Brexit: The Links Between Domestic and Foreign Policy
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905818779334 |
| Author | Ben Williams |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
36 POLITICAL INSIGHT • JUNE 2018
Foreign and domestic policy rarely
exist in isolation. When Boris
Johnson told a parliamentary
evidence session that Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British citizen detained
in Iran accused of spying, was ‘teaching
journalism’ in Tehran the Foreign Secretary
probably assumed he was speaking solely
to a UK audience, and a rather small one
at that. But Johnson’s remarks were seized
on by the Iranian government, and a
running diplomatic problem suddenly
became significantly more acute, leading
to an escalating war of words between
London and Tehran. The interaction
between domestic politics and foreign
policy-making is not confined to the status
of British citizens abroad. The UK’s most
Brexit: The Links
Between Domestic
and Foreign Policy
The UK’s vote to leave the EU was as much a product of divisions within
the Conservative party as wider concerns about Britain’s relationship
with Europe. Ben Williams explores the often complex relationship
between domestic and foreign policy and its impact on Brexit.
pressing policy concern – Brexit – throws
into sharp relief how domestic concerns
can so often shape foreign policy agendas.
Indeed, to fully understand the UK’s vote to
leave the European Union in 2016, we need
to go back into history and explore how
this major foreign policy shift has arisen
from within the machinations of internal
British politics and consequently impacted
on the global political environment. And to
do this we need to start with international
relations theory.
Post-Cold War international
relations
The ‘realist’ theory of international relations
advocates that a regime’s internal and
domestic dynamics are not relevant
in determining its actions within the
international arena. Instead, most realists
argue that a state’s foreign policy is primarily
shaped by either ‘Hobbesian’ national self-
interest, or instead in the neo-realist tradition
by the international structure. However,
‘liberal’ IR theorists alternatively emphasise
the signicance of internal political factors
and structures in shaping a state’s behaviour
in foreign policy matters. They argue that
liberal-democratic states with regular internal
election cycles and public accountability
generate enhanced mutual cooperation in
foreign aairs. By acknowledging the public
mood at domestic level, liberals identify a
dierent type of behavioural ‘predictability’
among states, with cooperation creating
international ‘norms’ and procedures for
wider collective benet, in the form of
institutions such as the United Nations and
European Union.
© Press Association
Political Insight June 2018 NEW.indd 36 02/05/2018 15:40
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