Cromwell's Diplomatic Blunder: The Relationship Between the Western Design of 1654–55 and the French Alliance of 1657

1973 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 279-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Battick
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Critical Comment ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Oliver Cromwell ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
The Relationship

The principal historians of the Cromwellian period, from S. R. Gardiner to Christopher Hill, have asserted that Oliver Cromwell was a master of statesmanship whose foreign policy was guided by clear, though perhaps archaic, objectives; that his diplomacy was always aggressive, and largely successful; and that with him England entered into her rightful place in the community of nations. These axioms have been repeated in every textbook. The phenomenon is not unknown in recent history where, until A.J.P. Taylor suggested differently, few English writers dared to question the culpability of Adolf Hitler in bringing on the 1939-1945 war. Though Mr. Taylor's views excited critical comment, they have not been without supporters, and are being addressed by historians of the Twentieth century. This essay re-examines the diplomacy of the Cromwellian period, specifically in the years 1654 through 1657. It suggests that a revision of long-established views is in order.Milestones of English foreign affairs during the Protectorate exhibit an apparent uniformity of policy. From the Treaty of Westminster of April 1654 to the Battle of the Dunes, June 14, 1658, the trend was towards a firm association with France, with the ultimate objective to destroy Spanish power in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Such a generalization must be treated with caution, however, for it can be demonstrated that the course of English policy between the conclusion of the First Dutch War and the death of Oliver Cromwell was guided less by a desire for an alliance with France than by a series of miscalculations, the cumulative effect of which left the Protector little choice but to join with France, and thereby to assist in the establishment of the hegemony of Louis XIV.

scholarly journals The President’s Influence on the Formation of Lithuanian Foreign Policy: A Shift of the Power Center During Grybauskaitė’s Term

Politologija ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-55
Author(s):  
Tomas Janeliūnas
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Formation Mechanism ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Power Center ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

This article raises the question of what role does the presidential institution hold in the Lithuanian foreign policy formation mechanism and how a particular actor (president) can change their powers in foreign policy without going beyond the functions formally defined in the Constitution. The period of President Grybauskaitė’s term and her efforts as an actor to define her role in shaping Lithuanian foreign policy are analyzed. This is assessed in the context of the activities and behavior of former Lithuanian presidents and in the context of relations with other institutions involved in foreign policy making – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Seimas in particular. This article analyzes the relationship between the actor (Grybauskaitė) and the already established structure of domestic foreign policy formation and the ability of the actor to change this structure. The analysis suggests that it is precisely because of the choices made by Grybauskaite during 2009–2019 that a relationship between the structures of foreign policy making in Lithuania has changed considerably, and that the center of power of foreign policy formation has shifted to the presidency.

The Constitution and Foreign Affairs

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
I.M. Destler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
John Marshall ◽  
Nuclear Arms

J.W. Fulbright once called it "American Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century Under an Eighteenth Century Constitution." In no other policy sphere has our governing charter generated as much anxiety about its suitability to the modern world. Can a system with divided authority, with two major foreign policy decisionmaking institutions, meet the need for united national action on life-or-death matters like, for example, the control and deployment of nuclear arms?There are those who would deny the problem through simple assertion of presidential predominance. Citing authorities from John Marshall (as federalist Congressman) through Woodrow Wilson (as Constitutional scholar) to Edwin Meese (as presidential counselor), executive branch practitioners and even scholars assert repeatedly that, on foreign policy, the president reigns supreme (or at least ought to).

Sovereign Wealth Funds and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn C. Lavelle
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Host Country ◽  
State Power ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
International Level ◽  
Sovereign Wealth Funds ◽  
Home State ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter examines the questions that sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) pose for analysts of foreign policy insofar as their operating preferences could be either geostrategic, and seek to advance the interests of the home state, or economic, and seek to maximize profits. To sort through the related issues, the chapter considers “home” and “host” country issues with respect to the democratic features attached to each. It thus offers insight into the strengths and weaknesses of various foreign policy arguments that have been offered in the existing literature. Next, the chapter offers observations on attempts to coordinate the behavior of SWFs at the international level, chiefly the Santiago Principles. It concludes with the relationship between pooled investment vehicles and state power in foreign affairs.

Global Challenges, Local Knowledges: Politics and Expertise at the World Population Conference in Bucharest, 1974

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 215-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corina Doboș
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
World Population ◽  
Final Version ◽  
The Third ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

Population dynamics became a key variable of the developmentalist rhetoric during the postwar era. The World Population Conference (wpc) in Bucharest (1974) was marked by open disagreements regarding the interpretation of the relationship between the ‘Third World’s’ underdevelopment and its overpopulation. The main outcome of the wpc 1974, the World Population Plan of Action (wppa) was the product of negotiations and compromises reached by the parties involved. The study deals with the role that the Romanian representatives at wpc 1974 played in the creation of wppa’s final version. The organization of the wpc in Bucharest gave the Romanian delegation a privileged position. The study contextualizes its contribution to the wppa within the particular conditions of population expertise’s emergence in postwar Romania. The study investigates previously unexplored archival fonds (the Archive of Romanian Ministry for Foreign Affairs) and brings into play unknown details of the maneuvers by various actors during the Bucharest conference. The Romanian version of the story adds nuance to the general narrative on the wpc’s outcomes, which presumes a strict separation between the domains of expertise and politics. The article argues that the Romanians’ alternative interpretations of the wppa were not only the result of the political control and ideological conformity, but also an expression of the particular way in which the field of population expertise developed in twentieth-century Romania.

