Reason, Meaning, and the Institutional Context of Foreign Policy Decision-Making
| Published date | 01 June 1994 |
| Author | P. Stuart Robinson |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209404900210 |
| Date | 01 June 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
P.
STUART
ROBINSON
Reason,
meaning,
and
$the
institutional
con-
text
of
foreign
policy
decision-making
The
ultimate
language
of
madness
is
that of
reason
...
Michel
Foucault
The
battle
of
the South
Atlantic
was
not
won
by
ignoring
the
dangers
or
denying the
risks.
It
was
achieved
by
men
and
women
who
had
no
illusions
about
the
difficulties.
They faced
them
squarely
and
were
determined
to
overcome.
Margaret
Thatcher,
Western
society
is
steeped
in
the
secular
faith
of
rational
mate-
rialism,
according
to
which
material
self-interest
is
the
driving
motivation
of
human
beings
and
a
first
principle
of
ethics and
I
The
Foucault
phrase
is
from
his
Madness
and
Civilization:
A
History
of
Insanity
in
the Age
of
Reason
(New
York:
Random
House
1973),
95.
The Thatcher
comment
was
made
to
a
Conservative
rally in
Cheltenham
in
July
1982:
quoted
in
Anthony
Barnett,
Iron
Britannia
(London:
Allison
and
Busby
1982),
152.
This
essay
was
awarded
the
Marvin
Gelber
prize
for
1993.
Established
in
recogni-
tion
of
the
abiding
interest
of
Marvin
Gelber
in
international
affairs
and
of
his
many
years
of
service
to
the
Canadian
Institute
of
International
Affairs,
the
prize
is
awarded
annually
to
the
article
by
a
junior
Canadian
scholar
on
a
subject
in
the
area
of
international
affairs
and
foreign
policy
which
is
judged
best
by
the
prize
committee
for
its
sound
scholarship
and
good
writing.
The
author
is
an
assistant
professor
of
political
science
at
the
University
of
West-
ern
Ontario.
His
forthcoming
book
is
entitled
The
Politics
of
International
Cri-
sis
Escalation.
International
Journal
XLIX
SPRING
1994
REASON,
MEANING, AND
FOREIGN
POLICY
409
politics.
In
the
liberal
democratic
canon,
humankind's
egotism
is
a
miraculous
but
inevitable force
for
Good,
as
it
shapes
civil
society with
the
proverbial
invisible
hand.
This
characterization
of
human
beings
and
their
relations
is
one
articulate
and
crucial
statement
of
meaning
amidst
the
multitude
of
mutual
under-
standings
which
hold
together
the
framework
of
social
institu-
tions.
The
depth
and
range
of
society's
self-understandings
are
naturally
much
greater
than
this
central
doctrine
suggests.
Other
understandings
are
less
articulate,
however,
suppressed
by
the
weight
of
a
dominant
political
order
and
its
discourse:
This
paper
attempts
to
articulate
some
of
those
understand-
ings
suppressed
by
the
dominant
abstraction
of
the
state
as
actor
in
international
affairs.
It
does
so
against the
ideological
grain
of
an
account
of
states
and
their
relations
which
speaks
of
the
rational
pursuit
of
material
self-interest
writ
large
as
an
emer-
gent
empirical
order
or
a
moral
imperative.
Just
as
the
rational
autonomous
individual
seals
the
prosperity
of
societas3
and
is
thus
justified
in
his4
unhindered
disposal
of
goods,
the
rational
autonomous
state
seals
the
security
of
societas
and
is
thus
justi-
fied
in
its
unhindered
disposal
of
force.
By
unpacking
this
ide-
ology
of
the
state
in
international
affairs
we
can
better
understand
international
politics
as
a
volitional
and
societal
nor-
mative
order
and
escape
the
constraints
of
pseudo-scientific
empiricism.
Those
constraints
are
both
epistemological
and
teleological.
Knowledge
and
political
change
are
each
con-
stricted
within
the
same stiflingly
narrow
bounds
of
analysis.
2
This
is
the central
theme
emerging
from
Michel
Foucault's
Power/Knowledge:
Selected
Interviews
and
Other
Writings,
1972-1977
(Hassocks:
Harvester
Press
198o).
3
Michael
Oakeshott,
in
'The
vocabulary
of
a
modern
European
state,'
Political
Studies 23(1975), 336-7,
uses
societas
to
denote
a
civil
association
bound
by
procedural
rules
which simply
modulate
individuals'
relations and
facilitate
the
pursuit of
their
individual
purposes.
He
contrasts
this
with
universitas,
an
association
bound
by
the
terms
of
a
common
purpose.
4
The
autonomous
individual
has
implicitly
always
been
male
though
this
is
undergoing
a
dialectic
of
revision
to
become
increasingly
inclusive
of
males
and
females.
This
facilitates
and
justifies
the
absorption
of
women
into
the
money
economy.
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