scholarly journals Politics, audience costs, and signalling: Britain and the 1863–4 Schleswig-Holstein crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Jayme R. Schlesinger ◽  
Jack S. Levy
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
British Foreign Policy

Abstract Audience costs theory posits that domestic audiences punish political leaders who make foreign threats but fail to follow through, and that anticipation of audience costs gives more accountable leaders greater leverage in crisis bargaining. We argue, contrary to the theory, that leaders are often unaware of audience costs and their impact on crisis bargaining. We emphasise the role of domestic opposition in undermining a foreign threat, note that opposition can emerge from policy disagreements within the governing party as well as from partisan oppositions, and argue that the resulting costs differ from audience costs. We argue that a leader's experience of audience costs can trigger learning about audience costs dynamics and alter future behaviour. We demonstrate the plausibility of these arguments through a case study of the 1863–4 Schleswig-Holstein crisis. Prime Minister Palmerston's threat against German intervention in the Danish dispute triggered a major domestic debate, which undercut the credibility of the British threat and contributed to both the failure of deterrence and to subsequent British inaction. Parliament formally censured Palmerston, contributing to a learning-driven reorientation in British foreign policy.

scholarly journals THE LESSONS OF ABADAN AND SUEZ FOR BRITISH FOREIGN POLICYMAKERS IN THE 1960s

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 525-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER J. BECK
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Change Of Direction ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The 1960S

Responding positively to the 1957 ‘funding experience’ initiative encouraging Whitehall departments to use history more systematically in their everyday work, the Foreign Office commissioned a pilot project centred upon the 1951 Anglo-Iranian Abadan crisis. The resulting study, completed by Rohan Butler in 1962, included a lengthy section drawing lessons from the historical narrative. During the early 1960s Butler's Abadan history, attracting interest and comment from both ministers and officials, fed into ongoing reviews of British foreign policy and methods stimulated by the 1956 Suez debacle and Britain's initial failure to join the Common Market (1963). Confronting policymakers with the contemporary realities affecting Britain's role in the world, the history prompted serious thinking about the case for a radical change of direction in both foreign policy and methods. Generally speaking, the Foreign Office has made little use of history in the actual policymaking process. From this perspective, this episode, centred upon Butler's Abadan history, offers a useful case study illuminating any appraisal of history's potential as a policy input, most notably concerning the role of historical analogies in the formulation, conduct, and presentation of British foreign policy.

British foreign policy towards the Palestinian cause since 2003

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Mustafa Ibrahim Salman Al - Shammari ◽  
Dhari Sarhan Hammadi Al-Hamdani
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Topic Area ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Settlement Policy ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Palestinian Question ◽  
Theresa May

The topic area of that’s paper dealing with role of Britain in established of Israel, so the paper argued the historical developments of Palestinian question and Role of Britain Government toward peace process since 1992, and then its insight toward plan of Palestinian State. That’s paper also argued the British Policy toward Israeli violations toward Palestinians people, and increased with settlement policy by many procedures like demolition of houses, or lands confiscation, the researcher argued the Britain position toward that’s violations beside the political developments which happens in Britain after Theresa May took over the power in Ten Downing Street

The Foreign Policy Mechanism of the Union Of South Africa and the Development of its Diplomatic Relations (1910–1948)

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Alexandra Arkhangelskaya
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Political ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Economic Evolution ◽  
Local Elite ◽  
History Of

The history of the formation of South Africa as a single state is closely intertwined with events of international scale, which have accordingly influenced the definition and development of the main characteristics of the foreign policy of the emerging state. The Anglo-Boer wars and a number of other political and economic events led to the creation of the Union of South Africa under the protectorate of the British Empire in 1910. The political and economic evolution of the Union of South Africa has some specific features arising from specific historical conditions. The colonization of South Africa took place primarily due to the relocation of Dutch and English people who were mainly engaged in business activities (trade, mining, agriculture, etc.). Connected by many economic and financial threads with the elite of the countries from which the settlers left, the local elite began to develop production in the region at an accelerated pace. South Africa’s favorable climate and natural resources have made it a hub for foreign and local capital throughout the African continent. The geostrategic position is of particular importance for foreign policy in South Africa, which in many ways predetermined a great interest and was one of the fundamental factors of international involvement in the development of the region. The role of Jan Smuts, who served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and from 1939 to 1948, was particularly prominent in the implementation of the foreign and domestic policy of the Union of South Africa in the focus period of this study. The main purpose of this article is to study the process of forming the mechanisms of the foreign policy of the Union of South Africa and the development of its diplomatic network in the period from 1910 to 1948.

scholarly journals British diplomacy of money and trade

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-158
Author(s):  
Ognjen Pribicevic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
The Past ◽  
Gulf Countries ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Foreign Policy ◽  
The Eu

