Foreign Policy-Making in Central and East European States

Abstract

Two decades since the disintegration of the Eastern bloc, Central and East European states face geopolitical, economic and institutional constraints in foreign policy-making that remain very different from those addressed by West European countries. Starting with external constraints, geopolitically, the small and medium-sized states of the region are still coping with issues stemming from their geography, which inevitably sets them in the midst of great power politics, including the growing influence of the Russian Federation, the lingering dominance of the US and the soft power ambitions of the EU. Economically, CEE countries continue to wrestle with the effects of communist legacies on trade and energy relations, as the newly assertive Moscow has demonstrated in the last decade that it is willing to use economic links to try to elicit more compliant foreign policy behavior from states in its neighbourhood. Moving on to internal constraints, though most CEE countries have achieved sovereignty and, in some cases, independence from Moscow, they are struggling with challenges related to the types of political regimes that they have established as well as to the quality of the political and bureaucratic institutions that they have achieved. Crucially, these domestic constraints either reinforce or abate the external – geopolitical and economic – ones. Moreover, whether international and regional realities and domestic institutions matter hinges upon the way that old and new discourses condition group perceptions, and, consequently, foreign policy conduct. Theoretically, papers in this panel seek to contribute to the agent-structure debate, though not from the dominant structural perspective, but by considering the role of various types of constraints in foreign policy-making in comparative empirical analysis of a unique set of countries that will exhibit both similarities and differences. In practice, conclusions drawn from the papers hope to illuminate some of the contemporary policy issues faced by decision-makers in Europe and beyond. 1) Agnia Baranauskaite, DPhil Candidate, Politics and IR, University of Oxford Email: agnia.baranauskaite@bnc.ox.ac.uk Paper Title: “Pipeline Politics: Baltic-Russian relations in 1994-2011” 2) Nadiya Kravets, DPhil Candidate, Politics and IR, University of Oxford Email: nadiya.kravets@politics.ox.ac.uk Paper Title: “The Russian Factor in Ukrainian Foreign Policy, 1991-2010” 3) Kristina Mikulova, DPhil Candidate, Politics and IR, University of Oxford Email: kristina.mikulova@nuffield.ox.ac.uk Paper Title:"The US factor in the Foreign Policies of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, 2000-2010" 4) Michal Simecka, DPhil Candidate, Politics and IR, University of Oxford Email: michal.simecka@nuffield.ox.ac.uk Paper Title: "Re-living Transition: Ideational Sources of New EU Members' Foreign Policies Toward the Eastern Neighbourhood"

Title	Details
External powers in foreign policy multivectorism of the post-Soviet states: comparing Ukraine to Kazakhstan	View Paper Details
Re-living Transition: Ideational Sources of New EU Members'' Foreign Policies Toward the Eastern Neighbourhood	View Paper Details
The Russian Factor in Ukrainian Foreign Policy, 1991-2010	View Paper Details
Between Politics & a Hard Place: Government Structure, Influence and Foreign Policy Behaviour in Post-Soviet Belarus and Ukraine	View Paper Details
“Missionary Zeal of Recent Converts": Norms and Norm Enterpreneurs in the Foreign Policy of Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Case of the Iraq War	View Paper Details
From Recipients to Donors: The Puzzle of Eastern European Democracy Promotion	View Paper Details