Foreign
Policy, Culture and the Past
Romney's assertion
considering Russia as the U.S. number one geopolitical strategic foe was
intriguing. Clearly, Romney was, among other things, reiterating talking points
his foreign policy advisors taught him. The fact politicians are influenced
by their advisors is not a troublesome phenomenon; politicians can't process on
their own eve every issue or opportunity and must rely on a large staff
dedicated to analyze complex situations and provide the decision-maker with
their insights and recommendations. A rational decision making process involves
weighing the pros and cons of conflicting ideas. The person of authority
decides the best course of action using a process that balances the proposals
with his core beliefs and values. Romney’s pool of advisors consists simply of
individuals from the previous administration seeking to restore their failed
policies rejected and changed by the current government. This pattern can be
observed in the international system as a whole; states’ foreign policies
change and shifts, sometimes radically, based on the ideology driving the
policymaking. In order to ascertain the root causes of these dynamics, we must
comparatively and critically analyze whether culture or the past is the
overreaching theme shaping the interactions in the international system. The
post Arab Spring environment makes such analysis crucially needed in order to
predict the interactions involving both state and non-state actors and the
possible spread of inter and intrastate conflicts validating Huntington's
apocalyptic civilizations clash prophecy.
Comparative foreign policy contrasts the foreign
policies of various States to determine general empirical
connections between the attributes of the State and the traits of its foreign
policy. The study of foreign policy distinctively
links international relations and domestic politics by taking into account both internal and
external events’ influence on state conduct. The
goal of comparative foreign policy is to confirm recurring
and recognizable archetypes; in the quest to distinguish norms of behavior
events are not considered historically exclusive, therefore, studying the past
is at the core of this discipline. Discovering past patterns is essential to achieve
broad awareness and a better ability to anticipate future actions; knowing the factors
shaping the choice of entering into a conflict
enables us to forecast, influence, and perhaps even avert potential international
conflicts. Many scholars argue the past is the
driving force of foreign policy due to continuum from past to future; armed
with historical knowledge, policy makers caught up in a living moment with no
certainty of how things would turn out, approach, analyze, and react to the
current challenge based on the lessons learned from the historical past.
Certainly, traumatic
and pleasant experiences take part in molding a state’s identity and its
politics and stay resilient in the communal consciousness for numerous
generations who have not witnessed the initial or seminal experiences. Ted Hopf asserts past interactions lead individuals to
develop habits; habits are spontaneous, oblivious, automatic, and impetuous.
Succumbing to habits eliminates shrewdness, agency, and ambiguity, therefore
leading to the adoption of a distinct understanding of collaboration, security quandaries,
persistent enmities, and security communities in interstate interactions (Hopf,
2010). Habit contrasts with learning because habitual stereotypes are
self organized; since individuals are oblivious of their processes they develop
a cognitive underpinning for self-fulfilling prophecies. In the case of Russia, it is clear that habit is influencing team
Romney’s assessment; Russia’s past since the Tsars was based on a totalitarian
culture and political system which always compelled the Kremlin to rely on the
Western menace image domestically and undertake a revisionist behavior.
The past has a dual role; it gives individuals historical
icons or "pointers" to associate themselves with and to assemble
around, it also provides the essential connection between past and present and future. Dreyer, Colaresi, and Thompson focused
on the causality between interstates’ historical past and persistence of
rivalries, intractability of conflicts, and escalation of conflicts. Dreyer
found that
issue conflict buildup is likely to boost the possibility of armed conflict
(Dreyer, 2010). Historical memories, either genuine or fictitious, are capable
of causing conflicts, prejudice, nationalism, and cultural identities. Due to these historical memories, international
rivals frequently vie over numerous issues concomitantly, hence multiplying the
antes of the competition. Because of their past, the parties develop deep
mistrust towards each other and any gesture from the other side, even if
positive, will be viewed with suspicion and interpreted as a threat. Colaresi,
and Thompson share the same opinion, they contend disputes in the realm of historical enmity is more complex than conflicts
among non rival states (Colaresi and Thompson, 2002). According to their
research, a small number of dyads which relations are plagued by an intractable
conflict are to blame for the majority of the international conflicts; their
past promotes the escalation and amplifies the expectation of continued
rivalry. Finally, Cederman revisited Kant’s democratic peace theory and
reinterpreted it as a dynamic and dialectical learning process, as it failed to
explain why other non democratic dyads have shown a pacifying trend among them
(Cederman, 2001).
Historical
memory is the quintessence of communal knowledge that is stored and construed
through the socialization process. The
usefulness and importance of the lessons of history are undisputed; learning
from the past becomes important for providing a sense of direction to policy
makers when they face an unfamiliar situation. Nevertheless, making the past the major source of foreign policy
hinders the pursuit of national interests. While the past may have influence on foreign policy undertakings as the
researchers above contend, deriving foreign policy from the past becomes
problematic because all knowledge of history is subjective; the way
individuals recall historical information and what they learn from it is subject
to interpretation and re-interpretation. The past is static and cannot be changed, foreign
policy, however, is never static; it must respond to and initiate actions as
circumstances change. Culture is impacted by an
ever-changing world as new phenomena of
social, intellectual, economic or technical nature emerge. Culture determines
the affective and cognitive behaviors which an individual selects to meet
environmental demands and in doing so develops or
changes current policies. In foreign
policy, the notion of culture could be depicted as broad and general beliefs
and attitudes about one's own state, about other states, and about the relationships
they can realize or that they should realize between the self and other actors
in the international system.
