Ideas vs. Interests, Part 2

In class this week, we had a great discussion on how ideas and interests influence foreign policy. This week’s readings were also quite illuminating on the effect of ideas in foreign policy decisions, and how states reconcile their interests with their beliefs. What really drives foreign policy – interests or ideas?

            Goldstein and Keohane suggest that states rely on ideas to legitimize their interests.¹

However, ideas and beliefs themselves have proven to be powerful motivators in and of themselves. According to the Heidelberg Institute of Conflict Research, the primary cause of conflict is ideological change². Wars have been fought for centuries over differences in religion, and more recently over differences in political and economic ideology. Ideas, and the propagation of them, have always been strong enough motivators for centuries to drive foreign policy and conflict.

However, interests are often cloaked as ideas when it comes to foreign policy decisions. Ideas such as “promoting democracy” are often used as justifications for conflicts and invasions when a material interest is actually behind these decisions. Why are certain countries given help in humanitarian crises, while others are ignored? Why are nations willing to overlook human rights violations in some countries, but not others? A vested interest is often behind foreign policy decisions even when cloaked as an idea.

Case in point – the Rwandan genocide. Why did the United Nations and the United States decide not to intervene in the 1994 mass murder? In subsequent years, critics have condemned the US and the UN for their lack of action, but why did they not act in in the first place? Is it because neither the US or the UN had any vested interest in sub-Saharan Africa? While the UN security council did eventually provide assistance, it was too little, too late. Interests, rather than ideas, prevailed in this instance. Can ideas be promoted when there is more strategic values in simply promoting interests?

¹ Goldstein, J., & Keohane, R. O. (1993). Ideas and foreign policy: Beliefs, institutions, and political change, pg.4 Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

² Heidelberg Institute for Conflict Research, infographic available from http://www.economist.com/node/12758508