Thesis Title: Deviations in Foreign Policy Decisions of Revolutionary States: Iran & China
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Asst. Prof. Resat Bayer
Assoc. Prof. Michael Mousseau Asst. Prof. Sevtap Demirci |
About
A vast literature can be found on the relationship between revolution and war (Walt, DeFronzo, Conge, Maoz), yet works covering how, when and why changes in foreign policies of revolutionary states occur are few (see Sadri). Given that many revolutionary states have been key actors of the international system in the last hundred years, it is necessary to understand the reasons behind the changes in their foreign policy. This study examines the reasons of deviation from the original foreign policy principles of the revolutionary era and analyses the cases of China and Iran through the comparative case study method as well as process-tracing. This study argues that factionalization within revolutionary elites, economic and military insufficiencies, and national interests are among the internal reasons which cause revolutionary states to depart from their ideological foreign policy principles. Furthermore, it is also argued that as a strong external factor, geopolitical situation of a revolutionary state at a particular time has the ability to influence the magnitude of deviations, yet unable to constitute an independent variable on its own. Consequently, deviations increase the susceptibility of the revolution and its ideology to internal and external threats. The deviations result in the foreign policy tenets set by the revolutionary ideology to be increasingly untenable.
