ABSTRACT
One of the most powerful challenges to Structuralist theories of foreign policy is the idea that in shaping foreign policy, domestic politics may matter more than external stimuli (Rosenau 1967). Structuralists seek to explain behavior based on external inducements and constraints (power diff erentials among nations, the rise of rivals, the availability of allies, fl uctuations in external economic conditions, etc.). Yet, many scholars today argue that domestic politics are equally if not more decisive. Scholars emphasizing domestic politics disagree on which aspects of domestic politics matter the most in shaping foreign policy: regime features, structures of the state, domestic economic variables, or the competition of diff erent groups (for a recent review, see Alden and Aran 2012, chapters 4 and 5). But they all agree that it makes little sense to study foreign policy without examining the way that policy makers are infl uenced by, and in turn, end up infl uencing, domestic actors-what Putnam (1988) famously labeled “the two-level game.” The notion that international relations and domestic politics interact “no longer seems to be a controversial statement” (Gourevitch 2002).
