The Strategic Sources of Foreign Policy Substitution

While a growing body of work provides empirical support for the notion that political leaders "substitute" foreign policies depending on a variety of domestic political and economic conditions, little work examines the underlying strategic causes of substitution. This article argues that foreign states behave strategically in order to (a) avoid becoming the targets of domestically troubled executives or (b) to take advantage of the domestic trouble another state endures. Such "strategic interaction" delimits the set of foreign policies reasonably available to leaders in trouble at home, thus producing the impetus for policy substitution. This article develops a theoretical model of strategic behavior and policy substitution and reports empirical results of a multivariate probit model.     

Resistance from Within: Why Mexico's Attempt to Advance an Active Foreign Policy Failed

After becoming the first opposition candidate to win since 1910, President Vicente Fox kindled expectations at both national and international levels. He claimed he would enhance significantly the scope of the Mexico's foreign policy and engage the country in international politics in a way more befitting of its newly acquired democratic status. Nevertheless, little consideration was given to the fact that for many decades foreign policy in Mexico had been deployed to create an area screened‐off from domestic politics where conflicting factions were brought together and a policy consensus worked out. That consensus was sufficiently ample for the authoritarian elite, given its foreign policy goals and principles. It would, however, fail to suffice for any political leader willing to step outside the box of tradition. Fox did just that. In consequence, widespread reactions of disapproval from key political actors and the media led the president to settle for a more modest international agenda in 2002. This article explores the key processes that triggered so much internal resistance to Fox's foreign policy designs. I argue that these processes underpin what continues to be the essentially autarchic nature and scope of the Mexican foreign policy tradition. Such an autarchic approach is glorified in Mexican political rhetoric, yet has led to many lost opportunities for Mexico. Most importantly, I stress that the Mexican foreign policy tradition discourages and forecloses the kind of engagement in the international arena that seeks to share in rather than to free‐ride the collective efforts of the international community to procure security and peace. So despite its new democratic status, Mexico remains more of a spectator than an actor on the international stage.     

The Power of Money: Global Capital and Policy Choices in Developing Countries

Extant studies of the impact that international phenomena have on policy choices, and those focused on the political economy of exchange-rate regimes in particular, are incomplete because they do not consider the effect that reliance on global capital has on the policy preferences of domestic groups. Consequently, they cannot explain why some newly emerging market countries pursue fixed exchange regimes under political and economic conditions—such as recently completed elections, uncompetitive export sectors, and poor national economic performance—in which others have altered their policies. I argue that reliance on different types of foreign capital generates distinct capital-specific policy preferences. Furthermore, rather than simply mimicking the preferences of foreign investors, domestic groups are likely to promote policies that reduce their capital-specific risks and vulnerabilities. Panel logit models of exchange-rate regimes in emerging market countries from 1973 through 2000 demonstrate that higher levels of democracy bolster these effects .     

The Launching of the EMS: An Analysis of Change in Foreign Economic Policy

Foreign exchange markets are subject to changing international regimes. When and why regimes change is a legitimate focus of political study. This is particularly so as shifts in foreign exchange markets modify relative prices in and between national economies. Authorities presiding over foreign exchange markets are answerable to their national policy communities and to their national electorates. They also operate within an international state system. Applying John S. Odell's framework to an analysis of the launch of the European Monetary System (EMS) in April 1978 by Chancellor Schmidt and President Giscard d'Estaing, it is argued that a market perspective alone would have failed to predict the establishment of the EMS. An analysis of the principal actors and their ideas; of the power political constellation; and of the domestic context in the Federal Republic and in France, contributes most to explaining ex post the shift towards a European managed exchange rate regime. In this case, the neoclassical M arket perspective provided erroneous, inadequate and subsidiary explanations. The article suggests that foreign exchange policy and therefore global financial markets belong firmly in the realm of international and comparative political studies. They are too important to be left to economists alone.     

Japan's military research and development: A high technology deterrent

Abstract

This article examines the increased linkage between domestic and foreign policy that has been a consequence of democratization and globalization in Korea. It argues that while prior to 1987 foreign policy-making saw very little public input, and while democratization did not lead to a weakening of domestic political institutions nor a rise in nationalism, it did open up domestic political space where foreign policy-making increasingly became part of the contentious electoral competition. The globalization policy, initiated with the purpose of raising Korea's international status, which has remained a goal of succeeding administrations, created a complex interdependency which led to a breakdown in the separation between the domestic and international, and that often brought with it a domestic backlash. As a consequence foreign policy-making, in the absence of a tradition of political compromise, increasingly runs the risk of either inconsistency, or even deadlock.     

