Parliamentarization of Foreign Policy in the Era of Post-Politics

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

PhD in comparative politics and postdoctoral researcher, University of Munich, Germany;

Abstract

Parliament’s involvement in foreign policy attempts to understand the balance between the executive and the legislative bodies. As a relentless process of measuring power and continuity of the conflict between traditional governance and democratic privileges, such an understanding is a response to changes in the political and international systems. However, voters’ alienation from international politics, power relations in democratic systems, the complexity of international bargaining, prolongation and drifting of decision-making under the parliament’s veto power, and the conservatism of global politics have led to overlooking the role of parliament in foreign policy. Still, the transition to the postpolitical period has changed the status of parliament in foreign policy-making. This postpolitical period is characterized by the rising of new social and influential forces on political interactions. Accordingly, this paper’s main question was what happened to the functions of parliament in foreign policy-making in the new political environment? The main idea of this paper was that the following factors caused the change in patterns, procedures, and strategies of foreign policy-making in the new era: 1. increasing the levels of interactions between nations, 2. rising the shareholder forces in decision making, 3. decreasing the monopoly of the executive body on foreign policy-making, and 4. parliamentarization of foreign policy. This paper examined the mentioned hypothesis by applying the theory of pluralism sociology and analytical-comparative methodology. The findings showed that the parliamentarization of foreign policy is the cause and result of the democratization process by paying particular attention to the sovereignty, status, validity, and environment of the parliament. This democratization process limited the power of foreign governmental policy-making and inaugurated a transnational interaction. 

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References

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