I always find it puzzling that so many foreign policy analysts, especially in Europe, pore over the details of strategy documents, and take them at face value, as if they represented the essence of a country’s foreign policy. In reality, they are largely PR. My question whenever one of these documents is published is always a simple one: what, if anything, is likely to change about the country’s foreign policy as a result of the document? The answer is usually nothing.

A few other people have made this argument that Scholz should "lead" instead of following public opinion. Here are a few points in response, some of which I've made in other tweets and replies. 1/7

https://twitter.com/fromTGA/status/1617132001353662465

First, from a democratic perspective (which, as someone who works on democracy as well as a citizen, I think is important), it’s more complicated than a straightforward choice between “leading” and following public opinion. 2/7

There has much discussion of the UK’s “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific in the last 2 weeks since the publication of the Integrated Review. But it seems to me that it has a longer history – it has been a gradual shift over the last decade. 1/6 gov.uk/government/pub… It seems to me that, like the US “pivot” to Asia that began under Obama, it is a combination of 2 things: (a) an increasing focus on the Asia-Pacific and (b) a shift towards a more hawkish approach to China. 2/6

Excellent new paper by @AChryssogelos for @chathamhouse on the foreign policies of populist parties in Europe. He shows that the idea of a populist "playbook" in foreign policy is largely a myth. chathamhouse.org/2021/03/there-… 1/5 The paper shows how populist parties in Europe differ greatly in how they approach foreign policy, which often reflects the dominant strategic culture and perceptions of the national interest more than ideology. 2/5

In an essay in the new edition of the @JoDemocracy on democratic dysfunctionality in Europe, Sheri Berman and I argue that in Europe, unlike the United States, the problem is not polarization but convergence. muse.jhu.edu/article/778230 1/6 Based on the American experience, much recent discussion has focused on polarization. But in Europe it is not so much polarization and partisanship that have led to democratic decay and the rise of populism but party convergence and diminishing partisanship. 2/6

Here's what I said on the @TPpodcast_ yesterday. The short version is that we are still at the early stage of this crisis and we should be cautious about drawing conclusions about the international political consequences of it. 1/16

https://twitter.com/hanskundnani/status/1243101159205863425

It seems to me that the challenge in thinking about the coronavirus is that it is a health crisis, which will have economic consequences and domestic and international political consequences, which may in turn feed back into the health crisis. 2/16

The more I think about the idea of “European values” after discussing it on a panel at #BelvedereForum19 last week, the less it seems to me that such a thing exists in any meaningful sense. 1/14 Firstly, the whole idea of “European values” (or “Asian values”) seems to me to be somewhat Huntingtonian – it suggests the fault lines in international politics are cultural, i.e. a “clash of civlisations”, though this doesn’t seem to occur to “pro-Europeans”. 2/14