Policy Networks,Elections, and State Subsidies1

What are the effects of electoral competition on the disbursement of state subsidies in industrialized democracies? I argue that the scope of subsidies, which ranges from economy‐wide to regional and industry‐specific subsidies, is determined by the extent of political (electoral) monopoly conditioned by economic threats from foreign competition. The mechanism through which electoral competition is linked to subsidies is the policy network. I assess this argument by examining thirteen Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the period 1990–1993. The findings offer amendments to models of policy networks and speak to the importance of domestic institutions on factor mobility and trade policy.     

Building Political Participation: The Role of Family Policy and Political Science Courses

This mixed-methods study examined the long-term associations between two kinds of politics courses—required political science courses and required family policy courses—and the political participation, knowledge, skill, efficacy, and politically engaged identity of child and family studies alumni. Two special cases were examined: those who remembered their required political science and policy courses compared with the other groups. Additionally, open-ended responses were coded and analyzed. Together, the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that college courses impacted alumni political awareness in college but political awareness did not translate as strongly into later political participation as previous literature has assumed. Findings highlight the importance of postcollege personal connections and work experience in shaping political participation. Educators and researchers should consider this complex relationship between what students learn in college and what they may later experience in adulthood when developing curriculum for students who are not political science majors.     

Welfare Reform and Models of Public Policy: Why Policy Sciences Are Required

Policy could be studied on the basis of three different models: ideological, social science, and policy sciences. Policy in accordance with ideology may not necessarily rely on solid rigorous research to back it up. Policy made solely in accordance with a rigorous social science model might be able to demonstrate a causal relationship between a given policy and desired outcomes, and in the process establish a clear role for good research in the policy process. But it often fails to account for the larger social and political context in which policy is formulated. Good policy should be based on rigorous social science research, while also factoring in the values of the broader society, that is, ideology. This would imply that in order to bridge the gap, that good policy should be formulated in accordance with the policy sciences model because it connects the rigorous methodology of the social sciences with the larger social policy context, that is, the broader policy process. When analyzing the reform of 1996 within the framework of these models, it becomes clear that while the legislation is highly ideological, it is not based on any serious research that would satisfy the criteria of the social science model. It fails the policy sciences model, in part, because its absence of clearly defined objectives, or a single objective, makes the task of measurement difficult. On the contrary, this legislation is a good example of why the policy community would do better to rely more on the policy sciences.     

Policy Diffusion: Seven Lessons for Scholars and Practitioners

The scholarship on policy diffusion in political science and public administration is extensive. This article provides an introduction to that literature for scholars, students, and practitioners. It offers seven lessons derived from that literature, built from numerous empirical studies and applied to contemporary policy debates. Based on these seven lessons, the authors offer guidance to policy makers and present opportunities for future research to students and scholars of policy diffusion.     

Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature within political science and international studies that directly and indirectly uses, discusses and analyzes the processes involved in lesson-drawing, policy convergence, policy diffusion and policy transfer. While the terminology and focus often vary, all of these studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting.
Given that this is a growing phenomenon, it is something that anyone studying public policy needs to consider. As such, this article is divided into four major sections. The first section briefly considers the extent of, and reasons for, the growth of policy transfer. The second section then outlines a framework for the analysis of transfer. From here a third section presents a continuum for distinguishing between different types of policy transfer. Finally, the last section addresses the relationship between policy transfer and policy "failure."     

South Korea's elusive middlepowermanship: regional or global player?

South Korea aspires to a larger regional and global role, fuelled by economic success, and complemented by cultural and diplomatic achievement. However, a gap exists between the rhetoric and reality of its foreign policy. This paper examines Seoul's middle-power activism. It poses questions about the conceptual deficit of ‘middle power’, proffering an operational definition in illuminating the characteristic identity formation of middle powers. It analyses how the Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak governments sought to articulate their respective middle-power foreign policy aspirations. Finally, it investigates how domestic political and institutional conditions shape Republic of Korea foreign policy, and identifies policy implications.     

