Foreign Policy Theories: A Review

Abstract

Foreign Policy Analysis brings together many interpretations of foreign policy decision-making and one of them is the psychological aspect of decision-makers and leaders in the system. Deciphering a leader’s worldview is not easy as most researchers do not have access to analyze them. Sos, many models have been created to answer such puzzling questions and analyze the behavior of foreign policy leaders. This paper follows three such models: Leadership Trait Analysis, Rubicon Model of War, and Operational Code Analysis to compare which model explains the psychological aspect of foreign policy decision-making most effectively. The paper uses qualitative research methodology with the help of existing literature. The paper recognizes that there are many other models and tries to find similarities and build bridge of relevance with psychological aspects of a leader with their surroundings, pressure from parties, individual traits, etc. This paper lays an observation of how psychological aspect is not an independent variable in decision making, rather it is affected by the surrounding in which it persists.