This article integrates literature on strategic culture with literature on the domestic politics of foreign policy, illustrating how the interaction of culture and domestic political calculation can influence government foreign policy on participation in international military operations. Empirically, the article investigates the decision made by the Government of Finland to refrain from participation in the military intervention in Libya in March–April 2011. The Finnish decision-making illustrates that domestic politics, in particular the factor of election timing, can strengthen the feeling among decision-makers that they should follow the country’s strategic culture. The article ends with theorization on the domestic political conditions under which decision-makers are more or less likely to deviate from strategic culture.
This article contributes to theoretical integration in foreign policy analysis, by integrating two explanatory concepts that have mainly been used separately, namely the strategic culture of elites and the operational code of individual decision-makers. The explanatory power of using both concepts is illustrated in a case study of Australian foreign policy regarding the multinational coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The main argument is that strategic culture can provide a reasonable explanation for Australia's overall military engagement in the coalition. However, to explain Australia's approach to the coalition, strategic culture must be complemented with the operational code. The article suggests that the character of strategic culture can influence the opportunities for decision-makers to have an individual impact on foreign policy.
In this article, we investigate the European Union's (EU) role as a normative foreign policy actor and its troubled relations to Russia and China. We contend that the lack of preparedness of the EU to foresee the increasingly tense relations with these countries can be explained through a role theoretical perspective. We show that the attachment of the EU to its role as a normative international actor reduced its awareness of Russia's and China's growing refusal to accept the EU's ambition to diffuse liberal norms and principles. The EU's inability to read the changing role expectations of China and Russia hampered the shaping of an appropriate foreign policy leading up the diplomatic crises with these two countries in the late 2000s and early 2010s, respectively. Theoretically, the findings contribute with a novel understanding of role conceptions in terms of reducing an actor's preparedness to acknowledge changes to its international role position caused by challenges raised by antagonistic partners.
Drawing on the strategic surprise, warning-response, and foreign policy literature, this article argues that the September 11 terror attacks should be regarded as a strategic surprise and examines a number of key factors that contributed to vulnerability and inhibited vigilance. Three broad explanatory "cuts" derived from the literature-psychological, bureau-organizational, and agenda-political-are deployed to sift through the rapidly expanding empirical record in an effort to shed light on the processes and contextual factors that left the United States vulnerable to the attacks. The article aims to improve our understanding of generic processes and practices that enhance or detract from vulnerability and vigilance.