Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases

Third Edition Steve Smith

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/foreign-policy-theories-actors-cases-third-edition-stev
e-smith/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Russia’s Foreign Energy Policy: Resources, Actors,

Conflicts 1st Edition Kenan Aslanli

https://ebookmeta.com/product/russias-foreign-energy-policy-
resources-actors-conflicts-1st-edition-kenan-aslanli/

Foreign Policy Breakthroughs Cases in Successful

Diplomacy 1st Edition Robert L. Hutchings

https://ebookmeta.com/product/foreign-policy-breakthroughs-cases-
in-successful-diplomacy-1st-edition-robert-l-hutchings/

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth

Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition Benjamin
Harrison

https://ebookmeta.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-
history-workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-
edition-benjamin-harrison/

Primary Mathematics 3A Hoerst

https://ebookmeta.com/product/primary-mathematics-3a-hoerst/
Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice Marlaine Smith

https://ebookmeta.com/product/nursing-theories-and-nursing-
practice-marlaine-smith/

Pakistans Foreign Policy 1947-2019 Abdul Sattar

https://ebookmeta.com/product/pakistans-foreign-
policy-1947-2019-abdul-sattar/

Monitors and Meddlers How Foreign Actors Influence

Local Trust in Elections Sarah Sunn Bush

https://ebookmeta.com/product/monitors-and-meddlers-how-foreign-
actors-influence-local-trust-in-elections-sarah-sunn-bush/

Market Entry Strategies Internationalization Theories

Concepts and Cases Mario Glowik

https://ebookmeta.com/product/market-entry-strategies-
internationalization-theories-concepts-and-cases-mario-glowik/

Political Psychology And Foreign Policy 1st Edition

Eric Singer

https://ebookmeta.com/product/political-psychology-and-foreign-
policy-1st-edition-eric-singer/
Foreign Policy
Praise for the previous edition, Foreign Policy 2e
‘The editors have mobilized an outstanding group of scholars and practitioners to explore
through literature reviews and case studies how theories of international relations, such as
realism, liberalism, and constructivism, can help us to understand foreign policy behaviour.
They also demonstrate how the choice of analytical level—the states system, national and
organizational characteristics, and personality traits—affect the explanations that emerge. The
original studies are sensitive to the role of non-state actors in accounting for foreign policy
choices, and they also include important examples of middle powers’ influence in certain
global issue areas. The editors’ theoretical vision of the project assures readers of a compre-
hensive and enduring effort. This volume is an authoritative last word in the field of foreign
policy analysis.’
K. J. Holsti, University Killam Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia

‘A unique and indispensable resource. Its coverage is remarkably comprehensive and pro-
vides a judicious blend of theory and illustration. The theoretical chapters are clear and acces-
sible, and the case materials and topical chapters offer a rich array of pedagogical possibilities.
Like The Globalisation of World Politics, this book deserves to be widely adopted.’
Stephen M. Walt, Harvard University

‘The editors have filled a long-neglected gap by producing a volume that authoritatively cov-
ers the state of the art in the study of foreign policy. The book looks set to become a definitive
text for the teaching and study of foreign policy.’
Richard G. Whitman, University of Kent

‘The book combines old and new perspectives with discerning care. In-depth explorations
of empirical examples present a geographically diverse set of cases for teaching. Highly
recommended.’
Olav F. Knudsen, Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Foreign Policy
Theories, Actors, Cases

THIRD EDITION

Edited by

Steve Smith
Amelia Hadfield
Tim Dunne

1
 1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Oxford University Press 2016
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First edition 2008
Second edition 2012
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934372
ISBN 978–0–19–107131–7
Printed in Italy by L.E.G.O. S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents in brief

Foreword xiii
James N. Rosenau

How to use this book xx

Guided tour of the Online Resource Centre xxii
Acknowledgements xxiv
Notes on contributors xxvi

Introduction 1
Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne

SECTION 1 Foreign policy analysis: Theoretical and historical perspectives

1 The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis 13

Valerie M. Hudson

2 Realism and foreign policy 35

William C. Wohlforth

3 Liberalism and foreign policy 54

Michael W. Doyle

4 Constructivism and foreign policy 79

Trine Flockhart

5 Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy 95

Lene Hansen

SECTION 2 Analysing foreign policy: Actors, context, and goals

6 Actors, structures, and foreign policy analysis 113

Walter Carlsnaes

7 Foreign policy decision making: Rational, psychological,

and neurological models 130
Janice Gross Stein

8 Implementation and behaviour 147

Elisabetta Brighi and Christopher Hill

9 Public diplomacy 168

Caitlin Byrne

10 The role of media and public opinion 186

Piers Robinson
vi Contents in brief

11 The primacy of national security 206

Brian C. Schmidt

12 Economic statecraft 222

Michael Mastanduno

13 Duties beyond borders 242

Michael Barnett

SECTION 3 Foreign policy case studies

14 The Cuban Missile Crisis 263

Graham Allison

15 Canada and antipersonnel landmines: The case for human security

as a foreign policy priority 291
Lloyd Axworthy

16 Neoconservatism and the domestic sources of American

foreign policy: The role of ideas in Operation Iraqi Freedom 315
Yuen Foong Khong

17 China and the Tian’anmen Crisis of June 1989 334

Rosemary Foot

18 India and the World Trade Organization 356

Amrita Narlikar

19 Rising Brazil and South America 376

Arlene B. Tickner

20 Australia and global climate change 394

Matt McDonald

21 Israeli–Egyptian (in)security: The Yom Kippur War 411

Gareth Stansfield

22 What kind of power? European Union enlargement and beyond 431

Lisbeth Aggestam

23 Energy and foreign policy: EU–Russia energy dynamics 451

Amelia Hadfield

24 The failure of diplomacy and protection in Syria 476

Karin Aggestam and Tim Dunne

Glossary 495
Endnotes 505
Bibliography 512
Subject Index 551
Detailed contents

Foreword xiii
James N. Rosenau

How to use this book xx

Guided tour of the Online Resource Centre xxii
Acknowledgements xxiv
Notes on contributors xxvi

Introduction 1
Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne
The contemporary relevance of foreign policy 2
Foreign policy theory: disciplinary groundings 4
Organization of the third edition 7

SECTION 1 Foreign policy analysis: Theoretical and historical perspectives

1 The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis 13

Valerie M. Hudson
Introduction: three paradigmatic works 13
Classic FPA scholarship (1954–1993) 17
The psychological and societal milieux of foreign policy decision making 23
FPA self-reflection in the late 1970s and 1980s 27
Conclusion: contemporary FPA’s research agenda 30
2 Realism and foreign policy 35
William C. Wohlforth
Introduction 35
What is realism? 36
The development of realist theories 37
Realist analysis of foreign policy 42
Using realism in analysing foreign policy 47
Conclusion: hedgehogs, foxes, and analysing foreign policy 50
3 Liberalism and foreign policy 54
Michael W. Doyle
Introduction 54
Liberalism 55
Liberal foreign relations 56
Mitigating trade-offs 69
Conclusion 76
viii Detailed contents

4 Constructivism and foreign policy 79

Trine Flockhart
Introduction 79
What is constructivism? 81
Applied constructivism 82
The essence of constructivism 83
Constructivism meets foreign policy 90
Conclusion 93
5 Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy 95
Lene Hansen
Introduction 95
Post-structuralism 97
Studying foreign policy discourses 102
Conclusion—the scope, strengths, and weaknesses of discourse analysis 107

SECTION 2 Analysing foreign policy: Actors, context, and goals

6 Actors, structures, and foreign policy analysis 113

Walter Carlsnaes
Introduction 113
Historical background 115
The role of actors and structures in ‘process’ approaches to FP 116
The role of actors and structures in ‘policy’ approaches to FP 118
Conclusion 124
7 Foreign policy decision making: Rational, psychological,
and neurological models 130
Janice Gross Stein
Introduction 130
Commonsensical understandings of rationality 131
Psychological models: the ‘cognitive revolution’ 132
Neuroscience, emotion, and computation 139
Conclusion 143
8 Implementation and behaviour 147
Elisabetta Brighi and Christopher Hill
Introduction 147
When actors meet their environment—theoretical issues 148
The practical importance of context 157
The instruments of foreign policy 161
Conclusion 166
 Detailed contents ix

9 Public diplomacy 168

Caitlin Byrne
Introduction 168
The origins and evolution of public diplomacy 170
Defining the new public diplomacy 172
Theorizing public diplomacy 176
Public diplomacy in action 179
Public diplomacy 2.0 182
Conclusion 183
10 The role of media and public opinion 186
Piers Robinson
Introduction 186
Public opinion and foreign policy 188
Media and foreign policy 190
Procedural versus substantive criticism and influence 196
Media, public opinion, and theoretical frames 198
New developments: organized persuasive communication
and the ‘war on terror’ 202
Conclusion 204
11 The primacy of national security 206
Brian C. Schmidt
Introduction 206
Realism and national security 209
Security studies and national security 212
National security and American grand strategy 215
Conclusion 219
12 Economic statecraft 222
Michael Mastanduno
Introduction 222
Economic statecraft: instruments and objectives 224
Economic sanctions: not always successful, but still useful 227
Economic incentives: an under-appreciated instrument of statecraft? 235
Economic interdependence: source of political harmony or conflict? 238
Conclusion 239
13 Duties beyond borders 242
Michael Barnett
Introduction 242
Duties beyond borders 243
Theories of foreign policy and duties beyond borders 245
x Detailed contents

Are foreign policies becoming kinder and gentler? 248

The tragedy of Rwanda 250
Libya: case of interests or responsibilities? 255
Conclusion 257

SECTION 3 Foreign policy case studies

14 The Cuban Missile Crisis 263

Graham Allison
Introduction 263
Operation Anadyr 264
Why missiles in: four hypotheses 267
Why American blockade 271
Why Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba 275
Epilogue: three conceptual frameworks for analysing foreign policy 280
15 Canada and antipersonnel landmines: The case for human
security as a foreign policy priority 291
Lloyd Axworthy
Introduction 291
The context 295
The process 301
Establishing a legacy, planning for the future 307
16 Neoconservatism and the domestic sources of American
foreign policy: The role of ideas in Operation Iraqi Freedom 315
Yuen Foong Khong
Introduction 315
Neoconservatism as a domestic source of American foreign policy 317
The four tenets of neoconservative foreign policy thought 320
Neoconservatives and the slaying of the Iraqi monster 323
Neoconservatism in the context of other factors 327
Conclusion 329
17 China and the Tian’anmen Crisis of June 1989 334
Rosemary Foot
The external consequences of China’s open-door policy 335
The human rights issue before Tian’anmen 337
The Tian’anmen crackdown 338
Immediate foreign policy consequences 345
China’s foreign policy response to sanctions 347
The deepening of China’s involvement with human rights 349
China’s emergence as a significant global actor 350
Conclusion 351
 Detailed contents xi

18 India and the World Trade Organization 356

Amrita Narlikar
Introduction 356
From the margins of the GATT to the core of the WTO 358
The political economy of rising influence 362
Institution-specific explanations: learning to negotiate successfully 364
Negotiating culture: an explanatory variable 370
The burden of rising power 372
Conclusion 373
19 Rising Brazil and South America 376
Arlene B. Tickner
Introduction 376
Brazilian diplomacy: methods and mechanisms 378
Three keys to Brazil’s rise 381
Why South America? 384
Power without leadership 387
Conclusion 390
20 Australia and global climate change 394
Matt McDonald
Introduction 394
Global climate change and the UNFCCC 395
Australia and the dilemmas of climate action 399
Australia and the global climate regime 401
Conclusion 408
21 Israeli–Egyptian (in)security: The Yom Kippur War 411
Gareth Stansfield
Introduction 412
The legacies of the Six-Day War of 1967 415
Foreign policy thematics 424
Conclusion 427
22 What kind of power? European Union enlargement and beyond 431
Lisbeth Aggestam
Introduction 432
EU foreign policy 434
The Big Bang enlargement 436
Beyond enlargement: EU foreign policy in the neighbourhood 443
Conclusion: transformative power or political dwarf? 447
23 Energy and foreign policy: EU–Russia energy dynamics 451
Amelia Hadfield
Introduction 451
The role of energy in foreign policy 455
xii Detailed contents

Energy in post-Cold War reform 457

Pre-crisis 460
Security of supply crisis 465
Foreign policy perspectives 468
Conclusion 472
24 The failure of diplomacy and protection in Syria 476
Karin Aggestam and Tim Dunne
Introduction 476
From popular uprising to civil war 477
Meddling, mediating, muddling through 481
Great power cooperation and conflict 487
Conclusion 491

Glossary 495
Endnotes 505
Bibliography 512
Subject Index 551
Foreword
JAMES N. ROSENAU

My contribution to the analysis of foreign policy began on a blackboard. I was prompted to

clarify for students what variables were central to probing the dynamics of foreign policy. The
result was an eight-column matrix that listed the relative importance of five key variables in
eight types of countries (Rosenau 1966). That matrix still informs my teaching and research. It
also implicitly underlies more than a few of the chapters in this volume. Needless to say, I am
honoured that this volume takes note of my contribution to the field.
I called the eight-column matrix and the description of it a ‘pre-theory of foreign policy’. It
provoked sufficient interest among colleagues around the country to convene a series of con-
ferences that explored various facets of the pre-theory, which in turn led to the publication of
a collection of essays prepared for the conferences (Rosenau 1974). This collaboration among
some twenty scholars who had developed a keen interest in comparing foreign policies gave
rise to the founding of the Inter-University Comparative Foreign Policy (ICFP) project. The
members of ICFP remained in continual contact for some six years, thus demonstrating that
like-minded colleagues can pool their resources and sustain collaboration across some ten
universities during a period of diminishing support for comparative and quantitative research.
The matrix was impelled by the milieu of the field at that time. It was a period in which com-
parison was very much in vogue and it seemed to me that foreign policy phenomena were as
subject to comparative analysis as any other political process. Indeed, I still find it remarkable
that no previous analyst had undertaken a comparative enquiry of when, how, and why differ-
ent countries undertook to link themselves to the international system in the ways that they did.
In retrospect, it seems clear that the original pre-theory sparked wide interest not only
because it stressed the need for comparative analysis, but for several other reasons that also
underlay the enthusiasm for the ICFP. First, the pre-theory offered a means for analysing the
conduct of foreign policy in previous years as well as anticipating future developments in a
country’s external behaviour. Second, as stressed below, it provided a means for bringing for-
eign and domestic policy together under the same analytical umbrella. Third, it highlighted
the virtues of case studies as a basis for comparing, analysing, and interpreting foreign policy
phenomena. All of these central characteristics of the field are fully represented in the chap-
ters that comprise this volume.
Much progress has occurred in the field since the founding of the ICFP. The very fact that it is
now comfortably regarded as a ‘field’ is in itself indicative of how securely it has been established.
This is not to say, however, that the field is easily mastered. On the contrary, several of its key as-
pects pose difficult analytical problems. If politics is conceived as processes of trying to control the
actions and attitudes of other actors in the more remote environment, a formulation I have always
considered sound and worthy of applying to empirical materials (Rosenau 1963), it follows that
analysis must focus on a wide range of phenomena—from individuals and their orientations to the
groups and institutions that form the bases of societies, economies, and polities. Put succinctly,
little of human behaviour falls outside the scope of the analysis of foreign policy phenomena.
xiv Foreword

