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Theories of foreign policy: an historical overview*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Steve Smith
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Extract

Although it is natural to consider the development of the comparative approach known as Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) as the most obvious source of theories of foreign policy behaviour, it is important to remember that all perspectives on the subject of international relations contain statements about foreign policy. Historically this has been the case because virtually all approaches to the study of international relations took the state to be the central actor. Thus, approaches as diverse as those concentrating on political economy, international society and Marxism have all included a notion of what the state is and how its foreign policy results, regardless of the way in which policy might be defined. Theories of foreign policy are therefore intrinsic to theories of international relations, even for those who deny the centrality of the state as an actor in international society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1986 , pp. 13 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1986

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References

1. Snyder, Richard C., Bruck, H. W. and Sapin, Burton, Decision-Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (Princeton, NJ, Organizational Behavior Section, Princeton University, Foreign Policy Project, Series No. 3, 06 1954)Google Scholar. This was subsequently published in the same authors ‘ edited volume Foreign Policy Decision-Making (New York, 1962), pp. 14–185.

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5. See Ibid., pp. 4–15.

6. Ibid., pp. 48–73.

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12. Waltz, Ibid., ch. 1.

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18. See Kegley, op. cit.; see also Steve Smith, ‘Rosenau's Contribution’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 9(2), 1983, pp. 137—146, and Steve Smith, ‘Describing and Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior’, Polity, Vol. 17(3), 1985, pp. 595–607.

19. See Smith, Steve, Foreign Policy Adaptation (Farnborough, 1981), pp. 131–148Google Scholar; this is summarized in Smith, Steve, ‘Rosenau's Adaptive Behaviour Approach—a critique’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 7(2), 1981, pp. 107–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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28. This is discussed in Smith, Steve, ‘Foreign Policy Analysis and Interdependence’, in Barry Jones, R. J. and Willetts, Peter (eds.), Interdependence on Trial (London, 1984), pp. 64–82.Google Scholar

29. See, for example, Northedge, Fred, ‘Transnationalism: the American Illusion’, Millennium, Vol. 5(1), 1976, pp. 21–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bull, Hedley, ‘The State's Positive Role in World Affairs’, Daedalus, Vol. 108(4), 1979, pp. 111–123.Google Scholar

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33. See Waltz, Theory of International Politics, op. cit.

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35. See, for example, Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Capitalist World-Economy (Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar

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39. Smith, Steve and Clarke, Michael (eds.), Foreign Policy Implementation (London, 1985).Google Scholar

40. Jensen, Lloyd, Explaining Foreign Policy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982).Google Scholar