Abstract
Hudson, V. M., Hermann, C. F., Singer, E. The Situational Imperative: A Predictive Model of Foreign Policy Behavior. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIV, 1989, 117-139.
Foreign policy behaviors, defined in terms of the intensity of affect and commitment an actor conveys to external recipients using various instruments of statecraft, are explained in terms of a situational model. The model represents an externally-defined predisposition that will influence any group of policy-makers to act in a certain way once they recognize a specific foreign problem. In addition to different types of situations, the model includes as its variables the configuration of roles assumed in a situation by other international entities. It also includes a set of relationships, each capable of assuming different values, that exist between the actor and other role occupants. For each type of situation a decision logic is developed and expressed in a decision tree. Each branch of the decision tree constitutes a hypothesis about the configuration of behavior properties that will likely result. The model is illustrated by reference to two cases of foreign policy decision-making — the Zambian government's response to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the white regime in Rhodesia in 1965 and the response of the United States government to the impending war between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands in 1982.
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