Juliet Kaarbo - Leaders, Groups and Role playing Agents in Foreign Policy and International Politics

How do states make foreign policy decisions that underpin international relations? This inaugural presentation by Juliet Kaarbo, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social and Political Science (University of Edinburgh), examines this question by focusing on the personality of world leaders, the psychology and politics of small groups who are responsible for foreign policy, and the internal contestation of and external expectations for states’ foreign policy roles. The broad theme of the lecture is the importance of human agency and the social connections between agents in international politics. The presentation includes findings from research on Turkish, Dutch, Japanese, German, Israeli, US, Scottish, and UK foreign policy.