ABSTRACT
The application of the framework shows that Arab foreign policies reflect common characteristics among Arab countries as well as specificities of individual cases. At the international level, Arab countries have insisted on sharing a nonalignment orientation, whereas at the regional level, the insistence has been on Arab unity. Global-systemic constraints and historical-regional patterns clustered Arab foreign policy around a similar orientation, whether formal disengagement from cold war blocs or insistence on the oneness of "the Arab nation." Contrary to the foreign policy orientation that is consensual in nature, foreign policy behavior can and does put Arab countries at cross-purposes. Regional issues, too, bring into the open behavioral differences among Arab states. The regional environment of Arab foreign policies was again thrown into drastic change by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Consequently the decision-making process in Arab countries can be approached from three perspectives: presidentialism, oligarchical-collective, and collegial collective.
