ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to different scholarly logics of action. It aims to differentiate different approaches to conceptualize these logics. The chapter discusses strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in explaining diplomatic decisions and decision making. It deals with rational choice. The chapter provides an overview of contending approaches in political psychology. It addresses the logic of appropriateness and employs it to analyse continuities and discontinuities of German foreign policy since re-unification. The chapter directs attention to the logic of argumentation and evaluates its explanatory power by putting the driving forces of the end of the Cold War under scrutiny. It outlines the logic of practice and probes its explanatory strengths and weaknesses by applying it to France's foreign policy vis-a-vis Africa. According to a Habermasian framework, the goal of the diplomats engaged in communicative action is to seek a communicative consensus about their understanding of the situation and the preferred course of action.
