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Introduction and Plan of the Book

The notion that politics stops—and should stop—at the water’s edge is widespread in foreign policy analysis and foreign policymaking. The notion suggests that party politics becomes inappropriate, if not dangerous, to the national interest if a country faces an external threat or an international crisis. Scholars of foreign affairs have only mildly protested against the idea that external relations are exempted from democratic politics. This is least surprising with a view to the (neo-)realist school of thought that is well known for its emphasis on national interests and structural forces. Constructivist scholars of political culture and of securitization, however, have barely paid more attention to party politics than their realist colleagues. The disciplinary divide between scholars of international relations and those of comparative politics has not helped to overcome the neglect of political parties in the study of foreign policy. The chapter presents the plan of the book and introduces two lead questions: 1) to what extent is foreign, security, and defence politics exempted from party politics? and 2) how is party-political contestation in foreign, security, and defence politics structured?