Domestic Political Regime Changes and Foreign Policy Restructuring in Western Europe: A Conceptual Framework and Initial Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Hagan, J. D. Domestic Political Regime Changes and Foreign Policy Restructuring in Western Europe: A Conceptual Framework and Initial Empirical Analysis. Coop eration and Conflict, XXIV, 1989, 141-162. This article presents an initial investigation into the causal linkage between domestic political regime changes and foreign policy restructuring in Western Europe. A theoretical framework is developed that incorporates three elements: a typology of four kinds of regime change, a conceptualization of shifting regime properties (the leadership's orientation to foreign affairs and its internal political fragmentation) that underlay significant regime changes, and three dimensions of foreign policy restructuring likely to be affected by changes in domestic political conditions. Also reported are results from a preliminary empirical assessment of regime change effects on trends in Western European voting in the United Nations, trade with the Soviet Union, and military budgets over the past two decades.