Changing Course: When Governments Choose to Redirect Foreign Policy

Abstract

We are in a period of profound change in international relations and foreign policy. These developments call attention to the state of our knowledge about change processes in governmental decisionmaking. This essay reviews the contributions of several areas of conceptual literature and proposes a scheme for interpreting decisions in which a government decides to change policy direction. Foreign policy changes can be placed on a continuum indicating the magnitude of the shift from minor adjustment changes, through both program and goal changes, to fundamental changes in a country's international orientation. These degrees of change are examined with respect to four change agents: (1) leader driven; (2) bureaucratic advocacy; (3) domestic restructuring; and (4) external shock. The phases of decisionmaking mediate between sources of change and the magnitude of change in policy. The essay concludes with an examination of propositions that suggest conditions under which the phases of decisionmaking can increase the likelihood of major change.