EXPLORING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FOREIGN POLICY IN MALAYSIA: DEFINITIONS, PREMIERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY DECISIONS

Academic discussion on the fundamentals of foreign policy often draws a debatable argument in International Relations research. Yet, the effort to unravel the core definition of foreign policy is limited and largely unobserved. Regardless of any foreign policy beliefs, understanding the fundamentals is crucial to make informed decisions related to international affairs. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the fundamentals of foreign policy in twofold namely; (1) Working on outlining the definition of foreign policy and (2) Factors that influence foreign policy decisions. By employing secondary data, the systematic review was conducted based on past literature with respect to foreign policy studies and premiership; extracted from reputable databases. The literature search was limited to English sources, published in Scopus, ScienceDirect, and indexed in Google Scholar from 1960 to 2020. Accordingly, five factors emerged from the review which revealed the significant influence of individual, position, government, society, and system in formulating foreign policy decisions. These factors are considered as drivers in the foreign policy landscape and evidently shaped the Malaysian principles in collaborating with international cooperation. Finally, this paper provides insights into the existing literature with a detailed definition of foreign policy and narrates the way foreign policy decisions have effects on Malaysian political affairs. A set of recommendations were proposed as a brief agenda for future research.