Suchergebnisse

To scholars researching the connections between international relations and globalisation, such as those in the five books reviewed here, 'foreign policy' is becoming functionally and descriptively rivalled in a globalising context. Foreign policy, once the theoretically exclusive prerogative of the nation-state, is violated daily by new developments in non-state actorness arising from transnational technical and welfare issues such as trade, finance, labour standards and environmentalism. These books under review introduce the displacement lexicon of transnational politics, global civil society, non-state resistance and complexity into policymaking consciousness; in short, the post-international era. The conclusion proposes to tease out the preliminary outlines of the post-international challenge to foreign policy on the basis of 'plus non-state' actor-interest considerations.

The dominant preoccupation of the study of small states has been with diplomatic, military and economic manoeuvres within an international political order by the "great powers". This article examines the shortcomings of the small state framework in the light of Singapore's physical characteristics and the Republic's improved foreign policy terrain in the late 1980s and 1990s. The article maintains that in view of the post-Cold War changes in Singapore's operational environment and the "new expansiveness" in its foreign policy, parts of the small state construct have been rendered outmoded by policy practice. In the concluding section, the article provides some possible alternative analytical frameworks for studying Singapore's foreign policy. (AJPS/DÜI)

Includes alternative frameworks, such as the weak state approach, the regime theory, and the region-state idea.