CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
The Literature Review chapter if this thesis is dedicated to the foreign policy of small states and multivector foreign policy of Kazakhstan. The review is based on academic and official discourses. The primary aim of this chapter is to outline the main peculiarities of foreign policy of small state theory, Kazakh multivector approach and draw the cross-lines between two. Due to the fact that the main research question of this thesis is whether Kazakhstan is tilting away from multivector foreign policy, it is crucial to define the nature of multivectoralism and its relations to the foreign policy of small states.
I. Foreign policy of small states
Emerging in the second half of the 20th century, the concept of “foreign …show more content…
(2013) have conducted critical research on the mainstream ideas of foreign policy of small states. The notion of “conventional wisdom” not indoctrinated within the overall theory of foreign policy of small states but, it is often used by scholars who criticize the mainstream neo- or structural realist perception which predominates academic discourse on the subject matter. There are two crucial assumptions highlighted by critiques as being essential for conventional wisdom as related to the concept of foreign policy of small states. The two major assumptions of conventional wisdom derive from the neo-realist vision of states’ behavior in the international system. Neo-realism claims that it is the international anarchic system which serves as a primary casual factor for states’ behavior, as the “internal characteristics and the preferences of nations do not provide sufficient grounds for predicting behavior” (Waltz 1979, 202). Such a systemic approach to understanding IR represents neo-realism’s core difference from classical …show more content…
Kenneth Waltz, who is considered to be the founder of neo- or structural realism, based his arguments on system theories. The international system, as he claimed, “is generated by the interactions of its principal parts” (i.e. dominant states) (Waltz 1979, 72), which in turn would shape the behavior of small states. Arnold Wolfers and James Rosenau had similar assumptions on small states’ foreign policy. Wolfers argues that the necessity to analyze the internal decision making and domestic politics is more crucial while studying the foreign policy of great powers, while Rosenau highlights the international environment as more of an important factor to consider in analyzing the foreign policy of small states due to the importance of systemic factors (Elman 1995,