Some possible sources of fragmegration at four levels of aggregation

Levels of MICRO MACRO MACRO–MACRO MICRO–MACRO

aggregation ➞
Sources of
fragmegration

Skill revolution expands people’s enlarges the multiplies quantity constrains policy
horizons on a capacity of and enhances making through
global scale; government quality of links increased capacity
sensitizes them agencies to think among states; of individuals to
to the relevance ‘out of the box’, solidifies their know when, where,
of distant events; seize opportunities, alliances and and how to engage
facilitates a and analyse enmities in collective action
reversion to local challenges
concerns
Authority crises redirect loyalties; weaken ability of enlarge the facilitate the
encourage both governments competence of capacity of publics
individuals to and other some IGOs and to press and/
replace traditional organizations NGOs; encourage or paralyse their
criteria of to frame and diplomatic governments, the
legitimacy with implement policies wariness in WTO, and other
performance negotiations organizations
criteria
Bifurcation of adds to role facilitates generates empowers
global structures conflicts, divides formation of institutional transnational
loyalties, and new spheres of arrangements for advocacy groups
foments tensions authority and cooperation on and special
among individuals; consolidation of major global issues interests to pursue
orients people existing spheres in such as trade, influence through
towards local the multicentric human rights, the diverse channels
spheres of world environment, etc.
authority
Organizational facilitates multiple increases capacity renders the global contributes to
explosion identities, of opposition stage ever more the pluralism
subgroupism, groups to form and transnational and and dispersion
and affiliation press for altered dense with non- of authority;
with transnational policies; divides governmental heightens the
networks publics from their actors probability of
elites authority crises
Mobility upheaval stimulates enlarges the size heightens need increases
imaginations and and relevance for international movement across
provides more of subcultures, cooperation to borders that
extensive contacts diasporas, and control the flow lessens capacity
with foreign ethnic conflicts of drugs, money, of governments to
cultures; heightens as people seek immigrants, and control national
salience of the new opportunities terrorists boundaries
outsider abroad
 Foreword xv

Microelectronic enable like-minded empower accelerate constrain

technologies people to be in governments to diplomatic governments
touch with each mobilize support; processes; by enabling
other anywhere in render their secrets facilitate electronic opposition groups
the world vulnerable to surveillance and to mobilize more
spying intelligence work effectively
Weakening of undermines adds to the increases need lessens confidence
territoriality, states, national loyalties porosity of national for interstate in governments;
and sovereignty and increases boundaries and the cooperation on renders nationwide
distrust of difficulty of framing global issues; consensus difficult
governments and national policies lessens control to achieve and
other institutions over cascading maintain
events
Globalization swells ranks complicates intensifies trade increases efforts
of national of consumers; tasks of state and investment to protect
economies promotes uniform governments conflicts; generates local cultures
tastes; heightens vis-à-vis markets; incentives and industries;
concerns for jobs promotes business for building facilitates vigour of
alliances global financial protest movements
institutions

More important than its vast scope, however, this formulation is not easily subjected to
analysis. One not only needs to be familiar with the dynamics whereby states interact with
each other, but the internal processes whereby foreign policies are formed also need to be
probed. To ignore these processes by classifying them as ‘domestic’, and thus as outside
the analyst’s concerns, would be to omit central features of the behaviour one wants to
investigate. Students of domestic phenomena may be able to hold foreign inputs constant,
but the same cannot be said about the phenomena that culminate in foreign policies. In-
evitably the student of a country’s foreign policy must also be concerned with its internal
affairs. Put differently, he or she must be a student of sociology and psychology as well as
political science, economics, and history. No less important, they should have some knowl-
edge of the problems inherent in comparative enquiry. The methodologies of the field are
as salient as are the substantive problems that countries face in linking themselves to the
international system.
In short, foreign policy phenomena are inordinately complex. They encompass inputs that
can give rise to a variety of outputs, with a slight variation in one of the inputs having sizeable
consequences for the outputs they foster. Thus the causal processes are not easily traced.
They can be highly elusive when their variation spans, as it usually does, a wide range of inputs
that may vary from time1 to time2. Nor can the complexities be assumed away. They are too
central to the dynamics of foreign policy to ignore or bypass. One has no choice but to allow
for them and trace their consequences across diverse situations. Such a procedure facilitates
cogent analysis even as it risks drawing a less than complete picture.
The main characteristics of foreign policy—and the requirements they impose on analysts
of the subject—are fully observable in the ensuing chapters. Their authors demonstrate a keen
sensitivity to the problems of the field and the rewards for analysing them. They understand
the need for theory as well as empirical analysis of how any country conducts itself in the
xvi Foreword

international community. More than that, this understanding includes a grasp of how the
analysis must be varied to accommodate different approaches to the field.
In order to cope with the enormous variety of phenomena that may be relevant to the
study of foreign policy one has to select some of them as important and dismiss others as
trivial in so far as one’s enquiry is concerned. This process of selection is what being theo-
retical means. More accurately, the selected phenomena have to be examined in relation to
each other, as interactive, and the theoretician needs to grasp the dynamics of the interactive
processes as well as the domestic variables of the country of concern. Constructing incisive
theoretical perspectives is not easy, however. The process of explicating causal dynamics can
be very frustrating as well as very complicated. It is fairly easy to have a general sense of the
phenomena that underlie the foreign policy behaviour of interest, but it is quite another thing
to transform one’s general understanding into concrete, testable, and relevant hypotheses.
Put differently, specifying the dependent variables—the outcomes of a foreign policy input—is
readily conceived, but identifying and operationalizing the independent variables that foster
alterations in the dependent variable serves to challenge one’s grasp of the field. Everything
can seem relevant as an independent variable, but the analyst has to be selective and focus
on those dynamics that account for most of the variance conceived to be relevant to the
analysis. There is no need to account for 100 per cent of the variance, as some of it may be
due to chance factors that cannot readily be anticipated, but even accounting for, say, 90 per
cent can be difficult. Not only do analysts need to calculate the relative importance of the
different factors, but they also have to have some idea of how they interact with each other.
Consider, for example, the distinction between large and small countries. To differentiate
between the two, one has to have some sense of how a country’s size affects its conduct in
the international arena. Are small countries more aggressive abroad because of their limita-
tions? Do their foreign policies avoid confrontation because of an imbalance between the
resources at their disposal and those of the adversaries they contemplate taking on abroad?
Are their decision-making processes, in effect, paralysed by the relative size of their potential
adversaries? Such questions are not easily answered at first glance. And they become even
more difficult if one has to assess the amount of the variance involved.
However, many analysts have not been deterred by the problems encountered in estimat-
ing variances. They know that such estimates are essentially arbitrary, as few have a perspec-
tive founded on clear-cut notions of the range within which the causal potency of a variable is
specified. Nor are matters helped by stressing the relevance of a finding—‘other things being
equal’. Usually other things are not equal, so that clustering them together as if they were
equal can be misleading.
How, then, to proceed? If the available conceptual equipment cannot generate reliable hy-
potheses, and if a ceteris paribus (i.e. all things being equal) context has limited utility, how does
the analyst confront the task of framing and probing meaningful insights? The answer lies in
maintaining a focus on the potential rather than the pitfalls of comparative analysis. Even if the
underpinnings of a country’s foreign policy are ambiguous, one can nonetheless proceed to
examine what appear to be the main sources of the ambiguity, noting throughout the factors
that may undermine the analysis. To focus on the obstacles to an enquiry is to ensure that the
enquiry will fall short of what can be gleaned from the empirical materials at hand.
The best technique for moving ahead is that of specifying what independent variables
seem especially relevant to the phenomena to be explained even as one acknowledges that
 Foreword xvii

the sum of the variance they account for may fall short of 100 per cent. Such an acknowledge-
ment is not so much a statement of fact as it is a noting of the limits that confine the analysis.
Furthermore, even if only 80 per cent or 90 per cent of the variance is accounted for, such
findings are likely to be valuable despite the fact that they fall short of a full explanation. The
goal is not to account for all the variability, but to explain enough of it to enlarge our under-
standing of the key dynamics at work in the examined situation. Foreign policy phenomena
are too complex to aspire to a full accounting of all the dynamics at work in a situation. It is
enough to compare them carefully and draw conclusions about the central tendencies they
depict. A close reading of the ensuing chapters demonstrates that proceeding in this way can
yield deep and important insights into the diverse ways societies interact with their external
environments.
While most of the relevant independent variables are amply assessed throughout the for-
eign policy literature, two are less widely cited and thus can usefully be elaborated here. One
involves what I call the skill revolution and the other is the organizational explosion. Each ac-
counts for a sufficient proportion of the variance to warrant amplification and together they
significantly shape the conduct of any country’s foreign policy.

The skill revolution

Considerable evidence is available to demonstrate that people everywhere, in every country
and community throughout the world, are increasingly able to trace distant events through
a series of interactions back into their own homes or pocketbooks. The skill revolution is
understood to consist of three main dimensions: the analytical, the emotional, and the im-
aginative. The first of these involves an intellectual talent, an expanding ability to link the
course of events to the observer’s personal situation. Facilitated by the Internet and many
other technological innovations, people are ever more able to construct scenarios that depict
how situations in the arenas of world politics impact on their lives and well-being (Rosenau
2003: Chapter 10). The expansion of skills is presumed to occur through adding new scenarios
to those people employed in order to perceive and assess the situations of interest to them.
The emotional dimension of the skill revolution focuses on the way people feel about situ-
ations—to judge them as good or bad, welcoming or threatening—capacities that have also
expanded as a consequence of a world that is shrinking and impinging ever more closely on
their daily lives. The imaginative dimension depicts the capacity of people to envision alter-
native futures, lifestyles, and circumstances for themselves, their families, and their cherished
organizations.
The materials for wide-ranging imaginative musings are abundantly available in all parts
of the world. They include global television, soap operas, letters from relatives working as
maids in Hong Kong, cousins who find employment in Saudi Arabia, and children who marry
foreign spouses. The learning embedded in messages sent home is less directly experiential
for the recipients than are the encounters reported by their authors, but nevertheless it can
be a major contributor to the more worldly skills of those who do not travel. It may even
be that the letters and phone calls from relatives abroad can be as much a window on the
norms and practices of distant places as those offered on the television screen. These stimuli
are especially relevant for peoples in developing countries whose circumstances previously
limited contacts with other cultures and alternative lifestyles. Indeed, from the perspective
xviii Foreword

of those who have long been hemmed in by the realities of life on or below the poverty line,
the freeing up of their imaginative capacities is among the most powerful forces at work in
the world today.

The organizational explosion

Hardly less so than the population explosion, recent years have witnessed a veritable explo-
sion in the number of voluntary associations that have crowded onto the global stage. In all
parts of the world and at every level of community, people—ordinary folk as well as elites and
activists—are coming together to concert their efforts on behalf of shared needs and goals.
Exact statistics on the extent of this pattern do not exist (largely because so much of it occurs
at local levels and goes unreported), but few would argue with the propositions that the pace
at which new associations are formed and old ones enlarged is startling, so much so that to
call it an explosion is almost to understate the scale of growth. It has been calculated, for
example, that in 1979 Indonesia had only a single independent environmental organization,
whereas in 1999 there were more than 2000 linked to an environmental network based in
Jakarta (Bornstein 1999).

The social media explosion

Since the first edition of this book was published, we have, of course, witnessed the major
changes represented by the Arab Spring of 2011, which have further blurred the distinctions
between domestic and international politics, and further illustrate the interconnectedness
of all politics on the planet. This sees its most extreme example in the role of social media in
previously seemingly closed societies. The visions of Iranian protestors, or Syrian activists, or-
ganizing their protests by Twitter and Facebook show only too clearly that governments can
no longer control information flows. Such control was only ever partial, but the new social
media fundamentally breach the old walls of the state. In this sense, the rise of social media
represents a third revolution.

