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11 The politics of Conservative foreign policy Foreign policy needs to be relocated in our analyses of the midVictorian era. Indeed, it is easier to perceive the dimensions of nineteenth-century politics if debate about foreign policy is integrated into domestic political history, as it too rarely is. Foreign policy played a significant part in the Conservatives’ calculations. Before they returned to government in 1852, every policy area formed a front in their war against the perceived radicalism of the Whigs. Economic policy represented the most prominent
This book provides readers with an analytical framework that serves to investigate and explain how the EU adapts its foreign policy in the wake of crisis. While a range of studies dedicated to foreign policy stability and change exist for the US context, such analyses are rare for the assessment and measurement of foreign policy change at the European Union level. This book explores a range of theories of (foreign) policy change and assesses their value for explaining EU foreign policy change. Changes to EU foreign policy, this study proposes based upon an in-depth investigation of recent episodes in which foreign policy has changed, are not captured well using existing typologies of policy change from other fields of study.
Offering a new perspective on the question of change, this book proposes an analytical framework focused on how institutions, institutional ‘plasticity’ and temporal context impact on the decision-making process leading to change. It thus provides readers with the tools to analyse, explain and conceptualise the various change outcomes in EU foreign policy. In so doing, it sets the theoretical approach of historical institutionalism to work in an EU foreign policy setting. Based on a rich empirical analysis of five case studies it provides a revised typology of EU foreign policy change. It proposes two novel forms of foreign policy change, symbolic change and constructive ambiguity, as frequent and important outcomes of the EU decision-making process.
It is frequently claimed that foreign policy making in Middle East states is either the idiosyncratic product of personalistic dictators or the irrational outcome of domestic instability. In fact, it can only be adequately understood by analysis of the multiple factors common to all states, namely: (1) foreign policy determinants (interests, challenges) to which decision-makers respond when they shape policies; and (2) foreign policy structures and processes which factor the ‘inputs’ made by various actors into a policy addressing these
parallel and their coupling is the critical juncture that paves the way for any public policy act. In line with the broader objective of the edited volume, this chapter examines whether and how the MSA can be applied in the foreign policy realm. It is based on the fundamental assumption that public policy tools can be used for the analysis of foreign policy-making, appropriately adjusted to the specific and idiosyncratic features of this policy area. Following a brief overview of the MSA in the next section, we will then review scholarly works
8 India’s foreign policy and global politics This chapter argues that India’s foreign policy post-independence was based on idealism as well as realism and the desire to function as an autonomous actor in world politics after centuries of colonial rule. Events proved that states had to deal with diverse issues, some involving the management of bilateral relations and others involving international relations and multilateralism. Moreover, India was a developing state, not a major power, and had to contend with asymmetrical relations with the west, notwithstanding
causal interconnection between individual policy decisions in contrast to the coincidental but causally unconnected adoption of similar policies. Policy decisions in different countries can be connected through conceptually different causal mechanisms, generally differentiated as emulation, learning, and competition (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000 ; Simmons and Elkins 2004 ; Marsh and Sharman 2009 ; Gilardi 2012 ). The analytical lens of interdependent policy decisions and mutual influence among foreign policy-makers can add a useful angle to
This chapter aims to explore the relevance of the increasingly fashionable network approach for studying the formulation, implementation, and diffusion of foreign policy. Traditionally, foreign policy-making has been viewed as a prerogative of an executive branch of government that unilaterally defines the national interest and pursues it through strategic action in contexts characterized by intense rivalry, constant crisis, and dynamic conflicts (Allison 1969 ). However, the gradual decentering of government—a combined effect of the
The European Union’s foreign policy is an ongoing puzzle. The membership of the enlarging European Union has set itself ever more ambitious goals in the field of foreign policy-making, yet at the same time each member state continues to guard its ability to conduct an independent foreign policy. As far as the EU’s ambitions are concerned, foreign policy cooperation led to coordination, and
and change in different political systems. However, the focus of these studies has mostly been on domestic policies, with only very little attention for PET in a foreign policy context. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that PET is not only relevant in the realm of domestic politics, but also useful for the analysis of foreign policy. The next section reconstructs the original formulation of PET and illustrates how PET has evolved over the past two decades. Then, we outline how to study foreign policy using a PE approach, its benefits and
128 6 Germany, Lemass and foreign policy adaptation From a narrow perspective, Dublin’s EEC application in July 1961 became an unavoidable necessity when Harold Macmillan decided to launch a British bid. It followed at least two years of anxious discussion and reflection in Irish government circles about the country’s economic isolation and vulnerable position. The realisation had intensified that the country needed to join a benevolent multilateral trading block. The EEC held particular appeal in the field of agriculture, though no firm decision could be