Could foreign policy be used as a tool of economic and political modernisation? Could EU act as a possible ‘multiplier’ of Member States’ global influence? What circumstances and ‘critical junctures’ encourage countries to globalise their foreign policy? How have Poland, Spain and Sweden coped with the challenge of finding a ‘golden mean’ between their regional and global interests?

These and other questions have been a focus of a new study, edited by Paweł Zerka et al., on How does ‘going global’ come about?. The study was conducted by demosEUROPA-Centre for European Strategy (Poland), FRIDE (Spain) and Global Utmaning (Sweden).

The report analyses the dynamics between the processes of democratic and market-oriented transition on the one hand, and the globalization of foreign policy on the other. Its authors argue that there is no automatic spillover between the three phenomena. Nevertheless, if modernisation is not reduced to institutional change only but is conceptualised broadly in terms of corresponding identity change in a society, then globalisation of foreign policy inevitably constitutes a part of such modernisation.

The study was co-financed by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland within the framework of the Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2014 grants.

To read the study, click here.