THE DOMESTIC IMPACT OF FOREIGN POLICY: THE CASE OF NORTH MACEDONIA
THE DOMESTIC IMPACT OF FOREIGN POLICY: THE CASE OF NORTH MACEDONIA

Summary/Abstract: This article brings to attention the domestic impact that possibly is produced by a state’s foreign policy orientation. Dwelling on the case of North Macedonia, the article explores the challenges the state faces in fulfilling its foreign policy strategic objectives. It further tries to correlate these challenges to internal relations. In other words, the paper analyzes the impact that a NATO and EU oriented foreign policy has over inter-ethnic relations domestically, focusing on the external blockades to these foreign policy objectives and their relation to domestic developments. This relationship derives from the authors’ assumption that foreign policy orientation serves as a unifying factor of the two biggest ethnic groups in the country, hence every threat (external in this case) to foreign policy objectives may possibly result in domestic cleavages between the ethnically different groups. In efforts to accumulate evidence for the laid hypothesis, the article uses empirical data gathered through interviews with political actors, researchers, and academics, in the period 2017-2020. The aim is to evaluate whether foreign policy influences domestic relations between different social groups, illustrating this relationship through the case of North Macedonia.

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