Leaving the EU is one of the major political decisions made in the UK over the past half-century. Brexit brought about a virtual political earthquake not only in EU-UK relations but also in terms of UK future place and role on the international scene. Immediately after the decision of UK citizens to leave the EU at a referendum held on 23 June 2016, the question arose as to whether the UK will lose some of its international influence, whether Scotland will remain part of the Union, whether the UK will retain its privileged relations and special status with the USA, and what its future relations with the EU will be. The purpose of this article is to point to the basic priorities of the contemporary British foreign policy as well as to place and role of the UK on the contemporary international scene particularly in view of its decision to leave the EU. We shall first try to define the status of present-day Britain in international relations. Second, we shall address the traditional dilemma of the UK foreign policy - what should be given priority - relations with the USA, Europe or the Commonwealth? After that, we shall discuss in more detail the phases the UK foreign policy went through following the end of the cold war. In the third phase, we shall analyze the British contemporary foreign and economic policy towards Gulf countries and China. In the fourth part of the article, we shall discuss relations with the USA. It should be pointed out that the article does not seek to analyze all aspects of British foreign policy, even if we wanted to, due to a shortage of time. Of course, the topic of Brexit will be present in all chapters and especially in the last one and conclusion remarks. By its decision to leave the EU, the UK appears to have given priority to its relations with the USA, China, Gulf countries as well as Commonwealth countries instead of the EU which has been economically and politically dominant over the past few decades. This decision taken by UK citizens will no doubt have a great impact not only on their personal lives and standard of living but on the UK role in international relations. Despite its military, political, economic and cultural capacities, it is highly unlikely that the UK will manage to overcome the consequences of an exit from the single market, currently generating 18 trillion dollars on an annual basis as well as the loss of a privileged partner role with the USA within the Union. We are, therefore, more likely to believe that in the foreseeable future, the role of the UK on the international scene will continue to decline and be increasingly focused on its economic and financial interests. Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. III 47010: Drustvene transformacije u procesu evropskih integracija - multidisciplinarni pristup]

Ethics in Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Bulley
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Relational Ethics ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
Policy Arena ◽  
The Way

Ethics and foreign policy have long been considered different arenas, which can only be bridged with great analytical and practical difficulty. However, with the rise of post-positivist approaches to foreign policy, much greater attention has been paid to the way that ethical norms and moral values are embedded within the way states understand their own actions and interests, both enabling and constraining their behavior. Turning to these approaches raises a different question to whether ethics and foreign policy can mix, that of how best to understand, analyze, and critique the role that ethics inevitably play within foreign policy making? What are required are perspectives which, instead of constructing an ethical theory in the abstract and applying it to a concrete situation, start from the ethics of the foreign policy arena itself. Two ways of looking at ethics are especially useful in this regard: a virtue-ethics approach and a relational-ethics approach. These can be best explored by observing how they work in a particular foreign policy context, such as the highly controversial U.K. decision to join the invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003. This was a policy where ethics came particularly to the fore in both the decision-making process and its justification. The case study can therefore help show the types of questions virtue and relational ethics ask, the way they work as analytical and critical frameworks, and the problems they raise for the role of ethics in foreign policy. They also point toward important future directions for research in the area.

Leaders and Foreign Policy: Surveying the Evidence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Benedict Dyson ◽  
Thomas Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Leadership Influence ◽  
Causal Variable

Political Science accounts of international politics downplay the role of political leaders, and a survey of major journals reveals that fewer than 3% of all articles focus on leaders. This is in stark contrast to public discourse about politics, where leadership influence over events is regarded as a given. This article suggests that, at a minimum, leaders occupy a space in fully specified chains of causality as the aggregators of material and ideational forces, and the transmitters of those forces into authoritative political action. Further, on occasion a more important role is played by the leader: as a crucial causal variable aggregating material and ideational energies in an idiosyncratic fashion and thereby shaping decisions and outcomes. The majority of the article is devoted to surveying the comparatively small literature on political leaders within International Relations scholarship. The article concludes by inviting our colleagues to be receptive to the idiosyncrasies, as well as the regularities, of statespersonship.

Prime minister and foreign secretary: the dual role of James Ramsay MacDonald in 1924

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 1403-1422
Author(s):  
CAROLYN J. KITCHING
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Labour Government

AbstractThe career and reputation of James Ramsay MacDonald are generally influenced by his actions in 1931, and yet, as Donald Cameron Watt has stated, it is ‘not really possible to blackguard him for 1931 without having to cast aspersions on his extraordinary achievements earlier on’. This article examines some of these ‘extraordinary’ achievements by considering the role of MacDonald himself in the formation and leading of the 1924 minority Labour Government. It considers the difficulty he experienced in creating a Cabinet from colleagues whom he generally considered to be unsuitable and incapable, and which led him to become both Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. He faced criticism from many in his party for his failure to implement a measure of socialist reforms, yet given the nature of the domestic problems with which his government was faced, and the tenuous nature of this government, held in place, as it was, by a fractured Liberal Party, this ‘failure’ is scarcely surprising. However, this article maintains that in foreign policy, and in his powerful joint role, MacDonald's reputation in 1924 really can be described as outstanding.

Social Winners and Losers: A Case Study of Press Construction

2014 ◽  
Vol 153 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Andrea Shoebridge
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Study Methodology ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Fundamental Mechanism

The role of mass media in framing public discourse about gendered life courses is a fundamental mechanism for reinforcing patriarchal culture. Women who do not comply with the marriage and maternity mandate are subject to the type of personalised reaction experienced by Australia's first female prime minister that triggered renewed public debate about misogyny in social organisation. Using case study methodology and framing analysis, I examined a feature published in the national broadsheet about marriage trends that made patriarchy's preferred model explicit. The communication practices used in the feature are discussed in terms of ‘truth’, and how they might reflect and confirm the attitudes and beliefs of the newspaper's readership.

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