Post-Communist Foreign Policies: Initial Observations

In: Cooperation and conflict: journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, Volume 27, Issue 3, p. 277-300

Abstract

Proceeding from a state level-of-analysis of the eastern part of the European post-Cold War situation, the article depicts the general framework of the emerging post-communist foreign policies and offers case studies of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary and Russia. Post-communist foreign policies have to be placed within the frame-work of the transition politics, i.e. in the context of reintegration into the international political, economic and security structure. Foreign policy has a further affective dimension because of its role in nation and state building. The danger lies in the competing nationalisms and reintegration processes as well as in the potential of nationalism as an anti-Western discourse. The case studies point to both continuities and change and to idiographic and nomothetic patterns. The conclusion highlights the significance of regionalism as a means towards overcoming revisionist orientations and the Western option of influencing the dynamics of post-communist transition politics.