A public policy approach to understanding the nature and causes of foreign policy failure

ABSTRACT

All governments are vulnerable to policy failure but our understanding of the nature and causes of policy failure is highly underdeveloped. This contribution, written from a public policy perspective, sets out a framework for understanding these issues as applied to foreign policy. In doing so, it seeks a cross-disciplinary fertilization of thinking that uses the messy and contested reality of policy failure as fundamentally a key – rather than a barrier – to advancing our understanding of a phenomenon referred to variously as policy fiascos, policy disasters, policy blunders and policy failures.

KEY WORDS:

• Fiascos
• foreign policy
• policy evaluation
• policy failure

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, as well as Ben Goldsmith, Diarmuid Maguire and Jason Sharman for their very helpful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Allan McConnell

Biographical note: Allan McConnell is professor in the Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney.