The Politics of Foreign and Security Policy

Abstract

Issues of national security and external relations play an important role in the politics of all states. Their role, however, is in a sense more restricted than that of other major sets of issues. Policy on external relations is formulated and decisions taken by a narrower group of officials and politicians than is the case in most domestic questions. Foreign and security policy is normally the province of a small elite dealing with their counterparts in other states. Serious concern with foreign policy is confined to relatively few groups since it directly affects only selected areas of domestic policy related to external communications, the military, and international trade and commerce. Under certain circumstances, international conflicts being the most extreme, external policy may figure very prominently on the domestic agenda; but for the most part its domestic political presence is diffuse and indirect. The weight and especially the range of that presence has grown rapidly over the last forty years in OECD states as international economic developments, in particular, have impinged increasingly on domestic conditions. Ever-expanding international contacts, exchange and economic interdepence has fostered a growing politicisation of external policy. As international links, especially economic ones, have come to affect a wider range of interests, so a larger number of domestic groups and constituencies have sought to influence external policy.