Foreign Policy Analysis

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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? <strong>Foreign</strong> 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. <strong>Foreign</strong> 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.
Learning Objectives • By the end of this course, you will be able to: (i) identify, understand and critically evaluate a variety of theoretical approaches to the analysis of foreign policy; (ii) Identify key empirical issues in the contemporary foreign policy of selected states and relate them to theoretical accounts of how foreign policy is produced and implemented; (iii) Practice and improve your critical reasoning and argumentation skills by writing an empirically and theoretically informed essay and participating in class discussions;
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Foreign Policy Analysis

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