High-Level Foreign Policy Coordination: A Finnish Example

Abstract

Karvonen L. High-Level Foreign Policy Coordination: A Finnish Example. Coop eration and Conflict, XIX, 1984, 135-155.

This article identifies four basic conditions which determine the nature of foreign policy coordination at top level: constitutional provisions and practice, degree of stability in core areas of external relations, domestic consensus on foreign policy, and changes in the scope and nature of international relations. These factors are employed in an analysis of recent coordination problems in Finnish foreign policy, one case in particular, the Arafat Affair. The author argues that besides unique historical factors, changes in constitutional practice and in the politicization of parts of the foreign policy field account for these problems.