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Changing Foreign Policy

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3.4 Changing Perspectives on Foreign Policy As argued by Goldgeier and McFaul (1992), indeed, the proliferation of new states, each with their own national identity and role to develop, and confronted by an often uncertain and sometimes hostile international environment, could be said to have been given a new life. A related approach is that of neo-realism. While still giving a central role to the state, this approach attributes state behavior less to qualities which inhere within the state itself and more to the conditioning effects of the international system’s anarchical structure. Anarchy creates conditions of suspicion and competition among states and consequently imposes one persuasive motivation upon them, such as that of self-preservation. …show more content…

Whereas the Realist, Pluralist and Dependency approaches all rely on strong assumptions about power, influence and the rules to which they give rise, a Globalist view which however assumes no such structures. As Devetak (1996) stated, foreign policy decision making and action produces a very indeterminate world. Nonetheless, some have defined such a world as essentially post-modern; that is one in which there are no settled structures of authority and in which individuals or groups hold no settled positions. 4.0 Constraints on Foreign Policies A country’s Foreign Policy is determined by two broad considerations: the domestic and the foreign environment. Constraints may stream from factors imposed by the international system and human agency that is, from the role of individual choice in shaping the international system. This section explores constraints in two fold, namely domestic and international constraints. 4.1 Domestic Environment …show more content…

The domestic environment includes geographical location of the state, its peculiarity, quality of leadership, natural and human resources, the nature of the political system and interaction among groups in the society (Otubanjo, 1999). Its factors have great impact on the decision or policy making of a country. For instance, foreign policies in Kenya today are influenced by such domestic factors as political system (coalition government), national integrity and sovereignty, Regional Integration (in East African community) (GoK, 2009). The view that foreign policy and domestic politics can be separated is under heavy disapproval from several quarters. Previous research has demonstrated convincingly that domestic politics advocates for the foreign policy of great powers, for foreign economic policy and for diplomatic relations, while it has largely failed to demonstrate that it advocates for the making of foreign security policy in small states. In addition, there is a lack of theorizing on how domestic political factors influence foreign policy making in small states and under what

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