An Orienting Principle for Foreign Policy

In: Policy review: the journal of American citizenship, Issue 163

Abstract

Only policy makers in great-power nations can aspire to realize grand strategies. They rarely succeed. In the contemporary international environment, coherence is more likely to be achieved by aiming at something more modest, a principle around which foreign policy might be oriented. Responsible sovereignty is the most promising candidate. Responsible sovereignty focuses on the need to create states capable of governing effectively within their own borders and to realizing, where possible, mutually beneficial bargains with regard to global public goods. Irresponsible sovereigns and failing states threaten the well-being of their own populations and the security, domestic norms, and authority structures of even the world's most powerful countries. There is no alternative to responsible sovereigns; no regional much less global authority structure can replace the state. Adapted from the source document.