 A level of analysis is a level that you study world
politics at. Any analytical model – offer promise of
reliable prediction
 There are four levels of analysis.
Individual level- at this level you are looking at the
interactions between individuals (micro level analysis)
For ex: analysis of individual’s speeches or biographies
to understand their decision making.
 Societal/Domestic level: looking at domestic issues
to analyze state’s behavior
 State level -looking at the interactions between states
as actors. For ex: study of relations between Germany
and France
 Systemic level - looking at the world as a whole
(macro level analysis) total picture of international
relations For ex: analysis of global relations and issues
(UN, NATO).
 Kenneth Waltz “Man, State, and War” (1950s)
 How war and peace are explained by three images
(individual, state, systemic levels)
 David Singer ‘The Level of Analysis Problem in
International Relations’ (1961)
 Discuss only state and system levels of analysis
Analyzing Foreign Policy: Actors,
Structures, and Foreign Policy
 Study of the role of actors and structure in foreign
policy
 What is to be explained? How foreign policy
explained?
 Foreign policy: number of actors & structures,
complex internal and international environment
 Collation of actors or groups both inside and outside
of state boundaries
 Actor and structure: FP making is a complex process
of interaction between many actors, differentially
embedded in a wide range of different structures
 Number of actors (both in internal and
international) involve in FP decision making, there
are number of structure both in internal and
international divide affects these actors
Who are the most important
actors?
 Head of state, parliaments, foreign ministers…-
decision makers democratically elected or not-acting
internationally in behalf of the polities they
represents
 Other actors: civil servants and experts, lobbying
forms, think tanks, media, research institutes
 Domestically based actors have relations with their
counterparts in other countries or relations with
various IGO’s and NGO’s
 Both domestic and international
Structural factors and its affects
the making foreign policy
 Structure: ‘the sets of factors which make up the
multiple environments in which actors operate
 Realism and FP: power and national interest provide
explanation for the external behaviors of states
 Neorealsim: structure of international system
explains state behaviors, international structure
determine behavior of states
Explanandum and Explanans in
analyzing foreign policy
 Explanandum (object of analysis, which is to be
explained, dependent variables)
 Explanans (explanatory factors, which does
explaining , independent variables)
 different explananda in FPA: decision making process
and decision making policy (set of goals)
role of actors and structure in
process approach to FP
 FP process: examining not single decision, sequences
of decision and strategies of decision making
 Process needed to be examined and explained
 Object of analysis (explanandum): what foreign
policy decision makers are thinking or doing?
 Process-object of analysis and role of actor and
structure: function that state play in decision making
 State institutional structure which individual decision
makers act
 Actors are individual, decision makers acting on behalf
of the state
 Role of actors and structure in the explanation of
FPDM
 But decision making process of actors and structure
are examined one level at a time
 FP decision making performed by human beings
role of actors and structure in
‘policy’ approaches to FP
 Focuses on choice of specific policies rather than
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decision making process
Policies are result of processes
explannadum: purposeful actions result from policies
of individuals (actors)
Purposive nature of foreign policy actions, role of state
boundaries
Particular government-set of actions
explanandum: policy undertakings not the behavior of
any particular entity
 Graham Aliisions multiple lessons to explain multiple
decision making (Cuban Missile Crisis essence of
decision making, 1971)
 Actor and structure based explanations-levels of
analysis and different perspectives
Approached Based on Structural
Perspective
 Realism: aggressive and defensive forms of neo-
realism
 Offensives structure of international system is based
on conflict and aggression, rational states pursue
offensive strategies for security (J. Mearsheimer)
 Role played by the distribution of power in the
international system
 Neoclassical realist: state foreign policy is formed by
its place in the international system by its material
power capabilities, both domestic and systemic
variables (different factors from both levels combine
foreign policy of states)
 Structural orientation for the notion of state power
which is defined in terms of international
structure or combination of domestic and power
resources and international structure
 Neoliberal institutionalism: Alternative approach
to Realism in FPA
 Assumes that states are primary actors in the anarchic
international system
 Neorealsim & neoliberalism: choice of state on the part
of state acting rationally and strategically in
 Uncertainty and security positively affected by
creation of regimes which provides common rule for
international cooperation in some degree
 international regimes as “sets of implicit or explicit
principles, norms, rules, and decision-making
procedures around which actors’ expectations
converge in a given area of international
relations.”(Cooperation under Anarchy, Robert
Axelrod& Robert Keohane, 1985
 Neoliberal institutions believe institutions do
matter; they make difference in behavior of states and
in nature of international politics
 states purpose and defend their objectives by
international institutions (K. J. Holsti)
 Social Constructivism: Reality is socially constructed
in the form of social rules
 Normative and ideational form of social structure
 Shared ideas about state behaviors had impact on
nature and functioning of world politics
 Identity: socially constructed of the state and its
interest: identities provide a frame of reference from
which political leaders initiate, maintain, and
structure their relationship with other states
 Structural factors causes particular state behavior
Approaches from an actor-based
perspective
 Cognitive and psychological approaches: cognitive
and psychological characteristics of individuals
decision makers as basis of structural explanation of
FP (explaining given policy choices)
 Individual beliefs and the way of process
information , personality, cognition dictates
structural constraints
 Bureaucratic politics approach: governmental
approach to the analysis of FP
 Decisions are result of power bargaining between
government agencies rather than individuals
(secretary of defence vs. secretary of state)
 FP can be explained in terms of bureaucracies
infighting
 Neoliberals: Societal actors in formation of foreign
policies of states
 Interpretative actor perspective: Inter-subjective
world of meaning (social constructivism as
interpretative approach)
 Interpret individual’s action in terms of social rule
and collective meaning
 Explanation of foreign policy is based on thinking
and actions of individual decision makers (try to
understand decision makers by reconstructing their
reasons)
 Foreign policy of states depends on how individuals
with power perceive and analyze situations.
 Multiple structure and actors in real world in which FP
is made,
Agency-Structure Problem
 Scholars focusing on explaining policies either views
actor as cause of policy actions, or give structures this
role
 Human agents and social structures are interrelated
entities and cannot account one without invoking the
other, none of the discussed issues cause this problem
because each of them favor either actors or
structures in their explanations and treat them
separately on different levels of analysis
 Master-slave relationship: one actor constitutes the
other
 Relationship that constitutes them as certain types of
social actors are what causes them to behave in certain
ways
 Agent structure relationship: micro-macro levels of
analysis
Theory and Agency StructureSummary
 Neo-realism: Structure determines behaviour
 Liberalism/Pluralism: Agency matters
 Constructivism: link between agency and structure,
mutually determined