Lecture dasdsadadasdadaSlides- Week 1.ppt

foreign policy analysis

1. Foreign Policy Analysis:
Introduction. Foreign Policy
Analysis and International
Relations
Week 1

2. Lecture Plan
Introduction: ‘The pitch’
•The most exciting course on
the Master’s/PhD degree.
•Into the Foreign Ministry
with a bag load of theory.
Section A: What is FP/FPA?
•What is FPA in relation to
IR.
•Levels of analysis. The big
division IR/FPA.
•IR’s levels of analysis:
•The system.
•The state.
FPA’s levels of analysis:
•Institutions.
•Groups.
•Individuals.
Different theoretical approaches
•Rationality.
•Bounded rationality.
•Constructivism.
Section B: How this course
works:
•Intellectually.
•Pedagogically.

3. Foreign Policy
Analysis: the
most exciting
course on the
Master’s/PhD
programme
Into the Foreign
Ministry with a
bag load of
theory.
‘The pitch’

6. Different theoretical explanations
•Neo-Classical
Realism (next
week’s lecture)
•Organizational
Behaviour or
Bureaucratic
politics (week
ten lecture)
•The Cognitive
School (week
nine lecture)

7. ‘Sir, this is your Rwandan moment’

8. Definitions of Foreign Policy
•“... the sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually
a state) in international relations.”
•Christopher Hill, The changing politics of foreign policy, (Houndsmill: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2003), p. 3.
•“... foreign policies consist of those actions which, expressed in the form of explicitly
stated goals, commitments and / or directives, and pursued by governmental
representatives acting on behalf of their sovereign communities, are directed
towards objectives, conditions and actors –both governmental and non-
governmental -which they want to affect and which lie beyond their territorial
legitimacy.”
•Walter Carlsnanes, ‘Foreign Policy’, in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A.
Simmons (eds), Handbook of International Relations, (London: Sage, 2007), p. 335.
•“… a goal-oriented or problem-oriented programme by authoritative policy makers
(or their representatives) directed towards entities outside the policy makers
jurisdiction.”
•Charles F. Herman, ‘Changing course: when governments chose to redirect foreign
policy’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1, (March 1990), p. 5.

9. The big point
Foreign Policy Analysis is
NOT
International Relations

10. Kenneth Waltz
“International
Politics in not
Foreign Policy”

11. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of
International Politics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999)
“… I am interested in the structure and
effects of states … Like Waltz, I am
interested in international Politics, not
foreign policy.” Page 11.

12. FPA’s three levels of analysis
1. Institutions. Best example: Graham Allison and
Philip Zelikow, Essence of decision; explaining
the Cuban Missile Crisis.
2. Groups. Best example: Irving Janis, Victims of
Group Think.
3. Individuals. Best example: Alexander L.
George, ‘The “operational code”: a neglected
approach to the study of political leaders and
decision making’, International Studies
Quarterly.

13. Different theoretical approaches
to FPA
•Rationality
•Bounded rationality
•Constructivism

14. Aims & Learning Objectives
•Identify the key concepts of FPA
•Describe and define the centrality of the
state and national interest to FPA
•Understand the role of structure and
agency in shaping foreign policy
•Discuss the relationship between FPA and
International Relations

15. What is Foreign Policy
Analysis?
•The focus on FPA is on intentions,
statements & actions of an actor –usually
a state but not necessarily –directed
towards the external world and the
response of other actors to these
intentions, statements & actions (Gerner)
•It is a ‘bridging discipline’ between
boundaries (domestic/external)

16. FPA and its assumptions
•FPA assumes the inter-connectedness of domestic
factors and international factors
•–But privileges domestic processes as providing
variables that determine & explain FP outcomes
•–This could include the range and choice of policies, the
selection of FP instruments (diplomatic vs military)
and/or their successful (or otherwise) implementation
•–Moreover, FPA holds a systems theory approach to
interpreting policy making, that is that there are
‘feedback loops’ between policy initiators & their targets
which operate and affect decision making & outcome

17. FPA and its assumptions
•FPA assumes the state as a legitimate unit of analysis
•–Like the divide between domestic and international
environments, which is necessarily ‘artificial’ (socially
constructed) but at the same time meaningful
•–Though not explicitly declared as such, FPA scholars
generally assume a pluralist depiction of the state as a
site of competitive interests whose actions are structured
by institutions, norms of conduct and law

18. FPA as ‘middle range’ theory
•FPA research aims focuses first on the process of
decision making itself and less the outcome
•–Believes that its focus on analysing ‘actor specific’ –
that is to say the behaviour of particular actors
(individuals/groups configured in informal or formal –
bureaucracies -settings) –provides a fruitful source of
generalisable theory w/ a measure of predictability
•–Contrast w/ ‘actor-general’ approach, which analyses
actors’ behaviour in aggregate (game theory)

19. 3 Problems for FPA
The State
‘For what are states but large bandit bands,
and what are bandit bands but small
states?’
St Augustine, City of God

20. 3 Problems for FPA
Globalisation
‘Globalisation means the end of the
nation-state.’
Ken Ohmae 1990

21. 3 Problems for FPA: Change
‘FPA tells us little about the sources and
conditions that give rise to significant
alternation of a state’s foreign policy.’
Charles Hermann 1989

22. 1. Realism and Rationalism: state,
national interest & foreign policy
decision making
A state’s national interest is synonymous with
power and the proper object of a state’s foreign
policy as well as a measure of its capacity
–What constitutes national interest, how is it
determined and by whom
–The ‘whom’ is decision maker which becomes
FPA object of investigation
–Application of rational choice theory to modelling
FP decision making

23. 2. Behaviourism: the ‘minds of men’
& foreign policy decision making
•Focus on decision making process rather
than on outcomes
•This places individual decision maker at
the centre of study and the limits and
constraints that they operate under
•Group decision making

24. 3. Bureaucratic politics & foreign
policy
•Believed focus on individual excessively
narrow
•Proper focus of study should be
bureaucracies where decisions are
actually formulated
•Inter-play between leaders, bureaucrats,
organisational culture and political actors
central

25. 4. Pluralism: linkage politics &
foreign policy
•Pluralists dispute the belief that the state
forms the only significant actors in
international politics
•Linkages between sub-state and
transnational actors increasingly
supplementing if not sidelining state
•The environment of complex
interdependency & 2 level game