CHAPTER 5 Future Work
5.6 Step (5) Physical Properties of the Ink
How and why do governments follow certain policies and reject or even not consider others? Analysists are deeply divided over this basic question and have presented different models or theories to explain foreign policy behaviour. Each model is provocative, but all fall short of providing an adequate understanding of the diversity and complexity of foreign policy making. We shall consider the following models:
“the power balance or realist”, status quo or revisionist, the great individual and interdependence explanations.
(i) The Power Balance or Realist Explanation: This model sees foreign policy as essentially shaped by one’s relative power within the international system. States are monolithic actors which simply react to shifts in the regional or global power balance. Domestic politics plays no significant role in shaping foreign policy. Democratic or authoritarian, communist or capitalist, the state’s internal organisation and ideology are unimportant in explaining why states do the things they do. The only important factor is power. States constantly try to increase their own power and offset the rising power of others in the international system. The behaviour of policies or states thus changes with shifts in the international power balance.
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People who make foreign policy decision are assumed to be
“rational”; have access to enough information to make rational decisions, and then choose that option which best advances their nation’s interests within the prevailing power balance. The realist perspective is both an explanation of and a strategy for state behaviour.
This“realist”view of states foreign policy is not as realistic as it may appear. Although foreign policy decision makers do constantly attempt to rationally make decisions, they can rarely do so. Real policy making is not a rational process. States are not unitary actors. They are composed of different human individuals and institutions, which are incapable of flawlessly gathering and processing the information vital for every decision, and then rationally make and implement the best decision for a given situation.
Policy makers and institutions are forced to make dozens of important and routine decisions daily, and rarely have the time, information or ability to rationally evaluate the options. And even when foreign policy makers make a rational decision, they often lack the power to implement that policy as they wish. As Henry Kissinger puts it, policy makers are locked in an endless battle in which the urgent constantly gains on the important. In his words,
“The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the presence of circumstances”
(Kissinger, 1979:37). Ted Sorensen (1963) reveals that, “each step cannot be taken in order”. The facts may be in doubt or in dispute. Several policies, all good, may conflict. Started goals may be imprecise. There may be many interpretations of what is right, what is possible, and what the national interest is.
While realist explanation offers a strategy for governments, it cannot explain why states do not always or even usually follow the dictates of power politics. For example, according to the realist theory, Great Britain and France should have intervened against Hitler in 1936 when German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland, rather than waiting until Poland was attached in 1939. Realist theory can only point out that Great Britain and France should have intervened, it cannot explain why they did not.
(ii) Status quo or Revisionist: Another explanation of foreign policy is that states hold either a status quo or revisionist orientation towards the world and act accordingly. While all states strive to protect their national interests, most are contented 32
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with the international status quo and their place in it. War is caused by a few trouble makers who try to revise the power balance in their favour. For example, during the 1930s, ambitious authoritarian governments in Japan, German, Italy, and the Soviet Union sought to expand their power and carve out huge empires in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. At first, hobbled by an isolationist public, the status quo powers watched helplessly as Japanese, Italian and German armies conquered one state after another eventually, however, the status quo states went to war.
France and Great Britain after Germany attacked Poland, and the Soviet Union after the United States was directly attacked by Germany and Japan respectively.
What causes a nation to be revisionist or status quo? Some argue that a nation’s ideology is the most important factor, that democratic states are naturally peace-loving while authoritarian or revolutionary states are inherently aggressive. George Kennan argues that:
“A democracy is peace-loving. It does not like to go to war. It is slow to rise to provocation. When it has once been provoked to the point where it must grab the sword, it does not easily forgive its adversary for having produced this situation. The fact of the provocation then becomes itself the issue. Democracy fight in anger-it fights for the very reason that it was forced to go to war. It fights to punish the power that was rash enough and hostile enough to provoke it-to teach that power a lesson it will not forget, to prevent the thing from happening again. Such a war must be carried to the bitter end (Kennan, 1951)”.
Revolutionary states are naturally aggressive-they seek a
“revolution without borders” in which their ideology is imposed everywhere. Revolutionary France, the Soviet Union and Iran all dispatched their agents to foment revolution elsewhere. The classical expression of a revolutionary ideology affecting a nations foreign policy was the 1793 declaration by France’s revolutionary government that:
The French nation declares that it will treat as enemies every people who, refusing liberty and equality or renouncing them, may wish to maintain;
recall or treat with the prince and the privileged classes, on the other hand, it engages not to
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subscribe to any treaty and not to lay down its arms until the sovereignty and independence of the people whose territory the troops of the Republic shall have entered shall be established, and until the people shall have adopted the principles of equality and founded a free and democratic government (Hayes, 1950).
