Foreign policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the American magazine, see Foreign Policy. For the academic study of foreign policy, see Foreign policy analysis.

A country's foreign policy is a set of political goals that seeks to outline how that particular country will interact with other countries of the world and, to a lesser extent, non-state actors. Foreign policies generally are designed to help protect a country's national interests, national security, ideological goals, and economic prosperity. This can occur as a result of peaceful cooperation with other nations, or through aggression, war, and exploitation. It may be assumed that foreign policy is as ancient as the human society itself. The twentieth century saw a rapid rise in the importance of foreign policy, with virtually every nation in the world now being able to interact with one another in some diplomatic form.

Nominally, creating foreign policy is usually the job of the head of government and the foreign minister (or equivalent). In some countries the legislature also has considerable oversight. As an exception, in France, Finland and in America, it is the head of state who is responsible for foreign policy, while the head of government mainly deals with internal policy.

In fact, foreign policy is a product of pressure from various groups and classes, political as well as economic. In many countries, foreign policy ranks high on the list of factors that influence public opinion.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] International relations theory

Main article: International relations theory

International relations have been studied and analyzed for centuries, and can partially explain the foreign policy of particular states. However note that International Relations Theory tries to explain the interaction in the international system between all states (and possibly non-state actors) and does not take into account the specific characteristics of particular states.

The sub-discipline that specialises in the study of foreign policy is known as foreign policy analysis (FPA).