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This book offers a new way of looking at Irish foreign policy, linking its development with changes in Irish national identity. Many debates within contemporary international relations focus on the relative benefits of taking a traditional interest-based approach to the study of foreign policy as opposed to the more recently developed identity-based approach. This book takes the latter and, instead of looking at Irish foreign policy through the lens of individual, geo-strategic or political interests, is linked to deeper identity changes. As one Minister of Foreign Affairs put it; ‘Irish foreign policy is about much more than self-interest. The elaboration of our foreign policy is also a matter of self-definition—simply put, it is for many of us a statement of the kind of people that we are’. Using this approach, four grand narratives are identified which, it is argued, have served to shape the course of Irish foreign policy and which have, in turn, been impacted by the course of Ireland's international experience. The roots and significance of each of these narratives; Ireland as a European Republic, as a Global Citizen, as an Anglo-American State and as an Irish Nation are then outlined and their significance assessed. The shape of Irish foreign-policy-making structures is then drawn out and the usefulness of this book's approach to Irish foreign policy is then considered in three brief case studies: Ireland's European experience, its neutrality and Irish policy towards the 2003 Iraq War.
approve of Maoism as a guiding principle.21 Speaking to Tor Sellström in 1996, Jorge Rebelo affirmed this more pragmatic factor in FRELIMO’s policy decisions: We wanted as much support as possible, wherever it came from … [China and the Soviet Union] had their geo-strategic interests. There were certain moments 255 256 Art, Global Maoism and the Cultural Revolution – in fact many moments – when their support was given under very strict conditions. The basic condition was to support their policies and condemn – now that expression no longer exists – imperialism … we
Livingston 1997 : 1). The attraction of the idea, subsequently elaborated and explored in a number of studies (Gowing 1994 , 1996; Neuman 1996 ; Hudson and Stanier 1997 ; Strobel 1997 ), had much to do with the fact that Western foreign policy seemed difficult to explain in terms of conventional geo-strategic interests. Since decisions often appeared arbitrary, the notion of powerful but fickle media seemed to offer a plausible
military analysts pointed to a strategic recoupling of the military to Russia’s core geo-strategic interests and Putin’s core political aims [which] represents a remilitarization of Russia’s overall security policy … Putin’s worldview has set a new purpose and identity for the Russian military, one built
territoriality was useful in illuminating the ongoing territoriality of IS propaganda, given its subjective positioning as a quasi-nation state. Substantive differences between AQ and IS’s propaganda were thus explored in the first part of the book with reference to Bourdieusian and neo-Marxist theory. In addition to the organisations’ divergent displays of capital in their propaganda, the discussion revealed that, correlative with their respective geo-strategic interests, AQ throughout its history became more preoccupied with the symbolic ‘idealism’ of anti
Minister’s refusal to provide military (and even at times moral) support for the US war effort in Vietnam, aptly symbolised the extent of the atrophy to which the special relationship had now succumbed.5 Influence is power While Anglo-American relations never again plumbed quite the same depths as the Wilson–Johnson era, the respective fault lines between the two nations continued to widen during the course of the 1970s. With US geo-strategic interests now appearing to shift towards East Asia and away from Western Europe, and with the scale of British decline becoming
– ensured that the government was particularly sensitive to security issues in the region. Geo-strategic interests were therefore considerable. Spain’s economic interests in the region are also significant. Spain has traditionally been dependent on energy imports and the country obtained 72 per cent of its gas and 17 per cent of its oil from the Mediterranean in 2000. Spain also obtained 80 per cent of its phosphates from Morocco, whilst key sectors of the Spanish fishing industry are dependent on Moroccan, Saharan and Mauritanian fish stocks (Núñez Villaverde, 2001: 131