Kai Oppermann

• University of Sussex

In a novel contribution to the field of comparative foreign policy analysis, this book carefully delineates how states, regardless of regime, have formulated policies to deal with their national communities aboard. Some states, depending on their domestic political ideologies, cultures and capabilities, have extensive institutional mechanisms in pl...

The article contributes to scholarship on symbolic interactionist role theory in Foreign Policy Analysis, focusing on the concept of altercasting. Altercasting refers to verbal and non-verbal state behaviors in a role relationship to cast another state into roles that are complementary to its own roles. The article suggests putting more attention o...

The paper considers the role of humour in dealing with failure in foreign policy and brings insights together from the studies of policy failure, humour studies, customer service management and crisis communication. It investigates how research in customer service management and crisis communication points to the use of humour as an additional stra...

This chapter looks at the contribution of critical theories to the study of foreign policy. It then discusses the key general characteristics of critical International Relations (IR) theories before elaborating on the three strands of critical theories: feminism, postcolonialism, and Marxism. Critical theorizing in IR brings out the open structures...

Foreign Policy Analysis provides a guide to core foreign policy approaches, drawing insights from international relations and non-Western perspectives. Chapters put theoretical approaches front and centre without neglecting the right connection with international relations theories. This book challenges Western-centric perspectives on foreign polic...

This chapter explores the key concepts of Prospect Theory, which is a descriptive theory to explain foreign policy decision-making under risk. It acknowledges the theory as currently the most influential behavioural theory of choice in the social sciences. Prospect Theory emphasizes the importance and impact of the decision-making environment on de...

This chapter explains that operational code analysis offers a cognitive perspective for analysing foreign policy decision-makers. It defines operational codes as the decision-makers' political beliefs, which are used to explain foreign policy decisions and actions. Operational code analysis puts individual decision-makers front and centre and adopt...

This chapter looks into the Poliheuristic Theory of Decision-Making. This theory seeks to explain both the processes and the outcomes of foreign policy. The chapter then explains the theory's two-stage analytical framework and its subsequent shortcomings and empirical analysis. Poliheuristic Theory integrates insights from both cognitive and ration...

This chapter provides an overview of the bureaucratic politics approach when it operates in line with foreign policy. The chapter considers an approach which looks at governments and their operations within foreign policy as the outcome of political bargaining between different government bureaucracies. The bureaucratic politics approach uses the c...

This chapter looks into how a two-level games approach integrates international and domestic factors into a single analytical framework to explain foreign policy. It raises the argument of governments needing to simultaneously navigate international and domestic incentives and pressures when they formulate foreign policy. The two-level games approa...

This chapter discusses the key concepts of realism in International Relations (IR) and relates this to foreign policy. It explains that realism continues to be a relevant theoretical perspective on foreign policy which informs a rich array of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholarship. Realism offers an outside-in perspective that focuses on the rel...

This chapter explains how social constructivism views foreign policy as a norm-guided behaviour. It identifies norms as core components of social structures and as the key explanatory factor in social constructivist foreign policy analysis (FPA). Moreover, the meta-theoretical position of social constructivism indicates that the interests and ident...

This chapter examines the notion of an organizational behaviour approach with respect to foreign policy. Essentially, the organizational behaviour approach explains foreign policy as the output of government organizations operating according to standard patterns of behaviour. The chapter then enumerates the main functions and characteristics of org...

This chapter outlines the key concepts of the Groupthink Model, which places decision-making in small groups at the centre of analysis. As an empirical phenomenon, groupthink occurs when the striving for harmony and agreement within a decision-making group makes critical thinking take precedence over the substantive task the group has to work on. T...

This chapter discusses the study of analogies and metaphors as cognitive heuristics in foreign policy decision-making. It examines how analogical reasoning can help decision-makers reduce the complexity of foreign policy problems. The use of analogies and metaphors involves two subsequent cognitive processes wherein decision-makers activate analogi...

This chapter details the contribution of liberalism to the study of foreign policy. It starts with the similarities and differences of situating liberal Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) in the tradition of classic liberal thought. The liberal approach in FPA builds on the rich tradition of liberal political philosophy at the same time as representing...

This chapter focuses on Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA), which zooms in on leaders' personality traits as key drivers of foreign policy. The chapter correlates the LTA approach with the broader field of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). LTA is based on the assumption that the individual characteristics and peculiarities of decision-makers exert a sign...

