Genuinely international in scope and drawing on a wide range of examples from around the world, this important new text provides an accessible introduction to the key elements of foreign policy analysis. Analyzing Foreign Policy examines the wide range of factors that explain why states and other actors behave in the way they do. Showing how theory can illuminate practice, Derek Beach explores how different theoretical approaches - including structural realism, liberalism and constructivism - can be applied to deepen our understanding of events and actions. The book covers all aspects of the policy process - from what states want and how decisions are made through to what states actually do across security, economic and diplomatic policies. Derek Beach also assesses whether we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the nature of foreign policy as a result of globalization and the rise of new non-state actors. The concluding chapter introduces readers to the various research methods available for the study of foreign policy. Engagingly written, this text is the ideal starting point for all who wish to understand and explain the drivers of contemporary foreign policy.

This book's introduction to foreign policy analysis focuses on decision makers and decision making. Each chapter is organised around puzzles and questions to which undergraduates can relate. The book emphasizes the importance of individuals in foreign policy decision making, while also placing decision makers within their context.

Aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, this book covers the theory of foreign policy analysis. Beginning with an overview, it then tackles theory and research at multiple levels of analysis, ending with an examination of the areas in which the next generation of foreign policy analysts can make important contributions.

In this book, senior scholars and a new generation of analysts present different applications of recent advances linking beliefs and decision-making, in the area of foreign policy analysis with strategic interactions in world politics. Divided into five parts, Part 1 identifies how the beliefs in the cognitive operational codes of individual leaders explain the political decisions of states. In Part 2, five chapters illustrate progress in comparing the operational codes of individual leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, three US presidents, Bolivian president Evo Morales, Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and various leaders of terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa. Part 3 introduces a new Psychological Characteristics of Leaders (PsyCL) data set containing the operational codes of US presidents from the early 1800s to the present. In Part 4, the focus is on strategic interactions among dyads and evolutionary patterns among states in different regional and world systems. Part 5 revisits whether the contents of the preceding chapters support the claims about the links between beliefs and foreign policy roles in world politics. Richly illustrated and with comprehensive analysis Operational Code Analysis and Foreign Policy Roles will be of interest to specialists in foreign policy analysis, international relations theorists, graduate students, and national security analysts in the policy-making and intelligence communities.

This book presents the evolution of the field of foreign policy analysis and explains the theories that have structured research in this area over the last 50 years. It provides the essentials of emerging theoretical trends, data and methodological pitfalls and major case-studies and is designed to be a key entry point for graduate students, upper-level undergraduates and scholars into the discipline. The volume features an eclectic panorama of different conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches to foreign political analysis, focusing on different models of analysis such as two-level game analysis, bureaucratic politics, strategic culture, cybernetics, poliheuristic analysis, cognitive mapping, gender studies, groupthink and the systemic sources of foreign policy. The authors also clarify conceptual notions such as doctrines, ideologies and national interest, through the lenses of foreign policy analysis.

Henrik Larsen presents discourse analysis as an alternative approach to foreign policy analysis. Through an extensive empirical study of British and French policies towards Europe in the 1980s, he demonstrates the importance of political discourse in shaping foreign policy. The author discusses key theoretical problems within traditional belief system approaches and proposes an alternative one: political discourse analysis. The theory is illustrated through detailed analyses of British and French discourses on Europe, nation/state security and the nature of international relations.

Originally published in 1993, this title provides a unique insight into the challenges faced by the women who shaped United States foreign policy at the time. The authors examine the "Gender Gap" in beliefs between men and women in the State and Defense departments. Highlighted by interviews with ten leading women in the field – including Jeane Kirkpatrick and Rozanne Ridgway, then the two highest ranking women in foreign policy – the book provides an intimate glimpse into the making of foreign policy during the Reagan administration. Based on 79 interviews with women and men senior executives in the departments of State and Defense, this title poses a number of key questions. Who are the women in the State and Defense Departments, and how do their background and lifestyle choices compare with those of their male colleagues? What problems do they confront in an attempt to influence policy in the international arena? Do the women on the inside make a difference in how policy is formulated or how the departments are managed? Are women by nature more peaceful than men? Will they alter the face of foreign policy? Or are they more likely to hold the same views as men? This title provided an important insight into these questions, and would have been provocative reading at the time of publication.