Abstract

The scope and content of the terms “foreign policy” and “diplomacy” have signifiantly widened, particularly under the new international circumstances of the post-Cold War period. It continues to consist, as all other policies, of a particular set of objectives which a state wants to attain in its relations with international partner. Today hardly any subject seems to escape being the legitimate subject of international relations. While, traditionally, foreign policy has always comprised those policies of security, defence and diplomacy which a state pursued in relation to the outside world, today’s comprehensive understanding of this policy domain comprises not only these filds of “high politics” but also other areas like economic policy, development policy, international trade as well as a growing number of the external aspects of some domestic policy filds. The paper intends to provide an introductory examination of the subject of foreign policy effiiency and in this general context, the nature, scope and defiition of foreign policy; the impact of main theories and methods of international relations on foreign policy effiiency studies; dominated approaches and methods toward the study of foreign policy effiiency. The article begins with the explanation of what the foreign policy is, draws on the compound elements of foreign policy, the domestic and international factors which defie foreign policy effiiency. In hindsight there are three paradigmatic theories that explain approaches toward the study of foreign policy effiiency, such as political science, international politics theory and foreign policy decision-making. The paper stresses that the effectiveness of foreign policy as a mechanism of the states’ national interests quarantee depends on the wide international political support of the foreign policy goals of the states on all stages of their implementations in the international arena. It is provided by the coincidence of their national interests on the world stage and foreign political attraction of the states to each others. The effectiveness of foreign policy also depends on such factors as the formed normative and legal base which defie the principles and regulate the peculiarity of the foreign policy implementation; economic stability achieved through increase of productivity and exports, and development in areas such as public health, education and transportation, prosperity of the citizens. The next domestic factors are: institutional providing of the foreign policy realization; the moderation of diplomacy goals the foreign policy is aimed at.