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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Policy Publication Year within 5 Years

2001. Avoiding “Cuba-sur-Calais” and Other Misadventures on Brexit Island

Author:
Roderick Parkes
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
British political institutions have shown resilience during the Brexit crisis. London apparently believes it has the scope to put EU talks behind it and recalibrate its position in the world. The British government is carrying out an integrated review of defense, aid, and foreign policy and preparing its presidency of the COP26 climate talks and G7. By contrast, its neighbors are gripped by the notion of Britain’s further constitutional deterioration. Their perceptions could well become self-fulfilling.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Climate Change, Politics, Brexit, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

2002. Bhutan in SAARC and BIMSTEC

Author:
Chokey Namgyal Bhutia
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:
Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:
Bhutan has had its own share of history in consonance to the development of its foreign policy over the decades. From abandoning its self-isolation policy to developing relations with India and other countries, to supporting the formation of SAARC and further accepting the membership of BIMSTEC, all the events have steadily contributed to the growth of Bhutan’s foreign policy. SAARC was formed in 1985 for regional growth and development, and Bhutan was one of the founding members of SAARC. And since its formation, Bhutan has been actively participating in the activities and programmes of SAARC. BIMSTEC as a sub-regional organization was established in 1997 with the objective of attaining rapid socioeconomic development of the Bay of Bengal region through technical and economic cooperation in various areas among the members. It came into prominence due to the failure of SAARC and also due to the fact that it would serve as a bridge between South Asia and South East Asia. Bhutan became its member in the 2004. Thus, the paper will look into the changing dynamics of Bhutan’s foreign policy from self isolation to a country which opened up for diversification. Further, the paper will also examine Bhutan’s changing dynamics of foreign policy with the formation and Bhutan’s engagement with SAARC and BIMSTEC. The areas and potentialities these two organizations have provided for Bhutan will be highlighted upon.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, Regional Integration, and Regional Power
Political Geography:
South Asia, Bhutan, and South East Asia

2003. Next Steps for US-Japan Collaboration on Energy Infrastructure

Author:
Courtney Weatherby
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has re-centered discussion of geopolitical competition in Asia around infrastructure. Responding both to BRI and the region’s well-known infrastructure gap, the United States has launched efforts to unlock US private investment for infrastructure. Japan’s engagements in the region emphasize high-quality infrastructure and best practices (an implicit criticism of China’s sometimes less rigorous standards). The foreign policy approaches of the United States and Japan dovetail nicely and have led to many new initiatives and institutional partnerships, as well as the quality-focused Blue Dot Network. But despite the two countries’ intentions to work collaboratively, their efforts have been held back by differences in organizational practices, the lengthy overhaul of US financing, and a lack of immediate movement from US-Japan consortia. For now, a less ambitious approach of closely coordinating technical assistance and conditional funding on proposed projects may serve as a model for closer US-Japan collaboration as efforts mature.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Bilateral Relations, Infrastructure, Geopolitics, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Renewable Energy, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, and United States of America

2004. A Search for Independence in President Duterte’s Foreign Policy

Author:
Denise Layla P. Miram
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The Duterte administraƟon’s move toward favoring non‐tradiƟonal partners above other equally valuable— and perhaps more beneficial—trade and development partners, such as the United States and the European Union, has significantly changed the direcƟon of the country’s foreign policy and impacted its naƟonal security. While the government maintains that it is pursuing an “independent foreign policy”, many experts have criƟcized the administraƟon’s supposed strategy for its lack of clarity and posiƟon. In the absence of clear guidelines and a well‐defined vision, the administraƟon has merely pivoted away from one superpower, its treaty ally in the US, to global superpowers China and Russia.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Foreign Direct Investment, European Union, Trade, and Rodrigo Duterte
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Philippines, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

2005. Philippine Diplomacy and Foreign Policy: “Quo Vadis?”

Author:
Reiñer Subijano
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
In the last week of July, 2020, an “online war” arose between Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin, Jr. and Malaysian Foreign Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein over a simple tweet from the U.S. Embassy in Manila, regarding a donation from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to returning Filipino repatriates “from Sabah, Malaysia.” The tweet sparked an enraged response from Secretary Locsin, who replied that “Sabah is not in Malaysia if you want to have anything to do with the Philippines.” Two days later, Minister Hussein tweeted that “Sabah is, and will always be, part of Malaysia”, qualifying Secretary Locsin’s tweet as an “irresponsible statement that affects bilateral ties.” While the two parties have summoned each other’s representatives for an explanation on the matter, the case of Sabah raises fundamental questions about the direction of the country’s foreign policies.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Philippines, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

