States interact with their national communities abroad in very different ways. In some cases, they actively support and protect them. In other cases, they co-opt and exploit their national communities abroad in that they reach out to them in order to tap into, thus benefitting domestically, from their economic and financial potentials or to garner political support. In still other cases, they repress or coerce their communities abroad, thus conceiving the latter not as an asset but as a possible challenge or threat that needs to be controlled. Against this background, the chapter first explores the general motivations and objectives as to why states interact with their national communities abroad, in the form of “support,” “co-optation,” and “repression.” Then, it discusses key practices that states employ in this interaction, along three substantive dimensions, namely: diplomacy and consular, economy and social, and security. Next, possible drivers that condition whether, how, and for what reason states interact with their communities abroad are presented. This is followed by a discussion on how the countries covered in this volume were selected. The concluding section presents the plan of the book and briefly summarizes the individual chapters.

The array of countries examined in this book offers a range of cross-cutting themes and propositions. Indeed, a careful sifting of the chapters suggest important similarities and differences not only in terms of how the twelve states under examination have handled common problems and challenges in their efforts to interact with their national communities abroad but also in the underlying rationale(s) for engaging (or not) in said activities in the first place. This concluding chapter first discusses general insights concerning the motivations of states’ interactions with their national communities abroad and the reasons that explain those interactions. Next, it zooms in on specific themes and trends in some greater detail, including: the contested, and at times highly politicized, nature of defining national communities abroad; the mismatch between states’ material capabilities and their willingness to engage their communities abroad; and acts of “democratic repression” which suggest that the discussion on transnational authoritarianism needs to be complemented by a systematic examination of democratic countries’ repressive actions abroad.

The chapter explores how Germany engages with its nationals abroad, covering the diplomatic/consular, economic/social and military dimensions. As of 2020, around 2.9 million Germans permanently lived outside Germany, mostly in other European countries and North America, and approximately 24 million Germans went abroad for their main holidays in 2021. The chapter finds that Germany’s activities towards these German nationals residing or travelling abroad is relatively limited overall, with a focus on supporting and assisting German citizens. There is only little evidence for policies to co-opt Germans abroad, for example in the context of return schemes for highly-skilled German citizens, and no indication for repression at all, as befits a liberal democracy. While Germany’s engagement is typically of low domestic salience, Germany can mobilize significant resources to support its nationals abroad at times of crisis (e.g., natural disasters or hostage situations), in particular through its global diplomatic network. Germany has also used its armed forces for military evacuations from conflict zones, often in close coordination with its European and transatlantic partners. Germany can thus be described as a capable protector that is, however, reluctant to engage with its national communities abroad on a more comprehensive and proactive basis.

Introduction

Gender is now a foreign policy issue on which some states are trying to lead, to promote either pro-or anti-gender norms (see Aggestam and True, 2021: 318). Over the past decade, a growing number of countries have pledged to adopt a feminist foreign policy while, at the same time, in other countries, authoritarian governments have rolled back gender equality norms (Chenoweth and Marks, 2022). In this chapter, we ask what drives some states to espouse a feminist foreign policy and others to lead an anti-gender movement? To answer this question, we focus on state leadership on gender and foreign policy, that is, states leading on pro-and anti-gender foreign policies in the international realm. As part of the explanation for state leadership, the chapter considers the role of political leaders advocating for these policies within states.

Leadership matters in foreign policy. We define leadership as being in the vanguard (Zhukova et al, 2022: 198). Through leadership, states seek prestige to bolster the country's image and status in international affairs (see Towns, 2010), but also their domestic legitimacy. Displaying leadership is a way for states to try to shape the international normative and institutional context, thus establishing their international status for years to come, and ‘locking in’ corresponding domestic policies. Furthermore, political leadership entails defining and clarifying goals for a group, and then bringing the group together to pursue those goals (Keohane, 2020: 236). Thus, state leadership with respect to feminist foreign policy means not only clarifying it as a goal and mustering the resources to pursue it but also setting an example for other states and leaders to follow.

Pro-gender equality state leadership may include the explicit adoption of the label feminist foreign policy, which adds a new quality to the pursuit of foreign policy goals. Many states have pro-gender equality foreign policies, but only a few have declared they are pursuing a feminist foreign policy. Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond (2016: 323) suggest more generally that ‘adopting the “f-word” … elevates politics from a broadly consensual orientation of gender mainstreaming toward more controversial politics, and specifically toward those that explicitly seek to renegotiate and challenge power hierarchies and gendered institutions that hitherto defined global institutions and foreign and security policies’.

As per Leadership Trait Analysis convention, the following profile of Donald Trump is based on 100 spontaneous statements comprising some 52,000 words. The statements were made in front of different audiences, cover different substantive areas, and come from different phases of his tenure in office.

This chapter introduces a “leader-centered theory of foreign policy change.” The theory seeks to account for the independent, systematic, and predictable effect of leaders in bringing about major changes in a country's foreign policy, in the sense of broader redirections that entail multiple decisions spanning different issue areas. More specifically, the theory explores the possible effect of leaders on the “why,” the “what,” and the “how” of foreign policy change in terms of:

• • the reasons due to which leaders try to fundamentally redirect their countries’ foreign policy, which is henceforth referred to as “triggering change”;

• • the substantive direction in which leaders seek to change foreign policy, which is henceforth referred to as “guiding change”; and

• • the actions that leaders undertake to bring about change in the domestic political arena, which is henceforth referred to as “implementing change.”

The theory is distinct from alternative explanatory frameworks in that it evolves around individual leaders and at the same time systemically incorporates insights from the public policy literature.

The first key feature of the theory is its explicit focus on leaders as key “change agents” (Hermann, 1990). Indeed, most analytical frameworks in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) that seek to account for foreign policy change bring together an array of structural and actor- oriented explanatory factors (for example, Holsti, 1982; Hermann, 1990; Rosati, 1994; Gustavsson, 1999; Welch, 2005; Blavoukos and Bourantonis, 2014; Joly and Haesebrouck, 2021; see also Chapter One of this volume). As a result, it is all but impossible to ascertain any independent and systematic effect that leaders might have on foreign policy change. The leader- centered theory outlined in this chapter offers an alternative perspective that conceptualizes individual decision makers as being crucial for the initiation, direction, and implementation of foreign policy change.

The second key feature is that the theory draws heavily on insights from the field of public policy. The first strand of literature that the theory incorporates is the one on policy failures (for example, Marsh and McConnell, 2010; Bovens and 't Hart, 2016; McConnell, 2016).

As a caveat: The following profile of Donald Trump rests on just two speeches. The simple reason for this is that those two speeches were the only ones that I could identify that President Trump gave during this tenure in office specifically on Cuba (Trump, 2017, 2020). Since political beliefs are held to be issue-specific, additional speeches in which Trump discussed, for example, Venezuela (at times with only occasional references to Cuba) or Latin America more generally were not included. The two speeches at hand comprise a total of some 5,400 words. As a result, the text source for the profile does not meet Operational Code Analysis convention, which must be taken into account in the interpretation of the results. See Chapter Three for details on Obama's profile.