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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
The study of the processes by which foreign policy is formed has been in the embarrassing position of falling between two academic chairs. On the one hand, students of international affairs have displayed considerable reluctance to delve into the domestic factors that distinguish one nation's policies from another's. On the other hand, scholars of comparative politics, with their knowledge of political institutions and processes, have rarely considered the effect of various political arrangements on foreign policy.
1 Volumes produced from two such conferences are Farrell, R. Barry, ed., Approaches to Comparative and International Politics (Evanston 1966)Google Scholar; and Rosenau, James N., ed., Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy (New York 1967)Google Scholar.
2 Although he briefly alludes to congressional initiative (p. 62), in his fuller exposition Waltz appears to describe the primary function of Congress as evaluating foreign policy proposals that originate with the executive. Thus, his position is not in direct conflict with the research of James Robinson and others who find little evidence of congressional initiative in foreign policy-making. Waltz does conclude that “Congress, though it sometimes complains that it is kept in the dark, is clearly the best informed legislative body in the world” (p. 101). Be this as it may, we still wonder whether the serious limitations described by Robinson on congressional access to information, when compared to the information-gathering capabilities of the executive branch, place restrictions on the evaluative role of Congress. See Robinson, James A., Congress and Foreign Policy Maying, rev. ed. (Homewood 1967)Google Scholar.
3 At several points Waltz notes that “on questions of defense and foreign policy, divisions appear within parties more frequently than is the case with domestic problems” (p. 169). Therefore, the need for party unity might be expected to restrain the prime minister more in foreign than in domestic policy if party opinions in both areas are held with equal intensity. (This assumption should be investigated.) Within foreign policy some issue-areas may be more likely to lead to party divisions than others.
4 An interpretation of a detailed national survey conducted in early 1966 suggests that American opinions on Vietnam are unlikely to affect election results. “The public opinion we have been discussing does not seem to possess much potential for controlling or limiting the alternatives of the administration. … The lack of structure of preferences along party or class lines means that attitudes toward the war are not likely to affect electoral outcome and are less likely to be taken into account in making policy calculations” (Verba, Sidney and others, “Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam,” American Political Science Review, LXI [June 1967], 333Google Scholar).
5 “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Farrell, 31.
6 Ibid., 43.
7 Waltz affirms another hypothesis in which the type of political system is directly associated with a particular kind of leadership personality: “In totalitarian states rather than in democracies are found the paranoid men of power surrounded by their bizarre coteries” (p. 309). Neither book under examination develops this hypothesis; however, Tucker has argued for closer attention to the role of personality in authoritarian systems. See Tucker, Robert C., “The Dictator and Totalitarianism,” World Politics, XVII (July 1965), 555–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 P. 43.
