British national interest in the Gulf: rediscovering a role?

The British government is in the process of re‐energizing its relations with the Gulf states. A new Gulf strategy involving a range of activities including more frequent elite bilateral visits and proposals sometimes touted as Britain's military ‘return to east of Suez’ are two key elements of the overarching strategy. Such polices are designed to fall in line with British national interest as identified by the government‐authored 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS), which emphasizes the importance of security, trade, and promoting and expanding British values and influence as perennial British raisons d'etat. In the short term, the Gulf initiatives reflect and compliment these core interests, partly based on Britain's historical role in the region, but mostly thanks to modern day trade interdependencies and mutually beneficial security‐based cooperation. However, there is yet to emerge a coherent understanding of Britain's longer‐term national interest in the region. Instead, government‐led, party‐political priorities, at the expense of thorough apolitical analysis of long‐term interests, appear to be unduly influential on the origins of both the Gulf proposals and the NSS conclusions themselves. Without a clear strategic, neutral grounding, both the Gulf prioritization and the NSS itself are weakened and their longevity undermined.     

‘Divided Within Itself’: The Parliamentary Labour ‘Right’ and the Demise of Post‐War Revisionist Social Democracy in the 1970s

The article seeks to identify a neglected dimension of the ‘crisis’ and schism of British social democracy in the 1970s from within the ranks of the parliamentary Labour ‘right’ itself. Accounts of the so‐called ‘Labour right’ and its influential revisionist social democratic tradition have emphasized its generic cohesion and uniformity over contextual analysis of its inherent intellectual, ideological and political range and diversity. The article seeks to evaluate differential responses of Labour's ‘right‐wing’ and revisionist tendency as its loosely cohesive framework of Keynesian social democracy imploded in the 1970s, as a means of demonstrating its relative incoherence and fragmentation. The ‘crisis of social democracy’ revealed much more starkly its complex, heterogeneous character, irremediably ‘divided within itself’ over a range of critical political and policy themes and the basis of social democratic political philosophy itself. The article argues that it was its own wider political fragmentation and ideological introspection in the face of the ‘crisis’ of its historic ‘belief system’ which led to the fracture of Labour's ‘dominant coalition’ and the rupture of British social democracy.     

Strategizing Britain's role in the world

In recent commentaries on British foreign policy, the New Labour and coalition governments have been criticized for lacking strategic thinking. Academics describe a ‘strategy gap’ and note that old ideas about Britain's role in the world, such as Churchill's 1948 reference to ‘three circles’, continue to be recycled. Parliamentarians bemoan the ‘uncritical acceptance of these assumptions’ that has led to ‘a waning of our interests in, and ability to make, National Strategy’. This article argues that a primary problem has been the lack of consideration of how identity, strategy and action interrelate in foreign policy. Using the insights of role theory, the article seeks to address this by outlining six ideal‐type role orientations that the UK might fulfil in world politics, namely: isolate, influential (rule of law state), regional partner, thought leader, opportunist–interventionist power and Great Power. By considering how variations in a state's disposition towards the external environment translate into different policy directions, the article aims both to highlight the range of roles available to policy‐makers and to emphasize that policy often involves making a choice between them. Failure to recognize this has resulted in role conflicts and policy confusion. In setting out a variety of different role orientations, the author offers a route to introducing a genuine strategic sensibility to policy‐making, one that links identity with policy goals and outcomes.     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

Organizing for British national strategy

In December 1968 Ernest May asked how the US government could gain access to ‘long‐headed’ staffers to provide greater strategic depth to foreign policy. The challenge of long‐term strategy persists: how should government be organized to support it, how can the right people be found to staff it and how can political leaders make time for longer‐term policy‐making given the challenge of the immediate? The policy planning staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have traditionally had the task of supporting longer‐range, broader foreign policy. A small group of diplomats—later leavened by externals from the media, non‐profit and private sectors—was meant to generate an improved approach to British interests and policy. As Robert Wade‐Gery recalls of its role in the 1960s, there was a push to forge fresh links with outside thinking. Did it work? Former policy planners can be circumspect about its achievements. One former British planner said he felt like ‘a spare part rattling around in a tin’, while former American planners have written about the challenge of injecting fresh thinking when detached from decision‐making. Other planners were dragged into operational work or speechwriting. Many planners nonetheless enjoyed the opportunity to think more broadly. Policy planning can be intellectually rich without being the source of actionable strategic thinking about the long‐term national interest. This article suggests that a greater focus on people rather than systems might help to foster more strategic, anticipatory and innovative thinking about the national interest.     