****

Integrating the skill revolution, the organizational explosion, and the political consequences
of the social media revolution into the analysis of the dynamics that shape foreign policy is
not an easy task. Not to do so, however, would be to greatly distort the analysis. Clearly, what
countries do abroad is highly dependent on the skills and attitudes shared among their popu-
lations at home. Taken together, the three variables account for a great deal of the variance
from one country to another and from one point in time to another.
 customer Book title Stage Supplier date
oUP Foreign Policy First Proof thomson digital 18 april 2016

20 How toand
Australia useglobal
this book
climate change
Matt Mcdonald

This book is enriched with a range of features designed to help you support and
reinforce
Chapter contents your learning. This guided tour shows you how to use your textbook fully and
Introduction 394
get the most out of your foreign policy study.
Global climate change and the UNFCCC regime 395
Australia and the dilemmas of climate action 399
Australia and the global climate regime 401
Conclusion 408

Reader’s guide
Reader’s guides
this chapter analyses australia’s approach to global climate change, particularly
its engagement with the climate change regime. this case study highlights two key
Each chapter opens with a reader’s guide to set the
points. the first is that australia’s changing approach to international negotiations on
climate change reflects a complex combination of domestic political considerations,
scene for upcoming themes and issues to be discussed
the ideology and foreign policy orientation of governments, and the state of inter- and indicate the scope of coverage within each chapter
national negotiations. While at times australia’s position seems to reflect domestic

customer
political constraints, at other times the australian government’s position seems to
Book title Stage
topic.
Supplier Date
Book Title OUP
Stage Supplier
be strongly influenced by the state of international cooperation. the second point
Foreign Policy First Proof
Date 18 april 2016
thomson Digital
is that australia’s changing approach to climate change cooperation illustrates the
Foreign Policy First Proof Thomson Digital
profound challenges for the climate change regime generally. In particular, the aus- 20 April 2016
tralian example suggests challenges for the climate change regime associated with
different and changing sets of state interests, complex ethical questions, the power
and institutionalized nature of existing political and economic arrangements, and
Chap TER
the varying drivers and effects of climate change in different 13 DuTiEs bEyonD boRDERs
places. 257

Boxes
box 13.5 obama on the syrian civil war
Introduction 497book, boxes provide you with
GlossAry Throughout the
Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of
Global climate change Bashar
hasal-Assad
emerged has turned
as oneintoofathe
brutal civil significant
most war. Over 100,000 people have
challenges been killed.
in world practitioners’
poli- Millions have perspectives, additional information, and
fled the country.
tics today. While uncertainty still Insurrounds
that time, America has worked
the specific with allies to provide
manifestations humanitarian
and time frame support,
of to
terfactual is to engage are not assumed
help the or
moderate opposition, taken as
and to given.
shape Constructivists
a political settlement. But I have
effects, climate change has the potential to directly threaten or displace millions of people en- practical
resisted calls for military illustrations of the theory described in the
action, because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of
and underminedogenize
bsence of the causal the livelihoods theofprocess
millions more, of interest
and posesand identity
a long-term formation.
threat to the sustain- main body of the text.
war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
would the outcome ability of life on the planet.
And thatWhile
is why,this
after is significant
careful enough,
deliberation, climate
I determined that change also constitutes
it is in the national security interests of the
a fundamental Energy
challenge dependence:
for the core institutions a situation
and practices in
of which
world the
politics. energy
the uncer-
United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.
? If the answer could
tainty associated needs
with ofeffects
Thethe a given
purpose of this actor
of strike
climate
would (usually
change a state)
undermines
be to deter Assad can
the
from using no longer
impetus
chemical tobe
for a genuinely
weapons, degrade his regime’s
d also test for theglobal
im- response, while varying degreesand toof contribution to global climate change—and
metability to use them,
indigenously make
through clear to the world
national that we will
energy not tolerate
sources. Thisvul- 2013).
their use (Obama
nerability to it—render attribution of responsibilities particularly difficult. and perhaps more
obliges the actor to depend upon the import of energy
of behaviour or phra- products from other exporters.
if Syria ever gets to a post-conflict phase, it will have an entire country to rebuild. But just
self from an unpleasant because the international community refused to use force does not mean that it did nothing.
Energy security: the combination of demand and
Glossary terms
Syria has been the recipient of one of the largest relief efforts, ever. and while humanitarian-
supply pressures
ism cannot linking
save a country, it canexporters and importers, both Key terms appear in bold throughout the text to alert
be a life-saver.
ory claiming that struc- of whom ultimately have the same goal, namely to
wer states can possess, ensure access to, transport of, and a market for energy you to each new concept. These terms are defined in a
Conclusion
resources required for the long-term and stable devel- glossary 21/04/16at theAM end of the book, which will prove very
mpetition.
1-Smith-Chap20.indd 394 11:50

opment of national
this discussion of the ideapower. helpful
of a duty to aid highlights how states are seemingly when
torn in two dif- you come to exam revision.
al realist theory thatCustomer ferent directions. there is thebook title
primacy of realpolitik and the expectation
stage
that the thomson
supplier
fundamental
date

rs. oUp
Engagement:
purpose of the state’s the
Foreign policy
development
foreign policy is to protect of relationships
its national interest.
First proof
based not only does anarchy
digital 18 april 2016

on
drivetrust
statesand an alignment
towards this conclusion, ofsomotivations.
too do most of the powerful bureaucracies in the for-
entral plank of interna- eign policy process and most publics. Governments and societies are not inherently heartless.
s that liberal democra- Episodic news: a term
rather, when forced to choose between interestsused to describe and ethics, news they media
generally choose interests if
ow democracies. Some reports
the ethicalthat
choice are framed
imposes a real incost
terms or Chapof immediate
sacrifice.
tErFor every libya
8 implEmEntationevents there is and
one orbEhaviour
more Syria. 167
Yet, a distinguishing feature of modern global politics is a thickening of international soci-
hat democratic states and without broader context. A news report detailing
ety. although it might be far-fetched to posit the existence of an international
Key pointsof US troops during the 2003 Iraq War, but
Key points
community,
the
thereprogress
now exist rules, norms, and principles that bind states and societies together produc-
providing
ing an no broader
● ‘internationalization’
the international contextualization
of ethics.
environment and difficult to(e.g.
is fluidconsequently, there
manage. the arejusti-
Foreign genuine expectations
policy makers should be that
Athowever
the end of each chapter, the most important
ourages aggression by alert tonot
fication andtherationale
states pursue constant
only their feedback it provides
self-interest
for the butand
military alsoadapt
the to its changing
interests
action), circumstances,
of the
could international
be clear
community
ate if it undertakes cer- their initial objectives.
and those imply the interests of states and people. While there is no expectation
described aspolicy
episodic.
concepts and
that states arguments discussed are summarized in
● Foreign is not self-executing; the implementation phasethatis critical
theytowillsuccess.
eptable. become committed cosmopolitans, there is the expectation not use sovereignty
astates
set ofpursue
key points.
as an●excuse for not engaging
the implementation phase may in principled
turn out to beaction. although
much longer sometimes
than anticipated, and to dointo
shade
Epistemology: epistemology addresses ‘how we
d of international new rounds
a righteous of policy
path, they aremaking.
also motivated to gain the status, legitimacy, and influence that
come
come●fromto know’
the those of
means whoincomply
foreignthepolicy
study
with of international
the
can distort foreign policy.
and even transform Do
community’s
its weexpectations
original ends. and universal
seek ●to uncover
aspirations.
the implementation law-governed
of foreign policy needs causal to beprocesses
highly flexible—it (posi-
is self-defeating to rely on one
tegy: a set of tactics tivism)?
the pull Or doalone,
we orinstead
of realpolitik
instrument and
onethe ask
push
strategy ofwhat
for long.makes such
internationalization
too meanpro-that foreign policy officials
recognize the extent to
● implementation which
takes placethey are expected
in several to broaden
different arenas the ethicallocal,
simultaneously—the purpose of their
the states for-
system,
ers, when one party’s cesses possible in the first place (interpretive modes of receiving
eign policy while also safeguarding
the global/transnational, and even the
thenational
domestic interest.
(of both the this canand
acting havethe various effects.
state). it can
hose of the other. Tac- understanding)?
lead to
● a growing sense
implementation canofbehypocrisy—where
a purely technical executivestates matter.
seem to Yet,deliver
it too can nothing but disappoint-
entail major decisions
emands, refusal to make ment and thatempty
may turn promises.
out to have Yet, the very
strategic existence
implications. of hypocrisy
potentially, therefore, suggests that there
implementation is asare new
Ethics: concerns
political—and theasvalues
therefore ethical—aof actors,
dimension including
as any other aspectwhat of foreign policy.
ne’s minimum needs,
kinds of actions are right or wrong, what is a good life
d analysis, see John
and Further
how to readinglive it, what our obligations and respon-
ld Economy (Ithaca, NY:
sibilities are to others, and the application of moral
George, A. and Simons, W.E. (eds) (1994), The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO:
rules and ethical principles to concrete problems and
Westview).
: a new round of situations.
the best discussion of how force and diplomacy are often combined, if not always to good effect.

ched at the Doha 14-Smith-Chap13.indd 257

Haass, Richard N. (2013), Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in
20/04/16 6:38 PM
 ● the practice and scholarship of public diplomacy continue to evolve in step with the proliferation
of global actors, the emergence and spread of new media technologies, and the rising expectations
Key points
of hyper-connected, globally mobile public audiences.
● national security isisan
Public diplomacy essentially
described contested
as soft power’sconcept—it meansPublic
key instrument. different things toactivities
diplomacy differentcan
people.
● contribute
the toofthe
three S’s affective (attractiveness)
realism—statism, andself-help—contribute
survival, and normative (legitimacy)
to soft power ofofglobal
the primacy actors.
national
security.
the theory of social constructivism finds an easy synergy with public diplomacy’s relational tendencies.
xxi
●

● the prominence
emergence ofofnew
realism andtechnologies,
media the onset of the Cold War
including helped
social to has
media, establish the prevalence
transformed the way of
that
How to use this book
national security concerns
public audiences engage intoforeign
both academics andand
policy debate policy makers.
discussion.
● debates about grand strategy are explicitly related to competing conceptions of national security.

Questions
Questions
Questions
1. Should ordinary people be involved in the conduct of foreign policy?
A set of carefully devised questions help you to assess
1.
2. What
Why isdoes Wolfers mean
the american when he
experience sowrites that national
important security ispublic
to understanding an ambiguous symbol?
diplomacy today?
3. how
2. is public
doesdiplomacy simply
realist theory a euphemism
contribute to the for propaganda?
primacy of national security? your understanding and critically reflect on core
4. how
3. is international broadcasting
do the three a viable
S’s of realism accountinstrument of public
for the primacy of diplomacy?
national security? themes and issues.
5. What is the
4. newrelationship
about ‘new’between
public diplomacy?
the theory of realism and the field of security studies?
6. during
5. Do youthe
think thatWar,
Cold public
howdiplomacy canconceive
did scholars bring about change
of the in north
relationship Korea? nuclear weapons and
between
7. national
How does security?
public diplomacy contribute to power?
6.
8. What is the meaning
Does technology makeof public
national security? more effective?
diplomacy
7. how does a focus on the concept of human security change your understanding of national
security?
Further
8. reading
What is the best grand strategy for the USa to achieve national security?
Cull, N.J (2009a), ‘Public Diplomacy Before Gullion: Evolution of a Phrase’, in N. Snow and P. Taylor
(eds), Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge).
Further
Further reading
this chapterreading
sets out a brief history of the term ‘public diplomacy’ from patchy beginnings through to
the modern
Brown, coinage
M., Cote, O., of the phrase.S.E., and Miller, S. (eds), (2000), America’s Strategic Choices,
Lynn-Jones,
revised
Cull, edn (Cambridge,
N.J. (2009b), MA: MIT Lessons
‘Public Diplomacy:
To take your learning further, each section ends with a
Press). from its Past’, CPD Perspectives.
an informative
a typology surveydiplomacy’s
of public of the competing americanbased
main functions grandonstrategies for the
case studies reading list that will help you locate the key academic
post-Cold
from the past.War period.
Gray, C. (1999),
K.R.‘Clausewitz
(2010), ‘U.S.Rules,
PublicOK? The FutureNeglected
is the Past—with GPS’, Review of International
Fitzpatrick,
Studies, 25: 161–182.
Diplomacy’s Domestic Mandate’,
literature
CPD
examines the domestic dimensions of public diplomacy, drawing in particular on the american
in the field.
Perspectives.

One of the UK’s

experience, but leading
holdingstrategists
relevance arguing for the
for a wider continuing relevance of realism.
context.
Posen,
Gregory,Barry R. (2014),
B. (2011), Restraint:
‘American A New
Public Foundation
Diplomacy: for US Characteristics,
Enduring Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
Elusive Transformation’,
University
Hague JournalPress).
of Diplomacy, 6: 351–372.
a
anpowerful
excellentargument of defines
article that why thepublic
USa needs to abandon
diplomacy for theprimacy and century,
twenty-first adopt a highlights
grand strategy of
its systemic
restraint.
features, and identifies those features, which are unique to the american experience and evolution of
public diplomacy.

10-Smith-Chap09.indd 184 21/04/16 2:53 PM

12-Smith-Chap11.indd 220 20/04/16 5:46 PM

Guided tour of the Online Resource Centre

The Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book provides both students and
lecturers with ready-to-use teaching and learning materials, designed to maximize the
learning experience.

www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/smith_foreign3e/

FOR STUDENTS
Flashcard glossary
A series of interactive flashcards containing key
terms and concepts has been provided to allow
you to check your understanding of terminology,
and to aid exam revision.
Guided tour of the Online Resource Centre xxiii

Timeline
The Online Resource Centre includes a timeline
so that you can find out about the different
periods in the evolution of foreign policy
analysis.

Web links
A selection of annotated web links makes it easy
to research those topics that are of particular
interest to you.

FOR LECTURERS
Teaching foreign policy cases
Steve Lamy introduces the case method of
teaching, an active teaching and learning
strategy which encourages critical analysis,
evaluation, and problem-solving.

Case studies
Additional case studies, including The Artic Race
and Britain and Iraq, are provided to supplement
the material in the book itself.

