William Hague’s Activist Foreign Policy: The Perils of Merging Practices

Assuming office as UK Foreign Secretary in 2010, William Hague asserted a desire to pursue an ‘activist foreign policy’. Despite studies into Hague’s period in office, the significance of this phrase and its implications for Hague’s diplomacy have been overlooked. This article plugs that gap. It suggests ‘activist foreign policy’ merges two separate and potentially conflicting practices, namely, activism and diplomacy. Using insights from the practice turn, the author examines two policies of Hague’s tenure: his promotion of the Prevention of Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), 2012-2014 and his diplomatic response to the Syria conflict, 2011-2014. Exploring these cases highlights the creative potential of merging practices, but also the extent to which they can conflict in ways that provoke resistance from other participants. It concludes that efforts to merge practices need to be aware of the underlying logic of existing behaviours and actions within each practice to be transposed successfully

Strategy, Tactics and Tilts: A Networked Approach to UK Influence in the Indo-Pacific

The 2021 Integrated Review was informed by two assumptions: that leaving the EU would allow a more agile foreign policy based on ad hoc groups; and that a global shift in power towards the Indo-Pacific meant that the UK needed to engage more with the region. Jamie Gaskarth argues that the missing element to this strategy is a networked approach. Using the insights of network theory and social network analysis, policymakers should be aiming to analyse the social dynamics of the region in a more systematic way. This would allow them to better identify opportunities for greater connectedness and the benefits these may bring, as well as the limits to UK engagement, and non-linear effects that network spillovers can produc

Clashing Traditions: German Foreign Policy in a New Era

A series of crises over the last decade have put pressure on Europe's fundamental ordering principles. In response, German policymakers have scrambled to reinterpret Germany's foreign policy for a new era. To understand this process, the authors utilize an interpretivist approach, analyzing the discourse of German foreign policymakers through the lens of four traditions of thought informing debates: regionalism, pacifism, realism, and hegemonism. The article suggests that despite serious challenges, prevailing patterns of belief centered round regionalism and pacifism, supported by a particular civilian understanding of hegemony, persist. Yet, Germany's allies are challenging this framework and calling for it to accept more responsibility for regional and global security. As a result, a realist tradition is reemerging in Germany's discourse. The taxonomy provided here allows a richer understanding of these debates as well as an appreciation of how policymakers mobilize ideas to resist or enable policy change

Foreign Policy Analysis and Ethics of Responsibility

This chapter outlines five key theoretical perspectives in International Relations (IR), namely Realism, Liberalism, Constructivism, Poststructuralism, and Critical Theory. In each case, the chapter explores how Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholarship allows us to understand how the insights garnered from these theoretical perspectives translate into the real-world choices and actions of decision-makers. Using the idea of responsibility, the chapter investigates each theory and how it: identifies different responsible actors; differently defines responsible action; and holds different perceptions of what constitutes responsible scholarship. The result is multiple possible FPAs, each providing important insights into the ethical and practical application of IR theory

The virtues in international society

Although there has been a significant growth in the literature on the ethics of international politics in recent years, much of this has focused on the normative structure of international relations and has downplayed the role of individuals in constituting the understandings and actions in this practice. However, individual agency and accountability are apparent in recent world events. Meanwhile, developments in moral philosophy have increasingly led scholars to re-examine the role that individual character traits — virtues — have in affecting how norms are selected and operationalized. Building on these insights, I argue here that a fully realized appreciation of the morality of international politics requires us to consider what character traits — virtues — its individual participants are expected to exhibit to support and realize its norms. To do so, I begin by outlining how the virtues are deemed to underpin ethical practice and highlight two forms of analysis that may be used to explore this: decision-oriented virtue ethics and constitutive virtue ethics. I then suggest that these can be used to analyse the ethical foundations of international society. Specifically, I adopt a constitutive virtue ethics approach to show how the virtues help to constitute international society using the case study of the establishment of the International Criminal Court. In the process, I aim to highlight both the extent to which the virtues are a feature of the rhetoric of global politics, and — more importantly — how they play a significant role in normative practice. </jats:p