Suchergebnisse

This article integrates literature on strategic culture with literature on the domestic politics of foreign policy, illustrating how the interaction of culture and domestic political calculation can influence government foreign policy on participation in international military operations. Empirically, the article investigates the decision made by the Government of Finland to refrain from participation in the military intervention in Libya in March–April 2011. The Finnish decision-making illustrates that domestic politics, in particular the factor of election timing, can strengthen the feeling among decision-makers that they should follow the country's strategic culture. The article ends with theorization on the domestic political conditions under which decision-makers are more or less likely to deviate from strategic culture.

In contrast to most previous research on foreign-policy change, this article investigates how an individual decision-maker can have an impact on major changes in foreign policy. The article takes as its theoretical point of departure the concept of leader-driven change, which focuses on the determined efforts of a political leader to change policy. Empirically, the article investigates the change that occurred in Denmark's foreign policy when its government decided to participate in the United Nations sanctions against Iraq in August 1990. The article finds that the foreign minister was the main initiator of the policy change, that his personal characteristics played a decisive role, and that the Gulf crisis created a window of opportunity for the foreign minister to initiate the change in policy. In implementing the policy change, however, the foreign minister could not act independently, since he needed the support of other political actors. On the basis of these empirical findings, the article suggests a new theory of foreign-policy change.

The article sets out to further an understanding of how domestic politics can impact on foreign policy change in small states. The case of interest is the change that occurred in the foreign policy of Denmark when its government managed to put an end to the 'footnote policy' in mid-1988. The main conclusion is that changes in two particular domestic political factors, in terms of political party opposition and public opposition, facilitated a change in foreign policy for the Danish government. Changes in party and public opposition created opportunities for the government to use foreign policy change as a strategy to increase its political power on the domestic scene. In this case of foreign policy change, domestic political factors and external forces were equally important.