PowerPoint® slides
The fully customizable PowerPoint® slides are
available to download, offering a useful resource
to instructors preparing lectures and handouts.
Acknowledgements

All three editors are teachers of foreign policy. Steve Smith first taught foreign policy analysis
in the mid-1980s while a young lecturer at the University of East Anglia. Tim Dunne, who was
in Steve’s class in 1987–1988, taught comparative foreign policy at the University of Exeter,
and currently teaches and writes about decision making in relation to intervention at the
School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Amelia
Hadfield first taught foreign policy analysis at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and contin-
ues to research and teach FPA at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
The aim of the first edition was to gather into a single text the waterfront of themes that
ought to feature on a foreign policy course. The second and third editions continue that
same goal, with new and revised chapters written by first-rate scholars and instructors whose
ability to communicate their ideas via the research-led teaching of foreign policy analysis is
clearly revealed in the pages that follow. The book is nothing if not genuinely international;
the editorial team and the talented line-up of contributors drawn from the corners of the
globe.
During the long journey to publication, we could not have wished for better and more
supportive commissioning editors than Kirsty Reade and subsequently Sarah Iles at OUP.
Through various editions, we have been fortunate to draw on the support of several research
assistants: Dusan Radivojevic and Nika Jurcova helped with the second edition, and Michal
Gloznek and Constance Duncombe provided excellent support throughout the process of
putting together a new third edition.
We set out to assemble a book that could serve as an ideal resource for bringing courses on
foreign policy to life. If readers and instructors use it to debate and contest the great foreign
policy issues of our day, then the book will have made its mark. If readers and instructors do
this and draw on the major theories and concepts informing the study of foreign policy, then
we will have achieved more than we could have reasonably expected.
We are all three indebted to the work of Jim Rosenau in different ways. He graciously wrote
the Foreword to the first edition. When we first came up with the idea of asking Jim, we
thought it was a long shot. Within minutes of sending the invitation, we had an enthusiastic
reply that suggested all kinds of possible ways of opening Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors,
Cases. Such energy and creativity has marked out Jim’s contribution to a field which, more
than any other writer and thinker, he has shaped and defined.
As we were finishing the editing of the second edition, word came through that Jim ­Rosenau
had passed away (he died on 9 September 2011, aged 86, after suffering a stroke). Jim was
one of the most significant scholars working in foreign policy, and was one of the subject’s
founding fathers. His influence on foreign policy analysis was not only through his published
works, but also through the personal encouragement he gave to generations of students and
scholars. Jim only gave up teaching at George Washington University in 2009, and still started
each class by asking students to read out headlines from the New York Times and then asking
them ‘What is this an instance of?’, and how it related to ideas they had covered in the course.
His daughter, Margaret, said in one obituary that ‘he was in love with teaching and in love
 Acknowledgements xxv

with the academic world’. The editors of this book—particularly Steve Smith who had a close
academic and personal relationship with him going back to 1980—experienced his personal
kindness and, like countless other academics in the field, we owe Jim a massive debt for his
always stimulating and stretching thinking about foreign policy analysis and international
relations. Jim was a true scholar, a wonderful intellect, and an exceptionally kind man.
We think it is fitting to dedicate this book to him.
Steve Smith, University of Exeter, UK
Amelia Hadfield, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
Tim Dunne, University of Queensland, Australia
Notes on contributors

Karin Aggestam is Professor of Political Science at Lund University and honorary Associate
­Professor at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland.
Her interdisciplinary research interests include conflict analysis, diplomacy, peacebuilding, and
hydropolitics in the Middle East. Her most recent book is Rethinking Peacebuilding: The Quest
for Just and Durable Peace in the Middle East and Western Balkans, with Annika Björkdahl (Rout-
ledge, 2013).
Lisbeth Aggestam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Univer-
sity of Gothenburg, Sweden. She has written extensively on European foreign and security policy
and was the guest editor of a special issue of International Affairs (2008) that examined the EU’s
global role from ethical perspectives. Her forthcoming book will be published by Routledge in
2016 and is entitled Power and Leadership in European Foreign Policy.
Graham Allison is Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Douglas
Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has
served as Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Reagan and as Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans under President Clinton, where he coordinated De-
partment of Defense strategy and policy towards Russia, Ukraine, and the other states of the for-
mer Soviet Union. His first book, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971),
was released in an updated and revised second edition in 1999 and ranks among the all-time
bestsellers in Political Science, with more than 450,000 copies in print.
Lloyd Axworthy retired as President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg, following
two full terms (ten years), in June 2014. He has had a 27-year political career, and is internation-
ally known for his advancement of the human security concept. He remains involved in interna-
tional matters and lectures widely in Canada, the US, and further abroad.
Michael Barnett is University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George
Washington University. He has written widely on issues of international relations theory and
humanitarianism. His most recent book is The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies
of American Jews (Princeton University Press, 2016).
Elisabetta Brighi is Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics and IR at the
University of Westminster, London. She has written extensively on Italian and European foreign
policy, most recently Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics and International Relations: The Case of
Italy (Routledge, 2013). She also works at the intersection of international political theory and
international security. Her edited book, Politics and the Sacred, is forthcoming for Bloomsbury
Academic.
Caitlin Byrne is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Diplomacy at Bond University
and a former research fellow of the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplo-
macy. Her research interests are in the area of public diplomacy theory and practice and soft
power, with a special focus on the Australian experience. A former diplomat, she consults on oc-
casion to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on public diplomacy strategy.
Walter Carlsnaes is Emeritus Senior Professor of Political Science in the Department of Govern-
ment, Uppsala University. He was founding editor of the European Journal of International Rela-
tions (1995–2000), and has published three monographs and eight co-edited volumes, including
 Notes on contributors xxvii

a five-volume reference set on Foreign Policy Analysis (SAGE Publications, 2011) and the Hand-
book of International Relations (SAGE Publications, 2nd edn, 2013). His main research interests
are in foreign policy analysis, international relations theory and the philosophy of social science,
EU external relations, and Swedish and South African foreign and security policy.
Michael W. Doyle is a university professor and director of the Global Policy Initiative at Columbia
University. He has written on international relations theory, the history of empires, the practice
of peacekeeping, international ethics, and international law and served as assistant secretary-
general and special adviser to UN SG Kofi Annan. His latest book is The Question of Intervention:
John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect (Yale University Press, 2015).
Tim Dunne is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University
of Queensland where he is also Professor of International Relations in the School of Political Sci-
ence and International Studies. He is widely published on international relations theory, foreign
policy, and the responsibility to protect. His is co-editor of the 2016 publication The Oxford
Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect with Alex J. Bellamy, published by Oxford University Press.
Trine Flockhart is Professor of International Relations at the University of Kent. Her research fo-
cuses on liberal international order, transatlantic relations, European security (especially the EU
and NATO), and explaining processes of change from a constructivist perspective. Her most
recent publications include Liberal World Orders with Tim Dunne (Oxford University Press, 2013)
and the Transatlantic Academy Report, Liberal Order in a Post-Western World (The German Mar-
shall Fund of the United States, 2014).
Rosemary Foot is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Rela-
tions, University of Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. Major re-
search areas include study of China’s role in international relations and of US–China relations.
Her last book (co-authored) is entitled China, the United States, and Global Order (Cambridge
University Press, 2011) and in 2014 she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of the International Rela-
tions of Asia (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Amelia Hadfield is Reader in European Foreign Affairs, and holds the Jean Monnet Chair in Eu-
ropean Foreign Affairs within the Politics and International Relations Programme at Canterbury
Christ Church University. She is also Director of the newly established Jean Monnet Centre for
European Studies (CEFEUS) and Director of the Energy and Governance Group. She researches,
teaches, and consults on European Union international relations, with a special interest in
EU–Russia energy security, European energy and environmental governance, and EU–Canada
relations.
Lene Hansen is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science, Uni-
versity of Copenhagen. She is the author of Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bos-
nian War (Routledge, 2006) and co-author with Barry Buzan of The Evolution of International
Security Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2009). She has published on cyber security, gender
and security, images and world politics, and securitization theory in journals such as The Euro-
pean Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, and Review of Interna-
tional Studies.
Christopher Hill is Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations at the Department of
Politics and International Studies (POLIS) of the University of Cambridge, where he is also a Fel-
low of Sidney Sussex College. He has published widely in the areas of foreign policy analysis,
European foreign policy, and general international relations; his most recent publications being
(with Sarah Beadle) The Art of Attraction: Soft Power and the UK’s Role in the World (British Acad-
emy, 2014) and The National Interest in Question: Foreign Policy in Multicultural Societies (Oxford
University Press, 2013). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2007.
xxviii Notes on contributors

Valerie M. Hudson is Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair at The Bush School of Government
and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She was named a Distinguished Scholar of Foreign
Policy Analysis by the FPA Section of the International Studies Association in 2015, and is au-
thor/editor/co-editor of Foreign Policy Analysis: Classic and Contemporary Theory, Foreign Policy
Analysis Beyond North America, Culture and Foreign Policy, Political Psychology and Foreign Policy,
as well as numerous other volumes and articles on FPA. She was one of the founding editorial
board members of the journal Foreign Policy Analysis, and serves on that board to this day.
Yuen Foong Khong is Li Ka Shing Professor of Political Science at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Pub-
lic Policy, National University of Singapore. His research focuses on United States’ foreign policy,
the international relations of the Asia Pacific, and psychological approaches to international
politics. He is working on two long-term projects, one on the ‘rules’ of the international politics
‘game’, and the other on the American tributary system.
Matt McDonald is Associate Professor in the School of Political Science and International Studies
at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has published extensively on the politics of cli-
mate change, Australian foreign policy, and climate diplomacy. He is the author of Security, the
Environment and Emancipation (Routledge, 2012), co-author with Anthony Burke and Katrina
Lee-Koo of Ethics and Global Security (Routledge, 2014), and co-editor of the Australian Journal
of Politics and History.
Michael Mastanduno is the Nelson Rockefeller Professor of Government and Dean of the Fac-
ulty of Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. He has writ-
ten widely on economic statecraft, international political economy, and international relations
theory.
Amrita Narlikar is President of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and Pro-
fessor at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Before joining the GIGA in 2014, she served as the
Founding Director of the Centre for Rising Powers and Reader in International Political Economy
at the University of Cambridge. Her expertise lies in the area of multilateral negotiations, rising
powers, and international trade. She is the author/editor of several books, the most recent of
which are: co-authored with Aruna Narlikar Bargaining with a Rising India: Lessons from the Ma-
habharata (Oxford University Press, 2014) and co-edited with Martin Daunton and Robert Stern
The Oxford Handbook on the World Trade Organization (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Piers Robinson is Professor of Politics, Society and Political Journalism, Department of Journal-
ism Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of Sheffield. He researches communications,
world politics, propaganda, and organized persuasive communication. He has recently pub-
lished articles on deception and the Iraq War, including ‘Report X Marks the Spot: The British
Government’s Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD’, Political Science Quarterly, co-authored
with Professor Eric Herring (Winter 2014/15). He is also co-author of Pockets of Resistance:
British News Media Theory and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq with Peter Goddard, Katy Parry, Craig
Murray, and Philip M. Taylor (Manchester University Press, 2010) and author of The CNN
­Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy and Intervention (Routledge, 2002).
James N. Rosenau (25 November 1924—9 September 2011) Prior to his death, Professor
­Rosenau held the distinguished rank of University Professor of International Affairs at the George
­Washington University, an honour reserved for the few scholar–teachers whose recognition in
the academic community transcends the usual disciplinary boundaries. Professor Rosenau had
held a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and was a former president of the International
Studies Association. He was also the author of some 140 articles and author or editor of more
than forty books, including Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity
(1990), Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (1992), Information
Technologies and Global Politics: The Changing Scope of Power and Governance (2002), Along the
 Notes on contributors xxix

Domestic–Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (1997), Distance Proximi-

ties: Dynamics Beyond Globalization (2003), and The Study of World Politics (two volumes, 2006).
Brian C. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Can-
ada. He is the author of The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International
Relations (Suny Press, 1998), co-editor of Imperialism and Internationalism in the Discipline of
International Relations with David Long (SUNY Press, 2005), and editor of International Relations
and the First Great Debate (Routledge, 2012). He has published articles on the history of the field
in International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Studies, Millennium: Journal of Interna-
tional Relations, and International Relations.
Steve Smith is Vice Chancellor and Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter.
He was previously Head of the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University.
He is the author or editor of sixteen books, and was the editor of the Cambridge University Press
Series ‘Studies in International Relations’ from 1985 to 2005. From 2003–2005 he was President
of the International Studies Association. He was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List
in June 2011.
Gareth Stansfield is Professor of Middle East Politics and Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic
Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Iraq: People, History, Politics (Polity Press,
2007), and was the guest editor of the November 2010 special edition of International ­Affairs,
which focused on ‘Post-American Iraq’. His current research focuses on counter-­insurgency
and stabilization strategies in post-conflict states. He is an Associate Fellow of the Middle East and
North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
Janice Gross Stein is Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Founding Director at Munk
School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on the application of psy-
chology to the analysis of decision making, with particular emphasis on international security.
She has written extensively on international security, with particular emphasis on the Middle
East. Her latest monograph is entitled The Islamic State in History: The Recurrent Drive for Purifi-
cation (forthcoming).
Arlene B. Tickner is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department at the
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Her main areas of research include Latin American
and Colombian foreign policy, United States Western Hemispheric policy, regional security, and
the sociology of knowledge in the field of international relations. Her most recent publications
on Latin America include ‘Associated Dependent Police Cooperation: Colombia and the United
States’ in Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller (eds), The Global Making of Policing: Postco-
lonial Perspectives (Routledge, 2016) and ‘Securitization and the Limits of Democratic Security’
in David Mares and Arie M. Kacowicz (eds), Routledge Handbook of Latin American Security
(Routledge, 2015).
William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor at Dartmouth College, where he teaches in
the Department of Government. His most recent books are America Abroad: The United States’
Global Role in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press USA, 2016), written with Stephen G.
Brooks, and Status in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014), co-edited with Deborah
Larson and T.V. Paul. Recent publications on realism include ‘Gilpinian Realism and International
Relations’, International Relations (2012), and ‘No One Loves a Realist Explanation: The Cold
War’s End Revisited’, International Politics (2011).
 Introduction
STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, AND TIM DUNNE

Chapter contents
The contemporary relevance of foreign policy 2
Foreign policy theory: disciplinary groundings 4
Organization of the third edition 7

As each of our contributors will no doubt agree, one of the great pleasures of teaching
­foreign policy is that the range of theories and instruments used must always be grounded in
­contemporary and applicable empirical examples: theory is of little interest unless one can
utilize it in specific case studies. The third edition of this book, following on from the first two
editions, builds on that assumption; our explicit aim as editors is for theoretical chapters that
illuminate case studies, with case studies that are themselves theoretically informed. This,
we believe, makes the subject of foreign policy genuinely fascinating, and, as you will see
in the chapters that follow, also raises some of the most problematic questions in the social
sciences. Courses on foreign policy have, in the experience of the editors, remained popular
with both undergraduate and postgraduate students and, since the first edition, continue
to claim an increasingly central place in political science, international relations, and a wide
variety of area studies degree courses. Alongside the challenge of examining the international
structure and its components, students come to see that the study of foreign policy pushes
them to think clearly about why x did z, whether a given decision maker made the right
choice at a given time, and the costs/benefits of the available alternatives. Foreign policy as
a field of study challenges students and scholars alike, both to explain the broad structure of
international relations and to understand the specific challenges facing key policy makers, and
then to judge whether—in light of the context—they did the right thing (and for whom?). The
same challenges also apply to societies as a whole, seen most recently in the uproar and vola-
tility following the decision of the United Kingdom to bring its membership of the European
Union to an end, in its June 2016 referendum. To assist students and scholars in analysing
both structural and case-specific challenges, the third edition has expanded each of its three
approaches to the analysis of foreign policy, with new chapters in Section 1 (theories), Section
2 (actors and tools) and Section 3 (case studies). Echoing the rationale of the first two editions,
the case studies represent a deliberate choice of the editorial team, designed to encourage
both students and instructors to get as close as they can to the demands of state practice, and
to ask themselves endlessly fascinating questions about both the reasons for action and the
wisdom of those choices with the benefit of hindsight.
To be clear at the outset, we do not believe that case studies can be ‘simply’ factual, since
this implies that the theoretical assumptions guiding the analysis of factual material are merely
hidden from view. Consider a seemingly empirical question such as ‘Why did Russia escalate
its involvement in Syria in late 2015?’ Was it because the two countries had close historical
ties, or was it a power play on the part of President Putin, fuelled by the pursuit of strategic
2 STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, TIM DUNNE

interests in the Middle East, or does Russian intervention instead signal a decline in the
priority accorded by the UN Security Council to norms of human protection from atrocity
crimes? Russia has certainly become an ardent critic of the ‘responsibility to protect’ frame-
work that has come to dominate the agenda of the UN Security Council during the early
period of the Arab Spring. Students of foreign policy should remember that in April 2011 the
Security Council passed a resolution to use ‘all necessary measures’ to protect Libyan civilians
from the actual and potential harms perpetrated by Gaddafi’s loyal military forces; Russia
argued that NATO’s robust enforcement of a ‘no fly zone’ exceeded the mandate issued by
the Security Council. Instead of protecting civilians, Russia argued that the military action led
by Washington, London, and Paris had little to do with civilian protection, but instead was
about advancing their economic and security interests. Russia felt betrayed by this episode.
Was Syria Russia’s revenge?
Posing and answering similar questions about key actors and the inputs and outputs
of ­foreign policy decisions means placing oneself first within a particular viewpoint of
what foreign policy as a form of state behaviour is, who makes it, how we judge its imple-
mentation, and the local and structural effects of that implementation. Possible answers
to such questions can be found first in the realm of theory and only subsequently in
the case studies that draw out the actors, contexts, tools, and goals that constitute a
particular decision.
In this Introduction we need not provide an overview of the history of foreign policy
theory, since this is expertly dealt with in Valerie Hudson’s opening chapter. However,
we do want to do three things: first, to comment on the contemporary relevance of the
study of foreign policy; second, to examine some of the definitional issues concerning the
study of foreign policy; finally, to discuss the updated organization of the third edition so
that lecturers and students alike understand how we intend it to work as a text and an
online resource.

