International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs

International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs
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International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs
This discussion is a summary of chapters 5-14 of this book by D’Anieri, (2021).
Part III: Actors and Processes in Foreign Policy
1 State and Societal Explanations
The democratic peace theory has two versions thus; the individual model posits that generally, democracies are more peaceful whereas the dyadic think that they are warlike. In democracies, the structural argument says that compromise is used to resolve political disputes, a pattern that is translated into foreign relations. The normative argument denotes that mutual respect guides democracies away from war. The institutional argument argues that there’s a likelihood of democracies winning wars and that their leaders are more sensitive to the political costs of losing a war. The theory influenced World War I diplomacy and the United States’ entry into the war. After the 1989–1991 end of the Cold War, Europe, and the U.S. (through the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton), promoted post-communist states’ democracy through integration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union (EU), and initiating aid programs to transit Russia into democratic rule and a market economy. National interest, interest groups, public opinion, and the media influence foreign policy.
2 Decision Making
Foreign policy analysis involves studying areas of bureaucracies, the process of decision-making, and the leaders’ psychological characteristics. In most countries, foreign policies are usually made by heads of government (executive). The Rational Action Model of foreign policy decision-making assumes rationality in trying to achieve a specific goal. The bureaucratic politics model asserts usually competing, distinct, interests of the bureaucracies in policymaking, resulting in policies laden with bureaucratic interests, as opposed to the most rational policy for the country. As such, this approach leads to decisions from a compromise, preferred by one bureaucratic player, or an unintended consequence. The organizational process model makes the case that bureaucracies make decisions based on standard operating procedures. Small-Group Decision Making is normally affected by groupthink. Individual Decision Making involves a single decision-maker.
3 International Organizations and Transnational Actors
States form international organizations such as the International Governmental Organizations like the United Nations, UN, World Trade Organization, WTO, ASEAN, OPEC, IMF, WB, NATO, to have a forum for the state representatives of member states to engage in discussions on issues of mutual interest, thereby having inexpensive solutions to certain problems as opposed to when IGOs are absent. Such problems are highlighted by liberal institutionalism as those of a prisoners’ dilemma nature, e.g., security, competitive tariffs, and environment protection. This theory assumes that these IGOs solve the issues of information, monitoring, and transaction costs. States rely on data collected by internation...