The political anatomy of community health policy in Australia, 1972–1982

This article seeks to account for the survival of the 1973–1975 Labor government's new Community Health policy during the conservative coalition government (1975–1983) (which had managed to completely abolish Labor's national Medibank health insurance program). Through extensive interviews with 74 people who were directly involved in the policy process at national, state and local levels, as well as from other sources of information, inquiry is made into the issues and circumstances that were taken into account in the decisions that affected the course of policy from 1972–82. The important political and economic forces included party politics, federal‐state relations, the national economy, the direction of other fiscal and health policies, private and governmental interest groups, administrative nets, and the mass media. The not surprising conclusion is that changes in Community Health policy did not depend on its effectiveness but rather on the balance of political, economic and organizational power of interested groups at particular points in time. Policy‐relevant issues facing the 1983 Labor government are pointed out.     

Heading west? Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path

Events in Ukraine in 2014 are likely to transform the presence and role of western institutions such as NATO in the post‐Soviet area. The crisis has starkly revealed the limits of their influence within Russia's ‘zone of privileged interest’, as well as the lack of internal unity within these organizations vis‐à‐vis relations with Moscow and future engagement with the area. This will have long‐term implications for the South Caucasus state of Georgia, whose desire for integration into the Euro‐Atlantic community remains a key priority for its foreign and security policy‐makers. This article examines the main motivators behind Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path and its foreign policy stance, which has remained unchanged for over a decade despite intense pressure from Russia. It focuses on two aspects of Georgia's desire for integration with European and Euro‐Atlantic structures: its desire for security and the belief that only a western alignment can guarantee its future development, and the notion of Georgia's ‘European’ identity. The notion of ‘returning’ to Europe and the West has become a common theme in Georgian political and popular discourse, reflecting the belief of many in the country that they are ‘European’. This article explores this national strategic narrative and argues that the prevailing belief in a European identity facilitates, rather than supersedes, the central role of national interests in Georgian foreign policy.     

For all the Wrong Reasons? Re‐evaluating Truman,Domestic Influences,and the Palestine Question

This essay is a re‐evaluation of President Harry Truman's foreign policy in Palestine and whether his decision‐making was influenced by domestic issues, events and attitudes. The article both weighs in on the current debate of whether Truman was susceptible to electoral influences and the Jewish vote, and argues that Truman never knowingly placed American interests in jeopardy by going against the recommendations of his State Department. Rather, the advice of his closest aids convinced him that a pro‐Zionist policy would not detriment American interests in the Middle East. Thus, Truman could then seek to gain political and electoral advantages from a policy that he believed was already in America's best interest. In addition, I will argue that American anti‐Semitism and a revival of nativist attitudes in America resulted in an environment in which America would not accept its share of the displaced persons. As a result, Truman advocated a policy of refugee Zionism with regards to the Palestine Question, which ultimately undermined the British, who were too weak to uphold the Palestine Mandate following the war. Thus, the influence of American domestic issues took many forms and was one integral factor in the eventual outcome of the Palestine Question.     

The British Parliamentary Labour Party and the Government of Ireland Act 1920

Immediately after the First World War the British Labour Party was forced to reconsider its relationship with an increasingly militant Irish nationalism. This reassessment occurred at the same time as it was becoming a major political and electoral force in post‐war Britain. The political imperative from the party's perspective was to portray itself as a responsible, moderate and patriotic alternative governing party. Thus it was fearful of the potential negative impact of too close an association with, and perceived sympathy for, extreme Irish nationalism. This explains the party's often bewildering changes in policy on Ireland at various party conferences in 1919 and 1920, ranging from support for home rule to federalism throughout the United Kingdom to ‘dominion home rule’ as part of a wider evolving British Commonwealth to adopting outright ‘ self‐determination’ for a completely independent Ireland outside both United Kingdom and empire. On one aspect of its Irish policy, however, the party was adamant and united – its opposition to the partition of Ireland, which was the fundamental principle of Lloyd George's Government of Ireland Bill of 1920 which established Northern Ireland. Curiously, that aspect of Labour's Irish policy was never discussed in the party at large. All the running was made by the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in the house of commons in 1920. The PLP's outright opposition to the bill acted as balm throughout the wider party, binding together the confusing, and often contradictory, positions promulgated on the long‐term constitutional future of Ireland and its relationship with Britain.     