This chapter considers a number of broad avenues for advancing Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) theories. FPA theories can be advanced by incorporating insights from ‘non-US’ foreign policy research, which in turn could contribute to a further decentring of the field more generally. The chapter details the points of departure for ‘internal dialogue’ a...

While foreign policy was not a major issue during the 2021 election campaign, the elections were a watershed for Germany’s role in international affairs. They put German foreign policy under new leadership, after 16 years under Chancellor Merkel, and came at a time when the growing international demands on Germany and the deepening foreign policy d...

Biographical narratives generate a continuous sense of political community across the state’s past, present and future, and provide the state with ontological security. Building on growing International Relations scholarship that highlights the power of visuals in shaping global politics, our article proposes visual rhetorical analysis as a tool to...

The article takes stock of German foreign policy under the Merkel IV government and adopts an analytical perspective that zooms in on the role of coalition politics. Specifically, it explores the impact of party-political contestation inside the ‘grand coalition’ both between (inter-party contestation) and within (intra-party contestation) the coal...

Because of his personality, had Donald Trump won the 2020 election the remarkable and unexpected united response by NATO allies to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened. Relying on leader personality research in foreign policy, we demonstrate this by using the counterfactual method of analysis. Specifying key differe...

Brexit was potentially a highly divisive issue for the EU27 with states having different relationships with the UK. And yet in the period from the UK's referendum in 2016 until the exit of the UK in 2020, the EU27 maintained a remarkable degree of unity. This article examines relative EU27 unity in the face of the Brexit process. The article is bas...

A growing body of research shows that the pariah regime of North Korea—as other countries too—cares about how it is perceived internationally. However, so far, we know very little about how effective North Korea’s strategic efforts are in improving its image among foreign audiences. As a first step toward addressing this gap, we employ a rigorous s...

Digital sovereignty has become a prominent concept in European digital policy, and Germany stands out as its leading advocate in Europe. How digital sovereignty is being understood in German politics is therefore highly relevant for broader policy debates on the European level. This motivates the main objective of the article to map out the differe...

This article explores the effectiveness of photographs as instruments of public diplomacy through an analysis of China’s visual storytelling during the COVID-19 outbreak. Beijing considered the pandemic an existential threat to its image and responded with a communications offensive that was designed to highlight the regime’s success in containing...

The article maps party support for national EU-related referendums across the EU after Brexit. It is motivated by conflicting expectations about the trajectory of EU referendum politics in the post-Brexit environment which foreground either possible contagion or deterrent effects of the Brexit referendum. Against this background, the article explor...

Foreign policy change is as ubiquitous as it is hard to grasp. Against this background, the edited volume seeks to expand our understanding of foreign policy change and to identify the drivers and inhibitors of such processes. This concluding chapter discusses key lessons and insights that can be drawn from the empirical chapters for the volume’s t...

The international roles states play in world politics are bound up with the ways in which sovereignty is constructed within the international system. While scholarship on sovereignty has recognized its social construction, and role research emphasizes social interactions as shaping roles and role behaviors, little work has explored the relationship...

Exploring the party political learning of the German Greens, a powerful agent of environmental policy in European politics, we identify the strategic and programmatic lessons learned from their failure in the 2013 general elections and explain the party politics that facilitated these lessons. We advance research on learning from failures by unders...

A series of crises over the last decade have put pressure on Europe's fundamental ordering principles. In response, German policymakers have scrambled to reinterpret Germany's foreign policy for a new era. To understand this process, the authors utilize an interpretivist approach, analyzing the discourse of German foreign policymakers through the l...

This article argues that the Leave narrative was successful in the 2016 referendum in part because it conformed to one of the well-established narrative genres of tragedy, comedy, satire and romance. These genres are story telling conventions that orientate audiences and guide the interpretation of the story being told. Specifically, the article sh...

British foreign policy stands at a turning point following the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Drawing on role theory, we trace the United Kingdom’s efforts to establish new foreign policy roles as it interacts with the concerned international actors. We find that the pro-Brexit desire to ‘take back control’ has not yet translated into a cogent foreign p...

In view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union (EU), the continued partial alignment with EU standards is often attributed either to domestic factors, or to diffusion processes induced by external actors other than the EU. Against this background, in this special issue, we explore the extent to which reforms in Turkey’s environment...

This article employs the poliheuristic theory of decision-making (PHT) to analyse German decisions to participate in, or abstain from, multinational military operations. PHT represents one of the leading theoretical efforts at bridging the cognitive-rationalist divide in foreign policy analysis. The theory posits a two-stage model of foreign policy...

