Definition of the Concept of Foreign Policy (Definition, Foreign Policy Objectives of States)

Although considered as a branch of political science concerned with relations between nations and primarily with foreign policies, it is essentially an interdisciplinary field of a serious academic study of which requires knowledge of international history, law, and economics as well as foreign policy and international politics.

"those actions which, expressed in the form of explicitly stated goals, commitments and/or directives, and pursued by governmental representatives acting on behalf of their sovereign communities, are directed towards objectives, conditions and actors- both governmental and non- governmental- which they want to affect and which lie beyond their territorial legitimacy"

This is notion is defined as the perceptions of foreign policy makers’ on their nations’ position in the international system, its national interests and the key principles that allow it to defend them.

they are potentially useful in understanding and explaining patterns of foreign policy actions of a particular state because they remain fairly consistent and stable over extended time periods, and therefore, feed into the continuity of particular behaviours on foreign relations. 

Power is a concept that refers to the in uence and control exercised by one nation over others.

In e ect foreign policy involves actors within and outside of state boundaries; organized as di erent groups with both contradicting and overlapping interests, interacting through differing networks.

the politics of many international negotiations can usefully be conceived as a two-level game. At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favourable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among those groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments. Neither of the two games can be ignored by central decision-makers, so long as their countries remain interdependent, yet sovereign.

This term is the execution of a foreign policy decision in order to in uence the behavior of an external actor for securing the interests of the agent.

This notion is “used generally in two senses in IR: as an analytical tool identifying the goals or objectives offoreign policy and as an all-embracing concept of political discourse used specifically to justify particular policy preferences. In both senses, it refers to the basic determinants that guide state policy in relation to the external environment.

The domestic and international politics had to be aligned within the framework largely determined by block discipline. As a result of that the distinction between external and internal policies have typically faded. In this way foreign policy was treated as an instrument to achieve security, through which survival is guaranteed, dual goals enshrined in the concept of national interest and to which all other policy priorities were subordinated. Therefore, foreign policy was deemed as the dominion of raison d’être.

This term is generally the ultimate reason or purpose for someone or something’s existence. In the case of a sovereign state it represents the goals of the country the most important of which is to survive in the international system.

Globalisation and regional integration has blurred the lines between domestic and foreign spheres of political action. The increase in the number, international reach, capabilities and impact of non- state actors – including but not limited to national and transnational Non-Governmental Organisations – serves as a catalyst in strengthening the link between domestic and foreign policy.

It defines the processes whereby state-centric agencies, terms of reference and the state’s ability to control the international processes that are limited in favour of interaction and integration between different actors.

Any entity that plays an identifiable role in international relations that is willing and able to create and impact international outcomes by purposeful decision and action may be termed an actor.

Interdependence implies that the increasing connectivity between the actors and issues led to a world where no actor is immune from the impact of what is happening to another.

As being one of the essential concepts in International Relations, anarchy alludes to the absence of government or the lack of a central authority within the framework of politics.

While milieu represents the visible, more tangible and emotionally laden conceptualisation for man’s environment, structure represents a more abstract world, the underlying forces that effect and shape man’s life.

Foreign policy objectives could simply be de ned as the ends that foreign policy is designed to achieve. These might involve mostly abstract goals of survival, security, protection and/ or advancement of a particular ideology, well-being of the society, pursuit of power, etc. Ideally foreign policy objectives are the product of a careful analysis trying to match a country’s priorities, objectives and goals, with the ways and the means that would enable it to attain them, while capabilities represent the available bridges between these.

A state’s history, culture, geo-strategic location, military power, economic resilience, natural resources, system and efficiency of government, and position in the international power hierarchy all have a bearing on its policy choices