PUBLIC INFLUENCE ON FOREIGN POLICY

The dominant  Japanese pacifist political culture was being chalanged by a nationalist subculture. This potentionally impact on public opinion in China in 2005. Many issues drove the problematique relations between the Chinese and Japanese in this period. These include Japanese claims to some islands and oil reserve in South China Sea, untill Japan’s bid for a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council. At the same time, China’s economy had “helped pull the sluggish Japanese economy out of recession” as Japan’s primary export market in 2004. We might think that the anti-Japanese protest as a negotiating tool of the Chinese government in its dealings with Japanese. But the Chinese protests as public opinion and later street protest were not organized by the Chinese government. These seemed to have been genuine reflections of public opinion on Japan.

The chinese case suggest that the relationship between the public and foreign policy decision making is complicated. The chinese case also demonstrates that public opinion matters to governments, even in nondemocratic system.

There are two basic views on the relationship between public opinion and policy making. The first suggests a strong impact, this approach assumes that the general public has a measurable and distinct impact on the foreign policy making process (leaders follow masses). The second is denying any real impact, this view representing the conventional wisdom in the literature suggests a ‘top-down’ process, according to which popular consensus is a function of the elite consensus and cleavages trickle down to mass public opinion. The second view, then, distinguished between three different publics: mass public that is not interested in foreign policy matters, attentive public, and there is the elite.

  The linkage between public opinion and policy formation is more complex than that suggested by these earlier views. Holsti says that although American policy makers tend to be more inclined to internationalism than the American public, the policy makers are restrained by their perception of what the public will tolerate. Policy maker believe that the public is harder to convince about internationalist policies and the lack of public support could jeopardize any undertaking. Holsti concludes that there is no direct linkage between public opinion and policy information, but that policy maker’s perceptions of public opinion set the parameters for foreign policy behavior.

Does public opinion matter in nondemocracies as much as democracies? The short answer is yes. Democratic structure allow public opinion to manifest itself in different ways than do nondemocracies structure. But there is a gray area that we have to understandable when public opinion is a political resource wielded by different actors (including the public opinion itself) in different ways.

Public opinion matters to government and foreign policy even in nondemocratic states because government legitimacy derives not from elections but from the mass public’s perception of the given regime’s adherence and faithfulness to powerful transnational symbol. When we turn to democratic system, Thomas Risse Kaplan conclude that mass public has an important indirect effect as it appears that the main role of the public in liberal democracies is to influence the coalition-building process. Then, public opinion is used by elites and interest groups in establishing their claims to dominate a policy coalition.

But there is another actor that needs to be considered here beside those mentioned above – mass media. Some observers and policy makers a phenomenon called “CNN effect”. Media plays a powerful role in setting the public agenda. Once media broadcast images of mass starvation, ethnic conflict, or some other sort of mass suffering, the images arouse strong emotions in the public then turn to their elected officials and demand some strong and morally correct response.

When a foreign policy arises, someone attempts to explain the problem and its solution, that’s we called “framing”. Framing is not so easy. Framing is the act of selecting and highlighting some facets of events and issues and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation and/or solution. Frames works best if it has cultural resonance, that is, frames that evoke words and images that are selecting noticeable, understandable, memorable, and emotionally charged in the dominant political culture

In the last, we conclude that public opinion matters, but scholars seem to agree that its impact on policy making indirect. Public opinion seems to matter most when it has been filtered through either the perceptions of elite policy makers or interest groups and political party activity.  

FOREIGN POLICY

DEFINITION OF FP

It is useful to distinguish diplomacy from FP whereas diplomacy refers to the manner of conducting one’s relation, FP refers to the matter. Foreign Policy is about ‘the fundamental issue of how organized groups, at least in part strangers to each other, interrelate’(Hill 2003:xvii). Foreign policy has its origins in the presupposition that there exists a boundary between (at least) two units. However, this does not mean that they are completely isolated from each other. One’s action influences and is influenced by the other’s. That is, these units are interdependent.

Foreign policy’s objective is achieving specific goals defined in term of national interest which is tend to involve such abstract goals as self-preservation, security, national well-being, national prestige, the protection and advancement of ideology, and the pursuit of power. We can say foreign policy is for finding ways and means to preserve and promote vital interests of those organized groups (Hill 2003:3; White 2004b: 11).

FP AS COMPLEX PHENOMENON

The key problem of FP making and diplomacy is that of translating the relatively vague and general interest of a nation into concrete, precise objectives and means. Decision makers must deal with many variables in the international milieu where as the concept of national interest usually remains the most constant factor and serves as a guidepost for decision makers in the policy process. Besides that, FP actions are difficult to evaluate. First, short-range advantages or disadvantages must be weighed in relation to long-range consequences, second is their impact on other nations is difficult to evaluate, third is most policies result in a mixture of successes and failures that are hard to disentangle.

SOURCE:

-          Tezcan, Mehmet. Free Journal of University of Brussels (VUB), Department of Political Science and Institute for European Studies (IES)

Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS FROM 1993 TO THE PRESENT

 As FPA was being liberated from its inconsistencies in the late 1980s, the world was being liberated from the chess match of the Cold War. This was a felicitous coincidence for FPA and was an added source of vigor for its resource agenda. The significance of this temporal coincidence can be understood by remembering what types of IR theory were in ascendance at the time: neorealist systems structure theory and rational choice modeling.

