EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
National Interest is an essentially contested concept. Comment. (UPSC CSE Mains 2022 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
- National interest shows the aspirations of the state, it can be used also operationally, in application to the actual policies and programmes pursued; it can be used polemically in political argument, to explain, rationalise or criticise. Above all, all statesmen are governed by their respective national interest. It is the purpose of foreign policy to conduct foreign relations to achieve national interest to the maximum extent. But it is not easy to determine exactly what a nation’s national interest is.
- Frankel divides the various attempts to define national interest into two broad categories objective and subjective approaches. The first category embraces those approaches that view national interest as a concept that can be defined or examined with some objectively definable criteria. The second category contains those definitions which seek to interpret national interest as a constantly changing pluralistic set of subjective references.
- The definition of national interest relies on the stand taken by a particular person about various pairs of extremes such as ideals versus self-interest, idealists versus realists, short-term and long-term concerns, and traditional and individual concerns.
- The task of defining national interest becomes more cumbersome as the domestic and international activities overlap. It is appropriate if national interest is seen as a synthesis of the objective and subjective approaches. In most nation-states, the iron law of oligarchy is prevalent, implying that governmental decisions are made only by a few men and women.
- These decisions are often taken in such a way as to promote the national interest as this notion is perceived and defined by the decision-makers; at best, they are justified by being related to the national interest. A renowned British scholar of international relations, Hugh Section Watson, has recommended that the expression of national interest is a misnomer as governments, not nation-states, make foreign policy.
- One cannot be more specific in explaining the meaning and content of national interest as both its value roots and the process of its synthesis are peculiar to the history, traditions, and institutional make-up of a country. One can, however, be quite clear about its function. Lerche and Said explain: As the overriding purpose governing the state’s relationship with the outside world, it serves two purposes. It gives policy a general orientation towards the external environment. More importantly, it serves as the controlling criterion of choice in immediate situations. The dominant view of national interest, in other words, dictates the nature of a state’s long-term effort in foreign policy and governs what it does in a short-term context.
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