Foreign Policy Change: From Policy Adjustments to Fundamental Reorientations
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| Author | Jeroen Joly,Tim Haesebrouck |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920918783 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| Subject Matter | State of the Art |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920918783
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(3) 482 –491
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920918783
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Foreign Policy Change:
From Policy Adjustments to
Fundamental Reorientations
Tim Haesebrouck and Jeroen Joly
Abstract
Over the last decades, an increasing number of empirical studies have examined foreign policy
change. In this article, we provide an overview of different conceptualizations and understandings
of foreign policy change, identify the different drivers and inhibitors of change, and suggest avenues
for future research. Most importantly, this review argues that scholarship provides relevant
insights in foreign policy change on specific issues, but currently fails to unravel cases of more
fundamental change like, redirections of states’ entire orientation toward world affairs or broader
foreign policy categories (e.g. development aid or defense and security policy). Moreover, while
the literature on foreign policy change has arrived at a list of plausible explanatory conditions for
change, it has yet to provide a more general theoretical framework that captures the interplay
between explanations from different levels of analysis in an integrated model. In consequence, we
argue that research on foreign policy change would greatly benefit from comparative research
that examines change in a more systematic way across countries, foreign policy domains, and over
longer periods of time, with the goal of arriving at a more general explanatory model of foreign
policy change.
Keywords
foreign policy analysis, foreign policy change, inertia, policy making
Accepted: 23 March 2020
Introduction
The rise of China, renewed tensions between Russia and the West, and the election of
Donald Trump are just a few examples of the increasingly turbulent and changing inter-
national environment states have been faced with in recent years. In consequence, we
would also expect them to fundamentally change their policies to deal with this environ-
ment. Over the last decades, an increasing number of empirical studies have examined
foreign policy change. In this article, we survey this body of academic literature and
Ghent Institute for International Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Corresponding author:
Tim Haesebrouck, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Email: tim.haesebrouck@ugent.be
918783PSW0010.1177/1478929920918783Political Studies ReviewHaesebrouck and Joly
review-article2020
State of the Art - Review Articles
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