FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract

Foreign Policy is the engine room of decision-making, it is viewed to be one of the greatest instrument at a state’s disposal to pursue its national interests. It is considered as a full political activity of states. A good Foreign Policy would obviously lead a state in fulfilling its national interests and acquiring rightful place among comity of nations. As such the study of Foreign Policy forms an important part of International Studies. However, the first problem that one faces in the study of Foreign Policy is the problem of definition or clear meaning of the term. When used, it is either out of context or entails a different meaning. As such, it becomes a “neglected concept” as most people dealing with the subject have felt confident that they knew what foreign policy was. This neglect has been one of the most serious obstacles to providing more adequate and comprehensive explanations of Foreign Policy. This article, seeks to provide a comprehensive meaning about the concept of Foreign Policy, and also look into some of the merit, demerit and things that determines the foreign policy decision-making of a country.

 INTRODUCTION

After the treaty of Westphalia and the end of the First and Second World War, the international system has witnessed an increasing growth in the development of nation states. The end product of this development is thus, the creation of an interaction between these nation states. In addition, the establishment of United Nations and the process of decolonization that has liberated many states into sovereign entities have further provided the impetus to interrelationships among states. Such has resulted into the formation of ‘foreign policies’. With the aim of determining and identifying the decisions, strategies, and ends of interaction of a state with another

Held D, Et al (1999). Furthermore, the modern world of “globalization”; the “widening, deepening and speeding up of global interconnectedness” 1has increased this interrelationships or interactions among states. Hence, there is unanimity among scholars on the necessity of a “foreign policy” for each state, since no state will like to function in complete isolation. Нis made scholars like Feliks Gross, to say that even a decision to have no relations with a particular state is also a foreign policy Gross F (1945). A state without a foreign policy, has been compared to a ship in the deep sea without any knowledge of directions Laura N (2008). Нus, foreign policy leads a state in fulfilling its national interests and acquiring rightful place among comity of nations. The term foreign policy is deceptively difficult to define. As with most terms in political science and IR that attempt to understand key aspects of a very complicated reality, there is considerable debate about how we should define foreign policy, and all decisions about how we should define the term ‘foreign policy’ have benefits and tradeoffs.

What becomes clear when one reviews the literature is that scholars are often speaking about different phenomena when they define ‘foreign policy’. Christopher Hill has defined foreign policy as the sum of external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually a state) in international relations (Hill 2003, italics added). However, by defining policy as the sum of external actions, this definition focuses only on explaining broad trends in foreign policies and not individual actions and decisions. 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).  These competing definitions illustrate that there are a number of choices that must be made when we define the term ‘foreign policy’. First, how should we define the ‘foreign’ aspect of foreign policies? Many domestic policies such as farm subsidies or environmental legislation (especially by larger states) have external impacts upon other states. But are legislators making foreign policy when they are debating farm subsidies? Here the definition of White is helpful, with the key term being ‘…governmental activity conducted with relationships…’ towards other states and actors within the international system (White 1989:1, italics added). Note that foreign policies in this definition are policies that are explicitly directed towards other external actors.

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