The Trump foreign policy record and the concept of transformational change

While there has been debate about the extent to which US foreign policy has been transformed since President Trumpfirst took office in 2017, the concept of transformational policy change has not been defined with any degree of precision. The purpose of this article is, primarily, to establish such a definition. It does this by drawing upon a number of the literatures that address domestic policy processes, in particular the work of Karl Polanyi, to suggest that transformational change rests upon paradigmatic shifts, the reconfiguration of interests, large scale institutional re-ordering and changed logics. Application of the definition to the Trump foreign policy leads us to conclude that while the Trump foreign policy owes much to the militant internationalism of the Bush years its understanding of nations and“globalism”and abandonment of a defining moral purpose represent, although incipient, partial and variegated, the beginnings of transformational change

Changing foreign policy: the Obama Administration’s decision to oust Mubarak

This paper analyses the decision of the Obama administration to redirect its foreign policy towards Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. It attempts to highlight the issue of how governments deal with decision-making at times of crisis, and under which circumstances they take critical decisions that lead to major shifts in their foreign policy track record. It focuses on the process that led to a reassessment of US (United States) foreign policy, shifting from decades of support to the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak, towards backing his ouster. Specifically, the paper attempts to assess to what extent the decision to withdraw US support from a longstanding state-leader and ally in the Middle East can be seen as a foreign policy change (FPC). A relevant research question this paper pursues is: how can the withdrawal of US support to a regime considered as an ally be considered, in itself, as a radical FPC

Regions in International Politics: a Framework for Integrating Systemic, Regional, Dyadic, and Monadic Approaches

The article proposes the framework of further analysis of regional political processes. The authors believe that the significant amount of activities is occurring on the regional level. Thus, the moderate aim of the article is to link different levels of analysis and to present measurable variable to explore regional political developments in this context. The basic assumption of the article is that there are more hierarchical relationships on the regional level than on the global one. Regional powers objective try to create security and stability in their regional areas which increases the overall stability. However, some regions are lacking conditions for durable hierarchy, which is a structural reason for instability and conflicts. The problem the latter regions face is their limited chance of creating durable structures of cooperation, because hierarchy implies some structural violence that helps to realize interests and understand policy limitations. The article presents comparative framework that assesses features of regional powers such as strength or weakness, absence of rivals or their presence. The framework also includes state's policies that may disregard the regional context in order to seek more promising opportunities. The "hierarchy and interest"- based analysis demonstrates that some regions have strong spatial appearance while the others are only in search of their spatial identity. This allows elaborating on the dependent variables such as territorial disputes, cooperation of rivals, political regime performance. The authors conclude that the presented framework can be useful for further analysis and enriches potential for testing hypotheses of regional political behavior of state actors.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Foreign policy convergence in Pacific Asia : the evidence from voting in the UN General Assembly

Research Highlights and Abstract Research Highlights Comparative assessment of three indexes of voting cohesion Demonstrates the strong shared orientation towards global affairs among states in the Pacific Asian region, especially ASEAN and China, which is greater than that of the EU Shows the widespread reluctance of most Pacific Asian states publicly to criticize human rights abuses Shows the estrangement of the US from the foreign policy orientations of Pacific Asian states, even Japan and South Korea This article aims to do three things: (i) compare three different indexes for assessing the voting cohesion of regional groups of states in the UN General Assembly; (ii) use these indexes to assess the foreign policy convergence of states in Pacific Asia on global issues between 1974 and 2008; (iii) compare the extent of that convergence with the European Union (EU). All three indexes show a high degree of convergence in the voting records of states in Pacific Asia, but particularly in ASEAN, which is higher than in the EU. The most frequent cause of divergence since the end of the Cold War has been the reluctance of most states in the region, apart from Japan and South Korea, publicly to criticize the human rights records of other states. Although there are variations, the results also reveal the divergence in voting between states throughout the region and the US