ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will re-examine the nature of foreign policy in the wide landscape of global and regional problems by introducing a new interdisciplinary framework. Foreign policy is normally perceived as comprising the external actions of sovereign states in the context of the international system. It is understood that only the ‘state(s)’ – referring to any collective actors like primitive tribes, citystates, temple-states, empires or modern states – make foreign policy. Foreign policy actors have ‘attempted to achieve objectives or defend their interests by fundamentally similar techniques, of which the use of force and the construction of alliances are only the most obvious examples’ (Holsti 1992: 2, 10, see also Carlsnaes 2008).
