Foreign policy

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Commercial liberalism and the six norms

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Liberal internationalism is defined by Griffiths, O'Callaghan and Roach (2008, p.190) as a project to transform international relations so that they conform to models of peace, freedom, and prosperity allegedly enjoyed within constitutional liberal democracies. The same scholars go further by dividing liberalism into three distinct groups. They say these are the three ways to implement the project. The way they present liberal internationalism as a project makes their work interesting. Three distinct groups Firstly, commercial liberalism is about free trade between states. States bilaterally or multilaterally via a platform like APEC pursue the goal of trade liberalization. Griffiths, O'Callagahan and Roach (ibid.) argued that economic interdependence would decrease the likelihood of going to war. Republican liberalism is about democratic peace. The scholars argued that the spread of democracy among states so that governments will be accountable to their citizens makes it di...
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Security as a Concept: Why the Debate Still Matters

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By Bernard Yegiora Security remains one of the most powerful and contested ideas in international relations. It shapes budgets, institutions, political priorities, and ultimately determines who receives protection and who does not. Yet despite its centrality, the meaning of security is neither fixed nor universally agreed upon. In a recent seminar presentation, my students examined how the concept of security has evolved beyond its traditional military focus. Drawing on Paul Williams’ Security Studies: An Introduction and the broader framework associated with Barry Buzan, the discussion explored how security now extends into political, economic, societal, and environmental domains. This expansion has significantly reshaped both scholarship and policy practice. Seminar 1: Reframing Security in International Relations — examining how the concept of security has evolved from traditional military concerns to include human, economic, societal, and environmental dimensions. For much of the...
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FPA: Organizational Process Model

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This model centers on the fact that different bureaucracies have different standard operating procedures. These procedures are made in order to allow day to day operations to be carried out. Thus, a foreign policy decision is made based on these standard operating procedures. It is hard for a bureaucracy to make a decision or let alone function out of character or contrary to their standard operating procedure. The reading Chapter 4: Foreign policy shares a straight forward explanation of the OPM: "An alternative to the rational model of decision making is the organizational process model. In this model, foreign policy decision makers generally skip the labor-intensive process of identifying goals and alternative actions, relying instead for most decisions on standardized responses or standard operating procedures. For example, the U.S. State Department everyday receives more than a thousand reports or inquiries from its embassies around the world and sends out more than a ...
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