THE AGENCY-STRUCTURE PROBLEM IN FOREIGN-POLICY ANALYSIS

The starting point of this article is the argument that scholars of foreign policy-in contrast to international relations theorists-have not sufficiently faced up to the explanatory implications of the agency-structure issue in the philosophy of social science. This claim is discussed with reference to four fundamental perspectives in foreign policy analysis, defined in terms of ontological and epistemological assumptions regarding the nature of social order and individual action. Taking its cue primarily from recent philosophical discussions within sociology and social theory it proposes a metatheoretical framework based on a dynamic conception of the interplay over time between interpretative, purposive agents and a structural domain defined in terms of both constraining and enabling properties. On the basis of this suggested solution to the agency-structure problem, the article subsequently elaborates an explanatory framework premised on a morphogenetic conception of the contextually bound nature of the foreign policy behavior of states, arguing that this reconceptualization can incorporate not only (1) certain rationality assumptions of action, (2) psychological-cognitive explanatory approaches, and (3) the role, broadly speaking, of situational-structural factors, but also (4) an institutional perspective combined with (5) comparative case study analysis.