Securitization Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxanna Sjöstedt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Securitization Theory

Since it was launched in the mid-1990s, the concept of securitization has consistently been in vogue, at least among European scholars of world politics and security studies. The idea of viewing security as intersubjective, where anyone or anything can be a threat if constructed as such, is both an appealing and useful conceptualization when analyzing security issues beyond the traditional, realist, state-centric view of security being equal to military issues. However, the precise aspects that make securitization appealing have also limited its broader impact on security studies or foreign policy analysis (FPA), as these fields often adhere to the assumption of threats being actor-based and external. Nevertheless, several studies demonstrate that both the theoretical assumptions of securitization theory and prior empirical applications of these assumptions are useful when analyzing different policy and security issues, and the concept can be applied to a broad range of issue areas, contexts, and actors. In order to capture the applicability of securitization theory to the study of foreign policy, this article will set out to describe and review the central assumptions of securitization theory and the different conceptual developments that have taken place since its inception. I thereafter proceed to outline different issue areas to which securitization has been employed, focusing on both domestic and external military and nonmilitary threats. This review of prior works demonstrates that although many studies are not self-proclaimed analyses of foreign policy, they capture important dynamics of the internal-external security nexus that epitomizes politics in the globalized era. The article concludes with a discussion of the added value that a securitization framework can bring to FPA.

scholarly journals Understanding Enmity and Friendship in World Politics: The Case for a Diplomatic Approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corneliu Bjola
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Specialized Form

Summary This article invites diplomatic scholars to a debate about the identity of diplomacy as a field of study and the contributions that it can make to our understanding of world politics relative to international relations theory (IR) or foreign policy analysis (FPA). To this end, the article argues that the study of diplomacy as a method of building and managing relationships of enmity and friendship in world politics can most successfully firm up the identity of the discipline. More specifically, diplomacy offers a specialized form of knowledge for understanding how to draw distinctions between potential allies versus rivals, and how to make and unmake relationships of enmity and friendship in world politics.

scholarly journals Foreign Policy Analysis and Armed Non-State Actors in World Politics: Lessons from the Middle East

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
May Darwich
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
State Actors

Abstract The study of armed non-state actors (ANSAs) has grown exponentially in the last two decades. This article explores the foreign policy of ANSAs as a new empirical domain for foreign policy analysis (FPA) by drawing on various examples from the Middle East to show the merit of this area for novel empirical and theoretical studies. The article identifies the domain of ANSAs’ foreign policy showing how FPA research has so far remained state-centric and almost completely ignores ANSAs. While the external engagement of ANSAs were examined within the scholarship on civil wars, FPA can be adapted to provide systematic scholarly understanding of this phenomenon. Finally, the article explores how studying ANSAs’ foreign policies can revitalize FPA and drive its agenda into new directions.

Caribbean Foreign Policy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Unique Region ◽  
Caribbean Community ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
External Forces

Despite the near-absence of studies of the Caribbean within the mainstream of international relations (IR) theory and foreign policy analysis (FPA), as well as a tendency to subsume this diverse and unique region within the larger Latin America, a focus on Caribbean international relations offers several interesting implications for the wider fields of both IR and FPA. Realist, liberalist, constructivist, and critical approaches all can be incorporated into the study of Caribbean foreign policy in unique ways, and the subfield of foreign policy analysis can also be enriched by focusing on the particular domestic sources of foreign policy in small, culturally diverse, developing countries such as the Caribbean states. Among the unique characteristics of foreign policy in these states is the important role played by external forces in both the economy and the polity, leading to constraints on decision-making autonomy. The external factor also explains why the idea of “inter-American relations” has long been viewed as providing the necessary backdrop for explaining Caribbean foreign policy. Related to this is the important role played by the main regional actors, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as well as the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which has thinned the boundary between state and region. As for the prioritization of military-security issues seen in the more powerful countries of the globe, these Caribbean states (apart from Cuba) have eschewed military adventures and traditionally defined their foreign policies in terms of the prioritization of economic development. Finally, to study Caribbean foreign policy means that the scholar must exercise creativity in borrowing from perspectives not normally included in traditional foreign policy studies. Sociology, anthropology, historiography, political economy, and public policy are complementary tools for understanding the Caribbean. Moreover, situating the study of foreign policy within general currents of thought on the role of small states and global south states is also recommended.

