia’s responses towards the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar. Using state level analysis, which stresses on the supremacy of domestic analysis in understanding foreign policy, this article comes to the conclusion that domestic pressure, mainly from Muslim organizations, has directed Indonesia’s response from “abstention” in dealing with the case to “activism”.

Shielding the Republic: Barack Obama and the Jeffersonian Tradition of American Foreign Policy

ABSTRACTPresident Barack Obama’s foreign policy has confounded critics from both the left and right in American politics. This analysis argues that this is because Obama’s foreign policy exhibits affinities with the least prominent of the four traditions of American foreign policy identified by Walter Russell Mead: the Jeffersonian tradition. In contrast to the more prominent Wilsonian and Hamiltonian traditions, the Jeffersonian tradition exhibits more introverted tendencies that seek to perfect and protect rather than export the virtues of the Republic. The Jeffersonian understanding of foreign policy is, in Walter Lippman’s phrase, primarily the “shield of the republic.” This analysis tracks the influence and implications of this perspective through examination of the Obama Administration’s approach to two prominent foreign policy challenges after 2008: intervention in Libya and the ongoing Syrian crisis.

Group-sharing, not Group-think: Understanding Foreign Policy Decision-Making through a Social Sharedness Approach

The concept of groupthink has dominated much of group research in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). However, groupthink´s sucess and proliferation in academic and popular circles has led to some general misinterpretations of the concept itself. While Janis´groupthink concept has received a wide amount of attention throughout the years, it has also been subject to various strands of criticism. In fact, groupthink´s broad popularity has not been based on the success of research findings. Also, groupthink challenges much of the research of social psychology undertaken in recent decades which reveals that particular group dynamics can actually contribute to more efficient decision-making. In this paper we seek to demystify the groupthink phenomenon and present an alternative assessment of group dynamics in foreign policy decision-making. We argue in favour of adopting a social cognition approach which can advance our understanding of how decision-making groups define the particular challenges that they face in the international political environment. More precisely, we present a conceptual framework based on social sharing mechanisms for comprehending how groups develop the problem representations that inform their foreign policy decisions. Ultimately, we seek to highlight the positive contributions of groups dynamics in effective decision-making.Key-words: group decision-making, groupthink, integration process, social psychology, social, sharing.

The role of U.S. and her multinational private companies in the Nigeria-Biafra war: beyond the threshold of neutrality

This work is an attempt to show how the U.S covertly meddled into the Nigeria-Biafra War despite her much taunted ‘neutrality’ in the conflict. No doubt, the U.S did not grant any official arms sales to either Nigeria or the secessionist Biafra, and regarded the war as ‘internal conflict’ that should be resolved internally. Many a literature on the Nigeria-Biafra conflict had taken this to absolve U.S of any form of active political involvement in the thirty months war. However, a critical survey of policy actions and activities of the U.S State Department via its Embassy in Lagos and U.S multinational private companies in Nigeria during the war respectively, casts serious doubts on the propriety and correctness of the U.S neutrality in the conflict. Using the ‘linkage politics’ understanding of foreign policy as the most relevant conceptual framework of analysis, and hugely relying on secondary sources of information with available declassified document, the paper argues that the U.S was partisan, and indirectly supported Nigeria as against Biafra. Therefore, it belies, and refuses the contention that ‘U.S did not get politically involved and maintained neutrality throughout the conflict’. Keywords: Neutrality, War, Internal conflict, Involvement, and Foreign policy

Analysing interventionism beyond conventional foreign policy rationales: the engagement of Brazil in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)

Most of the analysis dealing with so-called “emerging powers” in the field of peace and security seek to explain the intentions and motivations (supposedly) behind these states’ foreign policy and changing normative positions. Several of those studies see foreign policy decisions as the result of rational processes, defined by a “means-and-ends” logic, essentially oriented by preconceived national interests, clear ideational precepts and fixed identities. Through a non-conventional analysis of the participation of Brazil in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the paper aims to advance an understanding of foreign policy as an identity practice that, especially in moments of domestic identity crisis, helps reinforce and stabilize specific representations of the state self and of those acting in its name. Informed by a post-positivist approach, the case discussed in the paper opens some avenues to explore how interventionism can be analysed beyond traditional foreign policy rationales and mainstream international relations theories.

Whyandhow should we go for a multicausal analysis in the study of foreign policy? (Meta-)theoretical rationalesandmethodological rules

AbstractThis article argues that International Relations (IR) researchers concerned with why-questions about the state's external behaviour ought to employ a multicausal approach attentive to the interrelated relationship between external structures and internal agents, presenting the (meta-)theoretical rationales underlying its argument. Here the author suggests ‘a rich/bold ontology’ regarding foreign policy behaviour. Then the article elaborates on detailed and explicit guidelines on how to traverse the bridge that connects the insights of that rich ontology to the empirical research necessary to make claims about the real world of any one moment. In a related vein, the article claims that a multicausal approach should be established using what the author calls ‘loose-knit deductive reasoning’ through which epistemological and methodological openness can be preserved in a manageable way. More importantly, this article discusses the role of theory for IR scholarship and the standards for judging theoretical contributions and progress in the field of IR. Ultimately, the author argues that a complex and flexible approach – both as a useful mode of explanation and as a progressive model of theory construction – can make important contributions to a better understanding of foreign policy and world politics, not only because it enables researchers to become keenly sensitive to the complex reality underlying a nation's foreign policy and to the interrelated relationship between structures and agents in international relations, but also because it can serve to provide a secure base for the progressive accumulation of the evidence closely associated with multiple causation on which any adequate explanation about complex foreign policy behaviour must surely be founded and without which general theory cannot really flourish.

