EVALUATING THE EFFICACY OF FOREIGN POLICY: AN ESSAY ON THE COMPLEXITY OF FOREIGN POLICY GOALS Article

Clark, JF. (1995). EVALUATING THE EFFICACY OF FOREIGN POLICY: AN ESSAY ON THE COMPLEXITY OF FOREIGN POLICY GOALS . 23(4), 559-579. 10.1111/j.1747-1346.1995.tb00076.x

cited authors

  • Clark, JF

authors

abstract

  • For those rejecting the idea of an objective “national interest,” the problem of evaluating the efficacy of foreign policies begins with establishing foreign policy goals. Yet the full complexity of foreign policy goals is frequently underestimated. As a standard for evaluating foreign policy, such goals must be specified in geographical and conceptual scope, temporal range and ranking. A further methodological difficulty lies in deriving such goals from the words and deeds of national leaders. Among the problems in this area are deciding whose goals are national goals, and at what moment one should identify them. Collectively, these difficulties probably doom any truly scientific evaluation of foreign policy, but it is not certain that they render any objective judgment impossible, as some post‐modernist analysis suggests. © 1995 Policy Studies Organization

publication date

  • January 1, 1995

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 559

end page

  • 579

volume

  • 23

issue

  • 4