FOREIGN POLICY

INTRODUCTION

Foreign policy according to White is ‘government activity conducted with relationships between state and other actors, particularly other states, in the international system’ (White 1989: 1, italics added). Yet as White admits, this definition does not include other forms of collective actors like the European Union (EU) that also conduct foreign policy activities. Rosenau offers an even simpler definition, defining foreign policy as the external behavior of states (Rosenau 1971, italics added). Brecher contends that what we should study are foreign policy decisions and not just measureable behavior (Brecher 1972, italics added).  Further, the term ‘policy’ is also very slippery. Should we define a foreign policy as the sum of external actions directed towards a specific actor as Hill does? Or can we also include specific actions in our definition of foreign policy? Is a ‘policy’ the goal the action was intended to achieve, or the actual result of the action? A famous example that illustrates the difference between intended and actual policy is the case of US foreign policy towards Iraq in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie sent quite ambiguous signals to Saddam Hussein; for example telling him that the US had ‘no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait’ (New York Times, September 23, 1990). Saddam Hussein mistakenly perceived this to mean that it was US foreign policy to not respond forcefully to an invasion of Kuwait by Iraq (Yetiv 2004); an interpretation that did not reflect the policy that was intended in Washington. In this case, was the ‘foreign policy’ of the US towards Iraq what was intended by US decision-makers? Or should it be measured based upon the actions that took place? Given the difficulty of measuring intentionality, should we then only focus upon ‘actions’ or ‘behavior’ as policy as argued by Rosenau and others? An alternative solution is to follow Brecher, who argues that we should study ‘decisions’, given that taking a decision implies a degree of intentionality. However, there are also numerous problems with restricting our attention to decisions. One key problem is that most foreign policy decisions take place behind closed doors, meaning that we often are unable to measure empirically whether a decision has actually taken place (at least until the point in time when archives are opened). Finally, should we define foreign policy as external actions of states, or open up for the possibility that other collective actors such as the EU have foreign policies? The EU, despite not being a legal state, does undertake common foreign policy actions towards its neighbors. Further, in federal systems such as the US, individual states like California also have foreign relations with neighboring countries. This book does however limit the scope of collective actors to public authorities, denying that private collective actors such as multinational companies have ‘foreign policies’. Instead, these firms have what can be defined as relations with public authorities or other private companies.

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVES OF U.S FOREIGN POLICY AND GREAT BRITAIN FOREIGN POLICY

Due to its standing, the U.S. is centrally involved with almost every important international political issue, ranging from the international security and economic arenas to transnational issues such as climate change and human rights regimes. For these reasons, the factors which shape U.S. foreign policy are of concern to people around the globe. This paper is designed to develop students’ understanding of these factors, both historically and in their present state. It will familiarize students with important literature and debates on the intellectual and cultural foundations of U.S. foreign policy, including anti-statism, liberalism, and illiberal assumptions used to legitimize continental and, eventually, hemispheric domination. It will address the development of American political institutions and their involvement in foreign affairs. This includes the balance between the presidency and the Congress as established in the Constitution and practice; workings of the foreign policy bureaucracy; the impact of public opinion on political leaders and vice versa; and the sometimes pluralistic, sometimes oligarchic constellation of interest groups which foreign policymakers must heed.

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