Global Foreign Policy Studies

This book explores Mexico's foreign policy using the ‘principled pragmatism’ approach. It describes and explains main external actions from the country’s independence in the nineteenth century to Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration. The principal argument is that Mexico has resorted to principled pragmatism due to geographic, historical, economic, security, and political reasons. In other words, the nation uses this instrument to deal with the United States, defend national interests, appease domestic groups, and promote economic growth.
The key characteristics of Mexico’s principled pragmatism in foreign policy are that the nation projects a double-edged diplomacy to cope with external and domestic challenges at the same time. This policy is mainly for domestic consumption, and it is also linked to the type of actors that are involved in the decision-making process and to the kind of topics included in the agenda. This principled pragmatism is related to the nature of the intention: principism is deliberate and pragmatism is forced; and this policy is used to increase Mexico’s international bargaining power.

This book offers an accessible and rigorous introduction to the context, diplomacy, and law of the European Union’s response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The book explores how the EU responded to the war in the initial months, and is based on research carried out on Russian and European political, diplomatic, and legal texts. Presenting a unique interdisciplinary perspective, the book delves into topics such as the EU diplomatic response, the Ukrainian application for membership of the EU, the policy and legal aspects of EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus. Additionally, the book examines the significance of the EU’s unprecedented political response for the constitutional structure of the EU, and for the strategy toward the Russia of the future.

This book explores the global phenomenon of populism in relation to states' foreign policy, addressing two key questions: How do populists mold their foreign policies? What are the domestic and external factors that enable and constrain it? To this end, the book brings together a diverse group of scholars who have already researched on populist foreign policies (PFP) in specific countries to contribute shared chapters that examine their drivers, patterns, and effects according to distinctive regions: North America, Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central-Eastern Europe, Latin America, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Africa.  

The empirical analysis sheds new light on how populists’ distinctive conception of a world divided antagonistically between “the people” and “the elites” influences behaviour towards multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and regional or global hegemonic powers like the United States, Germany, Russia, and China. The book also shows how ideas related to identity, ideology, status and emotions, impinge on populists’ conduct vis-à-vis other international actors, and how national and international structures affect the implementation of populist foreign policies in the regional, interregional, and global arenas. The wide geographical diversity and regional representation are also valuable in identifying cultural similarities and differences. Hence, the findings contribute to lively debates on whether there is a unified and coherent foreign policy among populist leaderships, and whether populism leads to a gradual “corrective” of transnational trends in contemporary politics or, conversely, to a more radical, structural shift in the liberal international order.

Great power competition is back on the world stage, and today’s international system is home to regional influences on great power relations that cannot be ignored. The United States’ unipolar moment is long over, and China’s hegemonic ambitions find expression in a comprehensive global competition with the US that plays out across multiple spheres of world politics. The US-China rivalry can be felt in geostrategic, economic, governance, diplomacy, intelligence, and technological spheres, to name a few. Most accounts of China-US relations in the context of great power conflict emphasize the many ways in which this rivalry has a ripple effect across the globe, with an impact upon the relations and interests of smaller powers. And while these effects are considerable and important, this book contends that attention must also be paid to the ways in which smaller, regional states have the potential to shape this great power rivalry. Put simply, great powers both shape, and are shaped by, smaller states. Any understanding of contemporary great power relations between the US and China requires both a top down, but also a bottom up consideration of the interplay between great powers and regional ones. Often the interests of regional powers are rooted in domestic considerations such as their identities and national interests, and these influences transcend borders and often have an impact upon the great powers. This book considers these smaller, regional actors and attempts to measure the extent to which they influence the US-China rivalry. For this study, constructivist theory, which prioritizes the agency that regional powers enjoy, is loosely used as a tool to enable a more robust and comprehensive understanding of the influences on the contemporary great power relationship. Each of the book’s chapters represents a region, or part of a region, that enjoys a considerable impact upon US-China relations. 

This book brings together an all-women group of scholars to provide a historically grounded and theoretically rich examination of the continuities and changes in Turkey’s foreign policy since the Republic's establishment in 1923. Using different International Relations theories, clarifying the interaction between domestic politics and foreign policymaking, the book charts the evolution of Turkey’s foreign policy vis-a-vis several regions and global actors and examines the major developments in Turkey’s relations with these actors. Some chapters emphasize the continuities in Turkey’s external relations, and others examine the significant changes and discontinuities in certain areas. Recognizing that Turkey’s state interests may not always coincide with the interests of the ruling elite, the book demonstrates that the centennial birthday of Turkey represents a constitutive moment for Turkey’s future and calls for a pragmatic, as opposed to a completely ideologically-based, grand strategy that should focus on progressive ideals.