Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis

“INITIAL” GENERATION

It is not true that Foreign Policy Analysis is impossible as theoretical task. And that is not that state-centered IR theory and FPA cannot be impossible, for one of the consequences of this would be that IR could not exist as a field of social science scholarship. Then FPA offers a real grounding of theory of IR, which provides real value in IR theorizing.

            The most important thing about studying FPA in IR theory is to identify the point of theoretical intersection between the most important determinants of state behavior, material and ideational factors. The point of intersection is not the state, it is human decision makers. That makes if in IR theory contains no human beings, they will erroneously paint for us a world of no change. And also adding human of decision makers as the key of theoretical intersection confers some advantages generally lacking in IR theory.

            The origin of the FPA in some sense has been around as long as there have been historians and other who have made the choices they did regarding interstate relations. This analysis work within the field of international relations is best dated back to the late 1950s and early 1960.

            Some scholars who works arguably built the foundation of Foreign Policy Analysis are James Rosenau, Richard C. Snyder, Burton Sapin, Margaret Sprout, etc. Snyder write in his book that decisions makers are viewed as operating in dual-aspect setting so that apparently unrelated internal and external factors become related in the actions of the decision-makers. And he also said that decision-making was best viewed as “organizational behavior”.

            And in James Rosenau’s pre-theorizing said about nation state behavior, to identify factors is not trace their influence. To recognize that foreign policy is shaped by internal as well as external factors is not to comprehend how the two intermix or to indicate the conditions under which one predominates over the other.

            The message of the powerful works in its appeal to certain scholars is the particularities of the human beings making national foreign policy were vitally important to understanding foreign policy choice.