Emerging Tenets of Responsive Foreign Policymaking?

• Published in: International journal (Toronto) Vol. 61; no. 4; pp. 929 - 942
• Main Author: Batora, Jozef
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Canadian Institute of International Affairs 01.12.2006; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Action; Citizen Participation; Cold War; Constituents; Contingencies; Debate; Delegates; Democracy; Diplomatic representation; Foreign affairs; Foreign Policy; Government; Human rights; Human security; International relations; Internet; Legitimacy; National security; NGOs; Nongovernmental organizations; Openness; Policy making; Political debate; Political diplomacy; Political power; Political Representation; Political science; Political scientists; Politics; Power; Public diplomacy; Responsiveness; Secrecy; Sovereignty; State; Symbolism; Symbols; Uncertainty; Universities; Volunteers; Websites; Canada
• ISSN: 0020-7020; 2052-465X
• DOI: 10.1177/002070200606100410

The rise in prominence of new foreign policy actors, agendas, and security threats in the decades following the end of the Cold War has led to intensified uncertainty about the basic notions of what are appropriate actions of states and other actors in particular situations, who are legitimate actors, what provides legitimacy for international actions, and how. An intensive search by governments for new ideational, conceptual, and procedural underpinnings fitting the newly emerging conditions in the international environment has been underway. On the ideational side, this led to the rise of doctrines such as human security, the Dutch notion ofgidsland, and the concept of preventive action.' It has also been reflected in academic analyses such as those conceptualizing the European Union as a "civilian power" or "normative power" or developing the concept of shared sovereignty arrangements.2 Since the common denominator of these foreign policy doctrines is a concern with the promotion of human rights and democracy beyond national borders, these ideational developments generate expectations of greater openness and domestic public involvement in the process of foreign policymaking. While the parliamentary channels provide a level of democratic control, it has been traditionally limited by the extensive focus on secrecy and information security inherent in foreign affairs administrations around the world. This has been a problem not only for the citizens but increasingly also for the governments, because in the context of shifting doctrinal and conceptual underpinnings of foreign policy, governments often face difficulties in providing sufficient public justifications for international actions, resulting in the severe undermining of legitimacy of foreign policies.' Governments of countries taking on the role of mentor states promoting human rights and democracy are hence often involved in a search for new procedures allowing for domestic public consultation and involvement in foreign policymaking so as to gain legitimacy for their new foreign policy role and actions. First, policy responsiveness is defined as the "presence of a meaningful connection between constituent policy preferences or demands and the representative's official behavior."6 The issue of policy responsiveness has been a subject of debate about the roles and mandates of representatives, i.e. whether representatives should act as delegates of their personal judgements of policy, or as trustees who promote only the interests of their constituencies, irrespective of their personal views. secondly, political representation is also enacted through service responsiveness, defined as "the advantages and benefits which the representative is able to obtain for particular constituents."7 The idea here is primarily the ability of representatives to assist members of their constituencies in finding their way through the intricacies of governmental politics, finding the right people to talk to, and providing other advice on particular issues. Thirdly, allocation responsiveness describes the efforts of representatives to achieve redistribution of particular funds or benefits for their political constituencies. And finally, symbolic responsiveness is a component of responsiveness that is more psychologically based than the other three. It concerns symbolic acts of the representatives, such as various outreach activities and public appearances, where the point is to show an interest and readiness to respond to views and needs of the represented. Such symbolic politics has the purpose of "building up credit to be drawn on in future contingencies."8 To create awareness about the site and get citizens involved from the start, in July 2004-three months prior to launching the site-the policy planning branch had posted a website proposal on the internet and started to contact Canadian universities, NGOs, and provincial authorities. The aim was to find interested individuals who could serve as "contact points" for the future policy discussion process. At the universities, the contact would be responsible for providing feedback on the website content to the department, alerting students and faculty to topical issues posted on the website, and for communicating with other contact points across Canada. The process of disseminating the call for volunteer contact persons was initiated through a list-serve for political scientists run by the Canadian Political Science Association. Through this process, a network of individual volunteers working as FAC's contact points throughout Canada was created. In June 2006, FAC could report that 10 NGOs had expressed interest in participating in eDiscussions and organizing roundtable discussions of eDiscussion topics."