Distinction between Foreign Policy and International Politics

[IntermediateJesus]

Hello Folks,

I hope this is the right place to ask this kind of questions. I noticed there's a strong focus on admissions to PHD programs here but I'm here in the right place too. If not, it would be nice if you can point me to a good board more suited to my question.

I'm wondering what's the difference between foreign policy and international politics.

I've read Elman, Colin 1996a: Horses for Courses: Why not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?, in: Security Studies 6: 1, 7-53. and Kenneth Waltz' answer to it (International Politics Is not Foreign Policy). I get some vague idea what's the difference but I'm missing some clear usable disambiguation.

I'm trying to determine wether the question why the US did invade Iraq is more a question of foreign policy or more a question of international politics and if Kenneth Waltz Theory of international politics is sufficient to understand the conflict.

Would be nice if you could help me.

[Purled]

Hello Folks,

I hope this is the right place to ask this kind of questions. I noticed there's a strong focus on admissions to PHD programs here but I'm here in the right place too. If not, it would be nice if you can point me to a good board more suited to my question.

I'm wondering what's the difference between foreign policy and international politics.

I've read Elman, Colin 1996a: Horses for Courses: Why not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?, in: Security Studies 6: 1, 7-53. and Kenneth Waltz' answer to it (International Politics Is not Foreign Policy). I get some vague idea what's the difference but I'm missing some clear usable disambiguation.

I'm trying to determine wether the question why the US did invade Iraq is more a question of foreign policy or more a question of international politics and if Kenneth Waltz Theory of international politics is sufficient to understand the conflict.

Would be nice if you could help me.

Out of curiosity, are you an undergrad enrolled in a polisci class, writing a weekly response paper?

[IntermediateJesus]

Out of curiosity, are you an undergrad enrolled in a polisci class, writing a weekly response paper?

I'm an German undergrad (which explains my flaws in grammar).

I' have to write a paper but I think it's different to a weekly response paper (there's no such thing here).

I was free to choose the topic. I write this for a course in middle eastern regional studies (not much international politics theory, which is so far my main interest).

I've chosen the US's decision to invade iraq as my topic. I wanted to approach this by Kenneth Waltz thoery because I thought this might be a good chance to dive deeper into his work.

You have to know that neorealists theory is not very popular in Europe even less on my university. It is attacked by many without having studied some of it's main works.

I asked my professor if I could approach this matter with neorealits theory and he gave me his OK.

But later I read about Waltz' distinction between foreign policy and international politics. Now I'm confused and irritated.

I don't know any boards dealing with political science question. All boards I know are about politics not about political science.

So I don't want straight answers but it would be very helpful if you could point me into some direction or tell me about some papers to read on this matter.

Edited March 1, 2011 by IntermediateJesus

[Purled]

In your post, you write that you are

trying to determine wether the question why the US did invade Iraq is more a question of foreign policy or more a question of international politics and if Kenneth Waltz Theory of international politics is sufficient to understand the conflict.

I think that there's an ambiguity which you need to clarify before you move ahead with your line of inquiry. So, there are three terms that I think you need - foreign policy, international relations, and international politics. Foreign policy and international relations are fairly neutral terms which denote different aspects of interstatal relations - of how states decide to interact with each other, and how they go about that interaction. Then you have international politics, and that is not a neutral term. Now we're talking neorealist/defensive realist/etc approaches to international relations.

'Foreign policy' denotes the actions of a state towards other states. That is, a country's foreign policy is the set of actions and attitudes a specific state has towards other states.

'International relations' is the study of relationships that hold between states, and between state and non-state actors. If that didn't help (which wouldn't surprise me, since IR is *not* my area at all, and I have logged zero hours as a TA), think of international relations as the game that all teams are playing with/against each other, and foreign policy is the strategy a specific team uses to play the game.

'International politics' is a neorealist approach to international relations.

So, that's the first part of your question, I think. Once the terms are disentangled, you can research better and more thorough definitions, but this should help to clear things initially.

The other part of your question asks whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq is explainable via a neorealist approach to international relations and U.S. foreign policy, right?

Take everything I write with a grain of salt. IR is NOT my area, and I'm not that familiar with Waltz or the nitty-gritty of neorealism, especially as my IR professors were a mish-mash of pluralists and constructivists.

Waltz did not support the invasion of Iraq. Prior to the invasion, the common neorealist response was, We can predict the actions of Hussein, he's a reliable dictator who poses no immanent threat.

The rest, you should research on your own. You can certainly analyze the invasion from a neorealist perspective, but I don't think you can justify it from a neorealist perspective, which I think is what you would like to do.

Umm, can someone from IR verify this? I'll just go back to my political analyses of Billy Budd, k thnx.