Suchergebnisse

THIS RESEARCH FOCUSES ON NATIONAL ROLE CONCEPTIONS, WHICH ARE DEFINED AS FOREIGN POLICY MAKERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR NATION'S PERCEPTIONS IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM. THEY INCLUDE PERCEPTIONS OF THE GENERAL KINDS OF DECISIONS, RULES, COMMITMENTS, & LONG-TERM FUNCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THESE INTERNATIONAL POSITIONS.

Cover -- Endorsements -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Foreign policy change and the significance of the four upheavals -- Intended contribution -- Structure of the book -- 1. Domestic actors in Russia's foreign policy-making -- Russian foreign policy decision-making -- Opposition in Russia -- Public opinion -- 2. Russia's foreign policy and role theory -- Existing approaches to Russia's foreign policy and their limitations -- Theoretical framework -- 3. Methods and codebook -- Content analysis -- Codebook -- Process tracing -- Conclusions -- 4. Internal development, partnership with the West and the Rose Revolution -- The Rose Revolution and Russia's reaction to it: state of the art -- The Rose Revolution and Russia's national role conceptions -- Changes in Russia's national role conceptions -- International level of analysis and partnership with the West -- Domestic level of analysis and internal development -- Individual level of analysis and changes in Russian power circles -- Conclusions -- 5. The Orange Revolution and the dominance of the partner of the West role -- The perception of the Orange Revolution and existing explanations -- Russia's national role conceptions during the Orange Revolution -- Changes in Russia's national role conceptions -- Discussion -- International level of analysis and importance of relations with the West -- Domestic level of analysis and threat of terrorism -- Individual level of analysis and foreign policy decision-making processes -- Conclusions -- 6. Russia's changing self-perception and intervention in Georgia -- Existing explanations -- The Russo-Georgian War and Russia's national role conceptions -- Changes in Russia's national role conceptions.

Armenia's Velvet Revolution hasn't brought considerable changes to Armenia's foreign policy priorities. Yet, with the changes in domestic policy, the perceptions, attitudes, values and beliefs of those who are responsible for formulating foreign policy objectives have been changing, bringing new dynamics to Armenia's relations with its external partners. Building on the social constructivism approach and the theory on National role conceptions, the Master's thesis aims to find out how Armenia's role conceptions and the evolution of the state's identity in the post-Velvet Revolution context affect Armenia's foreign policy and whether and how those changes influence the relations with its strategic foreign partners, namely Russia and the EU. I applied the discourse analysis approach to find out how the national role conceptions have been (re-)produced in the post-Velvet Revolution context. The analysis was based on 13 semi-structured face-to-face interviews that I conducted with representatives of the executive and legislative branches of Armenia's current government, as well as the expert community. Through the discourse analysis, the study revealed six role conceptions dominating in the discourse of the current political leadership. The analysis showed conflicting aspects between Armenia's role as a faithful ally-balancer and the one of a full sovereign subject. Putting those conflicting aspects in the context of Armenia's relations with Russia and the EU, the findings indicated tensions between Armenia's current political leadership's view on the development of relations with each of those actors (the ego part of the role) and Armenia's political leadership's perceptions of those actors' expectations with regard to Armenia's foreign policy behaviour (the alter part of the ego). The study suggests that the discourse about Armenia's role of a full sovereign subject has increased after the Velvet Revolution. On the other hand, Armenia's role of the faithful ally and a balancer is still strong in the discourse of the political leadership, which suggests that no major changes in Armenia's foreign policy can be expected in the foreseeable future.

With the onset of the 21st century, Japan is passing through a transformative era in which it is in the process of forming a new national role conception. This study argues that as a result of international pressure, changes in domestic leadership and social norms, and a growing desire for respect in international affairs, Japan has been changing its foreign policy norms and its national role conception. The change in Japanese foreign policy manifests itself most clearly in Japan's international peacekeeping behaviour and the accompanying new legislation governing the functional limitations on its armed forces. This study suggests that path dependency increases the chance that Japanese foreign policy norms and the resulting behavioural effects will push Japan towards a more internationalist path, with contribution to peacekeeping being its most definitive behavioural outcome, thus offering "peacekeeping state" as a new National Role Conception that has the potential to define Japan's role in the world in the future.

AbstractDrawing from the National Role Conceptions (NRCs) framework, this paper seeks to assess whether, beneath the ideological, structural or discursive differences exposed in the literature, a pattern of convergence among the foreign policies of populist parties in Europe can be identified in how these conceive the orientation and tasks that their countries should follow in the international system. Comparing the NRCs which emerge from the foreign policy discourse of three populist parties of diverse persuasions—Front National/Rassemblement Nationalin France,Movimento 5 Stellein Italy,Podemosin Spain—the paper argues that these parties share the underlying conception of a decisively pro-active, transformative and value-based role for their countries in both European and global perspectives, which the different articulations of the people/other dichotomy in their foreign policy discourse affect and differentiate in terms of goals and preferences..

This paper examines the theory and practice of American foreign policy and how Nigeria, from the lens of the author perceives it. The paper establishes that Nigeria"s perception of the US and its role conceptions in the world is a combination of awe, admiration and envy. Yet there are similarities in the national character of the two nations. As the "African giant" aspires to become in the future a global power, it considers the American standards as its benchmark for that. The experience and impressions of the author before, during and after a recent Study of the United States Fellowship at the Walker Institute/Department of Political Science of the University of South Carolina, offered useful insights into the politics of American foreign policy, which provided the platform to evaluate the real import of American a ctions in the global system. The paper is thus able to submit that as a result of leadership dynamics or shortcomings, US behaviour in the world is, often misconstrued as altruistic, overbearing, and discriminatory. It therefore recommends, among other things, that the American nation requires much soft landing after the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters as well an image damage control for the country to regain the confidence of the world. The method of analysis is descriptive and analytical, and the data are largely drawn from participation-observation and some secondary literature.

Introduction : defining roles in a polycentric world / Michael Grossman, Francis Schortgen, and Gordon Friedrichs -- Shrinking the U.S. leadership role : populism and the change of domestic and international "others" / Sebastian Harnisch & Gordon Friedrichs -- The evolution of Russia's national role conceptions : from cooperation to great power competition / Michael Grossman -- A Chinese grand strategy in the making? : the 'China dream', the 'Belt and Road Initiative' and national role conceptualization in a changing world / Francis Schortgen -- A tenuous island : the destabilization of Britain's role in the international system of the 21st century / Spencer Whyte -- Berlin, we have a problem : explaining crises in US-German relations after the Cold War / Florian Böller -- Contesting Japan's international role : the responses of Japanese non-governmental organizations to the transformation of Japanese ODA policy / Kamila Szczepanska -- The EU's self-conception of its roles in global affairs / Rikard Bengtsson -- NATO's changing roles in a post-hegemonic order / Sebastian Mayer -- ASEAN : the center of Asian regionalization? : a model for a global future? / Joel Campbell -- The Organization of American States' role as facilitator of democracy promotion : persuasion and social influence during the political crisis in Venezuela / Gordon Friedrichs -- Conclusion : turbulence in the 21st century international order / Francis Schortgen, Gordon Friedrichs, and Michael Grossman.