Gyngell and Wesley: The two worlds of foreign policy

Gyngell and Wesley (2003) talked about the two worlds of foreign policy. Practitioners have a different view of foreign policy in comparison to academics. I agree with their distinction and will expand on some of the points they made in their book.

Some academics think that foreign policy is a structured detailed plan outlining the interaction between two states. Mitna (2018) challenged this perception with the statement that foreign policy does not need to be a predetermined course of action or strategy. It can be an impromptu statement or expression of a particular view, reflecting the reactive nature of foreign policy. Decision-makers decide what foreign policy is by choosing what they do.

This is evident in the case of Marape and his choice to focus on Southeast Asia. After his election as the Prime Minister, he made this impromptu statement about working with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. He said he wanted to focus more on trade and economics.

Furthermore, Mitna (2018) also stated that the discretion of the decision-makers reflect the disorderly nature of foreign policy. That means foreign policy is not so orderly as one might think. Hence, PNG does not need to do what Australia has done by writing a detailed foreign policy white paper to document what we intend to do.

Have a look at the video clip below about the discussion in parliament about why PNG voted against moving the US embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the UN. During the Pato era, he spoke clearly that his policy tag was 'PNG Connect in a globalized world'. Nevertheless, in his defence of the government's decision at the UN, he said the foreign policy was 'Friends to all and enemies to none'.

Gyngell and Wesley (2003) stated that debates among IR academics have singularly failed to arouse the attention or interest of any but the IR community in Australia. In PNG, we do not have a good number of IR academics in comparison to Australia. As such, there is no healthy debate or discussion about issues and policies. 

They also pointed out that the practitioner community in Australia seems to have grown increasingly uninterested in the results of academic research, thinking it lacks much relevance to the real world. Many are unconvinced of the value of critiques of realism, which for the majority of DFAT staff continue to provide simple, powerful signpost about the nature of their trade. 

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in PNG was focused for a few years on recruiting graduates from universities and putting them through their foreign service training program facilitated by the Victoria University of Wellington. Their corporate plan does not talk about funding research or helping establish a pool of IR academics. Their focus is on growing the pool of practitioners rather then helping the growth of IR academics which might play a pivotal role in policy making.

The scholars mentioned that those in the academic world who have influenced Australian foreign policy and had their views sought out in the past decades have been figures not from IR but from economics, strategic studies and specialist-area studies. In PNG, Professor Edward Wolfers (an Australian academic) has been advising the DFA for a long time. Apart from him, the others are retired practitioners.

In addition, they said many retired practitioners find it hard to relate to and gain acceptance from the increasingly rarefied world of academic IR. This experience is similar to PNG. Many of the retired practitioners possess practical knowledge which is vital in the training of future diplomats or foreign service officers. However, they either find it hard to relate to the world of academic IR or they see no monetary value or benefit in sharing their knowledge.

They said the practitioner's view of foreign policy is of a world of complex detail and incessant demands on time, attention and resources. The policy field of the practitioner resists simple solutions and evades summary or generalization: "The reality lies in the detail and in the interaction of details lies the policy". IR academia will expose you to concepts and frameworks for analysis but will not be able to show you the practitioner's view.

Furthermore, practitioners look for exceptions to general statements about foreign policy issues. Their experience of trying to implement policy in the difficult, wilful, resistant world of IR make them skeptical of high sounding schemes and principles, as well as the moral simplicity and unqualified solutions offered by academics and public alike. IR academics have the luxury of sitting in their offices and reading about what is happening. Through reading and analyzing they offer simple and unqualified solutions which does not correlate with the practical challenges faced by practitioners.

They argue that the academic's world is one of abstraction and generalization, of post-hoc analysis and probabilistic prediction. This statement does not in any way mean that the IR academics world is of lesser importance to the world of IR practitioners. Both coexist to help find a way forward in the anarchic international system.

Finally, they stated that logical consistency, analytical rigor and innovations of inference are the standards of success for academics; for practitioners, effectiveness consists in standards of fine, verifiable detail and knowledge of the dispositions of key people in both the policy and organizational environments. The IR academic world in PNG still has a long way to go in comparison to the world of IR practitioners.    

References

Gyngell, A., & Wesley, M. (2003). Making Australian foreign policy (pp. 1-16). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mitna, P (2018). Factors influencing Papua New Guinea’s foreign policy in the Twenty-First Century (Doctoral dissertation, The Australian National University). Retrieved from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/156980/1/PhD%20Thesis%20-%20Philip%20Mitna%202019.pdf