EU foreign policy through the lens of practice theory: A different approach to the European External Action Service

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Lequesne
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
External Action ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Eu Foreign Policy ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Rule Making

There is a proliferation of works on the new European External Action Service (EEAS). Most of these approach the EEAS through a rationalist framework, assessing how a new institution can solve long-term questions of EU foreign policy-making to ensure consistency and coherence while reducing transaction costs between actors (both supranational and national) in a multilevel governance structure. This paper takes a different direction. Using 30 interviews with officials from the EEAS, the European Commission, and national ministries of foreign affairs, conducted between 2010 and 2013, it shows how the study of practice aids understanding of the nature of the EEAS. As a new institution, the EEAS lends itself particularly well to practice-based study because new institutions must develop new practices.The first section of the article defines the notion of practice and shows the importance of historicizing the struggles around practices in understanding the creation of the EEAS. The second section demonstrates how agents’ practices shape professional cultures within the EEAS. The third section highlights the relationship between practices and rule-making. Going over the EEAS as a case study, the conclusion focuses on the importance of analysing actors’ practices for understanding the current evolution of diplomacy and international relations in general.

Executive Power in Foreign Affairs

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-132
Author(s):  
Alejandro Rodiles
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Global Constitutionalism ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Executive Action ◽  
The Relationship

In Mexico, there is no legal field known as “foreign relations law.” The legal rules and principles that regulate how the country relates to the outside world have been studied as a subfield of international law, known as “the relationship between the international and national legal orders.” This subfield has produced one stream of writings dealing with the prerogatives of the executive in the conduct of foreign policy, and a different one, on treaty-making and the role of treaties within the internal norm hierarchy. Although each approach portrays important aspects of the relationship between national law and international law, this chapter argues that both fail to comprehend that the legal principles and rules on foreign affairs operate at the interstices of these legal orders. In surveying the literature on executive power in external affairs as well as the scholarship on domestic treaty law, the chapter shows that the former has emerged within diplomatic elites, which are concerned with freeing the executive from the constraints related to the principles on foreign policy established in Mexico’s constitution. It also argues that the latter has been either too formalistic or too much focused on global constitutionalism, thus proving unable to capture the new and mainly informal means of executive action in international law. This chapter concludes by making the case for inventing a Mexican foreign relations law that brings both approaches together and is attentive to persistent and novel problems that emerge from the executive’s external actions.

scholarly journals The Military-Political Alliance and Diplomatic Cooperation of the UPR and the WUPR

2019 ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Ihor Datskiv
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

The article deals with the relationship between the West Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic during the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921. Within this framework, the military-political union and the interaction in the diplomatic sphere between the UPR and the WUPR are examined. It is noted that the question of the Union of the WUPR with Dnipro Ukraine arose due to the large-scale aggression of Poland in the West and the offensive of the Bolsheviks from the East. However, it was envisaged that the WUPR would be granted broad autonomy with its own army and government. The WUPR received considerable military and material aid from the UPR, which contributed to the war with a much stronger enemy. It is argued that after the union was created, there was a need for harmonization and co-ordination of foreign policy of the states and their foreign affairs agencies. As a result, those institutions acquired all-Ukrainian status. However, this did not affect WUPR missions in the countries that emerged in the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, namely Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Other diplomatic missions become common for the UPR and the WUPR. The article states that over time certain controversies emerged as for the vision of foreign policy priorities of the WUPR and the UPR. The government and military leadership of the WUPR began to cooperate with the Bolsheviks. One of the reasons is the lack of power of the WUPR armed forces and the Bolshevik sympathy towards them. Besides, the increasing number of Galician and Dnipro Ukraine politicians and diplomats offered Y. Petrushevych to change his foreign policy orientation, distance himself from S. Petliura and be guided solely by his own interests. In turn, S. Petliura forged an agreement on behalf of the UPR on the recognition of Eastern Galicia as part of Poland and the rejection of previous acts of national unity. The article also deals with the process of establishing the military cooperation of the WUPR with the Bolsheviks and the agreements inter se. Keywords: WUPR, UPR, military-political alliance, diplomacy, foreign policy, Bolsheviks.

On Metaphysics and the Political: A Polemics of Reading Baudelaire in the 1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.

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