2006. The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Marc Lynch, Eleanore Ardemagni, Jesse Marks, Elizabeth Parker-Magyar, Allison Spencer Hartnett, Ezzeldeen al-Natour, Laith al-Ajlouni, Carla Abdo-Katsipis, Lucia Ardovini, Yasmine Zarhloule, Yasmina Abouzzohour, Brent E. Sasley, Ehud Eiran, Sally Sharif, Diana Galeeva, Matthew Hedges, Elham Fakhro, Kristin Diwan, Guy Burton, Ruth Hanau Santini, Justin Schon, Alex Thurston, Adam Hoffmann, and Robert Kubinec
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
This special issue of POMEPS STUDIES collects twenty contributions from a wide range of young scholars writing from diverse perspectives, which collectively offer a fascinating overview of a region whose governance failures, economic inequalities and societal resilience were all suddenly thrown into sharp relief.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Islam, Nationalism, United Nations, Governance, Authoritarianism, Refugees, Inequality, Conflict, Pandemic, Resilience, COVID-19, and Identity
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Israel, Yemen, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Morocco

2007. Turkey’s approach to proxy war in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Engin Yüksel
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
The last decade has seen a growing trend towards the use of proxies in the Middle East and North Africa following the outbreak of the Arab Spring. In this context, the issue of Turkey’s approach to proxy war in these regions has received considerable attention since 2016. Thereby, the purpose of this article is to investigate the essential characteristics of Turkish proxy war strategy in Syria and Libya. As such, this study intends to trace the development of Turkish proxy war strategy by making use of the conceptual frameworks proposed by Groh (2019), O’Brien (2012) and Art (1998). The most obvious finding to emerge from the analysis is that Turkey changed its indirect intervention strategy from donated assistance to proxy warfare in Syria and Libya when it saw a greater need to influence the result of the conflicts. In the case of Syria, this study has shown that the controlthrough-centralisation approach towards the Armed Syrian Opposition has enabled Turkey to carry out an effective proxy war strategy from 2016 onwards. In Libya, the results of this investigation have shown that theTurkish Army has pursued a proxy war strategy since Ankara and the Government of National Accord (GNA) signed an agreement on security and military cooperation in December 2019. The article concludes that Turkey has centralised many revolutionary groups under an Islamist-nationalistic vision and partnered them with its own military in order to expand its influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, and Proxy War
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Libya, North Africa, and Syria

2008. Corporate Political Power and US Foreign Policy, 1981-2002: The Role of the Policy-Planning Network

Author:
Philip Luther-Davies
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
Recent empirical work has offered strong support for ‘biased pluralism’ and ‘economic elite’ accounts of political power in the United States, according a central role to interest groups as a mechanism through which corporate influence is exerted. Here, we propose an additional channel of influence for corporate interests: the ‘policy-planning network,’ consisting of corporate-dominated foundations, think tanks, and elite policy-discussion groups. To evaluate this assertion, we coded the policy preferences of one key policy-discussion group, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), on 295 foreign policy issues during the 1981-2002 period. In logistic regression analyses, the preferences of economic elites and the CFR were positive, statistically significant predictors of foreign policy outcomes while interest group preferences were not. These findings were further supported with a qualitative investigation of the patterns of CFR ‘successes’ and ‘failures.’ We conclude that ‘biased pluralism’ models should include corporate influence exerted through the policy-planning network.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Think Tanks, Pluralism, and Corporations
Political Geography:
United States of America

2009. Constructivism (Syllabus Resource)

Author:
Peace and Security (GIWPS) Georgetown Institute for Women
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
The following is material to consider for your syllabus. Specifically, there is: Scholarly writing on Constructivism written by diverse scholars and experts; Scholarly writing providing geographic variety and geographically varied perspectives; Studies and analyses examining diversity, equity and inclusion-related dimensions of Constructivism.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Education, Constructivism, and Norms
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2010. Legitimising external missions: Deconstructing citizens' perceptions towards EULEX in Kosovo

Author:
Emma-Louise Rose
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS)
Abstract:
On the EU’s part, EULEX has been its largest ever civilian mission in an attempt to strengthen what is considered to be the EU’s weakest spot: foreign and security policy. Despite its lengthy presence, EULEX has not gained the trust of the citizens of Kosovo. The Kosovo Security Barometer (KSB) conducted annually by KCSS has been measuring the amount of trust that Kosovo citizens have in the mission and have found the number to be consistently low when compared to other local and international institutions. The lack of trust, and therefore support, from the public seems to stem from many different areas particularly EU/EULEX’s neutrality on the issue of Kosovo independence (due to lack of recognition by 5 member states) and a failure to carry out its mission. Based on the quantitative measurement of KSB, the lack of trust has remained fairly stable over the years, with all of the given statistics being within 15% of each other (between 16% and 31%), the lowest amount of trust was recorded in 2015. This brought the legitimacy and public support for the mission into question.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, European Union, Institutions, and EULEX
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Kosovo