When IR Meets Comparative Politics: The Making of American Foreign Policy

By combining ‘Aussen politik’ and ‘Innen politik’ (Rose 1998), foreign policy analysis contributes to breaking new theoretical ground by integrating comparative politics thinking into international relations. The neo-classical realist approach understood as a model, points to five supposedly important variables for studying foreign policy making. The paper uses the making of American foreign policy as a case to illustrate the value of integrating and supplementing theories on IR with theoretical reflections from comparative politics that is mainly focused on domestic policy making. First, international stimuli are addressed only briefly because this is the least important contribution of the paper. Second, perceptions of core foreign policy decision makers are assumed important which requires integration of theories that emphasize the significance of personal beliefs and ideologies for the type of decisions these decision makers take. This element in the theory building touches upon the recent theoretical debate on the role and influence of individuals in foreign policy making. The illustrations are limited to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Third, strategic culture emphasizes the impact of history and of discourses on national identity and national interests. Fourth, the study of the significance of state-society relations needs to bring theories on public opinion into the theoretical debate together with traditional comparative politics theories on societal cleavages, populism and the role of interest groups. Theories on voter behavior in general must be specified with topics such as issue voting and party identification. The 2024 US presidential election campaign is used to illustrate the benefits of integrating voter behavior into the analysis of foreign policy making. Fifth, the role of institutions requires theoretical insight of the significance of parliaments and the functioning of government institutions. Here, the paper elaborates on the notion of ‘bureaucratic politics’ to add to the theoretical understanding of the role of institutions in public policy and in US foreign policy making.