Search results

An introduction to this section on international relations & foreign policy. Adapted from the source document.

We should not be surprised if we find each of the former republics of the Soviet Union placing foremost in their foreign policy the desire to achieve a truly recognized statehood. Obviously, developing their constitutions, and internal political and economic structures, is an internal matter, but it is closely related, of course, with the foreign policy that they can pursue. The principal aim of a foreign policy—just as perhaps the principal aim of an individual—is self-preservation. And once the entity has been created, either because of a long struggle of important forces within the society or, in a few cases, because independence is handed to them due to events elsewhere, the fact is that once you are independent you must act in a way that defends your independence. You defend the ability of whatever political system you have to make its own autonomous decisions. And I believe that what we are seeing today reflects this imperative. We see it most spectacularly, of course, in the jockeying of Russia and Ukraine within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

First VisionsDuring the Soviet period Estonia, like the other national republics of the USSR, lacked a foreign policy of her own. While foreign ministries did exist, they had just a symbolic function: staffed by only five or six people, they were allowed minimal cultural and trade contacts with the Western countries and limited inter-communist party ties within the Soviet bloc. They had to report to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on every move they made and served, first and foremost, as cover organizations for the KGB. Designing more substantive foreign policies in the Baltic Republics actually began before they gained independence in 1991. In 1989–1990, the emerging political parties voiced their first visions of the future of the Baltic States, which, generally speaking, boiled down to becoming sovereign democratic states, striving for friendly relations with all countries of the world. By that time, under the pressures of perestroika and glasnost, the Soviet authorities had been compelled to loosen their grip on the foreign contacts of the union republics. Those contacts, however, could not be called yet a foreign policy. They could, rather, be identified as isolated moves in the arena of international politics.

Hellmann, G.: IR/foreign policy theory and German foreign policy. - S. 251-256 Hellmann, G.: Fatal attraction? German foreign policy and IR/foreign policy theory. - S. 257-292

This collection of essays by renowned scholar Amitai Etzioni aims to provoke reconsiderations of basic assumptions of foreign policy by students, academics and practitioners. With chapters focusing on the Middle East, China and the EU, as well as articles with a more global focus, the book offers thought-provoking and insightful perspectives on international foreign policy which challenge existing academic debate in the field. It will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of foreign policy and international relations.