The contemporary relevance of foreign policy

There are two ways in which foreign policy is of continuing relevance to the study of world
politics. The first relates to the agenda of world politics in the twenty-first century and the
renewal of interest in foreign policy per se. The second relates more closely to the academic
dialogue between the literatures on foreign policy and international relations (IR).
For much of the preceding thirty years, the dominant discussions in the discipline of IR
were about the structure of the international system: why bipolarity had declined and the
nature of its replacement—a unipolar system or a drift towards multipolarity? But the events
of 11 September 2001 changed this, primarily because they focused attention both on the
centrality of decisions taken by non-state fundamentalist networks, as well as sovereign
states, and on the allies who stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ to defeat al-Qaeda.
Readers might be tempted to argue that foreign policy has no role in explaining the specific
behaviour of a proto-caliphate such as Islamic State, or a multinational corporation such
as Apple, or a regional entity such as the European Union. From our perspective, however,
foreign policy, although traditionally linked to the behaviour of states, can apply equally to
explaining the behaviour of a range of other actors. Thus, it is perfectly possible to speak of
international organizations, transnational companies, regional governments, transnational
terrorist groups, and a variety of other non-state-based actors as having and deploying foreign
  Introduc tion 3

policies. A classical definition, for example, is provided by Walter Carlsnaes, for whom foreign
policy entails ‘those actions which, expressed in the form of explicitly stated goals, commit-
ments 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’ (Carlsnaes et al. 2002: 335). A broader definition, with which many con-
tributors to the book concur, is given by Christopher Hill, who defines foreign policy as ‘the
sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually a state) in inter-
national relations’ (Hill 2003: 3).
For many IR scholars, the dual processes of globalization and interdependence that stead-
ily gained pace in the 1990s challenged the role of the state as an actor in ways both structural
and economic, thereby making a focus on state-centric foreign policy less central to expla-
nations of IR than during the post Second World War period. Yet, as other scholars argued,
globalization and interdependence did not lead to the demise of the state; instead they made
it both more constrained and more central. More constrained because there were an increas-
ing number of restrictions on the freedom of the state to act as it might wish; globalization
created a web of interdependence that undermined the state’s ability to control its own fate.
But the state was also more central than ever, simply because populations continued to look
to the state to mitigate the effects of globalization, and yet now they do so over a significantly
bigger range of policies than ever before (from inward investment to climate change). Thus,
globalization and interdependence have not eroded the vitality of statehood, but they have
made more complicated the practice of statecraft.
A good example here is the ‘blowback’ effect of foreign policy decisions on domestic con-
stituencies; for example, critics of military intervention in places such as Libya, and more
recently against Islamic State, argue that attempts to eliminate threats through military means
more often generate greater societal insecurity in the region and for the wider i­nternational
order, which in turn produces volatilities that impact on the whole region, as seen most
recently in the EU’s migration crisis.
This links to our earlier comment about the applicability of the notion of foreign policy to
actors other than the state. We are now more inclined to understand ‘foreign policy’ as a com-
bination of inputs and outputs that apply to the behaviour of a wide variety of actors, from
global institutions to influential social movements and regional actors such as the European
Union. Again, the discourse on negotiations, following the UK’s ‘Brexit’ decision is a good
example of the enormous range of actors and motivations that constitute those inputs and
outputs. All such actors make use of foreign policies, and consequently have a high impact on
other states, societies, and organizations.
A second area where foreign policy is of growing relevance is in terms of its innovative con-
tribution to our understanding of the behaviour of international actors. Whereas the analysis
of foreign policy has traditionally focused on the state as the central foreign policy actor, it has
not meant accepting the core assumptions of realism. Just as the international system can be
studied according to various theoretical frameworks, the same can be said of foreign policy.
Indeed, one of the drivers for the book is to connect both the classical and contemporary
theoretical work on foreign policy with wider currents in IR theory and, to a lesser extent,
the discipline of politics. Examples of the re-integration of key aspects of IR theory with for-
eign policy issues are evident in Section 1 of the book in which leading theorists outline the
relevance to foreign policy of the main IR theories: realism, liberalism, and constructivism,
alongside the tool of discourse analysis. In Section 2 authors make practical use of the key
4 STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, TIM DUNNE

insights of the IR canon by applying some of its more radical accounts; for example, drawing
on insights from post-structuralism and the connection between structures and agents in
both national and international realms. What this tells us is that there is not just one single
approach to foreign policy, but many. Finally, foreign policy is an almost perfect subject for
examining in detail the fundamental debates within the social sciences, most significantly
the debate on the relative importance of structures and agency, the debate on whether we
should seek to explain or to understand foreign policy behaviour, the blurring of domestic
and international terrains, and the general interconnectedness of political, economic, and
socio-cultural dynamics.

Foreign policy theory: disciplinary groundings

Underpinning Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases is the belief that the study of foreign poli-
cy ought not to be regarded as an independent intellectual domain. This is an important issue,
since for most of the post Second World War period there has been a flourishing approach
known as foreign policy analysis (FPA). Hudson’s chapter provides a comprehensive overview
of the history of FPA, and thus we do not need to discuss it at length here. However, we do
need to say why the coverage of this book is not restricted to FPA alone.
FPA developed in the 1950s, and for the next thirty years it was a vibrant research commu-
nity in IR. As Hudson notes, there were three main themes, each focused around a paradig-
matic book. First there was the focus on foreign policy making, inspired by the work of Snyder,
Bruck, and Sapin in the 1950s, and then by the literature on bureaucratic and organizational
politics in the 1960s and 1970s (notably the work of Allison and Halperin). Second, there was
a focus on the psychological dimension of foreign policy making, inspired by the work of
Kenneth Boulding and Harold and Margaret Spout in the 1950s, by Alexander George and
Michael Brecher in the 1960s, and by Irving Janis in the 1970s. Third, there was the attempt to
develop a theory of comparative foreign policy (CFP), inspired by Jim Rosenau’s work on the
relationship between genotypes of states and the sources of their foreign policy in the 1960s.
FPA sought to develop middle-range theories; that is to say, theories that were not general
accounts of all foreign policy behaviour, but instead were accounts of either the foreign poli-
cies of some types of states or foreign policy in specific situations (such as crises).
By the late 1980s, FPA began to fall out of fashion. Hudson discusses the reasons for this,
but clearly one of the main ones was the failure of the CFP project to develop a robust
theoretical framework. But if CFP was unsuccessful, the other two main strands of FPA—the
work on psychological processes and on policy making—had built up robust and powerful
accounts of foreign policy. Therefore, to treat FPA as the only approach to the study of for-
eign policy would limit our discussions, and of course would link our volume to a specific
approach to the study of foreign policy that was at its most influential and productive in
the 1960s and 1970s. In short, reducing the study of foreign policy to be only FPA-related is
inaccurate, since many more theories are involved than those covered by FPA, and would
also focus on a specific approach that has declined in the last twenty years. The vast literature
on the USA’s role in the world after 9/11 has connected with significant FPA themes, such
as bureaucratic politics and groupthink, while not at the same time remaining inside the
subfield of FPA.
  Introduc tion 5

We believe that the dynamics of foreign policy are found in a wide range of IR works.
Indeed, the objects of foreign policy inquiry necessitate an engagement with a host of social
science fields, and a number of subfields (including comparative politics, public policy analy-
sis, and international political economy as well as IR). In terms of its links to the wider social
sciences in general, the study of foreign policy requires an engagement both with the litera-
ture on policy making in social psychology and with rational-actor models of policy making
that originated in economic interpretations of state behaviour. With regard to the political
science literature, much depends on how it is defined. As an aspect of state behaviour, for-
eign policy represents the policy making and unit behaviour involved in inter-state relations.
Therefore it can be distinguished as a form of public policy from domestic affairs. Conceptu-
ally, however, foreign policy links into much of the literature of public policy, with the notable
difference that its targets are (usually) actors outside the domestic process.
Within this context of interdisciplinarity, we nevertheless believe that there is a special rela-
tionship between foreign policy and IR. Rather like a distant cousin, FPA is often still referred
to as an IR subfield, because of its location within public policy, comparative policy, real-
ism, and psychology, as well as incorporating a range of other interdisciplinary contributions.
While IR yields a host of approaches exploring (if not always engaging with) the tenets of
state behaviour, it is rarely deployed to discuss key aspects of FPA. This is odd, because both
sides are effectively talking about the same thing; both are interested in understanding the
input and output of state behaviour, and from a conceptual standpoint both attempt to judge
which particular methodology is best to understand, explain, or even predict state behaviour
and its underlying motives. Where they sometimes differ is in relation to both the level of
analysis and the units of analysis.
To an extent, this connection has always been both organizationally and intellectually
strong. Organizationally, FPA, in the US, has been a standing group of the International Stud-
ies Association (ISA) for over forty years; in recent years, this connection has been further
enhanced by the creation of a dedicated ISA journal on foreign policy. Intellectually, the entire
history of IR has witnessed a constant debate within the main theories in terms of whether they
were theories of the international system or theories of foreign policy. This was most famously
discussed in David Singer’s seminal article on ‘The Level of Analysis Problem in International
Relations’ (Singer 1961), in which he noted that the two main levels at which we could analyse
IR were the state and the systems levels; each had their strengths and weaknesses, but crucially
each introduced biases into their explanations (for example, by respectively overestimating
and underestimating the differences between states as actors). A similar discussion has been
a constant theme in the work of Kenneth Waltz, who in Man, the State, and War (Waltz 1959)
saw accounts of war being developed on three levels: human nature, the type of state, and the
structure of the international system. The latter two of these became the alternative choices for
explanation in his ground-breaking Theory of International Politics (Waltz 1979). More recently,
there has been the development of a new and dynamic interplay between IR and what would
previously have been termed FPA. A good example here is Christopher Hill’s outstanding text-
book The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (Hill 2016), which draws heavily on ideas and con-
cepts found in writers associated with the theory of international society such as Hedley Bull
and R.J. Vincent. Beyond this, Europeanist approaches to the analysis of foreign policy have
produced accounts heavily influenced by its core case study of the EU, drawing largely upon
constructivism, historical approaches, and a range of neo-institutionalist theories.
6 STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, TIM DUNNE

The final issue concerning disciplinary grounding relates to foreign policy theory and the
recent more radical accounts of IR. By and large, most critical theorists have avoided the study
of foreign policy because it implies a normative commitment to the values and interests of
particular states or of sovereign actors per se, exceptions being David Campbell (1998, 1992)
and Henrik Larsen (1997). However, we believe that taking states seriously is not the same
as privileging state actors as the ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ unit of international political analysis. In
short, we do not believe that such a focus entails committing the error of state-centrism. Stud-
ying state behaviour, an unavoidable dimension of foreign policy, does not make one a statist.
Colin Hay’s work on critical political analysis (Hay 2002) has been neatly adapted to apply
to foreign policy by Paul Williams (2005: 5–7). Following this approach, we consider five
­relevant features of critical political analysis in the building of a non-statist foreign policy.

● Critical foreign policy should be empirical without being empiricist; this is to say that
analysis should look at actual case studies and evidence, but within an explicit theoretical
and normative commitment. Empiricism implies that the analysis is in some way ‘neutral’
and that the evidence is not tainted by the theoretical and normative lenses through
which these ‘facts’ rather than others are seen as the ones to use.
● Both structure and agency need to be brought into consideration. This is one of the
most contentious debates within the humanities and social sciences, but at its base is the
concern that, as Hollis and Smith (1991) put it, in the social world there are always at least
two stories to tell. Thus, we can either explain state behaviour as the result of the structure
of the international system, or see it as the outcome of policy making within the state.
Hay (and Williams) stress that both agency and structure are involved in foreign policy,
with decisions being made (agency) but always within a set of constraints (structure).
● A critical approach to foreign policy accepts a broad view of politics and avoids the
danger of seeing politics as only involved at the governmental level. Instead, states find
themselves in a context in which their actions are being shaped by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) on the inside and transnational norms/social movements on the
outside. Therefore, critical accounts of foreign policy move beyond the interrelationships
between governmental bodies and factions to look at a wider definition of the political
realm, specifically looking at the role of individuals and groups in terms of who wins and
who loses from foreign policy decisions.
● Studying foreign policy critically also means confronting important theoretical issues
to do with knowledge and reality. On the one hand, knowledge is constitutive in that
ideas/beliefs/discourses shape and constitute the world in which policy makers find
themselves; on the other hand, care must be taken to avoid accepting the leaders’
rationale as the cause of a particular action. All critically-inclined scholars search for
gaps between words and deeds—moreover, such discrepancies allow academics to hold
leaders accountable to the claims and benchmarks contained in policy statements and
commitments.
● The study of critical foreign policy recognizes the contingency of the political process.
Decision makers find themselves operating within parameters that constrain their
freedom, but equally they do make decisions. Thus, a critical approach accepts that things
could always have been different—foreign policy is never simply the realm of necessity.
  Introduc tion 7

To Hay’s five points, we would add a sixth.