Davis B. Bobrow, Steve Chan and John A. Kringen, Understanding Foreign Policy Decisions: The Chinese Case

Davis B. Bobrow, Steve Chan and John A. Kringen, Understanding Foreign Policy Decisions: The Chinese Case

Norms, Indian Foreign Policy and the 1998–2004 National Democratic Alliance

How do national and political identities impact on a state's foreign policy? In turn, how does the analysis of different normative beliefs advance our understanding of India's foreign policy during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) period? This article utilises a norm-based approach to investigate the composite entrenched beliefs underpinning Indian foreign policy. Such an approach generates historically contingent understandings of foreign policy beliefs across different political generations and ideologies. By focusing on pre-1998 Indian government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) foreign policy norms, and comparing them with the actions of the BJP-led NDA in government, the paper assesses whether differing ideological beliefs either constrain or influence (Indian) foreign policy. In particular, two elements of Indian foreign policy are analysed—dealing with Pakistan and going nuclear—in order to evaluate continuity and change in the formation and development of foreign policy in India. It is found that although the BJP-led NDA were frequently constrained by underlying norms present in Indian foreign policy, their own established policy beliefs often challenged these norms and influenced new foreign policy directions.

Foreign Policy Studies in Australia

Australian contributions to foreign policy analysis have focused mainly, but not exclusively, on the study of Australian foreign policy. Contributions have been made not just by political scientists, but also by historians, journalists and practitioners. While some Australians have made theoretical contributions that are relevant to understanding foreign policy, the emphasis in the study of Australian foreign policy has not been strongly theoretical. The main focus has been on giving greater depth to issues that have been important in the public debate about foreign policy in Australia. Considerable attention has been given to Australia's major Western relationships (Britain and then the United States) and also the Asia‐Pacific regional environment. During the pre‐Second World War and Cold War periods the emphasis in the study of Australian foreign policy was broadly realist (at least implicitly), but there was also an assumption that there was an element of choice in relation to the major issues. In the post‐Cold War era Australia's international situation has become more complex, and this has been reflected in foreign policy studies. While the realist tradition is still strong, there has been more scope for critical approaches to emerge. Developments in cognate fields such as political economy, security studies and environmental politics have had some impact. There is considerable scope for more theoretically engaged work to be undertaken, but it is also important to continue the focus on the issues that are important in the public debate about foreign policy in Australia.

A User's Guide: Analyzing Security as Discourse

Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. By Lene Hansen. London: Routledge, 2006. 288 pp., $135.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-415-32653-2), $39.95 paper (ISBN: 0-415-33575-1). In his preface to Security as Practice , Barry Buzan (the editor of the series of which this book is a part) suggests that “the book is set up as a useable text that should fill many an awkward gap in methodology courses” (p. xiiv). Part of the book's innovation in this regard stems from the way in which Lene Hansen uses what she calls the “‘case plus study’ [of the Bosnian war] … as a medium for continued theoretical and methodological discussions” concerning foreign policy analysis and international relations (p. 11). This strategy is an entirely successful strategy, although Hansen could have pursued it to even greater effect had she not made certain compromises along the way. Hansen's initial argument concerns her focus on “identity” as the central aspect of the research agenda for poststructural international relations. This argument and approach are eminently sustainable because understanding foreign policy necessarily entails a sophisticated understanding of the identities, not only of the policymakers but also of the various “others” in relation to whom policy decisions are made. However, Hansen communicates this notion in such a way that suggests that Security as Practice is primarily aimed at those international relations scholars who remain skeptical of a focus on identity. Placing analytical emphasis on identity has become common sense to a vast number of scholars working …

Treaty-Making and Partisan Politics: Arms Control and the U.S. Senate, 1960-2001

Because the impact of domestic politics and institutions is increasingly important to understanding foreign policy, the motivations and interests of individual members of Congress are even more important for understanding American foreign policy. Contrasting the well-known thesis that “politics stops at the water's edge” with a “politics past the edge” thesis, we examine an issue arena typically considered immune from the intrusion of domestic politics. Set against the context of previous studies concluding that partisanship exerts a growing impact of congressional behavior in foreign policy, this paper extends current studies to examine the impact of partisanship and other variables on Senate voting on arms control treaties on weapons of mass destruction. With a data set of votes that spans the 1960–2001 period, we employ logit regression to gauge the relative importance of three determinants of congressional voting emphasized in theory and roll call vote analyses—partisanship, ideology, and electoral concerns—while also controlling for a variety of other factors. Our results indicate that partisanship becomes an increasingly important factor in Senate votes on arms control treaties in the post-Vietnam and post-Cold War eras.

