Approaches to the Study of Foreign Policy

This paper will discuss three approaches to the study of foreign policy in the developing countries – Decision-Making approach; the Dependency approach; and the Psychological approach. We have no intention of adding to the confusion of theories, models, and analytical frameworks already existing in the field. The objectives of this paper are rather: 1) to summarize the main trends and approaches in the study of developing countries foreign policies, 2) to survey the literature on foreign policy, and 3) to suggest a framework for analysis that takes into account the major conceptual contributions in foreign policy theory in the last two decade