● Being critical does not entail assuming bad faith about leaders and their reasons.
Responses to events often mean that there are no good or right choices, and responsible
scholarship needs to recognize the costs of non-decisions as well as the price of decisive
actions. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, President
Kennedy made the controversial decision to set up a quarantine zone around Cuba.
This risked escalation of the crisis, but, as he noted at the time, doing nothing was not
an option. Similarly, in the case of the diplomacy over Iraq in 2002–2003, it is very
easy to believe that every move in the diplomatic game was part of a grand strategic
plan. Saddam Hussein could have done far more to persuade the world that he was
serious about disarmament; likewise, Britain could have delayed—or possibly derailed
entirely—the US desire for a punitive war. Decisions by leaders matter; and quite often
alternative policy responses were available to them, but they chose not to advance them.
In realizing that foreign policy is a realm of decisions and actions, albeit under conditions
of constraint and uncertainty, we should remember not to treat historical outcomes
as though they were a given. In the words of former US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright: ‘History happens forwards, but is written backwards.’

Taken together, we believe that a critical approach to foreign policy offers significant potential
for looking at state behaviour within a wider ecosystem of politics than has traditionally been
the case. As a framework for thinking about foreign policy, we believe that a critical approach
as outlined in the preceding six points offers significant advantages over more limited state-
centric approaches often found in the FPA literature.

Organization of the third edition

As Valerie Hudson makes clear in her opening chapter, since the 1950s FPA has sought answers
to inter-state relations by looking at the three levels involved in foreign policy: individuals
(psychological/sociological studies), groups (group-based analyses), and states themselves
(comparative foreign policy). This three-level analysis is very much the organizing theme of
this book.
What this text adds, refined further in this third edition, is an appreciation of the role of IR
theory in shedding light on the dynamics of both state-to-state and state–non-state activ-
ity. FPA has, of course, ventured out onto the high seas of middle-range theory, with James
Rosenau as the first captain of theories that ‘mediated between grand principles and the com-
plexity of reality’. Vast amounts of cross-disciplinary data have been produced from the latter
side of this equation. As Hudson points out, while this data has been of significant benefit in
generating new views on what constitutes a proper analysis of foreign policy in the American,
British, and European schools, disagreement as to the right methods and tools has of late
created something of a ‘methodological impasse’ which, if not resolved, could further widen
already divergent approaches. Analyses of ‘grand principles’ have also missed the benefit of the
explicit axioms on statehood and statecraft available principally from IR. Carlsnaes reminds
us that realism itself is capable of linking axioms to variables, thanks to Morgenthau’s work
on translating ‘the maxims of nineteenth-century European diplomatic practice into more
8 STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, TIM DUNNE

general laws of an American social science’ (Guzzini 1998: 1). Accordingly, realist, liberal,
constructivist, and post-structural tenets can all provide equally robust explanations for the
external behaviour of sovereign states.
While the third edition does not attempt to produce a new type of middle-range theory, it
continues to engage with IR theory as the conceptual underpinning of the key actors, struc-
tures, motives for action, and modes of implementation of foreign policy. The text is therefore
just as focused as the first two editions on the goal of identifying the grand principles at work
in foreign policy, both as a form of state behaviour and as an intellectual field, and its main
source for both these activities remains IR theory. As such, the following chapters retain a
keen appreciation for the individual and group-based analyses of FPA, but they are equally
determined to shed light on the inter-state dynamics of which foreign policy is ultimately
comprised. Therefore, the uniqueness of the text lies in the advice first given by the late James
Rosenau, namely to provide a robust integrated analysis ‘at several levels of analysis—from
individual leaders to the international system—in understanding foreign policy’.
The role of the IR perspectives presented in the text therefore is to generate conceptu-
al pay-offs for students, analysts, and practitioners. Our contributors do this by illustrating
the complementarity between individual, state, and structural dynamics of IR, and those
same levels of analysis found in FPA. As a result, the textbook is something of an exercise in
bridge-building. Narrowing the gap between FPA and IR should ultimately endow IR scholar-
ship with a greater appreciation of the multilevel and multi-causal dynamics (so comprehen-
sively studied in FPA by Snyder and others), while simultaneously granting FPA a clearer idea
of ‘grand principles’; in other words, finding appropriate connective tissue for both sides as
well as keeping both the conceptual and practical sides of foreign policy as clearly balanced
as possible.
We have therefore asked the contributors to this third edition not to assume that stu-
dents have necessarily taken an ‘introduction to international relations’ course. Thus part of
the rationale for opening with accounts of four dominant IR perspectives is to ensure that
students have a grasp of realist, liberal, constructivist, and post-structural understandings of
actors, interests, commitments, and outputs. The third edition has retained the popular addi-
tions of the previous edition, with updated contributions on realism, liberalism, constructiv-
ism, and discourse analysis, designed as a whole to shed light on the wider dynamics of state
behaviour and the specific tenets of FPA. Here, realism is reviewed again by Wohlforth not
merely as the progenitor of the state, but as the conceptual foundation of statecraft, revealing
more clearly the links between anarchy, survival, the national interest, and national security,
as further illustrated by Schmidt. As evidenced by many of our case studies, the realist canon
is alive and well and employed in many ministries of foreign affairs.
Liberalism continues to produce a more sophisticated overview of individuals, states, and
structures, providing bridges between key concepts of cooperation, institutions, and the
world of international political economy. As Doyle points out, liberalism needs to be under-
stood both as a foreign policy attitude and as a conceptual tool with which to deconstruct
foreign policy actions, shedding light on how individuals, ideas, and ideals (human rights, lib-
erty, and democracy) connect to social forces (capitalism, markets) and political institutions
(democracy, representation), which in turn directly affects foreign relations.
Constructivism takes further steps to open the black box of the state, permitting an in-
depth overview of the myriad forces of power, influence, identity construction, and the logics
of behaviour. Flockhart demonstrates once again that constructivism possesses the capacity
  Introduc tion 9

to understand how alliances, such as NATO, adapt in response to new contexts. Meanwhile,
the updated chapter on discourse analysis by Hansen rounds out Section 1 by not only bring-
ing the spectrum of IR theories up to date, but also persuasively arguing in favour of the need
to systematically deconstruct the textual artefacts of foreign policy (e.g. speeches, statements,
primary documents) to grasp more clearly the nature of what is said, and what is left unsaid.
In Section 2, the structure draws emphatically upon IR-oriented perspectives twinned with
FPA concepts to explore the specific application of realist, liberal, and constructivist perspec-
tives in terms of national security (Schmidt), economic statecraft (Mastanduno), and cosmo-
politan responses (Barnett). Section 2 also illustrates in some detail the range of structures,
actors, and identifiable goals making up the international system. Carlsnaes (like Flockhart)
illustrates the potential of an IR–FP interface in his examination of individual policy making,
the role of bureaucracies and organizations (as first explored by Allison), and the activities of
international society, while Brighi and Hill examine one of the least well understood dynamics
of the foreign policy decision-making cycle: that of implementation. Stein revisits the impera-
tives at work in decision making at the individual level, but which have profound implications
for the psychological, rational, and neurological explanations for decisions taken by units,
groups, and states themselves. Examinations of transnational communication come from
Robinson’s chapter on the discursive effect of the media’s influence on foreign policy, in which
he provides new coverage of social media and its impact on foreign policy decision making,
while the new chapter by Byrne on the increasing salience of public diplomacy within foreign
­policy provides a necessary new complement to these multiple perspectives.
Section 3 offers an insightful series of contemporary case studies, with clear examples of this
same IR–FP interface at work. After the seminal chapter by Allison on one of history’s most
nail-biting episodes of foreign policy, Section 3 features chapters by Khong on the role of
national security from the perspective of US neoconservatism; Narlikar, who renews her focus
on economic foreign policy that contextualizes the relationship between India and the World
Health Organisation (WHO); and Hadfield, who reviews the fast-moving world of European
energy security in the context of fractious EU–Russia–Ukraine relations. Axworthy, Foot, and
Lisbeth Aggestam deal with the role of norms changing the foreign policy perspectives of
Canada, China, and the European Union, respectively, with Aggestam commenting instruv-
tively on the policy ramifications of the UK’s June 2016 ‘Brexit’ decision. Reflecting a world of
emerging powers and regions, Stansfield re-examines the role of culture affecting the Arab–
Israeli peace process in the context of the Yom Kippur War, while chapters by McDonald and
Tickner examine climate change in relation to Australian foreign and security policy, and the
role of Brazil and Latin America in international political analysis, respectively. Karin Agges-
tam and Tim Dunne conclude the case study section with a new chapter on the Syria crisis, in
which they examine the motives of other actors, particularly the major powers, in their deci-
sions to finally escalate their military engagement in 2015. All contributions to Section 3 feature
additional engagement with practitioner dimensions, with a variety of new learning boxes
focusing on foreign policy decisions directly and indirectly related to the case at hand, giving
readers a flavour of the practical challenges confronting decision makers at any given time.
Lastly, the invaluable input detailed by Steve Lamy on the teaching of foreign policy case stud-
ies is now to found online as part of the lecturer resources within the Online Resource Centre,
allowing for more material aimed directly at the students to be included in the textbook.
In summary, we think that there are six main features of this third edition. First, as we hope
we have made clear in this Introduction, our aim is to bridge the literature on FPA with wider
10 STEVE SMITH, AMELIA HADFIELD, TIM DUNNE

theoretical insights from IR. Second, the contributions to the book demonstrate that there
is no single approach to explaining and understanding foreign policy; it is a varied field that
reaches out to many disciplines and draws on diverse theoretical groundings. Third, the book
seeks to build knowledge about foreign policy on the basis of empirically informed theory
and theoretically informed cases. Fourth, we have attempted to include studies on all three
core focal points of FPA as identified by Hudson (group policy making, psychology, and state-
level explanations). Fifth, this collection does not confine our thinking about foreign policy to
the state; instead, most of our contributors concur that many other types of organizations and
actors (e.g. the EU) are capable of constructing and pursuing foreign policies, and therefore
we assume that the kinds of account discussed in this book will be applicable to these other
types of actors. Sixth, we have brought critical accounts of foreign policy into the conversa-
tion; accounts which draw on a wider notion of politics where actions are oriented towards
normative outcomes and where policy makers are seen making choices, albeit in circum-
stances where their room for manoeuvre is often heavily constrained.
We hope that readers will find this a helpful and clear guide to thinking about foreign
policy. The study of foreign policy is entering an exciting period of renewal, and we trust that
the theories, concepts, and case studies dealt with in this book will serve as a valuable road-
map that can help make sense of the choices and dilemmas facing actors trying to reach their
foreign policy goals.
Section 1

Foreign policy
analysis
Theoretical and historical
perspectives

1 The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis 13

2 Realism and foreign policy 35

3 Liberalism and foreign policy 54

4 Constructivism and foreign policy 79

5 Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy 95

 1 The history and evolution
of foreign policy analysis
VALERIE M. HUDSON

Chapter contents
Introduction: three paradigmatic works 13
Classic FPA scholarship (1954–1993) 17
The psychological and societal milieux of foreign policy decision making 23
FPA self-reflection in the late 1970s and 1980s 27
Conclusion: contemporary FPA’s research agenda 30

Reader’s guide
This chapter traces the evolution of foreign policy analysis (FPA) as a subfield of
international relations (IR) from its beginnings in the 1950s through its classical pe-
riod until 1993; it then sketches the research agenda of contemporary FPA, which
is represented by the other chapters in this volume. Three paradigmatic works, by
Richard Snyder and colleagues, James Rosenau, and Harold and Margaret Sprout,
laid the foundation of this subfield. In turn, these works created three main threads
of research in FPA: focusing on the decision making of small/large groups, compara-
tive foreign policy, and psychological/sociological explanations of foreign policy.
These three primary areas of research have waxed and waned in importance to the
subfield over the years. Current FPA scholarship explores linkages between these
literatures, seeking both greater cross-level integration of explanation and new
methodologies more appropriate to cross-level analysis.1

Introduction: three paradigmatic works

What are the origins of foreign policy analysis (FPA)? In one sense, FPA-style work—that
is, scholarship whose theoretical ground is human decision makers, acting singly or within
groups—has been around as long as there have been historians and others who have sought
to understand why national governments have made the choices they did regarding inter-
state relations (see Box 1.1). But FPA-style work within the field of International Relations (IR)
per se is best dated back to the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Three paradigmatic works arguably built the foundation of FPA.
● Decision Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics by Richard C. Snyder,
H.W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin (1954: see also Snyder et al. 1963; reprinted in 2002).
14 VALERIE M. HUDSON

BOX 1.1 Key definitions

foreign policy The strategy or approach chosen by the national government to achieve its goals in its
relations with external entities. This includes decisions to do nothing.

foreign policy behaviour The observable artefacts of foreign policy—specific actions and words used to
influence others in the realm of foreign policy; may include the categorization of such behaviour, such
as along conflict–cooperation continua, which categorizations could be used to construct data including
event data. Foreign policy behaviour may include behaviour that was accidental or unintended by the
government, and in addition decisions to do nothing may not leave any behavioural artefact. Thus there
is slippage between the concept of foreign policy and the concept of foreign policy behaviour.

foreign policy analysis The subfield of international relations that seeks to explain foreign policy,
or, alternatively, foreign policy behaviour, with reference to the theoretical ground of human decision
makers, acting singly and in groups. The subfield has several hallmarks:

● 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 pursue 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 being as important as
the output thereof.

actor-general theory Theory that explains the behaviour of actors in general, such as game theory.

actor-specific theory Theory that explains the behaviour of specific actors, such as FPA theory. This type of
theory may be generalizable, but under specific scope conditions for applicability. Actor-specific theory is a
form of middle-range theory, in that it is more generalizable than insights derived from case studies but, on
the other hand, has more severe scope conditions constraining its generalizability than actor-general theory.
However, given its nature, actor-specific theory allows for richer explanation and even prediction of the
foreign policy behaviour of particular entities than does actor-general theory.

● ‘Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’ by James N. Rosenau (a book chapter

written in 1964 and published in Farrell 1966).
● Man–Milieu Relationship Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics by Harold
and Margaret Sprout (1956: expanded and revised in article form in 1957 and their 1965
book The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs with Special Reference to International
Politics; see Box 1.2).

