Division at the Water’s Edge: The Polarization of Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyung-Ho Jeong ◽  
Paul J. Quirk
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Multilevel Analysis ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Party Polarization ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

Severe party conflict, not a high-minded suspension of politics, now prevails “at the water’s edge.” Democrats and Republicans fight pitched battles over foreign affairs. But are the two parties polarized in their substantive preferences on foreign policy, or mainly jockeying for partisan advantage? Are they polarized on foreign policy less sharply than on domestic policy? What are the sources of party polarization over foreign policy? Using a new measure of senatorial foreign-policy preferences from 1945-2010, we explore party polarization over foreign policy. We find that foreign-policy preferences have had varying relationships with party politics and general ideology. Since the 1960s, however, the parties have become increasingly polarized on foreign policy. Using a multilevel analysis, we show that foreign-policy polarization has developed in response to partisan electoral rivalry, foreign-policy events, and general ideological polarization. The analysis indicates an increasing influence of domestic politics on foreign policy.

Trump-ing Foreign Affairs: Status Threat and Foreign Policy Preferences on the Right

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 737-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Marie Blum ◽  
Christopher Sebastian Parker
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Threat Model ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

President Trump is often at odds with the conservative establishment over a range of issues, not least of which is foreign policy. Yet it remains unclear whether supporting “Trumpism” is commensurate with coherent foreign policy views that are distinct from conventionally conservative positions. We evaluate whether the foreign policy views of Trump’s supporters, both in the voting public and among activists, differ from those of other Republicans. We use the 2016 ANES to examine Republican primary voters and the new 2016 State Convention Delegate Study to assess Republican activists. In doing so, we reveal systematic differences in foreign policy preferences between Trump supporters and more establishment conservatives. We demonstrate that the status-threat model need not be confined to domestic politics. Indeed, it may be extended to explain foreign policy preferences on the political right, that of Trump’s supporters in the present case. In doing so, we also find evidence that status threat may well be the source of fracture in the Republican Party.

Brazilian foreign policy faces new challenges

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Border Security ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trade Opening ◽  
The Government ◽  
Foreign Ministry

Subject Brazilian foreign policy under Aloysio Nunes. Significance Senator Aloysio Nunes, who took office as foreign minister on March 7, is an experienced politician from the centre-right Social Democrats (PSDB). He led the bloc supporting the government of President Michel Temer in the Senate, where he was also since 2015 head of the Commission of Foreign Affairs and National Defence. Nunes replaces Jose Serra at the foreign ministry and will seek overall continuity of Serra's agenda focused on the pursuit of trade opening and border security. Impacts Brazil lacks a clear strategy for its crucial relationship with China. Border security, a key issue for Serra, will remain important for Nunes. Domestic politics may divert Nunes’s attention as the 2018 elections approach.

Economic Sanction as Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiharu Kobayashi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Sanction ◽  
Large N ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Economic Relationship ◽  
The 1960S

Economic sanctions are an attempt by states to coerce a change in the policy of another state by restricting their economic relationship with the latter. Between, roughly, the 1960s–1980s, the question dominating the study of sanctions was whether they are an effective tool of foreign policy. Since the 1990s, however, with the introduction of large-N datasets, scholars have turned to more systematic examinations of previously little explored questions, such as when and how sanctions work, when and why states employ sanctions, and why some sanctions last longer than others. Two dominant perspectives, one based on strategic logic and the other on domestic politics, have emerged, providing starkly different answers to these questions. A growing body of evidence lends support to both strategic and domestic politics perspectives, but also points to areas in which they fall short. To complement these shortcomings, a new direction for research is to unite these perspectives into a single theoretical framework.

scholarly journals Neoconservatism as discourse: Virtue, power and US foreign policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengxin Pan ◽  
Oliver Turner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
The People ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S

