ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issue of what is an adequate test for ideational theorizing. It identifies the causal pathways between strategic preferences and foreign policy action, so formulating a middle-range, preferences-based social theory of international relations (IR) which can be used to explain the foreign policy of a major state. Foreign policy as one category of ‘policy’ is, by definition, an action-oriented concept – it is about political actions and decisions. A useful middle-range IR theory helps demonstrate that the outputs of foreign policy, that is, actions and decisions, are to some extent determined by the nature of the decision-making process and foreign policy explanation ought to focus initially on decision-making. The chapter focuses on how ideas (SP) feature importantly in action explanation. The action-oriented positivist conception of the causal link between ideas and policies ‘must be accompanied by a causal story indicating the mechanisms through which observed correlations evolve’.