The work of Richard Snyder (Photo 1.1) and his colleagues inspired researchers to look below
the nation-state level of analysis to the players involved:
We adhere to the nation-state as the fundamental level of analysis, yet we have discarded
the state as a metaphysical abstraction. By emphasizing decision making as a central focus
we have provided a way of organizing the determinants of action around those officials who
act for the political society. Decision makers are viewed as operating in dual-aspect setting
so that apparently unrelated internal and external factors become related in the actions
of the decision makers. Hitherto, precise ways of relating domestic factors have not been
adequately developed. (Snyder et al. 1954: 53)
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
it kept the freight and passenger rates low; the result was a deficit
amounting to about a billion dollars, which had to be made good out
of the public treasury. The taxpayers carried a burden which should
have been borne by the shippers and passengers. Second, public
ownership would mean poor service; the utilities 2. Means retention
would not keep up with modern methods; the of obsolete
public would be put to great inconvenience by methods.
reason of incompetent management. Private companies are alert, on
the look-out for new economies, and always ready to adopt improved
methods. The incentive to all this is their desire to make greater
profits. They do not hesitate to spend money upon improvements if
by so doing they can obtain more business and increase their
earnings.[241] Remove this incentive, as is done when the
government operates a public utility, and everybody takes his job
easily. Third, municipal ownership would merely 3. Would not
substitute the influence of organized labor for improve political
that of organized capital in politics. The nation, conditions.
states, and cities would have an enormous number of officials and
employees on their respective pay rolls. The employees would also
be voters. They would stand solidly for whichever political party
offered them better wages, fewer hours of labor, and other
advantages. The interests of the public would have scant
consideration in the face of organized political pressure from this
huge array of government workers. Even today the city employees
are an important factor in municipal politics. What would they be if
their numbers were doubled or trebled? The railroad employees of
the country number many hundred thousand. Count in their wives
(who are also voters), their relatives and friends, the voters whom
they can personally influence, and you will see that they would form
no negligible factor in national politics. Fourth, 4. European
although public ownership has been moderately experience not
successful in European countries where the applicable.
governments are highly centralized it does not follow that it would
have the same success in this country. In the United States, where
government is conducted on a democratic basis, with short terms of
office and strong partisan forces at work, with the spoils system still
flourishing in many states and cities, public ownership would result in
gross mismanagement and extravagance. If the government is to
engage in business it should first put itself on a business basis.
Before it undertakes to operate the railroads or the telephone service
it should introduce efficiency into its own governmental functions.
Summary.—In balancing these various Weight of the
arguments, one against the other, and in foregoing
comparing the relative merits of public regulation arguments.
with those of public ownership, much depends upon local conditions.
It cannot be said that either policy is the better one at all times, in all
communities, for all utilities, and under all circumstances. Where
public regulation has been satisfactory there is a good deal to be
said for the policy of letting well enough alone. Where the policy of
regulation has not been successful the arguments for trying the
experiment of public ownership become stronger. It ought to be
remarked, however, that if local conditions are such as to make
regulation a failure they are not likely to make public ownership a
success. A state or community which cannot hold capital under
effective control is not likely to be much more successful in its
dealings with a large body of public employees. No great weight
should be attached to the fact that public ownership has succeeded
in one city or failed in another. The success or failure of public
ownership, as a policy, cannot be fairly judged from this or that
adventure in it, any more than we can judge the outcome of a
campaign from the winning or losing of a single skirmish. Banks
sometimes fail, yet our banking system is sound. Speculators
occasionally succeed, and make fortunes, but that does not prove
speculation to be a profitable form of business.
So far as can be judged from the figures of profit and loss, public
ownership is less economical than private management. The
community which owns and operates a street railway or a lighting
plant or any other public utility will not make a profit, in most cases,
unless it charges higher rates than would be charged by a private
company. The books may show a profit, but this is because not all
expenses which ought to be charged to the plant are put down; they
are saddled upon the taxpayer in some roundabout way. Public
ownership cannot be justified as a matter of pennies and dimes. But
profit and loss are not the only things to be considered. The question
as to which plan is better for the public is much The question is not
more than a question of surplus or deficit. The one of profit and
fair treatment of labor, the reliability of the loss alone.
service, the removal of sinister political influences—these should be
reckoned with as well. And that is where people with different points
of view fail to agree. The advisability of public ownership is an
intensely practical issue which cannot be solved by appealing to any
set rules or principles. It is entirely logical for one to favor public
ownership of the water supply while opposing its extension to the
street railway. One is closely related to the public health; the other is
not. In a well-governed community, where the service rendered by a
private company has proved to be unsatisfactory, the policy of public
ownership may be entirely justified. This does not mean, however,
that the people of boss-ridden cities, with the spoils system in full
operation, should take over public services which are doing well
enough under private management. Conditions, not theories, should
determine which is the wise policy.
Guild Operation.—In recent years another alternative to private
ownership has been put forth. It is known as guild ownership.
Knowing that many people are disinclined toward public ownership
because they fear that it would merely mean the mismanagement of
the public services by politicians, some labor leaders have proposed
that the utilities should be owned and operated by the organized
employees. In brief they suggest that the government should supply
the capital (receiving interest on it, of course,) and that the
employees should operate the utilities through officials chosen by
them, or chosen by themselves and the government jointly. The
Plumb plan, put forward in 1919 as a solution of the railroad
problem, was a proposal of this nature. Some advocates of guild
operation believe in applying this policy not only to public utilities but
to all industries.
General References
F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, Vol. II, pp. 397-418;
Clyde L. King, The Regulation of Municipal Utilities, pp. 3-55;
H. G. James, Municipal Functions, pp. 246-281 (Public Utilities); pp. 282-295
(Municipal Ownership);
 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, 1917-1918, Bulletins, No. 22
(Municipal Ownership in the United States);
E. M. Phelps (editor), Government Ownership of Railroads (Debaters’
Handbook Series). Contains material on both sides of the question. See also K. B.
Judson (editor), Government Ownership of Telegraphs and Telephones, and J. E.
Johnson, Municipal Ownership, in the same series;
F. C. Howe, The Modern City and its Problems, pp. 149-164.
Group Problems
1. Government ownership of telegraphs and telephones. History of the wire
services. How the telegraph and telephone companies are organized. Present
methods of regulation by the national, state, and local authorities. Public
ownership of telegraphs and telephones in Europe. The results of European
experience. American experience during the war. Summary and conclusions.
References: K. B. Judson (editor), Government Ownership of Telegraphs and
Telephones (Debaters’ Handbook Series); A. N. Holcombe, Government
Ownership of Telephones in Europe, pp. 441-463; H. R. Meyer, Public Ownership
and the Telephone of Great Britain, pp. 239-268; W. W. Willoughby, Government
Organization in War Time, pp. 191-198.
2. State regulation of public utilities. References: H. G. James, Municipal
Functions, pp. 246-281; C. L. King, Regulation of Municipal Utilities, pp. 253-263;
G. P. Jones, State Versus Local Regulation, in Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, LIII (May, 1914), pp. 94-107; Proceedings of the
Conference of American Mayors, 1915, pp. 123-162; H. M. Pollock and H. S.
Morgan, Modern Cities, pp. 225-249.
3. Municipal ownership in Europe. References: G. B. Shaw, The Common
Sense of Municipal Trading, pp. 17-42; Leonard Darwin, Municipal Ownership,
pp. 33-66; Douglas Knoop, Principles and Methods of Municipal Trading, pp. 95-
106; F. C. Howe, European Cities at Work, pp. 37-67; Yves Guyot, Where and
Why Public Ownership Has Failed, pp. 55-71; W. H. Dawson, Municipal Life and
Government in Germany, pp. 208-259; C. D. Thompson, Municipal Ownership,
pp. 15-25; National Civic Federation Report (1907), Part I, Vol. I, pp. 261-302.
Short Studies
1. Franchises. Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. II, pp. 44-48.
2. A model street railway franchise. C. L. King, Regulation of Municipal
Utilities, pp. 165-181.
3. Gas and electric lighting franchises. W. B. Munro, Principles and Methods
of Municipal Administration, pp. 247-257.
4. Germany’s experience in public ownership. W. H. Dawson, Municipal Life
and Government in Germany, pp. 208-259.
 5. Great Britain’s experience in public ownership. Douglas Knoop,
Principles and Methods of Municipal Trading, pp. 306-365.
6. Municipal ownership in the United States. Massachusetts Constitutional
Convention, 1917-1918, Bulletin, No. 22; National Civic Federation, Shall the
Government Own and Operate the Railroads, the Telegraph and Telephone
Systems? The Affirmative Side; Ibid., The Negative Side.
7. Guild ownership. G. D. H. Cole, Guild Socialism, pp. 42-77.
8. Public service commissions. S. P. Orth, Readings on the Relation of
Government to Industry, pp. 308-343.
9. The danger of giving government too much to do. Otto H. Kahn,
American Economic Problems, pp. 235-275.
10. The Plumb plan. Public Ownership League, Bulletin, No. 12, pp. 86-100;
Ibid., Bulletin, No. 14, pp. 59-74; 127-130.
Questions
1. Name all the principal public service industries of the present day. Would you
say that the following are public utilities: abattoirs; grain elevators; coal mines; pipe
lines for conveying oil from city to city; wireless telegraph establishments; airships
carrying passengers; automobiles; taxicabs; jitney busses; hotels; steamships;
docks; banks; hospitals? Why or why not in each case?
2. Make a definition of public utilities which will square with your answer to the
previous question.
3. If a merchant should install an electric generator to provide light for his own
store, would he be then engaged in a public service and would he require a
franchise? If he desired to sell current to his neighbors (without crossing a street)
would he then require a franchise? Give your reasons.
4. Certain industries are particularly suited to public management (for example,
the postal service and water supply). Name some others. Why are they suited?
5. What provisions should be made in a street railway franchise as regards term,
fares, service, contributions by the company to the public treasury, disposal of the
plant when the franchise expires, and regulation during the franchise term?
6. Can you give any reasons why the government should carry mail but not
telegrams? Parcels by post but not by express?
7. Name some reasons why the effective regulation of public utilities is difficult.
8. What public utilities are operated in your city? By what companies? When do
their franchises expire? Who regulates them? Would any of them be better
managed under public ownership?
9. Which of the arguments for municipal ownership seem to you to be the
strongest, and why? Which of the arguments against?
10. Would it be consistent for an Englishman to favor municipal ownership of
street railways in London but to oppose it in New York after becoming a resident
there?
 Topics for Debate
1. Street railways should be (a) owned and operated by private companies, or
(b) owned by private companies and operated by the government, or (c) owned
and operated by the government.
2. Guild operation should be applied to all public utilities.
 CHAPTER XXV
EDUCATION

The purpose of this chapter is to explain why education is made

compulsory, how the schools are managed, what they cost, and what they are
trying to do.

Education and Democracy.—No matter In a democracy

where one may go, in any part of the world, it education is
will be found that political democracy and public essential.
education tend to keep pace with each other. In despotisms one will
rarely find a system of universal, free, public education; or, if it is
found, one can be sure that the despotism will not last very long.
Education is the friend of democracy and the foe of despotism.
Indeed it can fairly be said that without a system of public education
no democracy can be sure of its own permanence. This is because
the maintenance of democratic government depends upon the ability
of the people to think straight and to see things clearly. The more
political freedom you give a people the greater is their opportunity for
abusing it.
In a real democracy the only safeguard is the Free government
common sense of the people, and a system of depends on
free, public education will do more for the intelligence.
diffusion of common sense among the people than anything else can
do. It is unsafe to place the ballot in the hands of people without
giving them the opportunity to acquire that degree of enlightenment
which is necessary to enable them to use the ballot intelligently. The
voter who cannot read a newspaper or understand the public
questions which he is called upon to decide is a poor foundation
upon which to build a government. More than fifty years ago, when
England practically adopted manhood suffrage, some of the old-
fashioned statesmen bemoaned the fact that the multitudes of the
people would be “masters” of the government. “Well, then”, said a
certain member of Parliament, “educate your masters!” That is the
only way to keep a democratic government honest, intelligent,
orderly, and capable.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BOOK. By John W. Alexander

From a Copley Print, copyright by Curtis & Cameron,

Boston. Reproduced by permission.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BOOK

 By John W. Alexander
These three mural paintings are in the East Corridor
of the Library of Congress.
The first depicts the spread of knowledge by oral
tradition. A seer, or wise man, narrates by word of
mouth to his tribesmen the story of the race. This was,
in earliest times, the only way of imparting knowledge.
Then, after many centuries, came the making of
manuscript books on parchment. The monks of the
Middle Ages, as shown in the central picture, spent
much of their time in the laborious task of making
books—each letter being printed by hand. Finally came
the invention of printing. In the third picture Gutenburg,
the inventor, is inspecting one of the pages just
completed by the primitive press which the boy is
turning by hand.

