Qui fait la politique etrangere roumaine?: la prise des decisions; cadre legal et equilibres informels

Abstract

While the creation of public policies usually requires a process of consultation of the stakeholders, foreign policy is an exception to this rule. The concentration of the decision-making competences at the peak of the institutional architecture of the State is a characteristic that has lead scholars to consider it as pertaining to high politics. Nevertheless, identifying the main actors of decision-making is a relevant issue when it comes to the attribution of responsibility for a State's external action. This issue is at the heart of this article, which tries to locate this kind of responsibility for the post-communist Romanian foreign policy. Thus, after outlining the main theoretical tools that can be used for such an endeavor, the author proceeds to examine the legal and institutional framework that circumscribes foreign policy decision-making in Romania. The third part of the article is dedicated to a deeper approach to the informal relations established between the persons holding the key positions in the decision-making apparatus, based on a methodology that triangulates official documents, interviews with Romanian officials, and autobiographic texts published by the latter.