Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change. By David A. Welch. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 312p. $35.00.

In this book, David A. Welch delivers a nuanced and parsimonious theory of foreign policymaking and policy change. Welch also addresses a perennial concern in international relations, namely whether the search for a general IR theory is futile. His answer, and a persuasive one at that, is that such a search can be fruitful if we ask the right questions.