Levels of international relations analysis as a conceptual basis for the study of a state's foreign policy factors
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31558/2519-2949.2025.4.9Keywords:
level of international relations analysis, state, foreign policy, foreign policy factor, analysis, system, global challengesAbstract
The article examines the concept of levels of international relations analysis as a tool for systematizing and explaining the factors that influence a state's foreign policy. The author studies the formation history of the international relations levels of analysis and its evolution to levels of analysis of a state's foreign policy factors based on the study of the foreign researchers works who in the second half of the 20th century initiated and developed a scientific discussion on these issues (K. Waltz, J. Singer, B. Buzan, R. Jervis, M. Hollis, S. Smith, C. Jones, R. Little, С. Gebhard, J. Pevehouse, J. Goldstein, J. Rosenau, J. Rourke), on the subject of the "level of analysis" notion definition, the number of such levels and the justification of a state's foreign policy factors at each level. The results of comparing the approaches of researchers revealed a divergence in their positions regarding the number of levels of analysis. Despite this, most researchers explain the motives of a state's foreign policy behavior at three primary levels of analysis: individual level, which focuses on the importance of the personal characteristics of national leaders and their surroundings in making foreign policy decisions, state level, which focuses on domestic political, social and institutional factors in the formation of foreign policy, and systemic level, within which the influence of the structural characteristics of the system of international relations on the foreign policy course of the state is studied. The author concludes about the analytical potential of the concept of levels of analysis of international relations in substantiating the components of a state's foreign policy, since it allows combining subjects and factors of foreign policy of different levels — from individual to systemic — in a single analytical framework, which provides the possibility of a holistic explanation of the logic of forming foreign policy decisions.
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