Policy Preferences and Political Distrust: A Comparison of Norway, Sweden and the United States

Many modern democracies have experienced a decrease in citizen support for government in recent decades. This article examines attitudes toward public policy as a plausible theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. The connection between public policy and support for the political regime has received considerable academic attention in the United States. Yet very little comparative work has examined whether citizens' policy preferences are related to a decline in diffuse support across different political systems. This article offers a clearer, more concise theoretical specification of the hypothesized relationship between public evaluations of policy outputs and support for the political regime. After specifying the theoretical concerns more succinctly, the article analyzes data from Norway, Sweden and the United States for the quarter century from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The analysis reveals that shifts in evaluations of foreign policy and race-related policies help explain change in political trust for all three countries despite differences in the political systems. Moral issues, such as abortion, however, have no impact on political trust in any of the countries.     

Multiple Hands on the Wheel: Empirically Modeling Partial Delegation and Shared Policy Control in the Open and Institutionalized Economy

The causal arguments of modern, positive political science oftenimply complex interactions among multiple explanatory factors.In one example from comparative and international politicaleconomy (C&IPE), sharing of monetary-policymaking controlbetween partially autonomous central banks and politically responsivegovernments yields inflation as a convex combination of therates that would have held under full-government and full-central-bankpolicy control. The anti-inflationary effect of central bankindependence (autonomy plus conservatism: CBA) therefore dependson all political–economic variables to which central banksand governments respond differently, and, vice versa, CBA mutesthe inflation effects of all such factors. Extending that logicof shared policy control to open political economies: insofaras domestic monetary authorities fix exchange rates, they effectivelydelegate inflation control to foreign (peg-currency) authorities,and policymakers in small and financially exposed economiesmust match domestic inflation to foreign (global) rates to avoidmassive exchange-rate pressures. Thus, analogously, the domestic-inflationeffects of fixed exchange rates and of monetary exposure dependon each other and on many other institutional and structuralaspects of the domestic and foreign political economies, and,vice versa, the effects of all domestic and foreign political–economicconditions depend on degrees of exchange-rate fixity and financialopenness at home and abroad. This article shows how to modelsuch complexly interactive hypotheses empirically compactlyand substantively meaningfully, and demonstrates the postwarinflation records of 21 developed democracies to favor suchspecifications decidedly over standard linear-additive or linear-interactivealternatives. The concluding sections discuss specific resultsand implications and then suggest several more potential applicationsof this general approach to further instances of shared policycontrol and other substantive contexts that induce the multiple,complex interactions characteristic of modern, positive politicalscience in general and C&IPE especially.     

Policy Feedback and the Politics of Administration

This article surveys the policy feedback framework developed in political science and clarifies its implications for public administration. A feedback perspective encourages us to ask how policy implementation transforms the webs of political relations that constitute governance. Administrators play a key role in shaping the political conditions of bureaucratic performance and the organization of power in the broader polity. At the same time, this perspective underscores that policies are more than just objects of administrative action. Policies are political forces in their own right that can alter key components of administration, including phenomena such as organizational capacity, structures, routines, authorities, motivations and cultures. These sorts of administrative themes have received little attention in policy feedback research, just as the political effects of policies have been overlooked in public administration studies. Bridging these perspectives offers a basis for exciting new agendas and advances in public administration research.     

Public Policy Failure or Historical Debacle? A Study of Eritrea's Relations With Ethiopia Since 1991

