Book Review : Lauri Karvonen & Bengt Sundelius: Internationalization and Foreign Policy Management. Aldershot: Gower, 1987
| Author | Arild Underdal |
| DOI | 10.1177/001083678802300205 |
| Published date | 01 March 1988 |
| Date | 01 March 1988 |
Book
Review
ARILD
UNDERDAL
University
of
Oslo
Lauri
Karvonen
&
Bengt
Sundelius:
Internationalization
and
Foreign
Policy
Management.
Aldershot:
Gower,
1987.
In
the
past
few
years
several
interesting
con-
tributions
to
the
study
of
foreign
policy
dec-
ision-making
and
management
in
the
Nordic
countries
have
been
published.
The
two
most
recent
studies
are
Kjell
Goldmann,
Sten
Berg-
lund
and
Gunnar
Sjostedt:
Democracy
and
Foreign
Policy:
the
Case
of
Sweden
(reviewed
in
Cooperation
and
Conflict
XXII,
57-61)
and
the
book
reviewed
here.
The
latter
study
is
an
effort
to
answer
the
question:
how
does
the
transformation
of
international
relations
into
a
state
known
as
&dquo;complex
interdependence&dquo;
affect
the
man-
agement
of
foreign
policy?
From
recent
litera-
ture,
the
authors
extract
several
hypotheses
about
likely
changes
in
the
scope
and
diversity
of
international
issues
addressed
by
govern-
ment,
in
the
intensity
of
participation
by
what
have
traditionally
been
considered
&dquo;domestic&dquo;
agencies,
and
in
the
overall
weight
of
inter-
national
affairs
activities
in
relation
to
the
total
commitments
undertaken
by
governments.
Particular
attention
is
devoted
to
the
hypoth-
esis
that
as
the
volume
and
diversity
of
inter-
national
agenda
items
increase,
foreign
policy
management
tends
to
become
more
decen-
tralized,
vertically
-
i.e.
to
lower
levels
-
as
well
as
horizontally
-
from
ministries
of
foreign
affairs
to
&dquo;domestic&dquo;
agencies.
More-
over,
to
the
extent
that
decentralization
of
management
functions
increases,
new
or
more
serious
problems
of
interorganizational
coor-
dination
and
policy
coherence
are
predicted,
generating
counterforces
of
contraction.
The
empirical
focus
of the
study
is
limited
to
Finland
and
Sweden,
but
in
a
separate
chapter
efforts
are
made
to
compare
these
two
cases
to
others.
in
particular
to
the
two
Scandinavian
neighbors
Denmark
and
Norway.
The
dif-
ferent
dimensions
of
internationalization
are
measured
mainly
by
data
on
personnel
and
budgetary
resources,
covering
roughly
the
period
1950-1980.
These
data
are
supple-
mented
by
other
kinds
of
information
ob-
tained
from
government
documents
and
re-
ports,
interviews
with
government
officials,
and
to
some
extent
from
various
secondary
sources.
The
authors
find,
as
predicted,
a
substantial
increase
in
the
amount
of
resources
allocated
to
the
management
of
external
relations.
The
rate
of
increase
over
the
thirty-year
period
is
higher
in
Finland
than
in
Sweden,
but
the
overall
level
of
internationalization
seems
to
be
higher
for
the
Swedish
government.
This
indicates
that
internationalization
of
the
cen-
tral
administration
is
a
more
recent
phenom-
enon
in
Finland
than
in
Sweden.
In
relative
terms,
however,
the
authors
find
no
significant
increase
in
the
weight
of
internationalization
in
Sweden;
in
fact,
the
share
of
the
overall
government
budget
allocated
to
international
activities
dropped
from
21%
in
1951
to
12%
in
1981,
suggesting
that
domestic
programs
grew
even
more
rapidly
than
externally
oriented
activities.
In
Finland,
the
growth
in
resources
allocated
to
international
activities
has
outpaced
the
increase
in
allocations
to
domestic
programs.
In
both
countries,
the
foreign
affairs
&dquo;establishment&dquo;
(including
the
ministries
of
Foreign
Affairs,
Defense,
and
Commerce)
have
by
and
large
succeeded
in
retaining
their
share
of
government
resources
despite
the
increasing
involvement
by
&dquo;dom-
estic&dquo;
ministries
in
absolute
terms.
Particularly
in
the
late
’seventies
and
early
’eighties
the
position
of
the
MFA
has
been
strengthened
in
both
countries,
partly
as
a
consequence
of
&dquo;fortunate&dquo;
circumstances
-
such
as
the
waning
health
of
President
Kekkonen
and
later
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