ABSTRACT
From a practical politics-and-international-relations point of view, various attempts have been made to study pragmatism as a concept by international-relations theory. Moreover, the term “pragmatism” tends to be overused and under-theorised. A quick survey of the literature on pragmatism in foreign policy fails to produce a consensus even on basic issues such as whether “pragmatic” should be considered complimentary or pejorative. In short, unpragmatism can be said to be any decision that values deontological principles over long-term goals. This is hard to assess in the case of the individual behaviour, since individuals’ long-term goals all differ and tend to be hard to pin down and rank, even for the individuals themselves. However, Pragmatism is a problem-solving approach, an art. By understanding pragmatism from a practitioner perspective, they aim to add value to the international relations and the public policy disciplines.
