National Identity And Foreign Policy

This book is based on the premise that the foreign policy of any country is heavily influenced by a society's evolving notions of itself. Applying his analysis to Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, the author argues that national identity is an ever-changing concept, influenced by internal and external events, and by the manipulation of a polity's collective memory. The interaction of the narrative of a society and its foreign policy is therefore paramount. This is especially the case in East-Central Europe, where political institutions are weak, and social coherence remains subject to the vagaries of the concept of nationhood. Ilya Prizel's study will be of interest to students of nationalism, as well as of foreign policy and politics in East-Central Europe.

How can democratization move forward in an era of populist-nationalist backlash? Many countries in Asia, and elsewhere, face the challenge of navigating between China and the United States in a period of intensifying polarization in their policies tied to democracy. East Asia has shown the way to democratization in Asia—with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan linking national identity to democratization. In other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia, nationalist governments have tended to move away from democratization, as happened in Hong Kong at China’s insistence. This book investigates how national identity can both help and hinder democratization, illustrated by a series of examples from across Asia. A valuable guide for students and scholars both of democratization and of Asian politics.

Examines the complex relationship between United States foreign policy and American national identity as it has changed from the post-cold war period through the defining moment of 9/11 and into the 21st century. Starting with a discussion of notions of American identity in an historical sense, the contributors go on to examine the most central issues in US foreign policy and their impact on national identity including: the end of the Cold War, the rise of neo-conservatism, ideas of US Empire and the influence of the 'War on Terror'. The book sheds significant new light on the continuities and discontinuities in the relationship of US identity to foreign policy.

Drawing on Freud, Mead, Erikson, Parsons and Habermas, William Bloom relates mass psychological processes to international relations.

Shibley Telhami and Michael Barnett, together with experts on Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Syria, explore how the formation and transformation of national and state identities affect the foreign policy behavior of Middle Eastern states.

A third edition of this book is now available. Now fully updated and revised, this clear and comprehensive text explores the past thirty years of Soviet/Russian international relations, comparing foreign policy formation under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev. Drawing on an impressive mastery of both Russian and Western sources, Andrei P. Tsygankov shows how Moscow's policies have shifted with each leader's vision of Russia's national interests. He evaluates the successes and failures of Russia's foreign policies, explaining its many turns as Russia's identity and interaction with the West have evolved. The book concludes with reflections on the emergence of the post-Western world and the challenges it presents to Russia's enduring quest for great-power status along with its desire for a special relationship with Western nations.

Now fully updated and revised, this clear and comprehensive text explores the past quarter-century of Soviet/Russian international relations, comparing foreign policy formation under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev. Drawing on an impressive mastery of both Russian and Western sources, Andrei P. Tsygankov shows how Moscow s policies have shifted with each leader s vision of Russia s national interests. He evaluates the successes and failures of Russia s foreign policies, explaining its many turns as Russia s identity and interaction with the West have evolved. The book concludes with reflections on the emergence of the post-Western world and the challenges it presents to Russia s enduring quest for great-power status along with its desire for a special relationship with Western nations."

The trajectory of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule offers an ideal empirical window into puzzling shifts in Turkey's domestic politics and foreign policy. The policy transformations under its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan do not align with existing explanations based on security, economics, institutions, or identity. In Identity Politics Inside Out, Lisel Hintz teases out the complex link between identity politics and foreign policy using an in-depth study of Turkey. Rather than treating national identity as cause or consequence of a state's foreign policy, she repositions foreign policy as an arena in which contestation among competing proposals for national identity takes place. Drawing from a broad array of sources in popular culture, social media, interviews, surveys, and archives, she identifies competing visions of Turkish identity and theorizes when and how internal identity politics becomes externalized. Hintz examines the establishment of Republican Nationalism in the wake of imperial collapse and examines failed attempts made by those challenging its Western-oriented, anti-ethnic, secularist values with alternative understandings of Turkishness. She further demonstrates how the Ottoman Islamist AKP used the European Union accession process to weaken Republican Nationalist obstacles in Turkey, thereby opening up space for Islam in the domestic sphere and a foreign policy targeted at achieving leadership in the Middle East. By showing how the "inside out" spillover of national identity debates can reshape foreign policy, Identity Politics Inside Out fills a major gap in existing scholarship by closing the identity-foreign policy circle.