Foreign Policy Analysis

Course Description
Who acts in international relations, and why? All too often, in IR theory the
answer seems to be states, or other collective actors, with their interactions
determined by the logic of broad systemic forces. This however leaves out a
lot of factors: does is matter whether these states are democracies or
dictatorships, who is taking the decision to act and why? Foreign policy
analysis breaks up the ‘black box’ of the state and looks at the way that the
domestic environment and indeed the individual decision maker matters.
Foreign policy making is a messy, sometimes political process, and 'the
national interest' is by no means as clear and uncontested as foreign policy
elites would like to make out. The course draws on classical and critical
literature in foreign policy analysis to explore the broad tension between
agency and structure (domestic and international) in international politics.
It asks how decision-making in international politics may be less than
rational, for a variety of reasons; how lobby groups and (perhaps) public
opinion may influence foreign policy, and whether foreign policy can ever be
ethical. The course will conclude with a look at the contemporary foreign
policies of selected states.