ABSTRACT
Foreign policy operates within a political environment external to the state. Yet it has, at the same time, to deal with an environment that is internal to it. In some cases, foreign policy may develop largely as a function of the state’s domestic environment, which is not to say that the external environment does not set constraints and opportunities for the conduct of foreign policy. The mix of domestic and external variables that impact on foreign policy-making will vary from one state to another and, for the same state, from one period to another.
