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facilitating ‘alternative’ diplomatic relations that run parallel to, if not always intandem with, state diplomatic arrangements. 187However, it is not only the ruling party that matters, as Ripsman notes, executiveautonomy derives “not merely from the form of democracy (i.e. its institutionalstructure), but also from the decision-making procedures and procedural norms thatgovern the conduct of foreign security policy”. 188 The less autonomous theexecutive, the further away from neorealism’s unitary state one gets. Paradoxically,other research has found that in parliamentary systems, executives tend to trumplegislatures, while in presidential systems, presidents are not as autonomous asmight be expected. 189 This compels a narrowing of one of the objects of analysis,the decision unit, and privileges the ruling party as an object of analysis.Governing parties form part of the second image of foreign policymaking, at thelevel of the state. While they are not synonymous with the state, they comprise animportant component of the state, and governing parties may ‘pay’ for injudiciousforeign policy decisions by being voted out of power. 190 Furthermore, analystsfrequently look to the nature of the governing party for indicators of the potentialtrajectory of a state’s future foreign policy. Governing parties also represent animportant interface between the public and foreign policy. While their influencemay be limited when they rule by coalition, or where foreign policy decisions maybe vetoed in a parliamentary system, their impact on determining the course offoreign policy is significant. This impact is mediated through the executive and itsrole in determining foreign policy. The governing party thus forms a centralcomponent of the Foreign Policy Executive – both through its ideology and key187 A search reveals that party-to-party diplomacy tends to be discussed in theinternational relations literature in almost exclusive relation to the activities of theCommunist Party of China. An instructive study in this regard is David L. Shambaugh,“China’s ‘Quiet Diplomacy’: The International Department of the Chinese CommunistParty”, China: An International Journal, 5, No.1 (March 2007).188 Ripsman, “Domestic Interest Groups”, 177.189 Miriam Fendius Elman, “Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Theories ofDemocratic Peace”, Security Studies, 9, Issue 4, Summer 2000, cited in ibid., 177.190 This does not occur frequently, however. The one recent and frequently-cited casethat comes to mind is that of Centre-Right Jose Maria Aznar’s Popular Party, that lostthe Spanish General Election in March 2004, owing to its policy of participating in theIraq War, and its conduct following the Madrid train bombings by terrorists. Wilkinson,Isambard. 2004. “Election blow to Bush’s war on terror”, in The Telegraph, accessedonline at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/1456911/Electionblow-to-Bushs-war-on-terror.htmlon 11 August, 2010.95