This paper employs the Poliheuristic Theory of Decision Making (PHT) to analyse German decisions to participate in, or abstain from, multinational military operations. PHT represents one of the leading theoretical efforts at bridging the cognitive-rationalist divide in Foreign Policy Analysis. The theory posits a two-stage model of foreign policy-m...

Das Kapitel beleuchtet das Spannungsfeld zwischen internationalen Erwartungen an Deutschlands Außenpolitik und dem innenpolitischen Diskurs zur deutschen Außenpolitik während der dritten Amtszeit Angela Merkels. Die Analyse konzentriert sich auf die wichtigsten außenpolitischen Herausforderungen der Großen Koalition mit Blick auf die Eurokrise und...

Employing perspectives from the fields of political science and history, this interdisciplinary volume examines the explanatory power of the concept of ‘civilian power’ for the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Based on European and global topics, the volume examines whether the foreign behaviour of the Federal Republic before and...

This article suggests studying special relationships in international politics from an ontological security perspective. It argues that conceptualising the partners to special relationships as ontological security seekers provides a promising theoretical angle to address gaps in our understanding of three important dimensions of such relations: the...

In coalition governments, political parties are concerned not only with how many but also with which departments they control. The foreign ministry is among the most highly considered prizes in coalition negotiations. This article develops hypotheses to explain under which conditions the foreign ministry is likely to be allocated to a ‘junior coali...

This article takes stock of German foreign policy during Angela Merkel's third term in office (2013–17). It argues that the longer-term significance of Germany's foreign policy during this period is twofold. First, the Merkel government was confronted with multiple European and international crises which worked as a magnifying glass for the growing...

This edited volume analyzes mistakes in different areas of international relations including the realms of security, foreign policy, finance, health, development, environmental policy and migration. By starting out from a broad concept of mistakes as “something [considered to have] gone wrong” the edited volume enables comparisons of various kinds...

This article applies a method of narrative analysis to investigate the discursive contestation over the ‘Iran nuclear deal’ in the US. Specifically, it explores the struggle in the US Congress between narratives constituting the deal as a US foreign policy success or failure. The article argues that foreign policy successes and failures are sociall...

The collection brings together scholars from Public Policy and Foreign Policy to address the theme of policy fiascos. So far research on failure and fiascos in both Public Policy and Foreign Policy has existed independent of each other with very little communication between the two sub-disciplines. The contributions aim to bridge this divide and br...

This article explores processes of coalition governance in foreign policy. Specifically, it argues that such processes are shaped by two interrelated dimensions of coalition set-up: first, the allocation of the foreign ministry to the senior or a junior coalition partner and, second, the degree of policy discretion which is delegated to that minist...

Multi-party coalitions are an increasingly common type of government across different political regimes and world regions. Since they are the locus of national foreign-policy-making, the dynamics of coalition government have significant implications for International Relations. Despite this growing significance, the foreign-policy-making of coaliti...

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The contribution introduces narrative analysis as a discourse analytical method for investigating the social construction of foreign policy fiascos. Based on insights from literary studies and narratology it shows that stories of failure include a number of key elements, including a particular setting which defines appropriate behaviour; the negati...

The "in-or-out" referendum on Britain's EU membership on 23 June. 2016 has returned a narrow majority for "Brexit". This result brings to the fore deep divisions within British society and has aggravated the current crisis of European integration. It has also plunged Britain into a period of political, economic and constitutional uncertainty. This...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

Germany is increasingly expected to behave like a “normal” international actor, that is, one who assumes international responsibility in accordance with its international stature and whose involvement in international affairs is not—or to a lesser degree than during the Cold War—circumscribed by its past. Those changes in the expectations in partic...

The abstention of the conservative-liberal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel on UN Security Council resolution 1973 marked the first occasion in which the Federal Republic of Germany stood against all three of its main Western partners, the US, France, and the UK, simultaneously, on a major foreign policy issue. Many accounts of this decisi...

The poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making would benefit from being clearer in spelling out the conditions under which it holds more or less analytic promise. The article makes the case that the concept of issue salience can help the theory address its shortcomings in this respect. In particular, the explanatory power of poliheurist...

The European sovereign debt crisis is widely perceived by the German public as a dangerous threat and has great potential for domestic political mobilisation. The German Federal Government, therefore, faces particular pressures to explain and justify its crisis policy in the public arena. An important instrument for this purpose is the speeches of...

