scholarly journals Status and Foreign Policy Change in Small States: Qatar's Emergence in Perspective

2018 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Babak Mohammadzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Small States ◽  
Foreign Policy Change

Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy Change: Kyrgyzstan’s U-Turns on the U.S. Air Base at Manas Airport

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-202
Author(s):  
Shairbek Dzhuraev
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Small States ◽  
Small State ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Foreign Policy Change ◽  
External Incentives ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Mainstream theories of international relations explain the foreign policies of small states based on the function of external incentives and pressures. This article challenges such explanations and analyzes Kyrgyzstan’s decisions concerning the U.S. air base at Manas between 2005 and 2010, which was a curious case of risk-taking in foreign policy by a small state. Applying a framework of “ideas, interests and institutions,” the article shows how changes in Kyrgyzstan’s foreign policy reflected a shift in the domestic context of policymaking.

Domestic Constraints on Foreign Policy Change in Belarus

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-55
Author(s):  
Paul Hansbury
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Group Competition ◽  
Domestic Constraints ◽  
Foreign Policy Change ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Policy Shifts

Abstract After 2014 the relationship between Russia and its ally Belarus was strained. Russia was dissatisfied with Belarus’s foreign policy and sought to influence the latter’s international affairs. This article considers the extent of change and continuity in Belarus’s foreign policy, and thus whether Russia’s criticisms reflect consequential shifts, covering the period 2016–2019. The analysis begins with the removal of EU sanctions, which afforded Belarus new opportunities, and ends before the protest movement that emerged ahead of the election in 2020. The study considers three policy areas: international trade; diplomacy more broadly; and foreign policy concerns for prestige. The article argues that Belarus made appreciable policy changes in response to structural pressures in the period 2016–2019, but the parameters of these foreign policy shifts were necessarily highly constrained by domestic interest group competition which prevents Belarus distancing itself from Russia. It concludes with a brief reflection on how the 2020 election protests and repressions affect the dynamics described.

Foreign policy change as rhetorical politics: domestic-regional constellation of Global South states

2021 ◽  
pp. 004711782110528
Author(s):  
Rafael D Villa ◽  
Sasikumar S Sundaram
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
Foreign Policy Issue ◽  
Foreign Policy Change ◽  
Postcolonial States

Although the recent advancements in critical constructivist IR on political rhetoric has greatly improved our understanding of linguistic mechanisms of political action, we need a sharp understanding of how rhetoric explains foreign policy change. Here we conceptualize a link between rhetoric and foreign policy change by foregrounding distinct dynamics at the regional and domestic institutional environments. Analytically, at the regional level, we suggest examining whether norms of foreign policy engagement are explicitly coded in treaties and agreements or implicit in conventions and practices of actors. And at the domestic level, we suggest examining whether a particular foreign policy issue area is concurrent or contested among interlocutors. In this constellation, we clarify how four different rhetorical strategies underwrites foreign policy change – persuasion, mediation, explication and reconstruction – how it operates, and the processes through which it unfolds in relation to multiple audiences. Our principal argument is that grand foreign policy change requires continuous rhetorical deployments with varieties of politics to preserve and stabilize the boundaries in the ongoing fluid relations of states. We illustrate our argument with an analysis of Brazil’s South-South grand strategy under the Lula administration and contrast it against the rhetoric of subsequent administrations. Our study has implications for advancing critical foreign policy analysis on foreign policy change and generally for exploring new ways of studying foreign policies of nonwestern postcolonial states in international relations.

Conclusion: Grasping Foreign Policy Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 311-331
Author(s):  
Klaus Brummer ◽  
Kai Oppermann
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Foreign Policy Change
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