Eventually the fires of revolutionary ardor burn out and the revisionist state becomes a status quo state. The French were exhausted by a decade of revolution and eagerly accepted Napoleon’s dictatorship in 1799 although, that did not inhibit the emperor from attempting to conquer Europe. Similarly in Iran, a decade of revolution and foreign war reduced the government and the people’s revolutionary fire. Following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the successor, President Rafsanjani attempted to re-establish normal relations with other states.
Like the realist model, the revisionist/status quo foreign policy model is also limited. Few states in history have been revisionist in the revolutionary sense of trying to overthrow and change the entire world order. Virtually all states are revisionist in the sense that they want things from each other-territory, open markets, finance and so forth. At times governments believe that their interest in a conflict is worth going to war to protect or enhance the interest. Some of these wars led to sweeping changes in the power relations among states.
(iii) The Great Individual Explanation: Does human-kind make history or does history make humankind? Is history simply the sum of countless decisions made by unique individuals, or do leaders, even the most powerful, operate under enormous political constraints? Some argue that the character of those in power is decisive in shaping a nations foreign policy. Leaders constantly face decisions. Their decisions reflect a complex mix of their personality, intelligence, knowledge, view of history, fears, and ambitions. Because all individuals are different, various individuals will make different decisions on the same national issues.
Contrast the different positions of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill to Hitler’s rise. During the Czechoslovakia crisis of 1938, while Churchill was advocating a strong British response, Chamberlain remarked. “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country 34
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between people of which we know nothing (Winston, 1948). And what would have been the fate of Germany and the world had Hitler been killed rather than spared in World War I.
The great individual explanation is flawed as well. Clearly, great leaders do at times matter. Try to imagine the twentieth century without the birth of Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, or Adolf Hitler. Yet of all the countless decisions made by a succession of national leaders, few dramatically change the nation’s direction. We will of course, never know how different leaders would have responded to the same situations. But every leader, even those with the most sweeping dictatorial powers faces both domestic and international constraints.
A leader is only as powerful in international relations as his or her nation. For example, since coming to power in 1969, Libya’s President Muamer Qadhafi has attempted to create a North African empire with himself as its head. His ambition has been derailed repeatedly because his country lacks the strength, military powers, finance, technology and allies to take over the region. Other Arab states, the United States and France have intervened to thwart its attempts to intimidate surrounding governments.
(iv) Interdependence-Explanation:The interdependence explanation combines elements of international and national perspectives, and maintains that growing interdependence between states and democracy within states will bind them to the point where power politics becomes impossible. International relations will increasingly be shaped by shared interest and negotiation rather than force. And foreign policies will be based on global interest rather than national interests.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Do people make history or does history make people?
4.0 CONCLUSION
Each of the models studied under this unit is provocative, and flawed to a certain degree. However, collectively they provide very good guide for an adequate understanding of the diverse and complex intricacies of foreign policy decisions of nation states.
Generally, there is no hard and fast rule about the type of level that one adopts in analysing the foreign policy of a state. It all depends on what 35
an analyst wishes to study. Any level may have relevance to a particular case study. But for an objective analysis of the foreign policy of a state, it is better to combine all the levels. It augurs well to take data from each level that would significantly assist in the analysis of a country’s foreign policy.
5.0 SUMMARY
To try to understand foreign policy is to try to understand history. Why did things happen as they did? What alternatives existed, and why were they not followed? The answer varies from one policy and one government to the next. In every country, each policy is shaped by an often vastly different constellation of internal and external forces. On the other hand, the theory to guide an analyst into knowing these variations in order to understand foreign policy also varies. There is no level of explanation that is all exhaustive.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What are some of the models by which analysts attempt to understand how foreign policies are made?
2. What are the flaws in those foreign policy models?
3. What are the five components of the level of analysis matrix?
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Akingboye, S. F. & Ottoh (2005). A Systematic Approach to International Relations. Lagos, Nigeria: Concept Publication Limited. Columbia University Press.
Henry K. (1979). The White House Years. Boston: Little Brown.
Kennan G. (1951). American Diplomacy 1900–1950, Chicago:
Ted, S. (1963). Decision-making in the White House. New York:
University of Chicago Press.
Winston, C. (1948). The Gathering Storm Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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POL344 FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS