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The study of British foreign policy: some comments on Professor Barber's review article*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Brain P. White
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Extract

This article does not purport to be a critique of a stimulating review of four recent textbooks on British foreign policy. A review article, however, does present an opportunity to speculate beyond the confines of the immediate text(s) to make some assessment of the ‘state of the discipline’. The writer believes that such an assessment is long overdue and that an important opportunity in this journal was inadequately grasped. What follows, then, are some initial comments on the status of British foreign policy studies in the context of contemporary foreign policy analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , October 1977 , pp. 340 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1977

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References

page 340 note 1 This approach can be usefully related to the cluster of assumptions which Joseph Nye has conveniently packaged and labelled “state-centric realism”. Nye, J. S., ‘Transnational and Transgovernmental Relations’ in Goodwin, G. and Linklater, A. (eds.), New Dimensions of World Politics (London, 1975), p. 36Google Scholar. The notion of a “traditional paradigm” in International Relations has been investigated in several recent articles. See, inter alia, Lijphart, A., ‘The Structure of the Scientific Revolution in International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly, xviii (1974)Google Scholar; Puchala, D. J. and Fagan, S. I., ‘International Politics in the 1970s: the Search for a Perspective’, International Organisation, xxviii (1974)Google Scholar; Wagner, R. Harrison, ‘Dissolving the State: Three Recent Perspectives’, International OrganisationGoogle Scholar, op. cit. For attempt to locate traditional perspectives within the broader development of foreign policy analysis, see my ‘Decision-Making Analysis’, Taylor, T. (ed.), Theory and Approaches in International Relations (London, 1977)Google Scholar forthcoming.

page 340 note 2 Pettman, R., Human Behaviour and World Politics (London, 1975), p. 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 341 note 1 International Affairs, xxxv (1969), p. 524Google Scholar. William Wallace's book is a welcome response t o that challenge. See The Foreign Policy Process in Britain (London, 1975).Google Scholar The fact that this i s the first full-scale study of the policy process is itself testimony to the dominance of traditional perspectives.

page 341 note 2 Descentfrom Power: British Foreign Policy 1945–73 (London, 1974)Google Scholar.

page 341 note 3 Barber, op. cit. p . 275–76.

page 341 note 4 Waltz, K., Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics (London, 1977)Google Scholar, cited in Barber, op. cit. p. 278.

page 341 note 5 Wallace, op. cit. p. iX.

page 341 note 6 Frankel, J., British Foreign Policy 1945–73 (London, 1975), pp.7–8.Google Scholar

page 341 note 7 Allison, G. T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, 1971).Google Scholar

page 341 note 8 Boardman and Groom contrast developments in foreign policy theory with the paucity of such work in British foreign policy analysis. Boardman, R. and Groom, A. J. R. (eds.), The Management of Britain's External Relations (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

page 342 note 1 For an excellent evaluation of “bureaucratic politics” models, see Art, R. J., ‘Bureaucratic Politics and American Foreign Policy: A Critique’, Policy Sciences, iv (1973), pp. 467–490CrossRefGoogle ScholarFreedman's, Lawrence recent article is a rare British contribution to this debate: ‘Logic, Politics and Foreign Policy processes’, International Affairs, 52 (1976), pp. 434–449CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 342 note 2 Young, O. R., ‘The Perils of Odysseus: On Constructing Theories in International Relations’ in Tanter, R. and Ullman, R. H. (eds.), Theory and Policy in International (Princeton, 1972), p. 188Google Scholar.

page 342 note 3 Allison, op. cit. p. 4.

page 342 note 4 Frankel, op. cit. p. 28.

page 342 note 5 Wallace, op. cit. p. 9.

page 342 note 6 Allison, op. cit. p. 67ff.

page 342 note 7 See Harrison Wagner, op. cit. p. 447ff.

page 342 note 8 The stimulating work of Richard Neustadt is instructive here, see Alliance Politics (New York, 1970)Google Scholar, and “White House and Whitehall”, reprinted in Halperin, M. H. and Kanter, A. (eds.), Readings in American Foreign Policy: A Bureaucratic Perspective (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar.

page 342 note 9 Surely the “Community Power” debate taught this lesson more than a decade ago.

page 343 note 1 This academic tradition cannot narrowly be identified with “state-centric realism”, but the precise nature of the relationship must be investigated elsewhere.

page 343 note 2 These attitudes have been mirrored recently by F. S. Northedge. See his response, ‘Transnationalism: the American Illusion’, to J. N. Rosenau's revised address to the British International Studies Association (Birmingham, 1975) in ‘International Studies in a Trans-national World’, Millenium, v (1976)Google Scholar.

page 343 note 3 Boardman and Groom specifically relate methodological conservatism to the data problem. See op. cit. pp. 18–19.

page 343 note 4 Watt, D. C., ‘Foreign Affairs, the Public Interest and the Right to Know’, Political Quarterly, 34, (1963), pp. 121–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some of the 1946 Cabinet Papers due for release this year under the Thirty Year Rule have been denned as “sensitive” (by whom?) and withheld for another twenty years. See Sunday Times, 2 January, 1977.

page 343 note 5 Barber, op. cit. p. 272.

page 344 note 1 Having suggested, for example, that the change in Conservative policy towards the EEC after 1969 can be explained in part by the links between “influential conservatives” and the “city”, Wallace is not predisposed to investigate the nature of those links. See Wallace op. cit. p. 89.

page 344 note 2 Jones, R. E., The Changing Structure of British Foreign Policy (London, 1974)Google Scholar.

page 344 note 3 Ibid. p. 1. It would have been interesting in this context ifJones had developed the idea of traditionalism as an ideology.

page 344 note 4 Ibid. p. 13.

page 344 note 5 Ibid. p. 13.

page 345 note 1 Northedge, op. cit. p. 11.

page 345 note 2 Ibid. p. 328.

page 345 note 3 Jones, op. cit. p. 6, (my insert).

page 345 note 4 Ibid, p . 12, (my insert).

page 345 note 5 Ibid. p. 11.

page 345 note 6 Hilsman, R. in Rosenau, J. N. (ed.), International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York, 1969), p. 232Google Scholar.

page 345 note 7 This point has been at the heart of criticisms of bureaucratic politics models. See R. J. Art, op. cit.

page 346 note 1 For an empirical study which does include an analysis of foreign policy issues, see Hewitt, C., ‘Policy-Making in Britain: A Nation-Level Test of Elitist and Pluralist Hypotheses’, British Journal of Political Science, iv (1974), pp. 187–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 346 note 2 A useful overview of this debate is contained in Jones, G. W., ‘The Prime Minister's Power’, Parliamentary Affairs, xviii (1965), pp. 167–185Google Scholar.

page 346 note 3 Wallace, op. cit. p. 273.

page 346 note 4 See, for example, Seymour-Ure, C., ‘The “Disintegration” of the Cabinet and the Neglected Question of Cabinet Reform’, Parliamentary Affairs, xxiv (1971)Google Scholar.

page 346 note 5 Boardman and Groom, op. cit. p. 334. They argue that many of the questions raised in their book could usefully be pursued on a comparative basis. Interestingly, Boardman warns against excessive reliance on state-centric models in his ‘Comparative Method and Foreign Policy’, Yearbook of World Affairs (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

page 346 note 6 Verba, S., ‘Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research’, World Politics, xx (1967), p. 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 346 note 7 For a sceptical review of achievements in this field, see Faurby, I., ‘Premises, Promises and Problems of Comparative Foreign Policy’, Co-operation and Conflict, iii (1976), pp. 139–162CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 347 note 1 Frankel indicates some of the problems here, but concentrates on the uniqueness of Britain and the British experience. See Frankel, J., ‘Comparing Foreign Policies: The Case of Norway’, International Affairs, 44, (1968), p. 482CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 347 note 2 Boardman suggests three areas of enquiry that might be subsumed under the heading Comparative Foreign Policy. See op. cit. pp. 382.

page 347 note 3 This should not of course be taken to indicate that there have not been some useful studies produced. Reference has already been made to some of these. A notable omission is Kaiser, K. and Morgan, R. (eds.), Britain and West Germany: Changing Societies and Foreign Policy (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

page 347 note 4 Barber, J., Who Makes British Foreign Policy? (Open University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

page 347 note 5 Ibid. p. 1. These perspectives are labelled: The Formal Office Holders; The Departmental Negotiated Order; Pluralism; Public Control.

page 347 note 6 Ibid. p. 2. Barber makes it quite clear that he could have chosen other ways of answering the question, by attempting to apply Allison's models; see, for example, p. 5, note 1.

page 347 note 7 Ibid. p. 3.