Convergence of State Policy Analyses in the Context of Globalization : An Application of the Herbert Kitschelt Model

Abstract

The effects or indeed impacts of ongoing globalization have been quite fundamental in all facets of human endeavours. The world has become closely more interconnected, interdependent within the context of a global village. Consequently, sovereign national borders have been increasingly breached with impunity and in alarming frequencies by events occurring in very remote locations across the world. There are now obvious constraints on the manner states have to make and formulate their policy decisions, knowing fully well that they could almost invariably affect trends in far flung locations worldwide. Viewed then against this backdrop, it is obvious that the borderline that traditionally separates domestic from foreign policies now also appear blurred increasingly by such intervening influences of globalization. If we then take this position as given, there appears to be an urgent need to rethink the basic theoretical props utilized over time in analyzing government policies generally. The intention here is to devise a common analytical model that could be readily applicable to both domestic and foreign policies. This paper examines critically the so-called 'Kitschelt Model' and submits that, as an analytical frame, and under the intervening influences of ongoing globalization, there is a veritable basis now to analyze almost any government policy whether they are oriented towards the domestic or foreign context from a central point of convergence.

Keywords

• globalization, foreign policy, domestic policy, policy making, Kitschelt Model