ABSTRACT
Foreign policy is best thought of not as a single driving worldview or game plan but, more realistically, as a series of hundreds of decisions that have to be made, which may or may not hold together in a logically consistent, seamless fashion. In the foreign policy process, the various types of decisions blend together, often imperceptibly. This chapter looks at determinants of foreign policy that operate at each of the three levels Kenneth Waltz mentions, starting with the international system level, then the nation-state level, and finally the individual level. The system level includes relationships between pairs of nation-states and broader characteristics of the international system as a whole. The nation-state level includes many sets of variables: domestic political and governmental factors, economic factors, and societal factors. The chapter also examines images and perceptions, group dynamics, and personality and physiology.
