Notes for Philippine Foreign Relations (POS116)

 A systematic study of the foreign policy of the Philippines.

 Emphasis will be placed on the economic, social, and political factors affecting Philippine foreign
relations with major regional and global groupings.
 Foreign Policy- strategy or approach chosen by the national government to achieve its goals in
its relations with external entities
 Foreign Policy Behaviour (FPB)- refers to specific actions and words used to influence others in
the realm of foreign policy includes behaviour that was accidental or unintended by the
government.

Foreign Policy Analysis

 Subfield of IR that seeks to explain foreign policy or foreign policy behaviour, with reference to
the theoretical ground of human decision makers, acting singly or in groups.
 A commitment to look below the nation-state level of analysis to actor-specific information.
 A commitment to build actor-specific theory as the interface between actor-general theory and
the complexity of the real world.
 A commitment to purse multicausal explanations spanning multiple levels of analysis.
 A commitment to utilize theory and findings from across the spectrum of social science.
 A commitment to viewing the process of foreign policy decision-making as important as the
output thereof.

Theories

 Actor-general theory- theory that explains the behaviour the of actors in general perspective.
 Actor-specific theory- theory that explains the behaviour of specific actors, such as Foreign
Policy
 International Relations- attempts to explain the interaction of states in the global interstate
system

Primary Level of Analysis in FPA

 Bureaucratic Politics- includes morale issues, budget, influence, inter-agency group politics and
etc.
 Culture and Foreign Policy- identity and nationalism, heroic, histories, role theory and etc.
 System Effects on Foreign Policy- anarchy, distribution of power, regional balances of power,
etc.

Classical Foreign Policy Analysis-Second Generation

 Small Group Decision-Making- refers to the process and structure of groups making foreign
policy decisions.
 Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics- research began to study the influence of
organizational process and bureaucratic politics on foreign policy decision-making.
  Comparative Foreign Policy (CFP)- the subfield or extension of Comparative Foreign Policy
developed as a response to James Rosenau’s challenge to build a cross-national and multi-level
theory of foreign policy.

Foreign Policy

 A set of actions or rules governing the actions of an independent political authority deployed in
the international environment – sovereign states; polysemic (actions, reactions, inaction, which
may be ad hoc or repeated)
 An underlying vision (national interest & key principles)
 Varied and irregular (Rosenau)
 Emanates from treaties/agreement or normative agreements labor rights, human rights

What distinguishes between public and foreign policy?