Understanding International Relations, Third Edition

Conclusion: from foreign policy to power
The next stage in this investigation is to move from the making of foreign
policy to its implementation – the realm of diplomacy or, to employ an old
term that has made something of a comeback recently, ‘statecraft’. In a
larger-scale study, such an examination would involve a full-length explo-
ration of the arts and crafts of diplomacy, the art of negotiation and so on.
In later chapters on, for example, the establishment of international eco-
nomic regimes, such matters will be touched upon, but in this part of the
book, which is overtly concerned with state-centric International Relations,
and shaped by the realist tradition, it makes more sense to shift to another
aspect of implementation – the ways in which power is employed by states
to get their way in the world. A focus on ‘power’, however, inevitably brings
in considerations which go beyond foreign policy as such – hence the next
chapter will examine power as a whole, and the problems it generates.
The State and Foreign Policy
77
Further reading
On pre-Westphalian ‘international’ systems, A. B. Bozeman, Politics and Culture
in International History (1960), and Martin Wight, Systems of States (1977), offer
contrasting views; close to Wight but more in the nature of a textbook is Adam
Watson,  The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical
Analysis (1992), which is the best short guide to the origins of the Westphalia
System.

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78
Understanding International Relations 
The work of historical sociologists on the origins of the system and the
nature of the state has become important in recent years: for overviews, see
Richard Little, ‘International Relations and Large Scale Historical Change’
(1994); and Anthony Jarvis, ‘Societies, States and Geopolitics’ (1989); apart
from books by Giddens, Mann and Tilly cited in the main text above, impor-
tant substantive works include Ernest Gellner, Plough, Sword and Book: The
Structure of Human History (1988); George Modelski, Long Cycles in World
Politics (1987); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1988);
and Charles Tilly (ed.) The Formation of National States in Western Europe
(1975). Empires, Systems and States: Great Transformations in International
Politics (2002), edited by Michael Cox, Tim Dunne and Ken Booth, is a collec-
tion of essays which covers not just the history of the state system, but also the
experiences of non-European cultures and communities, and theories of why
the state triumphed over other forms of political organization.
On the state, P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol (eds) Bringing the
State Back In (1985) is, as the title suggests, a reaction to the absence of theo-
rizing about the state. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of
Raison d’Etat and its Place in Modern History (1957), is a monumental, irre-
placeable study. John M. Hobson, The State and International Relations
(2000), is an excellent recent text on the subject. ‘The “second state debate” in
International Relations: theory turned upside-down’ (2001) by John M.
Hobson examines conceptualizations of the state within a range of theoretical
positions. Georg Sørensen, The Transformation of the State: Beyond the Myth
of Retreat (2003), is a thorough and systematic assessment of the contemporary
state, state power and the nature of sovereignty. Essays in particular by Colin
Wight and Alexander Wendt in the Review of International Studies Forum on
the State as a Person (2004) consider the implications of Wendt’s theory of the
state.
Deborah J. Gerner, ‘Foreign Policy Analysis: Exhilarating Eclecticism,
Intriguing Enigmas’ (1991), and Steve Smith, ‘Theories of Foreign Policy: An
Historical Overview’ (1986), are good surveys of the field, although somewhat
dated. Important general collections include Charles F. Hermann, Charles W.
Kegley and James N. Rosenau (eds) New Directions in the Study of
Foreign Policy (1987), Michael Clarke and Brian White (eds) Understanding
Foreign Policy: The Foreign Policy Systems Approach (1989) and, on
actual foreign policies, the classic Roy C. Macridis (ed.) Foreign Policy in
World Politics (1992). Christopher Hill, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy
(2002), is now the standard work in this area. See also his article ‘What is to be
Done? Foreign Policy as a Site for Political Action’ (2003) for a powerful argu-
ment in favour of looking beyond the systemic answers offered by neorealists
and globalization theorists in order to understand politics in the modern world.
Webber and Smith, Foreign Policy in a Transformed World (2002), looks specif-
ically at post-Cold War policy and is particularly useful for its combination of
theory and comparative analysis of real policies. Brian White, ‘The European
Challenge to Foreign Policy Analysis’ (1999), is an interesting riposte to some

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The State and Foreign Policy
79
disparaging remarks on FPA in the first edition of this volume. Recent critical
works on Allison’s classic study include Jonathan Bender and Thomas H.
Hammond, ‘Rethinking Allison’s Models’ (1992), and David A. Welch, ‘The
Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics Paradigm’ (1992). The sec-
ond, revised, edition of Allison’s classic (with Philip Zelikow, 1999) is reviewed
at length in Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Understanding Decisionmaking, US Foreign
Policy and the Cuban Missile Crisis’ (2000). On the features of crisis diplo-
macy, see Michael Brecher, Crises in World Politics: Theory and Reality (1993);
James L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy (1994); and Richard Ned Lebow,
Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (1981). On cogni-
tive processes and foreign policy see works by Jervis, Janis and Cottam cited in
the main text.
Micro–macro problems in International Relations theory are discussed in
Fareed Zakaria, ‘Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay’ (1992), and
the domestic–international interface in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and
Robert D. Putnam (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Diplomacy
and Domestic Politics (1993). Much older but still valuable is James N.
Rosenau (ed.) Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy (1967). Alexander Wendt,
‘The Agent/Structure Problem in International Relations Theory’ (1987) is
important here; see also Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and
Understanding International Relations (1991). On the older issue of the
‘Levels-of-Analysis’ problem, see Nicholas Onuf, ‘Levels’ (1995). Agent-
structure issues feature in Alexander Wendt’s important study, Social Theory of
International Politics (1999). Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, in ‘Let Us
Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In’ (2001), use case
studies to demonstrate the role individual agents play in international affairs.
On the ‘Democratic Peace’ thesis, Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic
Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (1993), is crucial. For a Kantian
perspective, see Michael Doyle, ‘Liberalism and World Politics’ (1986), and the
articles cited in the text. Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, ‘The Imperial Peace:
Democracy, Force and Globalization’ (1999), challenge the thesis from a ‘left’
position, while realist opponents are well represented in the International
Security Reader, Debating the Democratic Peace, ed. Michael E. Brown et al.
(1996). Joanne Gowa’s Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace
(1999) is an important study. A selection of additional articles might include:
Chris Brown, ‘ “Really-Existing Liberalism” and International Order’ (1992b);
Raymond Cohen, ‘Pacific Unions: A Reappraisal of the Theory that
“Democracies Do Not Go To War with Each Other” ’ (1994); Bruce Russett,
J. L. Ray and Raymond Cohen, ‘Raymond Cohen on Pacific Unions: A
Response and a Reply’ (1995); and John MacMillan, ‘Democracies Don’t
Fight: A Case of the Wrong Research Agenda’ (1996).

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