Foreign policy

From Free net encyclopedia

For the American magazine, see Foreign Policy

A foreign policy is a set of political goals that seeks to outline how a particular country will interact with the other countries of the world. 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. 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.

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.

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International relations theory

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International relations have been 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).

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