Suchergebnisse

This title was first published in 2002. This rich comparative analysis looks at security policy reorientation in four European states located at the periphery of the European continent. During the post-Cold War period, Greece, Bulgaria, Sweden and Finland conducted a security policy that was heavily influenced by their close proximity to the iron curtain. Probing this transition during a decisive phase of the post-Cold War reconstitution of the wider European security order, the author analyzes national security policy making from the standpoints of three international relations traditions - realism, institutionalism and political anthropology. This engaging work is invaluable for students, scholars and policy analysts working in the field of international relations and European politics.

In this article, the concept Normative Europeanization is developed from a synthesis of Normative Power Europe (NPE) and Europeanization. It is argued that NPE has focused too narrowly on the external relations of the European Union (EU), while Europeanization has focused on changes in policy structures. The synthesis developed here overcomes these shortcomings by emphasizing normative internal relations within the EU. Normative Europeanization is defined as a top-down process based on the logic of appropriateness, where states with a close relationship to the EU, i.e. candidate and member states, develop a commitment to a European centre and their normative point of departure is changed. It is argued here that a process of normative Europeanization affects candidate countries and new EU members especially where pro-European norms are diffused through different mechanisms. The theoretical argument is illustrated through a case study on Swedish foreign policy reorientation during the 1990s. The empirical analysis is structured around two ideal types: internationalist foreign policy and normatively Europeanized foreign policy. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that Swedish foreign policy has undergone strong normative Europeanization.

Skak, M. External Dynamics of the Korean Conflict: The Present Soviet Policy Reorientation. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIV, 1989, 19-33.Great power policy dynamics are decisive determinants for developments within the Korean conflict, and this contribution focuses upon Soviet Korean policy in the framework of the present overall policy reorientation of the Soviet Union. The 1984 rapprochement between the USSR and North Korea serves as the point of departure, because observers saw this as an ominous sign, i.e. as a stimulus for North Korean and/or Soviet militancy. The point is, however, that North Korea is dependent upon the USSR, and the analysis of the new Soviet leadership's interest perception and actual policy in relation to Korea suggests serious strains in the Soviet-North Korean relationship. Soviet conduct in connection with the Seoul Olympics and Soviet-South Korean economic contacts are obvious signs of this, as is the non-militant Soviet approach to regional conflicts. None of the great powers have a significant interest in a new war between the two Koreas, not even in a peaceful reunification of Korea (with the possible exception of China). All of them can be assumed to have a vital interest in an inter-Korean détente (Germanization), which is an argument that the wise reunification policy of the Korean nation is the tactical and incremental one.

On 1 March, federal ministers Annalena Baerbock and Svenja Schulze jointly presented the Guidelines for a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) of the Federal Foreign Office (AA) and the Strategy for a Feminist Development Policy (FDP) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Despite coordination between the two ministries and similar consultations with civil society, the ministers presented documents that differ in form and content and also draw on feminist approaches to varying degrees. Together, however, they have initiated a debate in Germany on the goals and means of international policy. In order for the desired cultural and systemic change to go beyond gender equality, a broader inter-ministerial effort is needed. (author's abstract)

THE PAPER DESCRIBES THE INCOME SUPPORT SYSTEM AND DOCUMENTS ITS GROWTH SINCE 1965. THE ROLE OF THE SYSTEM IS THEN APPRAISED AND ITS IMPACT ON POVERTY, WORK, SAVINGS, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH ARE CONSIDERED. THE FINDINGS SUGGEST A POLICY REORIENTATION STRATEGY THAT EMPHASIZES PROGRAMS TO ENCOURAGE EARNINGS AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR AS A COMPLEMENT TO INCOME SUPPORT.

The idea that a change of government can alter the foreign policy orientation of a state is nothing new in international relations. This paper presents a preliminary investigation into the causal linkages between domestic political regime changes and foreign policy restructuring in Malaysia and South Korea. It assumes that regime changes allow for a greater propensity for the recalibration of foreign policy interests. Since the effectiveness of any bilateral cooperation depends on successful formulation and implementation, this paper dissects the transition, convergence and challenges in bilateral cooperation between the two countries. Both Mahathir Mohamad and Moon Jae-in saw a necessity to diversify economic partners that had resulted from the policies of previous administrations. While the basic elements of their foreign policy remained the same, both Malaysia and South Korea reevaluated their policies with regard to the international issues affecting their domestic interests. While relations had once been transactional at best, the convergence of the Look East Policy (LEP) 2.0 and the New Southern Policy (NSP) advanced bilateral relations for 22 months until the collapse of Mahathir's government in 2020.

Over the last decades, an increasing number of empirical studies have examined foreign policy change. In this article, we provide an overview of different conceptualizations and understandings of foreign policy change, identify the different drivers and inhibitors of change, and suggest avenues for future research. Most importantly, this review argues that scholarship provides relevant insights in foreign policy change on specific issues, but currently fails to unravel cases of more fundamental change like, redirections of states' entire orientation toward world affairs or broader foreign policy categories (e.g. development aid or defense and security policy). Moreover, while the literature on foreign policy change has arrived at a list of plausible explanatory conditions for change, it has yet to provide a more general theoretical framework that captures the interplay between explanations from different levels of analysis in an integrated model. In consequence, we argue that research on foreign policy change would greatly benefit from comparative research that examines change in a more systematic way across countries, foreign policy domains, and over longer periods of time, with the goal of arriving at a more general explanatory model of foreign policy change.

Development plans form one of the bases from which a development process starts. One of the problems encountered is that a large variety of action parameters in the political and economic spheres have to be taken into account in the drafting of a plan and in structural analysis. The problem of target identification, organisational structure and implementation is always the cardinal element of the concrete planning and decision-making process.

This study addresses the problem of foreign policy change. While the 1990s has been characterized by remarkable changes in world affairs, political scientists have been slow to study the processes through which such changes take place. Drawing on the limited research that does exist in this field, the study presents an alternative explanatory model of foreign policy change, arguing that states tend to alter their foreign policy orientations when changes in fundamental structural conditions coincide with strategic political leadership and the presence of a crisis of some kind. This model is then applied to the Swedish government1s decision in October 1990 to restructure its relationship to the West European integration process. The author argues that with the end of the Cold War, the poor prospects in the EEA negotiations and the emerging recession, the basic preconditions for Sweden1s long-standing policy of non-EC membership had been significantly altered. The structural changes in the international and domestic environment were perceived and acted upon by Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson. Forming an informal coalition with Minister of Finance Allan Larsson, Carlsson launched the policy reorientation in the midst of a severe balance of payments crisis. By redefining Swedish EC membership from a political to an economic issue, he successfully capitalized on the seriousness of the economic situation and marginalized potential opponents to EC membership within the cabinet.