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Foreign policy is “a goal-oriented or problem-oriented program by authoritativepolicymakers (or their representatives) directed toward entities outside thepolicymakers’ political jurisdiction”. 11comprised ofIn a more comprehensive sense, it is alsothose actions which, expressed in the form of explicitly stated goals, commitments and/ordirectives, and pursued by governmental representatives acting on behalf of their sovereigncommunities, are directed toward objectives, conditions and actors – both governmentaland non-governmental – which they want to affect and which lie beyond their territoriallegitimacy. 12Hence, foreign policy comprises purposive action that is expressed or conducted byway of policy – in words and action – and takes place across internationalboundaries. 13 ‘Major foreign policy actions’ are classed here as those that entailedthe deployment of military forces, or the allocation of monetary and other (i.e.personnel) resources, by the state.The research question is prompted by a number of empirical and theoreticalobservations and ‘puzzles’. They will now be addressed in turn.• The first puzzle concerns the meaning of ‘internationalism’ outside the West.Internationalism as a concept in the International Relations (IR) literaturehas been marginalised, associated as it is with the ‘idealism’ or ‘liberalism’that has traditionally been given short shrift by realist scholars who havedominated IR. The concept has been labelled ‘fuzzy’ and ‘empty’, butenjoyed a new resurgence in the popular imagination of the West in theearly to mid-1990s, when it became the self-conscious foundation of foreignpolicy in a number of Western states, from New Labour’s Britain, to theNordic states. 14 The concept has hardly ever been applied to states of thedeveloping world in mainstream IR, however, even as much of the foreignpolicy activity of prominent developing countries since the onset ofindependence in the middle of the last century clearly fit the internationalistbill. Related to this theme, and potentially enveloping it, is the general11 Charles F. Hermann, “Changing Course: When Governments Choose to RedirectForeign Policy”, International Studies Quarterly, 34, No.1 (1990): 3-21: 5.12 Walter Carlsnaes, “Chapter 17: Foreign Policy”, in Handbook of InternationalRelations, ed. W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B.A. Simmons (London: Sage Publications,2006), 335.13 Ibid., 335.14 This will be explored in detail in Chapter 2.23