Implementing Foreign Policy

1. Implementing Foreign Policy January 30, 2014

2. Overview Translating objectives into outcomes Exerting influence The practical importance of context The instruments of foreign policy

3. Implementation • The phase where actors confront their environment and their environment confronts them. • An interactive, strategic process important in translating foreign policy objectives into practice, and practice into outcomes

4. The successful implementation of foreign policy depends on: • clearly defined objectives; • sound choice of instruments; • the interplay between an actor’s own strategy and the wider context

5. When actors meet their environment - theoretical issues ‘Agency-structure debate’: • Explaining action from the ‘inside’ of actors, from the ‘outside’, or both • Are actions rooted internally in an actor’s preferences, interests, meanings, or • externally in the context, constraints and patterns of the wider system?

6. Need to understand the roots of actions, because foreign policy is an important site of political agency • States don’t operate in isolation • International scene made up of states and non-states, each with their own set of interests, objectives and priorities (all of which interact) • State action involves their own situation and the external context: together: • a strategic-relational approach.

7. Strategic-relational approach to foreign policy analysis • Foreign policy is produced in an interaction between the actor’s own strategy and context. • Strategic: Because actors are understood to be goal oriented. They must take the goals of others into account too.

8. Relational: only way to really understand actors and their behaviour is to analyse them in relation to their proper context. Context always exists in relation to something. • Suggests that both internal preference and external constraints are at play most of the time; • So we need to focus on the interaction between constraints and preferences

9. There are three aspects of strategic-relational implementation: • Neither strategy nor context taken in isolation can explain the success or failure of a given foreign policy towards an intended outcome. • Context is here mainly meant as other actors and the set of relations which they entertain and patterns they have generated.

10. Constant interplay between actors and context, behaviour is produced through this interplay (especially the mediating role of ideas, narratives, paradigms, perceptions, etc.) • Constant feedback between the actor and context: foreign policy is produced, feeds into the context and back into the actor (e.g. US domestic reactions)

11. The International The natural context of foreign policy - Ideas of the ‘international‘: a view ‘from somewhere’ ‘International’ means different things to different actors, depending not only on where they are placed, but also on how they (actively) interpret the constraints and opportunities offered by context.

12. The International For a single actor, the ‘international’ has at least two dimensions: • horizontal (a continuum from proximity to distance, from regional to global) • vertical (functional layers: political, social, economic, military, normative, etc.). Foreign policy makers must harmonize both.

13. Balancing ‘inside’ and ‘outside: implementing foreign policy • The implementation of foreign policy goals must balance the domestic and the international. • Domestic foreign policy implementation: • the capacity to pursue goals with means (the ability of governments to extract and mobilize national resources) • the public consensus necessary to sustain foreign policy objectives

14. If consensus breaks down entirely, a crisis can erupt to threaten not only the foreign policy in action, but the survival of the government itself. • Examples of where lack of domestic consensus on foreign policy issue brought down a government?

15. FP as a “two-level” game • Foreign policy tends to be domestically and internationally developed and constrained: both of which are in constant interaction (Putnam’s ‘two-level game’). • Examples: • Achieving domestic objectives through FP - EU • FP influences domestic - backlash against terror attacks

16. Exerting influence • All foreign policy, by definition, is about the ‘outside’ world. • Some foreign policy is initiated ‘at home’ but other positions are reactions to events beyond borders. • Policy implementation in practice requires engagement with international actors.

17. The practical importance of context Great powers, small powers: Foreign policy implementation depends upon the kinds of actors producing the policy and the aims sought. • How might the approach of a small power differ from major power? • ‘Overstretch’refers to the tendency of great powers to take on imperial commitments which they cannot sustain, financially or militarily.

18. Multilateralism • Any foreign policy action depends on others for its full implementation - requires some degree of multilateralism • It usually requires the simultaneous use of various levels and techniques of international cooperation, bilateral, multilateral and transgovernmental.

19. The instruments of foreign policy • Differences between states: larger states possess a fuller range of instruments than smaller states. The wide variation in state capacities determines what can be attempted externally. • Resources: basic forces of foreign policy; sum total of a state’s (dis) advantages derived from climate, position etc. (tangible and intangible assets)

20. The instruments of foreign policy • Capabilities: resources made operational but not yet translated into specific instruments • Governments work to improve their capabilities • Examples of capabilities: • GDP, agricultural productivity, armed forces, industrial & technology skills, quality of civil service, reputation etc.

21. The instruments of foreign policy • Instruments: the forms of pressure and influence available to decision makers derived from resources and conversion via capabilities. Provide a spectrum from hard to soft power • Resources ->capabilities -> instruments

22. The ascending scale of foreign policy instruments: Military action Political intervention Negative sanctions Positive sanctions (incentives) Diplomacy

23. Power, ends, and means All action involves the use of power, both as a means and a context: As a means, power is an inherently relational activity – only exist in relation to others As a context, power impinges on foreign policy unavoidably. So important analyse the different levels and processes, unpacking power and showing how ends and means exist in perpetual loop.

24. Conclusion • Implementing foreign policy is complicated and not always straightforward • Intentions and outcomes, actions and consequences don’t always happen as planned • Implementation is fluid and often unpredictable • Can think of it as a strategic-relational process