Suchergebnisse

Global health financing has increased dramatically in recent years, indicative of a rise in health as a foreign policy issue. Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy, has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy decision-making. Their ability to do so is important to advancing international cooperation in health. In this paper we review the arguments for health in foreign policy that inform global health diplomacy. These are organized into six policy frames: security, development, global public goods, trade, human rights and ethical/moral reasoning. Each of these frames has implications for how global health as a foreign policy issue is conceptualized. Differing arguments within and between these policy frames, while overlapping, can also be contradictory. This raises an important question about which arguments prevail in actual state decision-making. This question is addressed through an analysis of policy or policy-related documents and academic literature pertinent to each policy framing with some assessment of policy practice. The reference point for this analysis is the explicit goal of improving global health equity. This goal has increasing national traction within national public health discourse and decision-making and, through the Millennium Development Goals and other multilateral reports and declarations, is entering global health policy discussion. Initial findings support conventional international relations theory that most states, even when committed to health as a foreign policy goal, still make decisions primarily on the basis of the 'high politics' of national security and economic material interests. Development, human rights and ethical/moral arguments for global health assistance, the traditional 'low politics' of foreign policy, are present in discourse but do not appear to dominate practice. While political momentum for health as a foreign policy goal persists, the framing of this goal remains a contested issue. The analysis offered in this article may prove helpful to those engaged in global health diplomacy or in efforts to have global governance across a range of sectoral interests pay more attention to health equity impacts.

This paper provides an overview of the landscape of Chinese foreign policy think tanks, classifies them according to the activities they pursue, and offers some explanations as to how they have developed their particular characteristics - both at the level of individual institutes as well as in the broader national context. To this end, the paper introduces a new typology for the classification of think tanks and takes an in-depth look at their current activities. -- think tanks ; China ; Chinese foreign policy ; institutions ; policymaking ; intellectuals

An inside look at how congressional deference to the presidency and State Department has led to such foreign policy failures as Somalia, Bosnia and Iraq.

Global environmental politics is emerging as a key field for South African diplomacy and foreign policy, in which Pretoria is endeavouring to lead by example. Environmental summits and conferences such as Johannesburg (2002) and Copenhagen (2009) have been crucial stages for the performance of this role as an environmental leader, and in December 2011 Durban will host the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are also signs from within policy-making circles that 'the environment' is seen as a field in which some of the lustre of South Africa's post-1994 international high moral standing could be recovered. However, tensions remain between South Africa's performance and rhetoric on the global stage, and domestic development paths which continue to be environmentally unsustainable. The article concludes by suggesting that while the visibility and prominence of South Africa as an actor in global environmental politics is likely to grow, it remains doubtful whether this represents a sustained and committed new direction in South African foreign policy. © The Author(s) 2011.

Bergesen, H. O. 'Not Valid for Oil': The Petroleum Dilemma in Norwegian Foreign Policy. Cooperation and Conflict, XVII, 1982, 105-116. In this article traditional Norwegian foreign policy ideals are compared with the problems Norway is facing as an oil-exporting country. It is the basic thesis of the article that in the latter capacity the country is confronted with a global situation very different from the international environment it is familiar with and from the ideals on which its foreign policy is based. This is most clearly seen with regard to the vision of a future international legal order including close political cooperation across the North-South cleavage — the globalization of the Scandinavian model. This ideal is a world apart from the insecure, unstable oil system with its high economic stakes, political risks, and high tension. The article explores how the Norwegian foreign policy leadership has reacted to this discrepancy. The analysis shows that it is hard to discern any overall, dominating trend in the formulation of Norwegian foreign oil policy. We seem to be confronted with, not a coherent government position, but several separate policies that coexist in spite of their inconsistency.

'Japan's Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of Uncertain Power' by Michael Jonathan Green is reviewed.

'Cooperation Among Democracies: The European Influence on US Foreign Policy,' by Thomas Risse-Kappen, is reviewed.