Public policy transcends the domain of domestic policies and encompasses or even determines the type of relations that countries build with each other. It is well known that policies are nothing but decisions of governments as formal authorization on the given issue at hand. In other words, policy is a sum total of decisions made by the authority and hence it involves what governments actually do and not what they intend to do. Public opinion is a powerful criterion especially in democracies. It is provided in the constitutions and the people's role in policymaking is confirmed through this. Political parties, mass media, newspapers, and such others claim to represent public opinion. Rationality is another criteria in policymaking in which the leadership takes supposedly rational decisions on different issues of concern particularly those relating to foreign affairs. The criteria on political and economic situation depends on the actions of politicians, the legacy of the past, the nature of government organizations/institutions, and the constraints posed by domestic economic situations and conditions. Although policymakers enjoy complete independence from external control, unfortunately Third World countries such as those in Africa are not free to make their policies due to various reasons such as interdependence, and the domestic political and economic situations, compelling them to take a cue from external factors or power centers. The many conceptual models of public policy offer a wide variety of understanding on how they can be applied to different countries and to different situations. In fact, most policies are a combination of rational planning, instrumentalism, interest group activity, elite preferences, systemic forces, game planning, public choice, political processes and institutional influences. However, at times we find not all of these may be applicable to all countries. It in effect depends on the rational calculations of the countries in question how they would make or have their policies consonant with their national interests. The case of Eritrea and Ethiopia is a classic example that fits into the above paradigm and in which to enquire how their policies varied in spite of being friendly neighbors but later turning into hostile foes. What went wrong and how? Was it a product of their policy failures or was it due to historical debacles? This article therefore is an attempt to explore the current state of relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia in the light of the above‐mentioned conceptual framework by showing how their mutual policies were not compatible enough to solidify their initial cordiality and friendliness. In order to do this a brief sketch of historical background is provided to help understand and analyze the impact it had on contemporary policies between them. The internal political dynamics and ideological doctrines of Eritrea are the focus of next discussion. The period of cordiality and later the period of hostility are discussed next. Finally, recent trends and future prospects are put forward.     

When Experts Do Politics: Introducing Water Policy Reform in Brazil

This article brings to the fore the role of experts as policy agents by analyzing the water management reform in three Brazilian states. Seeking to contribute to the recent ideational turn in political science, it contends that in studying the emergence and implementation of new policy ideas, more attention must be paid to the role of experts as policy innovators and to the interplay between experts' knowledge brokerage and the influence of party politics. To examine the interaction between knowledge brokerage and party politics, comparative case studies were conducted to trace back throughout their different phases the reform processes of the Brazilian states of Ceará, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul. The purpose of this research design is to test the argument that experts are major reform agents and that what experts can effectively achieve depends on both the reform phase and the political context they find themselves in.     

The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism, 1936–2014

Applying a dynamic latent‐variable model to data on 148 policies collected over eight decades (1936–2014), we produce the first yearly measure of the policy liberalism of U.S. states. Our dynamic measure of state policy liberalism marks an important advance over existing measures, almost all of which are purely cross‐sectional and thus cannot be used to study policy change. We find that, in the aggregate, the policy liberalism of U.S. states steadily increased between the 1930s and 1970s and then largely plateaued. The policy liberalism of most states has remained stable in relative terms, though several states have shifted considerably over time. We also find surprisingly little evidence of multidimensionality in state policy outputs. Our new estimates of state policy liberalism have broad application to the study of political development, representation, accountability, and other important issues in political science.     

Policy Studies And Political Science

Studies of "policy" and l'policymakingll have proliferated recently. One reason is the serious policymaking difficulties of American and other Western governments. Earlier political science did not address these problems well because of its concentration on political input processes rather than outputs. Most policy studies either evaluate programs 0' explain cases of policymaking, The approach proposed here, called public policy, does both. Analyses of preferred options are played off against the limitations of process, and vice versa. This conception is illustrated and the problems posed by it are discussed.     

Foreign and Defence Policy on Australia's Political Agenda, 1962–2012

This paper explores the content of the Australian foreign and defence policy agenda over the past 50 years, finding evidence of both continuity and change. Australian political leaders have generally committed to cooperation with international institutions, wealth creation through engagement with Asian economies in particular, and security through the American alliance. In this period, changes in foreign policy approach either concerned marginal issues or were driven significantly by exogenous factors: by changes in the international environment or by global events that propelled a reconsideration of Australian foreign and defence policy interests. However, periods of policy change and significant public attention in – particular around the Vietnam and Iraq wars – illustrate the continued relevance of political choices and agency. Both conflicts and debates around them ushered in changing foreign and defence policy considerations, and both raised fundamental questions about Australian security and independence in the context of the American alliance.     

Policy Community Realism versus'New' Institutionalist Ambiguity

There has been widespread interest in the term 'institution' within political science in the past five years. Two principal uses of this are identified. The first is associated with the policy community literature and in this sense the institution is an extra-constitutional policymaking arrangement between ministries and clientelistic groups. The second use of the term is associated with state-centred authors who wish to argue for the relative autonomy of political institutions. In this second use there is ambiguity about the scope of the term institution; whether it is, or is not, intended to be confined to traditional institutions or whether the disaggregated state embraces the newer policy community phenomenon.