Foreign Policy-making and Institutions

Abstract

In recent years, social scientists have rediscovered institutions, recognizing that they shape patterns of political behaviour and provide norms, rules and expectations in decision-making (see March and Olsen, 1989). Ideally, effective institutions should facilitate coherence, organization, information processing, the devolving and sharing of power and competencies, and allow for surety, continuity and assurance. Central to the revived debate in International Relations about regime types, specifically in relation to the correlation between peace and democracy, are assumptions about domestic political institutions (Doyle, 1986; Russett, 1993; Cohen, 1994). Even Kenneth Waltz (1968: 1), whose name is linked to structural realism, a theory that ignores domestic politics, has noted that ‘[t]he foreign policy of a country is formed by its political institutions, [and] tempered by its experiences and traditions’. Institutions are important for moderating competing policy preferences where disagreements over policy become predictable and relatively stable, and arise from one or more of three basic means: by accident, by evolution or by intention (see Goodin, 1998: 24). In this chapter, we trace and examine the development and role of institutions in post-Soviet Russia that deal with the making of foreign policy.