Theoretical Aspects of the State Foreign Policy

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is not only to acquaint readers with some
basic concepts related to the analysis of the state foreign policy but also,
or even first of all, to show how international relations theories should be
properly used in research into this matter.
In the world that is changing dynamically, the concept of foreign policy
itself also evolves. The author presents the assumptions of successive theoretical
currents (realism and neo-realism, geopolitics, liberalism and neorealism,
globalism, constructivism and alternative approaches) indicating that
each of them can have some strengths and weaknesses depending on the
level of analysis adopted by a researcher. Assuming that theories see the
world through a certain prism characteristic of them, the author argues that
each one is predestined to explain a defined section of reality. That is why
he assigns successive research currents, which in his opinion offer the biggest
explanatory capabilities for the ongoing processes, to the three detailed basic
levels of the state foreign policy (the system one, state one and individual one).