In order to comprehend decision making processes, we have to
grasp the influence of information processing and various biases. Culture represents a group’s favored
method to sense, evaluate, and systemize the concepts, circumstances, and
incidents they come across. Cultures do vary
considerably as distinct cultural communities have dissimilar customs, live
through different histories, and engage in different practices; therefore a
divergence in their styles of thinking and thus in their action is likely. The
most important influence of culture is perhaps the gradual formation of one’s
way of thinking, which has a strong impact on one’s perception of the outside
world and interpretation of oneself and others. This can explain how Rabin's practices and policies created a cultural
space in Israeli politics in which a withdrawal from the occupied territories
became attractive and well-founded. This cultural shift was facilitated by the Palestinians' own adaptation
to the new realities; changing the Charter to remove the destruction of Israel
clause was a significantly important trust-building action in the peace process.
Many scholars developed a culture focused research to
determine causality between war and state formation. Taylor and Botea found
that ethnic diversity and promulgation of unifying national ideology affected
the state formation in post war Afghanistan and Vietnam differently; relative
ethnic homogeneity was a significant contributing factor in the building of
Vietnam after the long war (Taylor and Botea, 2006). Theis focused on the state
building in South America and found that interstate wars did not improve the extractive capacity of the state; in
those countries internal rivalries as much of an impact as external threats.
This political culture impacted the foreign policy and state building process
of causing it to focus on balancing
between the two threats (Theis, 2005). Some however disagree, Duffield contends there is no discernible pattern
of influence of culture on Germany’s behavior after unification; Germany’s
political culture is greatly shaped by its past experiences and therefore it
favors policies of continuity, stability, and restraint
rather than resorting to unilateral aggressive behavior (Duffield, 1999). Culture also contributes to trust
building, cooperation, and attitudes towards international institutions. In the
U.S. Democrats favor cooperation and building
alliances to boost legitimacy of foreign policy undertakings, however,
Republicans view treaties in their international operations as political
obligations restraining the U.S. sovereignty. This is emphasized in Rathbun’s social psychological
theory of international cooperation in which he argues that “multilateralism is
a dispositional trait” rather than a reaction to tangible security situation
(Rathbun, 2011).
Perhaps, Huntington’s clash of
civilizations theory, due to its grim outlook,
sparked much research that eventually supported the effect of culture on
foreign policy, and the likelihood of a future devastating conflict with the
Islamic civilization. According to Huntington, “A civilization is the highest cultural grouping of
people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have.” Extreme divergences
and increased contact and visibility will strengthen “civilization
consciousness and awareness of differences and commonalities,” thus choices to
engage in major conflicts will be based on cultural parameters (Huntington, 1993). Haynes, shares this
concern as he realizes globalization caused many of these cultural differences
to be heightened (Haynes, 2005). While is it true that
the increase of civilizational conflict with Islamic civilization from Western
perspective, the Islamic civilization have cultural conflict with all other
civilizations as their past conflicts have always been civilizational (Fox,
2001). This civilizational conflict has been latent as most state actors
confined in the Islamic civilization favored secularism and fought radical
Islam. Terrorist groups and non-state actors have been so far the flagship in
this Civilizational clash; radical Islamists’ culture is based on
moral commands and aspirations that are rigid and impregnable. Their belief
system is totalitarian, that is, it prohibits coexistence with different ideals
and morals and asserts an absolute authority to regulate every aspect in the life
of people under its jurisdiction. The civilizational clash is looming in a post
Arab spring world where radical Islamist groups have become state actors, the
civilizational clash will be twofold; radical Islamists as state actors will attempt
to eradicate alternative forms of moral, social, and political though such as secularism
and modernism from Muslim societies, and in order to avoid disturbance from the
West they will keep them preoccupied with threats from non-state actors;
Diasporas in the West will feel the blunt of any civilizational conflict.
In
this particular case, the Muslim and Arab Diaspora in Western societies is
experiencing a harsh environment since the terrorists attacks in the host
countries involving radicalized and alienated young and well educated Muslims,
this environment has results in
more quotidian political and social violence which increased radicalization. Western societies are based on the citizens’
commitment to liberal-democratic and humane principles and not to an
ethnically-based, cultural community (Shain, 1995). The post 9/11 environment
generated mistrust towards this Diaspora; authorities waived privacy rights of
certain groups a covert war is being waged to prevent a widespread homegrown
terrorism phenomena, some politicians even warn against Muslim extremists’
infiltration of Western governments and call for their dismissal. This will at
the end lower the groups’ collective self-esteem, make them
reconsider their national identities and allegiances, and increase the
likelihood of intergroup bigotry, repression of liberties, and aggression (Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse). The problem is, Arab and Muslim diasporas
vary widely in degrees of religious involvement and include those who are
ultra-orthodox, those who rarely attend mosque, and non-practicing or
ex-Muslims who are still part of a Muslim community. Many of them have left
their countries because of home
dictatorial regimes supported by the west for decades in the name of combating
Islamic radicalization; these people resent radical Islam because they consider
it the cause of their grievances. Because the Diaspora is not united their
identity has no implication on Western foreign policies (King and Melvin,
2000), however, should a Civilizational conflict erupt they may relate more to
the home states and be used as a tool to shape their host states foreign
policies through terrorist acts.
According
to Darwinism, species that adjust to their environment prosper; those unsuccessful
to progress risk annihilation. Human wellbeing was
enhanced as new knowledge defied and ultimately defeated prevalent dogmas,
including revered but idiotic beliefs that had been around for centuries. The foreign policy goals and priorities of
individual nation states are more impacted with globalization, as such they are
compelled to adapt their cultures to an interdependent, multi-polar
international environment. However, the challenges facing the international
community within the context of globalization include a possible civilizational
conflict which may wreck havoc and greatly impact foreign policy choices. In conflict
situations several factors influence decisions making processes which at times turn
out to be irrational. Occasionally decisions have to be made with incomplete
and insufficient information; culture, Judgment, intuition, experience and
knowledge all come together when making these decisions.
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