# Book - Foreign Policy in a transformed World Mark Webber and Michael Smith Prentice Hall [[Foreign Policy]] #book --- ## Chapter 1: Problems and issues in Foreign Policy Analysis ### Foreign policy puzzles The starting position is to answer the question of "what's going on here?" and "who is doing what to whom?". There are multiple layers, and different forces interaction and influencing formulation, implementing or foreign policies. Page 10-11, ### Foreign policy: Traditional assumptions 1. State-central realism assumption that only states make foreign policies on the basis of sovereignty and independence. The key value of "national interest" 1. The consequence will be the guard against threats, and exacerbate the realists view that human motivation for power being the driving force. 2. Viewed from this perspective means that foreign policy is "national security policy", dangerous and need to be made carefully by elites, because any mistakes will threaten survival. 3. responsible authorities practice diplomacy to manage avoiding the worse risks. 4. Unwritten rules about how national governments should behave; conduct diplomacy to conduct business of the nation. 1. But what is this rule? But no one know how the consequences of those choices, so it's always about making constant delicate choices, by specialists. 2. The notion of Power is central to this traditional view. Depending on the military strength of the state ### Transformed world 1. Why transformed? End of cold war. There are more new states; that are weak, instable, etc. 2. Changes in power distribution. Decline of European empire, changes in development in ASIA. 3. new states bring about economic, political, ethnic and other tensions. 4. transnational organisations, 5. MNC There are different perspectives on f.p 1. Realism 2. Neo-Realism 3. Pluralism 4. Dependency 5. Globalist ## Chapter 2: The Foreign Policy Arena