State Level of Analysis
STATE-LEVEL ANALYSIS
According to Chittick & Pingel (as quoted in the text), what is important from the state level perspective is how a country’s political structure and political forces and substantial actors within the country cause its government to decide to adopt one foreign policy or another. This is more so given the fact that policy making must occur within the context of a political structure and states are the most important part of that structure. Since the variety involved in the process of Foreign Policy making defies a single-study approach when viewed comparatively, it is apt to look at variables that define that process such as Type of Government, Situation and Policy.
Making Foreign Policy - Type of Government
The type of government a state runs, be it extremely authoritarian or unfettered democratic, inevitably affects the policy making process. The more authoritarian, the narrower the segment of government involved in the process while on the other end of the spectrum, the process in democracies is more open to inputs from a wide array of actors: legislators, media, public opinion, opposition parties and other foreign policy-making agents that influence government policy. President Olusegun Obasanjo complied with the International Court ruling and ceded the Bakassi Peninsula resorting to resettling those whose native homeland had gone to neighbouring Chad but this has yet to be ratified by the National Assembly.
Making Foreign Policy – Situation
Situation is another variable in this process as it introduces difference to policy making given the situation, whether it is a crisis situation or a noncrisis situation. Where the noncrisis situation involves the daily run of maintaining cordiality with states in the international arena and is likely to be dominated by the leader and a small group of advisers, the former has the tendency of involving a rally effect which is the propensity of the public and other domestic political actors to
According to Chittick & Pingel (as quoted in the text), what is important from the state level perspective is how a country’s political structure and political forces and substantial actors within the country cause its government to decide to adopt one foreign policy or another. This is more so given the fact that policy making must occur within the context of a political structure and states are the most important part of that structure. Since the variety involved in the process of Foreign Policy making defies a single-study approach when viewed comparatively, it is apt to look at variables that define that process such as Type of Government, Situation and Policy.
Making Foreign Policy - Type of Government
The type of government a state runs, be it extremely authoritarian or unfettered democratic, inevitably affects the policy making process. The more authoritarian, the narrower the segment of government involved in the process while on the other end of the spectrum, the process in democracies is more open to inputs from a wide array of actors: legislators, media, public opinion, opposition parties and other foreign policy-making agents that influence government policy. President Olusegun Obasanjo complied with the International Court ruling and ceded the Bakassi Peninsula resorting to resettling those whose native homeland had gone to neighbouring Chad but this has yet to be ratified by the National Assembly.
Making Foreign Policy – Situation
Situation is another variable in this process as it introduces difference to policy making given the situation, whether it is a crisis situation or a noncrisis situation. Where the noncrisis situation involves the daily run of maintaining cordiality with states in the international arena and is likely to be dominated by the leader and a small group of advisers, the former has the tendency of involving a rally effect which is the propensity of the public and other domestic political actors to