Confronting the “Small-N Problem” in Executive Foreign Policy Studies

There is a curious unreality about the way in which Americans have been discussing foreign policy: they seem to lie speaking in terms having only tenuous relationship to reality. This partly explains why many people find discussions of Vietnam awkward and frustrating: their vocabulary is not equipped to cope with their country's behavior. This poverty of vocabulary stems from a more serious conceptual vacuum.Part of the responsibility for this conceptual inadequacy lies in academia, where in the last two decades foreign policy has slipped sharply in appeal. In contrast to other areas of social science, foreign policy studies have adopted a non-theoretical—almost anti-theoretical-posture.

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Science and Sovietology: Bridging the Methods Gap in Soviet Foreign Policy Studies

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2010361 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 169-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Jack Snyder

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Political Science ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Security Policy ◽

Policy Studies ◽

Area Studies ◽

Soviet Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Sources ◽

Science Departments

Specialists in the study of Soviet foreign policy increasingly feel torn between the positivist culture of political science departments and the holistic traditions of the Soviet area-studies programs. In fact, these approaches are largely complementary. Examples taken from literature on Soviet security policy and on the domestic sources of Soviet expansionism show how positivist theories and methods can be used to clarify holist (or traditionalist) arguments, to sharpen debates, to suggest more telling tests, and to invigorate the field's research agenda.

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Soviet Foreign Policy Studies and Foreign Policy Models

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2009857 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 704-733 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

William Welch ◽

Jan F. Triska

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Analytical Models ◽

Policy Studies ◽

Academic Literature ◽

Policy Models ◽

Soviet Foreign Policy ◽

Type Studies ◽

American Academic ◽

Policy Behavior ◽

Foreign Policy Behavior

American academic literature on foreign policy witnessed, in the 1960's, a continuing flow of studies of the Soviet case, as indeed of other cases. It also witnessed a flow of studies of another, newer, and broader type—studies of theoretical bent concerned with the construction of general analytical models of foreign policy behavior.

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