Zhou Enlai and the Foundations of Chinese Foreign Policy (review)

Reviews 541 acknowledged master explore China. In the process, the reader also will be introduced to a sophisticated analysis ofscholarly disputes about the meaning of equality, the role ofritual, philosophic reductionism in ancient Greece and China, and shifts and turns in Chinese communism. Arthur Lewis Rosenbaum Claremont McKenna College ArthurRosenbaum is an associateprofessor ofhistoryspecializing in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century history. Kuo-kang Shao. Zhou Enlai and the Foundations ofChinese Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. xii, 370 pp. Hardcover $49.95, isbn 0312 -15892-0. In the introduction to his new book, Kuo-kang Shao notes that at the time he conceived this book in the summer of1986 there was "still no in-depth study of Zhou Enlai's concepts of statecraft available for a general audience" (p. ix). Subsequently , he regrets the lack of a "comprehensive study ofZhou's intellectual development and his influence on Chinese foreign policy during the period from 1949 to 1976" (p. 3). This reviewer should probably clarify that in his own volume, The Diplomacy ofZhou Enlai (St. Martin's/Macmillan Press, 1989), it was also indicated that "in neither China nor the West has there been a systematic study of the policies which sustained [Zhou Enlai's] rational practice ofdiplomacy in the service ofrevolution." The reviewer's volume was thereafter translated and issued by two separate publishing houses in Beijing, and a subsequent review article analyzed these two translations, together with a Chinese translation ofDickWilson's well-known biography on Zhou Enlai, in China Review International (vol. 1, no. 2 [Fall 1994]: 58-72). Zhou Enlai's diplomacy still enjoys extraordinary relevance to the study of international relations, and even with Shao's new study there is still room for further research and related academic controversy. Professor Shao asks much the same questions as I did in my 1989 volume, but he often answers differently.© 1998 by UniversitySnaQ retraces znou's career in order to identify the conceptualbasis ofhis "pragmatism," to analyze how this pragmatism affected Chinese foreign policy, and finally to assess Zhou's specific negotiating style and skills. In his ensuing analytical correlations Shao logically deploys the biographical detail ofZhou's forofHawai 'i Press 542 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 mative intellectual development. This analysis reviews the traditional philosophical dimensions of Zhou's "pragmatism," which is then related to Zhou's participation in the ideas and politics ofthe May Fourth Movement. Shao's analysis of Zhou's European correspondence focuses particularly on his appreciation of European statecraft and international relations, but he may have given less attention than my 1989 volume as to how Zhou's view of social and economic conditions affected his understanding offoreign policy and the general drift to world war. Shao greatly improves on the historical record with a new, detailed analysis of Zhou's reactions to Charles Darwin, Thomas H. Huxley, John Dewey, and Hu Shih. He roots the famous slogans "seeking the truth from the facts" and yin shi zhi yi, or "doing what is guided by circumstances," within an imperial tradition of "Chinese pragmatism," but unfortunately this thematic material is not fully integrated with ongoing historical reference to the Yan'an era and the post-1949 MaoZhou appropriation of these same terms as key ideological constructs for understanding complex social and political realities. In fact, this brings out a major point ofdisagreement as to how best to understand the origins of Zhou's foreign policy "pragmatism" and negotiating style. Shao prefers to treat "ideology" as "dogma." For Marx, "ideology" might have invoked the "false consciousness" of the ruling class, but for both Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, "ideology" was also a "scientific" logic, or epistemology, that was eminently useful in unlocking the contradictions ofmaterial reality. For Mao and Zhou, praxis was part of ideology. Shao's analysis is consistent with mainstream distinctions between Mao's "ideology" and Zhou's "pragmatism." This distinction is further complemented in the tendency to bifurcate communist ideology and Chinese nationalism, but this begs the question as to whether Zhou as a communist leader realistically focused on China's national interest from within die Party's ideological framework. Zhou did indeed emphasize the...

Ontologies, Problem Representation, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

“Problem representation” and “ontology” are introduced as concepts critical to understanding foreign policy decision making. The article explicates these concepts and their relationship and focuses on such issues of representation rather than veridical descriptions of reality, thereby shifting attention away from concern with misperception and toward attempting to understand how these representations are socially constructed and modified. It is argued that the conflict resolution process can be enhanced by inclusion of concerns with “problem representation” and “ontology” along with traditional interest in “option selection.” These concepts are then related to decision making in the cuban missile crisis. Two different ways of using new information on the crisis — and more generally understanding foreign policy decision making — are presented. The first is deemed an “option selection” perspective. A second approach expresses a theory of foreign policy decision making in a model of one important aspect of the Cuban missile crisis — the debate over whether Soviet missiles in Cuba were offensive. That model illustrates why focusing primarily on options or alternatives may obscure the most critical determinants of decision making. By focusing on ontologies and problem representations, the new model illustrates an approach to understanding and representing why some decision makers are predisposed to particular options over others.