Foreign Policy: Definition and Conceptual Understanding

How states evolved in the international system

City states

4 Elements of State:

Peace of Westphalia

Anarchy at the international level drives state’s foreign policy relations

Foreign Policy1

A state's foreign policy is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with
other states. The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that a country's foreign policy may be
influenced by "domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or
plans to advance specific geopolitical designs."

It is a known fact that the formation of government is essential to run a state and no
state can live without maintaining interstate relations.

To that end every government has to formulate a foreign policy. Like internal and
domestic policies, industrial policy, agricultural policy, defense policy, education policy,
labor policy etc. A state gives special attention to the careful formulation and successful
execution of its foreign policy. A successful foreign policy enhances a nation’s power
and prestige in the comity of nations. Foreign policy gains also increase a government’s
credibility in the eyes of public internally as well as externally.

Definitions and Nature of Foreign Policy:

Foreign policy, according to Hartmann, “is a systematic statement of deliberately
selected national interests.” Foreign policy connotes a greater degree of rational
procedure, and a type of planning involved in a step-by-step progress to a known and
defined goal. It is a relatively rational answer to prevailing external conditions.

Padelford and Lincoln observe that through foreign policy, every state decides “what
course it will pursue in world affairs within the limits of its strength and the realities of the
external environment.” The foreign policy is the key element in the process by which a
state translates its broadly conceived goals and interests into concrete courses of action
to attain those objectives and preserve its interests.
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https://www.politicalscienceview.com/determinants-of-foreign-policy/
In the broad sense, it includes according to Schleicher, the objectives, plans, and
actions taken by a state relative to its external relationship.

A broad definition of foreign policy contains three elements; goals or objectives, policy
plans and actual actions undertaken by a state to regulate its external relations.

In the words of Rodee, “Foreign policy involves the formulation and implementation of a
group of principles which shape the behavior pattern of a state while negotiating with
other states to protect or further its vital interests.”

Model ski defines foreign policy as “the system of activities evolved by communities for
changing the behavior of other states and for adjusting their own activities to the
international environment.”

In sum, every state decides its own course of action in international relations in the light
of its means and ends.

Components of Foreign Policy:

According to Lerche and Said, normally foreign policy includes three elements. These
are:

 Formulation of the objective in the most precise terms possible

 The nature of the action to be undertaken, stated with sufficient clarity to guide and
direct the state’s other officials and
 The forms and perhaps the amounts of national power to be applied in pursuit of the
objective.

Mahendra Kumar describes four components:

 Policy makers,
 Interest and objectives
 Principles of foreign policy, and
 Means of foreign policy.

According to Jangam, foreign policy is the policy of a nation towards other nations and
generally it involves four factors:

 Principles underlying foreign policy.

 Problems faced by the nation.
 The particular way of making policy including the role of foreign policy makers
 The products or results of foreign policy.

Objectives of Foreign Policy:

Three Rules of Realism to determine Foreign Policy: Statism, Survival, Self-help

Interest can be explained as the aims passed on to the policy makers by the
community. It may also be defined as the general and continuing ends for the
attainment of which a nation conducts its foreign relations.

It includes such matters as

 security against aggression,

 development of higher standards of living, and
 the maintenance of conditions of national and international stability.

Foreign policy is inconceivable without national interest. At the same time, it must be
clarified that national interest does not exclude the significance of international
obligation, especially in the present day world.

On the other hand, objectives are the product of national interest. They are in the words
of Mahendra Kumar, interests spelled out and made more precise in the light of the
present day complexity of international relations. He further clarifies that all interests of
a nation will not be regarded as objectives unless they are strongly loved by the political
community and the same is prepared to make some sacrifice or take some risk for their
realization. In this way, objectives are of a more specific nature than interests.

Common objectives of the foreign policy of all nations are:

1. Maintaining the integrity of the state,

2. Promoting economic interest,
3. Providing for national security,
4. Protecting national prestige and developing national power, and
5. Maintaining world order.

These can be supplemented by specific objectives according to the peculiar problems

and conditions of the particular country. Pr-requisites of Foreign Policy Study of foreign
policy necessitates that the following factors must be borne in mind.