Neoconservatism in US foreign policy is a hotly contested subject, yet most scholars broadly agree on what it is and where it comes from. From a consensus that it first emerged around the 1960s, these scholars view neoconservatism through what we call the ‘3Ps’ approach, defining it as a particular group of people (‘neocons’), an array of foreign policy preferences and/or an ideological commitment to a set of principles. While descriptively intuitive, this approach reifies neoconservatism in terms of its specific and often static ‘symptoms’ rather than its dynamic constitutions. These reifications may reveal what is emblematic of neoconservatism in its particular historical and political context, but they fail to offer deeper insights into what is constitutive of neoconservatism. Addressing this neglected question, this article dislodges neoconservatism from its perceived home in the ‘3Ps’ and ontologically redefines it as a discourse. Adopting a Foucauldian approach of archaeological and genealogical discourse analysis, we trace its discursive formations primarily to two powerful and historically enduring discourses of the American self — virtue and power — and illustrate how these discourses produce a particular type of discursive fusion that is ‘neoconservatism’. We argue that to better appreciate its continued effect on contemporary and future US foreign policy, we need to pay close attention to those seemingly innocuous yet deeply embedded discourses about the US and its place in the world, as well as to the people, policies and principles conventionally associated with neoconservatism.

Conclusions and Outlook

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-154
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
External Relations ◽  
External Events

Summarizing the various findings from the empirical chapters, this chapter concludes that party politics does matter for external relations and that democratic politics does not stop at the water’s edge. However, the concluding chapter discusses a number of caveats and qualifications to this general finding: first, party-political contestation over foreign affairs is often less intense than over domestic politics; second, party positions do not simply translate into state policy when parties enter government; third, party positions develop in interaction with external events, especially if parties are in government. Altogether, party politics is best understood as an independent and thus far understudied factor in explanations of foreign policy that interacts with other domestic politics variables, such as a state’s institutional structure, and international ones, such as a state’s international position or exposure to threats. The conclusion closes with suggestions for further research. (Populist) far-right parties and parties in the ‘Global South’ are identified in particular as areas for future research, as both have barely been studied systematically and both are very likely to have an impact on the liberal international order and world politics more broadly.

Introduction and Plan of the Book

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
National Interests ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
External Relations ◽  
External Threat

The notion that politics stops—and should stop—at the water’s edge is widespread in foreign policy analysis and foreign policymaking. The notion suggests that party politics becomes inappropriate, if not dangerous, to the national interest if a country faces an external threat or an international crisis. Scholars of foreign affairs have only mildly protested against the idea that external relations are exempted from democratic politics. This is least surprising with a view to the (neo-)realist school of thought that is well known for its emphasis on national interests and structural forces. Constructivist scholars of political culture and of securitization, however, have barely paid more attention to party politics than their realist colleagues. The disciplinary divide between scholars of international relations and those of comparative politics has not helped to overcome the neglect of political parties in the study of foreign policy. The chapter presents the plan of the book and introduces two lead questions: 1) to what extent is foreign, security, and defence politics exempted from party politics? and 2) how is party-political contestation in foreign, security, and defence politics structured?

Nonalignment as Yugoslavia's Answer to Bloc Politics

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Niebuhr
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The 1960S

This article focuses on Tito's effort to use foreign policy actions on behalf of his domestic goals. After a bitter rift emerged with the Soviet Union in 1948, Tito moved closer to the West for several years but never proved willing to shift to democratic politics. Although he did carry out reforms of Yugoslavia's Stalinist system in the 1960s, he maintained an authoritarian Communist polity until the end of his life. The article examines how Tito sought to use Yugoslavia's nonaligned status to boost his domestic legitimacy in the eyes of key elites and even, to a degree, in the eyes of the wider population. Yugoslavia's central role in the Bandung conference in 1955 and its subsequent hosting of the summit that formally set up the Nonaligned Movement in 1961 were used by Tito to try to legitimize the polity over which he presided. Yugoslavia's strategy of nonalignment is a valuable illustration of the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy in Communist as well as non-Communist states.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY ACTIVITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-79
Author(s):  
Nargiza Sodikova ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Interests ◽  
French Foreign Policy

Important aspects of French foreign policy and national interests in the modern time,France's position in international security and the specifics of foreign affairs with the United States and the European Union are revealed in this article

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