Emotions and EU foreign policy

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-304
Author(s):  
Karen E Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Eu Foreign Policy ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article assesses the role that emotions play in European Union foreign policy-making. EU decision-making has often been depicted as technocratic and ‘de-dramatized’, yet there are still situations in which emotions can affect the process and outcomes of foreign policy decision-making. Using examples of the EU's responses to crises in Ukraine and Myanmar, the article illustrates that emotions can motivate the taking of particular decisions at particular times. Further, the EU expresses emotions in its foreign policy communications, although its use of emotional diplomacy may not be accompanied by substantive action appropriate to the emotions expressed, thus revealing the existence of an emotions–action gap. The ‘emotional turn’ in foreign policy analysis can open up new directions for research in EU foreign policy, and the conclusion considers other promising avenues for researching emotions and EU foreign policy.

scholarly journals Missing in Analysis: Women in Foreign Policy–Making

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
Karen E Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Policy Decision Making

Abstract Foreign policy analysis (FPA) opens the “black box” of the state and provides explanations of how and why foreign policy decisions are made, which puts individuals and groups (from committees to ministries) at the center of analysis. Yet the sex of the decision-maker and the gendered nature of the decision-making process have generally been left out of the picture. FPA has not addressed questions regarding the influence of women in foreign policy decision-making processes or the effects of gender norms on decision-making; indeed, FPA appears to be almost entirely gender-free. This article argues that “gendering” FPA is long overdue and that incorporating gender into FPA frameworks can provide a richer and more nuanced picture of foreign policy–making.

Germany’s coalition faces division on several fronts

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
Investment Agreement ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Eu

Significance The three parties successfully negotiated a coalition agreement with a strong emphasis on modernising Germany’s economy. Throughout the negotiations, the parties presented a public image of stability and harmony, yet several divisive issues will test the new government's stability and effectiveness. Impacts The composition of the new government will make it harder for Berlin to win approval for the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement. Chancellor Olaf Scholz will seek to prioritise more unity at the EU level when it comes to foreign policy decision-making. The spread of the Omicron variant will slow economic recovery and potentially delay the transition to a greener economy.

Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mintz ◽  
Amnon Sofrin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Unique Decision

Key theories of foreign policymaking include: the rational actor model, prospect theory, poliheuristic theory, cybernetic theory, bureaucratic politics, and organizational politics; and, at the group level, groupthink, polythink, and con-div. These theories are based on unique decision rules, including maximizing, satisficing, elimination by aspect, lexicographic, etc. A new, two-group model of foreign policy decision-making includes a decision design group and a decision approval group.

scholarly journals Politics, policy-making and the presence of images of suffering children

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-608
Author(s):  
Helen Berents
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Visual Politics ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Political Dimensions

Abstract In 2017 Trump expressed pity for the ‘beautiful babies’ killed in a gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Syria before launching airstrikes against President Assad's regime. Images of suffering children in world politics are often used as a synecdoche for a broader conflict or disaster. Injured, suffering, or dead; the ways in which images of children circulate in global public discourse must be critically examined to uncover the assumptions that operate in these environments. This article explores reactions to images of children by representatives and leaders of states to trace the interconnected affective and political dimensions of these images. In contrast to attending to the expected empathetic responses prompted by images of children, this article particularly focuses on when such images prompt bellicose foreign policy decision-making. In doing this, the article forwards a way of thinking about images as contentious affective objects in international relations. The ways in which images of children's bodies and suffering are strategically deployed by politicians deserves closer scrutiny to uncover the visual politics of childhood inherent in these moments of international politics and policy-making.

scholarly journals Critiques of the Rational Actor Model and Foreign Policy Decision Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Alden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Many

Foreign policy decision making has been and remains at the core of foreign policy analysis and its enduring contribution to international relations. The adoption of rationalist approaches to foreign policy decision making, predicated on an actor-specific analysis, paved the way for scholarship that sought to unpack the sources of foreign policy through a graduated assessment of differing levels of analysis. The diversity of inputs into the foreign policy process and, as depicted through a rationalist decision-making lens, the centrality of a search for utility and the impulse toward compensation in “trade-offs” between predisposed preferences, plays a critical role in enriching our understanding of how that process operates. FPA scholars have devoted much of their work to pointing out the many flaws in rationalist depictions of the decision-making process, built on a set of unsustainable assumptions and with limited recognition of distortions underlined in studies drawn from literature on psychology, cognition, and the study of organizations. At the same time, proponents of rational choice have sought to recalibrate the rational approach to decision making to account for these critiques and, in so doing, build a more robust explanatory model of foreign policy.

Foreign Policy Decision-Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica D. Blankshain
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Policy Decision Making

The study of foreign policy decision-making seeks to understand how states formulate and enact foreign policy. It views foreign policy as a series of decisions made by particular actors using specific decision-making processes. The origins of this focus on decision-making are generally traced to the 1950s and 1960s, with the literature increasing in complexity and diversity of approaches in more recent decades. Foreign policy decision-making is situated within foreign policy analysis (a subfield of international relations subfield), which applies theories and methods from an array of disciplines—political science, public administration, economics, psychology, sociology—to understand how states make foreign policy, and how these policies translate into geopolitical outcomes. The literature on foreign policy decision-making is often subdivided based on assumptions about the process by which actors make foreign policy decisions—primarily falling into rational and nonrational decision-making; about who is assumed to make the decision—states, individuals, groups, or organizations; and about the influences believed to be most important in affecting those decisions—international factors, domestic political factors, interpersonal dynamics, etc. While much of the literature focuses on foreign policy decision-making in the United States, there have been attempts to apply models developed in the US context to other states, as well as to generate generalizable theories about foreign policy decision-making that apply to certain types of states.

To Negotiate or Not-to Negotiate with the FDLR Rebels? President Kikwete and Tanzania’s Foreign Policy towards Rwanda (2013–2015)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Nicodemus Minde
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Abstract This article challenges traditional approaches to inter-state relations and reinforces the actor-specific nature of foreign policy analysis. Using individual decision-making theory based on the personalities of key political actors, this article proposes a case study on the foreign policy decision outcome by Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, in response to the 2013 diplomatic row with Rwanda. Tanzania’s relations with Rwanda have historically been cordial. However, President Kikwete’s proposal for Rwanda to negotiate with the rebel group Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in 2013 was not well received by Rwanda. The FDLR is a Hutu rebel outfit based in Eastern DRC, consisting of surviving Hutus who had fled into DRC, after the 1994 genocide. This article argues that in view of the diplomatic row that ensued, Kikwete’s response supports current theories on the role played by a key political actor’s personality in the foreign policy decision-making process.

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