Goals and Trade-offs in Foreign Policy Decision Making

Abstract

A Theory of Foreign Policy. By Glenn Palmer, T. Clifton Morgan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 224 pp., $35.00 (ISBN: 0-691-12359-4). Glenn Palmer and T. Clifton Morgan's A Theory of Foreign Policy is an ambitious work that attempts to explain not only specific state actions but also general patterns of state behavior. Palmer and Morgan frame their theory of foreign policy as an alternative to and improvement on realism, which they argue is underspecified due to its preoccupation with power. Focusing only on relative power ignores the possible trade-offs between foreign policy goals, which, Palmer and Morgan argue, drive the behavior of states. A Theory of Foreign Policy , however, makes a variety of contributions beyond the debate between grand theories. The book also makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to work on foreign policy substitution (which examines the trade-offs between different foreign policy strategies) as well as to work on particular foreign policy strategies—such as foreign aid, conflict and, in particular, alliances. Such wide applicability results from Palmer and Morgan's inclusion of a variety of foreign policy strategies within a single theoretical model of decision making. The core of A Theory of Foreign Policy is a parsimonious theoretical model that incorporates a wide variety of foreign policy behaviors. Palmer and Morgan argue that foreign policy is generally aimed at producing two distinct goods: change and maintenance. It is assumed that a variety of issues are important to states, and that states work to both alter the status quo toward their preferred policy on some issues (that is, change) and resist changes in the status quo if it reflects their preferred policy (that is, maintenance). In the …