Narrative, Ontological Security, and Foreign Policy Change

Abstract After 2014 the relationship between Russia and its ally Belarus was strained. Russia was dissatisfied with Belarus’s foreign policy and sought to influence the latter’s international affairs. This article considers the extent of change and continuity in Belarus’s foreign policy, and thus whether Russia’s criticisms reflect consequential shifts, covering the period 2016–2019. The analysis begins with the removal of EU sanctions, which afforded Belarus new opportunities, and ends before the protest movement that emerged ahead of the election in 2020. The study considers three policy areas: international trade; diplomacy more broadly; and foreign policy concerns for prestige. The article argues that Belarus made appreciable policy changes in response to structural pressures in the period 2016–2019, but the parameters of these foreign policy shifts were necessarily highly constrained by domestic interest group competition which prevents Belarus distancing itself from Russia. It concludes with a brief reflection on how the 2020 election protests and repressions affect the dynamics described.

Download Full-text

Cognitive Structure and Foreign Policy Change: Israel’s Decision to Talk to the PLO

International Relations ◽

10.1177/0047117811404580 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 426-454 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Guy Ziv

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Policy Change ◽

Cognitive Structure ◽

Foreign Policy Change

Download Full-text

Foreign policy change as rhetorical politics: domestic-regional constellation of Global South states

International Relations ◽

10.1177/00471178211052870 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 004711782110528

Author(s):

Rafael D Villa ◽

Sasikumar S Sundaram

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Policy Change ◽

Political Action ◽

Policy Issue ◽

Foreign Policy Analysis ◽

Foreign Policies ◽

Multiple Audiences ◽

Foreign Policy Issue ◽

Foreign Policy Change ◽

Postcolonial States

Although the recent advancements in critical constructivist IR on political rhetoric has greatly improved our understanding of linguistic mechanisms of political action, we need a sharp understanding of how rhetoric explains foreign policy change. Here we conceptualize a link between rhetoric and foreign policy change by foregrounding distinct dynamics at the regional and domestic institutional environments. Analytically, at the regional level, we suggest examining whether norms of foreign policy engagement are explicitly coded in treaties and agreements or implicit in conventions and practices of actors. And at the domestic level, we suggest examining whether a particular foreign policy issue area is concurrent or contested among interlocutors. In this constellation, we clarify how four different rhetorical strategies underwrites foreign policy change – persuasion, mediation, explication and reconstruction – how it operates, and the processes through which it unfolds in relation to multiple audiences. Our principal argument is that grand foreign policy change requires continuous rhetorical deployments with varieties of politics to preserve and stabilize the boundaries in the ongoing fluid relations of states. We illustrate our argument with an analysis of Brazil’s South-South grand strategy under the Lula administration and contrast it against the rhetoric of subsequent administrations. Our study has implications for advancing critical foreign policy analysis on foreign policy change and generally for exploring new ways of studying foreign policies of nonwestern postcolonial states in international relations.

Download Full-text