Although the important role of emotions in decision-making has been highlighted in the psychology, neural science, and decision research literatures, this conclusion has not been widely adopted in foreign policy analysis and International Relations (IR). Of the work that has been done, much of it has been focused on public perceptions and the impact on foreign policy, but not on elites and the actual decisions of foreign policy. This article seeks to address this imbalance by examining the role of one element of emotion — affect — on key foreign policy decision-makers. It argues that the greater the emotional attachment a leader has to an object, the less flexible she is in foreign policy toward that object. The model is used to explain a critical puzzle in IR: Israel’s decision to pursue and sign the 1993 Oslo Accords.
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