But someone may interpose to ask this If so, why are

embarrassing question: If education helps to intelligent men
make people more intelligent in political matters, sometimes corrupt
why is it that well-educated and intelligent in politics?
people are often found among corrupt and selfish politicians, and
that even college graduates sometimes become notorious political
bosses? The answer is that in this, as in other things, a general truth
does not cease to be a general truth because there are exceptions to
it. Many well-educated men are unable to earn a living, but would
any sensible person argue that education, as a general rule, renders
no aid toward the gaining of a livelihood? As well might one urge that
newspapers render no service in disseminating the truth because
some of them occasionally print lies. It is quite true that men are not
politically wise in exact proportion to the extent of their education.
The man or woman who is only a grammar school graduate may
have more political wisdom than the most finished scholar in the
land. But this does not impair the fundamental truth that knowledge
is preferable to ignorance in all countries, at all times, and in every
field of human activity.
Education and Personal Efficiency.—To The general
make men and women intelligent in matters of purpose of
government is not, however, the only purpose of education.
education. The general prosperity of the country depends, in the long
run, upon the individual ability of its citizens. Every individual who
proves able to earn his own living, establish a home, bring up a
family, and by his savings add something to the nation’s capital is a
contributor to the national prosperity. Every individual who fails to
make his own way and becomes dependent, either in whole or in
part, upon the efforts of others, is a drag upon the community. In its
own interest, therefore, it is the duty of the whole people to see that
everyone is not only enabled but encouraged to become personally
efficient, able to make his own way in the world, and capable of
pulling his own weight in that many-oared boat which carries the
progress of society along.
The Purpose and Value of Education.—The The specific
purpose of education therefore is three-fold. purposes of
First, it aims to give young 1. Economic. education:
men and women the sort of
training which will enable them to earn a living. This is a primary and
fundamental purpose, because earning a living is one of life’s great
problems. But it is not the only purpose of education; an educational
system would be very defective if it confined itself to this and nothing
more. The second purpose of education is to 2. Personal.
develop the personality of the individual, his own
resources and mentality, so that he may enjoy those durable
satisfactions of life which are not directly connected with the work of
earning a livelihood. The enjoyment which men and women derive
from life is not entirely dependent upon the amount of their incomes;
one need only to look about the community to realize that this is so.
Even a large fortune does not of itself guarantee happiness. To live a
full and contented life it is necessary to know what is going on in the
world, to appreciate its significance, and to understand the many
things which, to the uneducated man or woman, are hidden
mysteries. Education helps an individual to know himself, to know
what is going on around him, to understand the motives which
govern the actions of his fellow-men, and to adjust himself to the
environment in which he lives. Knowledge is power. It is power in the
hands of everyone who possesses it. The third 3. Social.
purpose of education, the social purpose, is also
of great importance. Education aims to train the individual so that he
may better serve his fellow-men. Democracy, as has been said, rests
upon the intelligence of the people. A democratic government exacts
from its citizens a sort of service which education alone can teach
them to give.[242]
The Growth of Public Education.—For The illiteracy of
many centuries in the history of the world the bygone days.
masses of the people were afforded no opportunity for even the
elements of education. Not one person in ten thousand could read or
write. Even kings on the throne were illiterate. There is a well-known
picture of King John, with a crown on his head and a quill pen in his
hand, signing the Great Charter. It is an altogether fanciful picture,
because John Plantagenet could not write a single word, not even
his own name. No copy of Magna Carta or any other document has
ever been found with his signature on it. The only persons who could
read or write in those days were the monks and other officers of the
Church together with a very few laymen who were educated by
them. Even after the invention of printing, education spread slowly
and it was not until the nineteenth century that the desirability of
providing free schools for the masses of the people came to be
generally recognized. Prior to that time education was almost
everywhere regarded as a luxury to be bought and paid for by the
relatively few individuals who could afford it.
In the United States free education goes back The first American
to colonial days. As early as 1647 the colony of schools.
Massachusetts Bay provided that a schoolmaster should be
appointed and paid out of the taxes in every town of more than fifty
families and that this schoolmaster should teach all the children “to
write and reade”; but this example was not generally followed in the
other colonies. It has been estimated that not more than half the
population in the colonial days could read and write. The proportion
of illiteracy among women was especially large because very little
provision was made for educating girls. Even after the Revolution the
system of free, public schools spread slowly and not until the middle
of the nineteenth century did it cover the greater portion of the
country. Since the Civil War, however, the policy of making education
not only free but compulsory has been adopted in virtually every part
of the United States. The total enrolment in the public schools is now
more than twenty-two millions, and the cost of educating the vast
array of young citizens is considerably over a billion dollars a year.
The Control and Management of The function of the
Education.—As the national constitution gives state in education.
the federal government no power to control education the
responsibility rests with the several states. Every state has
established a system of free, public education, but the methods of
control and management differ greatly from one state to another.
Some states have centralized the management of the schools in the
hands of the state authorities; others leave this very largely to the
school officials of the counties, cities, or districts. Everywhere there
is a state department of education, with a board or a superintendent
in charge, some states having both. The local educational unit may
be the city, town, township, school district, or (especially in the
Southern states) the county. A school board, usually elected, erects
the school buildings, chooses a school superintendent, appoints
principals and teachers (on the recommendation of the
superintendent), and appropriates money for the support of the
schools. The detailed work of managing the schools rests primarily
upon the superintendent.[243]
Central vs. Local Control of Schools.—To Where should the
what extent should the public schools be under chief control be
the control of the state authorities? Is it lodged?
advisable that local school boards should be left free to manage the
schools as they think best, without interference from the state?
These are questions upon which the opinions of educators differ. It is
argued that the school board, in every city, town, or township knows
best the needs of its own community and hence ought to be given a
free hand in meeting these needs. This policy, moreover, affords
each school a chance to try experiments and it is through
experiments that progress in education, as in everything else, is
usually made. On the other hand it is logical to assert that if the state
laws make education compulsory and if the state treasury grants
money to local schools it is the right of the state to see that the
money is properly spent. If every city, town, and village were left free
to manage its schools without any central control there would be no
uniformity in the subjects taught, in the qualifications of teachers, or
in the organization of the schools. It would be difficult in that case for
a pupil to transfer from one school to another, outside the same
community, without finding himself a misfit in the new institution. A
certain amount of central control seems therefore to be desirable,
but it is not for the best interests of education that every school
throughout the state should be conducted in exactly the same way. A
system of that sort tends to deaden the whole process of education.
There is a great deal to be said for home rule in education, provided
there is a sufficient amount of state supervision to keep the schools
up to a proper standard.
School Boards and Politics.—It is generally Keeping the
agreed that party politics should have no place schools out of
in the management of the public schools. There politics.
may be justification for party politics in lawmaking bodies; but in
school boards there is none. There is an efficient way of managing
the schools and an inefficient way; but there is no such thing as a
Republican way or a Democratic way. Yet elections to school boards
are, in many communities, contested upon party lines. Men and
women are nominated and elected, very often, because they belong
to one or the other political party, not because they have good
judgment or a deep interest in school affairs. In this, however, public
sentiment is gradually changing. In many places the school board
elections have become non-partisan; party designations have been
taken off the ballots, and it matters little which party a candidate
belongs to. Why should it? What relation is there between a man’s
views on the tariff or the league of nations and his ability to serve his
own neighbors acceptably as a member of a local school board?
There is no visible relation. Taking the schools out of politics means
that the taxpayers get greater value for the money which is spent in
maintaining the schools, that all questions are decided upon their
merits and not by political favoritism, and that every pupil gets the
benefit of better schools, better teachers, and better educational
methods.
Educational Work of the National Government.—The national
government, as has already been pointed out, possesses no formal
powers with respect to education in the states. Nevertheless it has
done a good deal to promote the interests of public education by
publishing the results of investigations into educational problems,
and by rendering advisory assistance to the state authorities. It
maintains a Bureau of Education which is now The national
within the jurisdiction of the Interior Department. Bureau of
At the head of this bureau is a Commissioner of Education.
Education appointed by the President. The functions of the bureau
are almost wholly of an informal character; it collects data for the use
of educators and publishes this material in annual reports and
bulletins.[244] There has been a strong movement to make this bureau
a regular Department of Education, with a member of the cabinet at
its head, and to increase its powers considerably; but this movement
has not yet been successful.
Federal Aid to Education.—Within the last few years there has
been a good deal of controversy, both in Congress and outside, over
a proposal to appropriate further funds from the national treasury for
the promotion of general education in the states, particularly in those
states where the common school system needs toning up. This
proposal is embodied in a measure which has The Towner-
been before Congress for some time but upon Sterling Bill: its
which no favorable action has yet been taken. merits and defects.
[245]
In favor of the measure it is argued that public elementary
education is a national necessity and that if any state cannot raise
sufficient money to keep its common schools up to a proper standard
the interests of the whole nation will suffer in the end. There is just
as much reason, and more, it is asserted, for federal aid to state
schools as for such aid to state roads. On the other hand it is
objected that the policy of large federal subsidies to education would
involve the taxing of the populous and thriving states of the East, the
Middle West, and the Pacific Slope for the benefit of those other
states, especially in the South, where the school system has
heretofore been backward through lack of funds. Most of the federal
government’s income is provided by the taxpayers of states like New
York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts. But in these
states the public school system has already been brought up to a
standard where there is no urgent need for federal assistance. The
chief gainers under the new plan would be the states which
contribute very little of the revenue. In other words, we should be
taxing some states for the benefit of others. A somewhat more
weighty objection, to some minds, is found in the possibility that if the
national government begins the practice of making large annual
grants to the states for educational purposes it may, in due course,
undertake to exercise control over the public school systems of the
entire country. When a government grants money for any purpose it
has an undeniable right to make sure that the money is being
properly spent. To do this it must create some system of inspection.
Inspection leads to supervision, and supervision sooner or later
merges into actual control. It is feared in some quarters that this
would be the ultimate outcome of federal aid to common school
education on any large scale.

THE PUBLIC

BOARD OF EDUCATION

CLERK SUPERINTENDENT COUNSEL

SECRETARY

PRINCIPALS

ENGINEERS
SUPERVISORS
JANITORS
 TEACHERS

PUPILS

HURON PLAN OF SCHOOL ORGANIZATION

THE CONTROL OF EDUCATION
This diagram illustrates a common type of municipal
school administration. The voters choose a Board of
Education, or School Board. This body, in turn,
appoints a Superintendent of Schools who has
supervision over all matters of school management. In
some cities the members of the Board of Education are
appointed by the mayor. In the larger municipalities
there are, as a rule, one or more assistant
superintendents.
Make a similar chart showing the organization of the
school system in your own community.

Some Problems of School Organization.— A series of present-

Several problems of great importance are day questions.
engaging the attention of the school authorities at the present time.
The more conspicuous among them may be indicated by a series of
questions which are under discussion wherever educators come
together, but which are also of direct interest to the pupils and to the
community. To what age should school attendance be made
compulsory? How can pupils be kept from leaving school before they
have received a sufficient amount of education? How should the
school course be divided? Should we have junior high schools and
junior colleges as well as regular high schools and regular colleges?
How may the training of teachers be improved? Can the work of the
schools be brought into closer and better contact with the resources
of the public library? Is it possible to use the school plant, after
school hours, for various forms of community service? Can greater
use be made of the school plant during the school day? And where
are we going to get the money with which to carry on all these new
enterprises if we ultimately agree that they are desirable? This list of
questions may seem to contain some that are not related to one
another, but they all point to different aspects of the same great
problem and may be summed up in the one broad query: What
changes in school organization will better enable education to fulfil
its three-fold purpose?
The School Age.—To what age should Compulsory school
attendance be made compulsory? In most of the attendance.
states this age is now fixed at fourteen years (or grammar school
graduation) although some Southern states still maintain the twelve-
year limit. Many believe that even the fourteen-year limit is not high
enough and are urging that it be raised. In some states a step in this
direction has been taken by requiring that all persons under sixteen
years of age who engage in any form of wage-earning employment
must either present a certificate of graduation from grammar school
or must attend continuation classes for so many hours per week.
More urgent than any raising of the school age, however, is the need
for more strictly enforcing the rules which now exist. In some
communities the present age limit of fourteen years is not insisted
upon, with the result that many thousands in the backward rural
sections and in the crowded districts of cities are growing up in
illiteracy. Whatever the age limit it ought to be enforced to the letter.
[246]

Re-arranging the School Divisions.—But The present school

we should not depend wholly upon the stern arm divisions.
of the law for the solution of a problem like that of keeping pupils at
school. When normal boys and girls strongly dislike going to school,
when they stay away at every opportunity and leave school as soon
as they can, we may well suspect that there is something wrong with
the school system itself. Graduation from grammar school has
hitherto been looked upon as the natural point at which to break off.
The majority of pupils leave the schools at that stage; only a minority
go on with the regular school course. Our whole system of school
divisions has therefore brought it about that there is no logical
breaking-off point between the ages of thirteen or fourteen on the
one hand (grammar school graduation) and seventeen or eighteen
(high school graduation) on the other. It is believed by many
educators, moreover, that the last two grades of the grammar
schools have not been so organized as to awaken in the average
pupil a desire to go further. The upper grades of grammar schools do
not differ essentially in their methods of instruction from the lower
grades although the much greater maturity of the pupils would seem
to warrant the use of different methods.
To improve this situation it is now proposed to The junior high
divide the school course into three parts by school system.
establishing junior high schools, and many communities have
already adopted this plan. The junior high school as usually
organized takes the last two grades of the grammar school, adds on
the first year or the first two years of the regular high school course,
and thus provides a three-year or a four-year program which carries
pupils through to the ages of fifteen or sixteen. The methods of
instruction are those of the regular high school.[247] This plan is said
to have two marked advantages: it induces pupils to continue their
schooling one or two years longer, and it gives them a type of
instruction which is better suited to their age and interests. Objection
is sometimes raised against the junior high school system on the
ground that it involves the introduction of elective studies and hence
may result in the neglecting of fundamentals. It may also result in
bringing all the customary social and athletic diversions of the high
school into the lives of younger pupils. Whether this is an advantage
or a defect may be regarded as an open question.
What becomes of the regular high school if its The junior college.
first year or two years are lopped off? There are
two alternatives. It may become simply a senior high school with a
three-year or a two-year course, or it may add on two additional
years covering work which has hitherto been done by freshmen and
sophomores in colleges, thus providing what has come to be known
as a junior college course. Where this policy is pursued the pupil can
be carried two years beyond the old high school graduation and
enabled, on entering a college or university, to obtain a degree in
less than the usual time. All this involves a considerable increase in
the expense of maintaining the school system, of course; but it also
increases the service rendered to the community.
The Training of Teachers.—In the last analysis the success of
education depends upon the teacher. Suitable buildings, a well-
planned curriculum, good text books, all contribute their share
towards the efficiency of a school; but these are inanimate things.
Without capable teachers they are of little avail. Now effective
teaching requires two attainments on the part of the teacher, a
knowledge of the subject and ability to impart this knowledge to
others. Both of these things are essential and both are in large
measure the result of training. It is for this Normal schools.
reason that all the states maintain normal
schools in which prospective teachers are trained in the art of giving
instruction. For teachers who are already in service many of these
normal schools provide courses during the afternoon and evening
hours so that teachers may keep abreast of the most modern
methods in education. The universities also Extension courses.
provide extension courses and summer
instruction with the same end in view. All this is highly desirable and
should be carried even further. We are inclined to spend our school
appropriations on buildings, books, supplies, and facilities for the
pupils and to feel that the community discharges its full obligation to
the teachers when it pays them salaries that are by no means
proportionate to the importance of the work in which they are
engaged. But human knowledge is moving forward at a rapid pace
and anyone who does not keep close on its trail is sure to be left far
behind. Unless the teachers are afforded the opportunity of keeping
in touch with everything that is new it is difficult to see how their
instruction can keep pace with the times.
The School and the Public Library.—The public library is an
institution of great educational value and its relation to the schools
ought to be more intimate than is usually the case. Too often the
public library is merely an ornate building with a miscellaneous
assortment of books (mostly fiction) on its shelves. It is regarded as
a place for adult readers primarily. But the way to enlarge this circle
of adult readers is to bring them into touch with the resources of the