1 . Foreign policy (National Interests) has many constituents, most important of which
are defence, diplomatic and economic interests. These Constituents though singly
salient, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They often coexist and strongly influence
each other.

2. Foreign policy is made in the name of a state, but it is the government which really
formulates and executes it. The government is not an inanimate body. It is a synthesis
of organizations and individuals having their organizational and personal interests which
are not necessarily similar.
3. Foreign policy never operates in vacuum rather it is conditional by an environment,
both domestic and external. The domestic environment consists of political parties,
pressure groups, rival bureaucratic organizations, public opinion, political culture etc.
The external environment comprises among other sub systemic actors neighboring
states and others belonging to the region, super powers and international organizations,
especially the UN, World Bank, IMF and regional organizations like SAARC, EU.

4. In government it is some individuals around Whom foreign policy making revolves. It

may be the President or Prime Minister or the King of a state and his foreign minister,
advisers and subordinates. Mostly the Head of the Government (e.g. the Prime Minister
in India and the President in USA) plays the prominent role in this regard.

5. Foreign policy always involves both decision and action, with decision perhaps the
more important element. Action on behalf of an objective can result from policy decision
itself indicates clearly what the policy maker had in mind both as to objective and
procedure.

6. Foreign policy embraces both important and less important matters. The routine
matters are dealt with at lower levels whereas important things are sent to higher levels
for disposal. There is a linkage between the degree of the importance of the subject and
the level of authority where it is disposed of.

7. Cost-risk factor in foreign policy has also its significance. A policy decision requires
the commitment of resources, the assumption of a risk or both. One must keep in mind
that, in foreign policy as in life, everything has its price. The most complex problem in
policy formulation is the decision about how much effort should be made in pursuit of an
objective in view of competing claims of other goals and the resource crunches.

8. Foreign policy has to be examined from actual behavior pattern of states rather than
exclusively from declared objectives or policy plans.

Instruments of Foreign Policy:

The instruments of foreign policy may be said to be those institutions or devices through
which the national power or resources are used for the accomplishment of the interests
and objectives. These are as follows :

1. Diplomacy:

Good diplomats ambassadors, envoys, ministers etc and through their art of diplomacy
can put country’s viewpoint effectively before the world and fulfill foreign policy
objectives by means of mutual negotiations and thus spare their country from resorting
to coercive methods. Diplomacy reduces the area of disagreement and
misunderstanding with other states. It is instrumental in reaching out agreements,
treaties and pacts with other nations. It plays its role both during war and peace.
2. Publicity and Propaganda:

These can be used steadily to combat and break down the undesirable attitudes and
opinions and to create the desired attitudes and opinions. Propaganda can be used, as
it was used by Hitler and later on by super powers during Cold War, for the systematic
falsification of true propositions or positions and the establishment of suitable ones.

Thus these three factors diplomacy, publicity and propaganda-are employed by a nation
for building up its public relations, for removing undesirable or discreditable factors like
embarrassment, misunderstanding, suspicion, fear, etc between itself and other
nations, and for projecting a favorable and acceptable image to other nations. These
also help in increasing the power and prestige of a nation.

3. Balance of Power:

This method is used for avoiding imbalance of power and strengthening the position of
given nations. For example, Britain employed the principle of balance of power for a
long time in the European power politics in order to maintain the status quo and prevent
any particular power from being too strong.

4. Collective Security:

The principle of collective security is adopted to secure collective defense as

threateningly posed or actually mobilized against a powerful nation or nations. Balance
of power and collective security are extremely useful as instruments for smaller nations
which have a limited capacity to defend themselves.

5. International Law and Organizations:

These are also used by nations whenever possible for advancing the objectives of their
foreign policy. During the post War period, Britain and France used the League of
Nations to maintain status quo which was in their favor. Now we see that a number of
third World countries are using the platform of the United Nations for some of the basic
goals of their foreign policies-anti-colonialism, anti-racialism, disarmament and so on.

7. War and Peace:

The institutions of war and peace are a kind of ultimate answer to the problems of a
nation’s foreign policy; peace comes on the heels of war, generally inaugurating a basic
change in the foreign policies of nations concerned. But war is generally a devastating
answer to the problems of a nation’s foreign policy. When objectives of foreign policy
cannot be achieved through other means, nations resort to war as an end argument.