Research Highlights and Abstract The main contribution of this article is that it: Introduces a distinction between different pathways for junior partner influence on the foreign policy of coalition governments; Provides nuanced insights into the effects of coalition government on foreign policy as well as on the causal mechanisms behind these effe...

The article develops a two-dimensional typology of political reasons for governments to pledge referendums on European integration when they are not obliged to do so: the first dimension is about the political level at which the strategic use of referendum pledges is targeted and it distinguishes between domestic and European reasons; the second di...

Kai Oppermann and Alexander Spencer (2011) Thinking Alike? Salience and Metaphor Analysis as Cognitive Approaches to Foreign Policy Analysis. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2011.00167.x The article brings together two cognitive approaches to the analysis of foreign policy: salience and metaphor analysis. Issue salience and metaph...

German foreign policy can fruitfully be analysed through the lens of a modified two-level framework which identifies three interdependent drivers behind government decision making: the expectations of Germany's international partners, domestic constraints and the national role conceptions of decision-makers. In recent years, the configuration of th...

After the defeat of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) in the French and Dutch referendums, governments across Europe had little appetite for popular votes on the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, nine of the ten countries which were committed to (or had held) referendums on the TCE got around such votes on Lisbon. The article investigate...

Commitments to holding National referendums on the EU can under certsin conditinns be expected to have a transNational impact on the domestic politics of pledging popular votes on Europe in other countries. In particular, such transNational spillovers may work through two pathways: they affect the standards of what counts as appropriate ways of dec...

The article traces the images of America's three foremost European allies in US public opinion over the course of the Presidency of George W. Bush. Public country images are seen to consist of a valence and a salience dimension. Employing a mix of opinion polls and media content data, the article locates the country images under study within this t...

The perception of British ‘awkwardness’ in European affairs can be explained in part by the antipathy of successive governments to supranational forms of integration, by a certain ‘style’ of negotiation which is a product of the European Union (EU) policy-making process within government, and by the failure to construct a supportive domestic consen...

The two-level approach is often criticized for its failure to provide thorough theoretical guidance to the empirical task of establishing the boundaries of governmental win-sets. Addressing this deficit, the article builds upon principal-agent theory to deduce two determinants of win-sets: the salience of a foreign policy issue for a government's d...

Der Zwei-Ebenen-Ansatz basiert auf der Annahme rationalen Akteurshandelns. Sowohl die verwendete Terminologie der „games“, „win-sets“ oder „political indifference curves“ (Putnam 1988) als auch die zentralen Aussagen des Ansatzes über strategische Handlungsoptionen gouvernementaler Akteure in Zwei-Ebenen-Situationen oder über die Implikationen inne...

Die Rolle Großbritanniens in der EU wird von keiner Einzelfrage so stark bestimmt wie von der britischen Haltung zur Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion. Die einheitliche europäische Währung markiert den bedeutendsten Vertiefungsschritt der europäischen Integration seit dem Binnenmarktprojekt. Die Mitgliedstaaten der Eurozone konstituieren den innersten...

Die Metapher des Zwei-Ebenen-Spiels wurde von Robert D. Putnam in die politikwissen-schaftliche Debatte eingebracht. Dessen Aufsatz „Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games“ (Putnam 1988) prägte die zentralen terminologischen und konzeptionellen Grundlagen der Metapher, die nach wie vor bestimmend für ihre Rezeption sind. Die...

Die innenpolitischen Restriktionen außenpolitischer Entscheidungsprozesse sind ein wichtiger Erklärungsfaktor für das Handeln von Regierungen auf internationaler Ebene. Jedoch besteht in der Außenpolitikforschung gerade bei der Analyse des innerstaatlichen Handlungsspielraums von Regierungen in Zwei-Ebenen-Konstellationen ein erhebliches Theoriedef...

One of the most conspicuous European policy legacies of the Blair premiership pertains to this policy field's public salience: Whereas European integration featured as a decidedly high-salience issue at the beginning of New Labour's tenure, it was transformed into a downright low-salience issue at the end of Tony Blair's period in office. Given the...

FPA would more likely benefit from efforts at theoretical synthesis if it had better instruments to judge the comparative explanatory strengths and weaknesses of its theories. The paper contends that the concept of issue salience provides such an instrument. The concept captures the cognitive preconditions for domestic actors to sanction the foreig...