Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

by Christopher Hill

In the years since 9/11, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, public attention the world over has been on foreign policy. From the United States to Yemen, from China to Venezuela, the quality of the decisions taken by politicians and diplomats has been under the closest scrutiny. What is more, with the increased personal mobility created by globalization, many individuals and groups now focus as much on international events as on affairs within their own state. Diasporas, company managers, humanitarian volunteers and other non-state actors are aware of the necessity for effective diplomacy to secure the outcomes they hope for.

This revised and retitled new edition of the author's acclaimed The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy provides the concepts and analysis needed to make sense of contemporary developments in this key site of political action. It provides a clear and engaging synthesis of what foreign policy means in the twenty-first century and shows how it can vary according to regime, level of development and geopolitical position. Stressing the interplay between context and shared dilemmas, it examines how actors – including the many non- and sub-state entities which have developed international strategies – engage, and attempt to manage their differences, within a network of complex multilateral relationships.

Written by a leading scholar of international renown, this new edition has been updated throughout, with particular attention given to contemporary issues such as soft power, transnational security challenges and the role of regional actors such as the European Union.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published December 19, 2015

About the author

John Edward Christopher Hill was the pre-eminent historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English history, and one of the most distinguished historians of recent times. Fellow historian E.P. Thompson once referred to him as the dean and paragon of English historians.

He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Russian department of the British Foreign Office, returning to teach at Oxford after the war.

From 1958-1965 he was University Lecturer in 16th- and 17th-century history, and from 1965-1978 he was Master of Balliol College. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the British Academy. He received numerous honorary degrees over the course of his career, including the Hon. Dr. Sorbonne Nouvelle in 1979.

Hill was an active Marxist and a member of the Communist Party from approximately 1934-1957, falling out with the Party after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprisings of 1956.

In their obituary, The Guardian wrote of Hill:

"Christopher Hill…was the commanding interpreter of 17th-century England, and of much else besides.…it was as the defining Marxist historian of the century of revolution, the title of one of the most widely studied of his many books, that he became known to generations of students around the world. For all these, too, he will always be the master." [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/...]

Reviews

[Pallis Apostolos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ένα ακαδημαϊκό σύγγραμμα που αξίζει να διαβάσει κανείς. Με απλό μεστό τρόπο εξηγεί ζητήματα που θα έπρεπε να απασχολούν όλους. Ο τρόπος και η εξήγηση του είναι σίγουρο πως θα βοηθήσει εκείνους που θέλουν να αποκτήσουν μια σφαιρική οπτική του ζητήματος χωρίς βέβαια να το διερευνήσουν σε βάθος. Αξίζει μια ανάγνωση

[John Ferngrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those necessary but not very thrilling social science (political science, international relations) texts that consists in an exhaustive enumeration of essentially obvious facts, illustrated with examples that would be entirely familiar to an older person with a lifetime interest in current affairs, but possibly illuminating to younger student readers.

The central institution analysed is the foreign policy department of the nation state. The analysis is a readably presented list of relations between this and numerous other actors, or groups of actors, in terms of who is talking to who, who is listening to who, who has power or influence over who? Other actors include other offices in the home state, foreign policy and other departments in peer nation states, NGOs, IGOs, economic and legal, civil society, etc.

Its 21st Century aspect is essentially aimed at heading off the exaggerated prediction that the significance of the nation state would diminish in the face of progressively globalising influences, as was fashionable in international relations studies in the nineties and noughties.

Very well written with great clarity and precision. Would presumably qualify to become a set text for international relations students.