Nuclear free New Zealand and rogernomics: The survival of a labour government

New Zealand's fourth Labour government, elected to power in 1984, has become known most generally for two of its policies: a refusal to accept nuclear warships in New Zealand waters, and the vigour and consistency with which it has pursued market orientated economic policies. A post‐election near‐national survey of 1013 respondents is employed to measure the extent to which the two policies may have aided Labour's re‐election in 1987. Contrary to most interpretation hitherto, we find that defence and economic policy opinion were at least of equal importance. But there is further evidence to indicate that defence policy opinion was the more important It is concluded that the expression of “post‐materialist” values through anti‐nuclear politics may have perversely allowed a new materialism to conquer New Zealand politics.     

Policy Change and Policy Stasis: Comparing Swiss Foreign Policy toward South Africa (1968–94) and Iraq (1990–91)

This article investigates how concepts from the field of public policy, in particular the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) initially introduced by Sabatier and Jenkins‐Smith, can be applied to the study of foreign policy analysis. Using a most similar comparative case studies design, we examine Switzerland's foreign policy toward South Africa under apartheid for the period from 1968 to 1994 and compare it with the Swiss position toward Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when the Swiss government imposed—for the first time—comprehensive economic sanctions against another state. The application of the ACF shows that a dominant advocacy coalition in Swiss foreign policy toward South Africa prevented a major policy change in Swiss–South African relations despite external pressure from the international and national political levels. Actually, quite the opposite could be observed: Swiss foreign policy increased its persistence in not taking economic sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. The ACF, with its analytical focus on policy subsystems and the role of external shocks as potential triggers for change, provided a useful framework for analyzing the factors for policy change and stasis in Swiss foreign relations toward the selected two countries.     

Principles in the pipeline: managing transatlantic values and interests in Central Asia

After a decade of relative neglect post‐Soviet Central Asia has become a foreign policy priority for the transatlantic community. Both the United States and Europe have engaged with the region in recent years in pursuit of new strategic interests, including maintaining military basing access in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan and securing the export of Central Asian oil and gas to the West. Despite this period of renewed engagement, however, the quality of democratic governance within the region remains poor, especially in comparison with other post‐communist regions that successfully completed their political transitions. In fact, the United States and the European Union have often tempered promoting their Central Asian democratization agendas in order to maintain access to these strategically important fixed assets. The transatlantic struggle to balance the pursuit of strategic interests and democratic values has been rendered more difficult by Russia's recent resurgence as a regional power. Backed by the Central Asian governments, Moscow has challenged the purpose and influence of western‐based international and non‐governmental organizations in the region, thereby further diminishing the transatlantic community's capacity to promote sustained democratic reforms.     

The Howard Government's Foreign Policy: Really Realist?

Several scholars have suggested that the Howard government took a Realist approach to foreign policy, and others have claimed that it made important deviations from Realism. This article constructs a template of a Realist foreign policy and examines the Howard government's policies against it. It finds that the government scores highly on two of the indicators of Realism – emphasis on military power and lack of enthusiasm for multilateral institutions – and scores fairly well on the third, the subordination of values promotion to the advancement of interests. The Howard government, however, promoted democracy and human rights in situations in which no other Australian interest was involved, so its Realism was somewhat modified.     

Interpreting the Syria vote: parliament and British foreign policy

This article presents three distinct interpretations of how parliamentary war powers affect British foreign policy more generally, based on a detailed analysis of the debate preceding the vote in parliament in August 2013 on whether Britain should intervene in the Syrian civil war. The first interpretation treats parliament as a site for domestic role contestation. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they raise the significance of MPs' doubts about Britain's proper global ‘role’. The second interpretation treats parliament as a forum for policy debate. There is nothing new about MPs discussing international initiatives. But now they do more than debate, they decide, at least where military action is involved. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they make British foreign policy more cautious and less consistent, even if they also make it more transparent and (potentially) more democratic in turn. The final interpretation treats parliament as an arena for political competition. From this perspective, parliamentary involvement exposes major foreign policy decisions to the vagaries of partisan politicking, a potent development in an era of weak or coalition governments, and a recipe for unpredictability. Together these developments made parliament's war powers highly significant, not just where military action is concerned, but for British foreign policy overall.     

Electoral instability and the modern campaign: New Zealand labour in 1987

This essay explores the theme of the rise of the ‘modern campaign'—the electoral focus on polling, targeted appeals, and the professional, managed use of the media—as the strategic response by parties to the exigencies of electioneering in an era of increasingly fluid, weakly partisan electorates. Given New Zealand Labour's unparalleled policy‐reversals since 1984, which rocked a political system noted for its stable, loyal partisan politics, it is argued the 1987 campaign constitutes a threshold election in which Labour's executive consciously embraced the modern campaign to deflect reactions to its unorthodox policies, and to allow appeals to newly heterogeneous bases of electoral support. Interviews with key figures in New Zealand's Labour and National parlies afford the chance to examine this strategic tactic as a considered response to electoral uncertainty.     