FPA in the post-Cold War era retains the distinctive theoretical commitments that demarcated at its inception. Indeed, FPA’s ability to ask new questions is perhaps more promising in relation to its future theoretical potential than any other indicator.  

Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis

FPA SELF-REFLECTION IN THE LATE 1970S AND 1980S

A period of critical self-reflection began in the late 1970s and continued until the mid-1980s in FPA. The effects were felt unevenly across FPA: it is here we see the most pruning, both theoretical and methodological, which will be discussed in the moment. In decision making studies there was a period of rather slow growth due to methodological considerations. The information requirements to conduct a high quality group or bureaucratic analysis of a foreign policy choice are tremendous. If one were not part of the group or bureaucracy in question, detailed accounts of what transpired, preferably from a variety of primary source view-points, would be necessary.

FPA work at the psychological level actually expanded during the time period but work at the societal level arguably contracted on some research fronts. The reason for this bifurcation in the genotype was a methodological one: psychology provided ready-made and effective tools for the study of political psychology; political science did not over the foreign policy analyst the same advantage. 

Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis

THE FIRST AND SECOND GENERATION IN FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS

The first generation of foreign policy analysis started in 1954 to 1973. Great strides in conceptualization along with parallel efforts in data collection and methodological experimentation were the contribution of this time period. The second generation of work from about 1974 to 1993 expressly built upon those foundations. Though it is always difficult to set the boundaries of a field of thoughts, the overview that follows includes a representative sampling of classic works in the first and second generation that both examined how the “specifics” of nations lead the differences in foreign policy choice/behavior and put forward proposition in this regard that at least have the potential to be generalized and applicable cross-nationally.

The first period also saw the emergence of a strong research agenda that examined the influence of organizational process and bureaucratic politics on foreign policy decision making. First period research showed how “rational” foreign policy making can be depended by the attempt to work with and through large, organized governmental groups.

Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis

“INITIAL” GENERATION

It is not true that Foreign Policy Analysis is impossible as theoretical task. And that is not that state-centered IR theory and FPA cannot be impossible, for one of the consequences of this would be that IR could not exist as a field of social science scholarship. Then FPA offers a real grounding of theory of IR, which provides real value in IR theorizing.

            The most important thing about studying FPA in IR theory is to identify the point of theoretical intersection between the most important determinants of state behavior, material and ideational factors. The point of intersection is not the state, it is human decision makers. That makes if in IR theory contains no human beings, they will erroneously paint for us a world of no change. And also adding human of decision makers as the key of theoretical intersection confers some advantages generally lacking in IR theory.

            The origin of the FPA in some sense has been around as long as there have been historians and other who have made the choices they did regarding interstate relations. This analysis work within the field of international relations is best dated back to the late 1950s and early 1960.

            Some scholars who works arguably built the foundation of Foreign Policy Analysis are James Rosenau, Richard C. Snyder, Burton Sapin, Margaret Sprout, etc. Snyder write in his book that decisions 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. And he also said that decision-making was best viewed as “organizational behavior”.

            And in James Rosenau’s pre-theorizing said about nation state behavior, to identify factors is not trace their influence. To recognize that foreign policy is shaped by internal as well as external factors is not to comprehend how the two intermix or to indicate the conditions under which one predominates over the other.

            The message of the powerful works in its appeal to certain scholars is the particularities of the human beings making national foreign policy were vitally important to understanding foreign policy choice.

            

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS

            It is not true that Foreign Policy Analysis is impossible as theoretical task. And that is not that state-centered IR theory and FPA cannot be impossible, for one of the consequences of this would be that IR could not exist as a field of social science scholarship. Then FPA offers a real grounding of theory of IR, which provides real value in IR theorizing.

            The most important thing about studying FPA in IR theory is to identify the point of theoretical intersection between the most important determinants of state behavior, material and ideational factors. The point of intersection is not the state, it is human decisionmakers. That makes if in IR theory contains no human beings, they will erroneously paint for us a world of no change. And also adding human of decisionmakers as the key of theoretical intersection confers some advantages generally lacking in IR theory.

            The origins of the FPA in some sense has been around as long as there have been historians and other who have made the choices they did regarding interstate relations. This analysis work within the field of international relations is best dated back to the late 1950s and early 1960.

            Some scholars who works arguably built the foundation of Foreign Policy Analysis are James Rosenau, Richard C. Snyder, Burton Sapin, Margaret Sprout, etc. Snyder write in his book that decisions 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. And he also said that decision-making was best viewed as “organizational behavior”.

            And in James Rosenau’s pre-theorizing said about nation state behavior, to identify factors is not trace their influence. To recognize that foreign policy is shaped by internal as well as external factors is not to comprehend how the two intermix or to indicate the conditions under which one predominates over the other.

            The message of the powerful works in its appeal to certain scholars is the particularities of the human beings making national foreign policy were vitally important to understanding foreign policy choice.