Foreign policy

J. K. Paasikivi, the President of Finland, was remembered as a main architect of Finland's foreign policy with the Soviet Union after the Second World War.^[1] From left to right: Paasikivi and chairman of the Supreme Soviet Kliment Voroshilov in Moscow.

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A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through multilateral platforms.^[2] The Encyclopedia Britannica notes that a government's foreign policy may be influenced by "domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or plans to advance specific geopolitical designs."^[2]

The term foreign evolved during the mid-13th century from ferren, foreyne, "out of doors", based on the Old French forain, "outer, external, outdoor; remote", reflecting the sense of "not in one's own land" first attested in the late 14th century. Spelling in English was altered in the 17th century, perhaps by influence of the words reign and sovereign. Both words were associated at the time with the most common office of monarch that determined foreign policy, a set of diplomatic goals seeks to outline how a country will interact with other countries of the world.

The idea of long-term management of relationships followed the development of professional diplomatic corps that managed diplomacy. Since 1711, the term diplomacy has been taken to mean the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or nations.

In the 18th century, due to extreme turbulence in European diplomacy and ongoing conflicts, the practice of diplomacy was often fragmented by the necessity to deal with isolated issues, termed "affairs". Therefore, while domestic management of such issues was termed civil affairs (peasant riots, treasury shortfalls, and court intrigues), the term foreign affairs was applied to the management of temporary issues outside the sovereign realm. This term remained in widespread use in the English-speaking states into the 20th century, and remains the name of departments in several states that manage foreign relations. Although originally intended to describe short term management of a specific concern, these departments now manage all day-to-day and long-term international relations among states.

Organisations such as the Council of Foreign Relations in the United States are sometimes employed by government foreign relations organisations to develop foreign policy proposals as alternatives to existing policy, or to provide analytical assessments of evolving relationships.

See also[]

• Alliance
• Balance of power (international relations)
• Diplomacy
• Diplomatic history
• Foreign policy analysis
• Intergovernmental organization
• International relations theory
• International relations

References[]

Further reading[]

• Christopher Hill, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
• Jean-Frédéric Morin and Jonathan Paquin, Foreign Policy Analysis: A Toolbox, Palgrave, 2018.
• Steve Smith, Amelia Hadley and Tim Dunne (eds), Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases, 1st ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Frank A. Stengel and Rainer Baumann, "Non-State Actors and Foreign Policy," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Foreign Policy Analysis, edited by Cameron Thies, 266–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.456.

External links[]

• Media related to Foreign policy at Wikimedia Commons

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Foreign policy