ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the main trends and approaches in the study of developing countries' foreign policies, seeks to survey the literature on Arab foreign policies, and suggests that a framework for analysis that takes into account the major conceptual contributions in foreign policy theory. An equally important element in the new literature is the emphasis on the political economy of an actor's position in the global stratification system. One common element of the new literature is the emphasis on domestic sources of foreign policy and on how the processes of modernization and social change affect the external behavior of developing countries. There has been an overemphasis in the literature on the personalized character of the decision-making process and on the lack of political institutionalization in developing countries. In developing countries, the number and the relative influence of participants in the decision-making process vary according to type of political regime and issue area.
