Special Relationships in Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Harnisch
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Relational Term ◽  
Special Relations ◽  
Special Relationships

Special relationships are durable and exclusive bilateral relations between autonomous polities that are based on mutual expectations of preferential treatment by its members and outsiders as well as regular entanglement of some (external) governance functions. The concept has become more prominent over the past three decades in part because of recent changes in international relations and foreign policy analysis theory (the constructivist and relational turn) and long-term shifts in the social structure of international relations, that is, decolonization, international criminal and humanitarian law, which have posed questions of solidarity, reconciliation, and responsibility of current and past special relationships. The term special relationship has a long and diverse history. After World War II, it was used mainly to depict the Anglo-American security relationship as special. Today, well over 50 international relationships are deemed special. Despite this trend, no common theoretical framework has been developed to explain their emergence, variation, persistence and demise. Realism interprets special relationships as asymmetrical power relations, in which presupposed counterbalancing behavior does not occur because shared ideas or institutions mitigate autonomy concerns. Liberalism postulates that the special relatedness occurs when policy interdependence due to shared commercial interests or ideas allows deep cooperation and trust building. Social constructivism, in turn, assumes self-assertion but does not presuppose with or against whom the self, usually a polity, identifies itself. It follows that special relations may occur between dyads with positive identification (Germany-Israel after reconciliation) or negative identification, such as in the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan. As a relational term, special relationships do not sit easily with the first generation of foreign policy analysis focusing on decision making processes rather than the policies themselves. As a consequence, special relationships have been primarily conceptualized either as a tool of foreign policy or as one context factor influencing foreign policy choices. In relational theories, such as social constructivism, special relations, such as solidarity relations, are not causally independent from actors, as these relations also define the actors themselves.

5. Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Research Designs

This chapter examines the use of discourse analysis in the study of foreign policy. In the study of international relations, discourse analysis is associated with post-structuralism, a theoretical approach that shares realism’s concern with states and power, but differs from realism’s assumption that states are driven by self-interest. It also takes a wider view of power than realists normally do. Post-structuralism draws upon, but also challenges, realism’s three core assumptions: groupism, egoism, and power-centrism. The chapter first considers the theoretical principles that inform post-structuralist discourse analysis before discussing the research designs and methodological techniques employed by discourse analysts. It also offers examples and four learning boxes featuring mini-case studies and locates poststructuralist discourse analysis within the field of foreign policy analysis. Finally, it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of post-structuralist discourse analysis.

1. The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie M. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Large Groups

This chapter traces the history and evolution of foreign policy analysis (FPA) as a subfield of international relations (IR) from its beginnings in the 1950s through its classical period until 1993. It begins with a discussion of three paradigmatic works that laid the foundation of FPA: Decision Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (1954), by Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin; ‘Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’ (1966), by James N. Rosenau; and Man–Milieu Relationship Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics (1956), by Harold and Margaret Sprout. These three works created three main threads of research in FPA: focusing on the decision making of small/large groups, comparative foreign policy, and psychological/sociological explanations of foreign policy. The chapter also reviews classic FPA scholarship during the period 1954–1993 and concludes with an assessment of contemporary FPA’s research agenda.

Coalition Politics and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Oktay
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Institutional Factor ◽  
Coalition Governments

Coalition governments are observed frequently in parliamentary systems. Approximately 70% of all governments in postwar Europe have been one type of coalition or another. Israel has never been ruled by a single-party government in its history. Recently, majoritarian systems like Britain produced coalitions, taking many by surprise. The prominence of coalitions in parliamentary democracies compels researchers to study them more closely. The Comparative Politics literature investigates, in particular, the dynamics of coalition formation and termination, as well as the domestic policy outputs of coalitions, especially compared to governments ruled by a single party. Coalitions have generated interest on the International Relations front as well. One avenue of research transcends the “political party” as a building block and conceptualizes coalitions as a “decision unit” by focusing on the group of veto players in a regime’s foreign policy apparatus. Another line of scholarship, situated in the “Democratic Peace” framework, looks at coalitions as a domestic-institutional factor to observe their effects on the likelihood of international conflict. Departing from the “Democratic Peace” tradition, more recent research in Foreign Policy Analysis rejuvenates the study of coalitions in international politics. This literature not only encourages theory development by scrutinizing why coalitions behave differently than single-parties in the international arena but also bridges the gap between International Relations and Comparative Politics. Emphasizing the organic relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy, foreign policy researchers dissect coalition governments to highlight the role political parties play on foreign policy formulation and implementation. This literature also illustrates the merits of methodological plurality in studying foreign policy. Using a combination of comparative case studies, process tracing, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and regression modeling, it sheds light not only on the broader trends that characterize coalition foreign policy but also on the causal mechanisms and contextual factors which often go unaccounted for in purely statistical analyses. The recent advances in role and image theories in Foreign Policy Analysis are expected to influence the study of coalitions and their foreign policies, offering an interpretivist take alongside this positivist trajectory.

