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Foreign Policy - Actors, Theories, Cases

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Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases
Chapter 1 – The History and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis by Valerie M. Hudson
Key Points * Foreign Policy: The strategy or approach chosen by the national government to achieve its goals in its relations with external entities; includes decisions to do nothing * Foreign Policy Analysis: seeks to explain foreign policy, or FP behavior, with reference to the theoretical ground of human decision makers, acting singly and in groups. * Classical FPA scholarship (1954-1993): Two generations of FPA * 1st generation (1954-1973) – work produced that created FPA * 2nd generation (1974-1993) – work produced that built on foundations created during 1st gen; self-reflection and …show more content…

Decision-making as ‘organizational behavior’ – basic determinants: iv. Spheres of ability of the actors involved in making a decision v. Communication and information flow vi. Motivations of the various players

5. What did James Rosenau contribute to FPA’s foundations? n. Development of actor-specific theory that would lead to the development of generalizable propositions at the level of middle-range theory vii. Middle-range theory: theory that mediates between grand principles and the complexity of reality viii. Belief that FPA needed testable theory; his suggestion was to copy Mendel in discerning genotype from phenotype with observation and comparison (Do genotypes of states exist? Would knowing about them give us explanatory and predictive power in making models of foreign policy interaction?)

6. What did Harold and Margaret Sprout contribute to FPA’s foundations? o. Sprouts suggested FP can only be explained with reference to the psycho-milieu (the psychological/situational/political/social contexts) of the individuals involved in the decision making p. Believed that it’s misguided to look at FP outputs (analysis of power capabilities within an interstate system) without looking at FP undertakings (strategies/decisions/intentions of decision makers) q. Undertakings

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