Comparative Foreign Policy Security Interests

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aigul Kulnazarova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
World Order ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
The Public

The subject of comparative foreign policy security interests concerns itself with at least two separate subfields of international relations: foreign policy analysis and security studies. The foreign policy analysis concerns the decision-making processes of states in their daily interaction with other actors of international relations: state and nonstate, international organizations and individuals. Security studies in a broad sense also refer to the behavior of states, but, in particular, only to those measures that states take to ensure their own security and survival in the international arena. It is not surprising that any such measures have traditionally been viewed as national security interests. The term national security became widely used only after World War II to understand and explain the national interests of the leading powers, which the latter mainly used as a priority of their foreign policy. Often, national security was associated with military/physical security, strategic parity, and confrontation of mutual threat, although some authors, such as Wolfers 1952 (cited under Theoretical Overview), argue that the meaning of the term is not so clear and is, in fact, more complicated. Since the 1990s, due to the changing world order and the growing forces of globalization, the sphere of national security has expanded significantly and now includes nonmilitary or nontraditional security sectors: economic, environmental, societal, political, etc. The consequences of globalization are obvious, as they have influenced further changes in the behavioral tendencies of states in external relations. Old approaches to security no longer meet the challenges of the new millennium. Perhaps the emerging academic subfield of comparative foreign policy security interests will deal with aspects of state behavior and policy aimed at achieving, maintaining, or redistributing the positions of states in the transforming global system. It is possible to distinguish two levels of foreign policy security interests: public and private. While the first concerns the security and integrity of state sovereignty and independence, protected by diplomatic, political, economic, ideological, and military means, the second includes the need for states to establish themselves in international organizations by instituting and promoting relations in scientific, technological, cultural, educational, social, environmental, and other fields with various actors, and participating in the settlement of regional and local conflicts. The protection of security interests at the public level is more stable, while the private level is more variable, and the latter can turn into the public one. One way to understand how states develop and implement their foreign policy security interests is to use a comparative approach.

Poliheuristic Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Redd ◽  
David Brulé ◽  
Alex Mintz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Cognitive Decision

Milton Friedman and Herbert Simon introduced two opposing “schools” of thought in decision-making: the “rational actor” approach and the “cognitive approach,” respectively. Friedman argued that theories should be judged based on the validity of their predictions (“outcome validity”), whereas Simon countered that more emphasis must be placed on “process validity.” Seeking to bridge the gap between the cognitive and rational approaches, in the early 1990s Alex Mintz and colleagues developed poliheuristic theory. The theory is based on five main processing characteristics of decision-making: nonholistic search, dimension-based processing, noncompensatory decision rules, satisficing behavior, and order-sensitive search. A key premise of poliheuristic theory is its reference to the political aspects of decision making in a foreign policy context. Poliheuristic theory is related to Applied Decision Analysis (ADA), an analytic procedure which can be applied to all levels of analysis in foreign policy decision-making: the leader, the group and the coalition. As a bridge between rational and cognitive decision models, poliheuristic theory is uniquely positioned to contribute to progress in the study of world politics. Indeed, despite being relatively new to the discipline of foreign policy analysis, it has enriched our understanding of both the process of decision-making and the outcome of decisions, for example, or the diversionary use of force, international bargaining and negotiation, coalition formation, and terrorists’ decisions. A number of avenues deserve attention in future research on poliheuristic theory, in particularl the use of a more decision-theoretic dataset for investigating its basic proposition as well as more large-N methodological studies.

11. The primacy of national security

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian C. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Grand Strategies

This chapter focuses on national security, a central concept in foreign policy analysis. A core objective of foreign policy is to achieve national security. However, there is a great deal of ambiguity about the meaning of the concept. Although the traditional meaning of national security is often associated with protecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the nation state, this does not exhaust all of the possible meanings. The chapter examines some of the competing conceptions of national security, beginning with the three main assumptions of realism that together help to account for the primacy of national security: statism, survival, and self-help. It then considers the field of security studies before concluding with an assessment of the theoretical controversy about the meaning of national security and how it relates to three American grand strategies: neo-isolationism, liberal internationalism, and primacy.

Foreign Policy Analysis and the Making of Plan Colombia

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Catalina Monroy ◽  
Fabio Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Plan Colombia
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