Identity and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srdjan Vucetic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Large Volume ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
State Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
It Impacts ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
Contextual Emergence

Identity has come to figure prominently in the study of foreign policy since the 1990s when it was first introduced by constructivist theorists in International Relations. Consensus on what identity is and what it does in relation to foreign policy does not exist and is unlikely to be ever forged. Some scholars investigate state identity—how it impacts foreign policy processes while simultaneously being impacted by international structures. Others use the concept of identification to examine what foreign policy means for the constitution of modern political subjectivities. Still others seek to bring together constructivist identity scholarship together with more established approaches in Foreign Policy Analysis. This article considers the contextual emergence and evolution of the “identity and foreign policy” scholarship in its many different and differing streams. The large volume of literature produced on this subject over the past two and a half decades defies an easy summary of its theoretical and empirical contributions, but an overview of the main controversies and debates should provide the reader with a solid foundation for further research.

Role Theory and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Thies
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Role Theory ◽  
System Level ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Audience Effects ◽  
The Individual

Role theory is an approach to the study of foreign policy that developed in the interdisciplinary field of social psychology and can be appropriately applied at the individual, state, and system level analyses. Role theory, which first attracted attention in the foreign policy literature after the publication of K. J. Holsti’s 1970 study of national role conception, does not refer to a single theory, but rather a family of theories, an approach, or perspective that begins with the concept of role as central to social life. The major independent variables in the study of roles include role expectations, role demands, role location, and audience effects (including cues). In addition, role theory contains its own model of social identity based on three crucial dimensions: status, value, and involvement. The 1987 publication of Stephen G. Walker’s edited volume, Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis, set the stage for further advances in the use of role theory in both the fields of foreign policy and international relations. According to Walker, role theory has a rich language of descriptive concepts, the organizational potential to bridge levels of analyses, and numerous explanatory advantages. This makes role theory an extremely valuable approach to foreign policy analysis. Role theory also offers a way of bringing greater integration between foreign policy analysis and international relations, especially through constructivist meta-theory.

scholarly journals IR in the Middle East: foreign policy analysis in theoretical approaches

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
May Darwich ◽  
Juliet Kaarbo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Complementary Approach ◽  
Missed Opportunity

Research on international relations of the Middle East (IRME) has suffered from a schism between International Relations (IR) theory and regional particularities. To address this, scholars have offered corrective accounts by adding domestic factors to IR structural approaches. Studies on IRME thus reflect the turn to decision-making and domestic politics that has recently occurred. This article develops a critical analysis of the domestic politics orientation in IRME. We argue that this scholarship ignores work in foreign policy analysis (FPA) with its psychological-oriented and agent-based dimensions and that this constitutes a missed opportunity for the study of the region. The article offers suggestions for incorporating FPA research into IRME and argues that an FPA perspective offers an alternative and complementary approach to the eclectic frameworks predominant in the scholarship on IRME.

The Enduring Value of Christian Realism

2015 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
Relevant Today

Christian realism is a “community of discourse” launched by Reinhold Niebuhr and his contemporaries that remains relevant today providing thoughtful perspective on contemporary policy challenges in the foreign policy analysis strand of the formal study of International Relations. The essay lays out some of the basic principles that unite Christian realists, considers whether or not it can be considered a strain of academic “International Relations Theory”, suggests areas for the growth of Christian realist discourse in applied political thinking today, and concludes with some differences between Niebuhrian and Kuyperian approaches.

scholarly journals Ensino-Aprendizagem com Game of Thrones: aplicando ferramentas de Análise de Política Externa para analisar o Dragão, o Leão e o Lobo | Teaching-Learning with Game of Thrones: Applying Foreign Policy Analysis Tools to analyze the Dragon, the Lion and the Wolf

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. e37927
Author(s):  
Fernanda Cristina Nanci Izidro Gonçalves ◽  
Carolina Mendes Marins
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Applied Learning ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Analysis Tools ◽  
Leadership Trait Analysis ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Game Of Thrones

Este artigo aplica ferramentas teóricas utilizadas para analisar liderança eprocesso decisório na subdisciplina de Análise de Política Externa (APE) à série Game of Thrones. Busca-se demonstrar que a série e seus protagonistas podem ser utilizados como instrumentos para o aprendizado aplicado do conteúdo teórico de APE no campo de estudo de Relações Internacionais. Por meio de um exemplo prático, este artigo apresenta como é possível aplicar ferramentas de Análise de Traços de Liderança a três dos principais personagens de GOT: Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen e Cersei Lannister. Conclui-se que a aplicação de novos métodos para compreensão do conteúdo teórico das disciplinas enriquece, estimula e facilita o processo de ensino-aprendizagem.Palavras-chave: Análise de Política Externa; Game of Thrones; Ensino-Aprendizagem.ABSTRACTThis article applies theoretical tools used to analyze leadership and decision making in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to Game of Thrones. It demonstrates that the series and its protagonists can be used as instruments for an applied learning of the FPA theoretical content in the field of International Relations. Through a practical example, this article presents how it is possible to apply Leadership Trait Analysis tools to three of GOT's main characters: Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Cersei Lannister. It is concluded that the application of new methods to understand theoretical content enriches, stimulates and facilitates the teaching-learning process.Keywords: Foreign Policy Analysis; Game of Thrones; Teaching-Learning.Recebido em 23 out.2018 | Aceito em 22 ago.2019

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