The Central American Northern Triangle States' (NTS) Relationship with Israel and Palestine: Understanding Small States' Foreign Policy Decision-Making

This is an open-access article.

In recent years, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala-which make up the so-called Northern Triangle States (NTS)-have maintained changing relations with Israel and Palestine. Alternating between rapprochement and distancing, it is intriguing that such small states intervene in diplomatic issues that are geographically far from them and costly in diplomatic terms. If NTSs have historically been under the influence of Washington, we take some distance from mainstream conceptions of alignment and hegemonic domination, by exploring the various determinants of three Central American states' foreign policy changes. We argue that the NTS' foreign policies toward Israel and Palestine is a means to speak to Washington and a diplomatic relationship that is highly reactive to democratic regime changes, presidential preferences and diasporic influences. Building upon Hermann's conceptualization of foreign policy change, we examine empirically the variations of the NTSs' foreign policy toward Israel and Palestine between 2009 and 2023. This article makes a major contribution to the comparative analysis of Latin American foreign policy and addresses a wider IR audience by demonstrating that despite the strong structural characteristic of smallness, domestic and leadership factors should not be underestimated when it comes to understanding changes in small states' foreign policies.