Britain's coalition government and EU defence cooperation: undermining British interests

The formation of a coalition government by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, combined with the need for important cuts to Britain's armed forces has raised significant uncertainties about Britain's attitude to defence cooperation within the European Union. Since taking office the coalition, while grappling with the implications of Britain's fiscal challenges, has shown an unprecedented interest in strengthening bilateral defence collaborations with certain European partners, not least France. However, budgetary constraints have not induced stronger support for defence cooperation at the EU level. On the contrary, under the new government, Britain has accelerated its withdrawal from the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This article assesses the approach of the coalition to the CSDP. It argues that, from the perspective of British interests, the need for EU defence cooperation has increased over the last decade and that the UK's further withdrawal from EU efforts is having a negative impact. The coalition is undermining a framework which has demonstrated the ability to improve, albeit modestly, the military capabilities of other European countries. In addition, by sidelining the EU at a time when the UK is forced to resort more extensively to cost‐saving synergies in developing and maintaining its own armed forces, David Cameron's government is depriving itself of the use of potentially helpful EU agencies and initiatives—which the UK itself helped set up. Against the background of deteriorating European military capabilities and shifts in US priorities, the article considers what drove Britain to support EU defence cooperation over a decade ago and how those pressures have since strengthened. It traces Britain's increasing neglect of the CSDP across the same period, the underlying reasons for this, and how the coalition's current stance of disengagement is damaging Britain's interests.     

Contest and conquest: Russia and global internet governance

For more than a decade, Russia's foreign policy has sought to challenge the international consensus on a number of issues. Today, as the international internet ecosystem is becoming more volatile, Moscow is eager to shift the western narrative over the current global internet governance regime, in which the United States retains considerable leverage. In a context wherein states increasingly forge links between cyberspace and foreign policy, this article explores Russia's deepening involvement in internet governance. The disclosure by Edward Snowden of the US government's wide net of online surveillance contributed to legitimize the Russian approach to controlling online activity. While the struggle around the narrative of internet governance has been heating up since then, Russia actively seeks to coordinate internet governance and cyber security policies with like‐minded states in both regional forums and the United Nations. By introducing security concerns and advocating more hierarchy and a greater role for governments, Moscow is contributing to the politicization of global cyber issues and seeking to reshape the network in accordance with its own domestic political interests. Indeed, the Russian leadership has come to consider the foreign policy of the internet as the establishment of a new US‐led hegemonic framework that Washington would use to subvert other sovereign states with its own world views and values.     

Who's making UK foreign policy?

The war in Iraq has intensified a debate about the extent to which Tony Blair's style of government is presidential, secretive, ad hoc, informal and susceptible to groupthink. But who is really making UK foreign policy? This article suggests that there is no simple or singular answer since the government simultaneously pursues multiple foreign policies involving different combinations of institutions, actors and external pressures. It then discusses New Labour's impact upon the four interrelated phases of the foreign policy process: formulation, interpretation, implementation and presentation. The author suggests that Blair's government has found it difficult to implement many of its foreign policy initiatives and has relied instead upon three ‘big ideas’, namely, multilateralism, Atlanticism and neo‐liberalism. To date, it has failed to resolve the practical tensions between these three commitments. The final section explores how the demand for open and accountable government has increased the importance attached to the presentation of foreign policy. This, in turn, has increased the importance of the news media as a battlefield on which the struggle for hearts and minds is taking place. Ironically, the government's unparalleled attempts to sell its foreign policies (both at home and abroad) has opened the policy process up to levels of scrutiny that it may not be able to withstand.     

Iran as a ‘pariah’ nuclear aspirant

This article demonstrates that Iran conforms to Richard K. Betts' model of a ‘pariah’ nuclear aspirant, as its nuclear program is driven by a potent combination of security, normative and domestic political motivations. The regime's commitment to its nuclear program is influenced by Iran's long-standing sense of vulnerability to both regional and international adversaries, and an enduring sense of national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, in parallel with a powerful belief in the superiority of Persian civilisation. This has resulted in the development of a narrative of ‘hyper-independence’ in Iran's foreign policy that simultaneously rejects political, cultural or economic dependence and emphasises ‘self-reliance’. The presumed security benefits that a nuclear weapons option provides are seen as ensuring Iranian ‘self-reliance’ and ‘independence’. This suggests that current strategies that focus exclusively on Iran's security motivations or on a heightened regime of sanctions are fundamentally flawed, as they fail to recognise the mutually reinforcing dynamic between Iran's security and normative/status-derived nuclear motivations.