| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Present research on foreign policy change (FPC) focuses on systemic-structural variables and domestic politics as key causal factors motivating states to change their foreign policy behaviour. Recent works also look towards decision context and bureaucratic politics to explain FPC. 1 In this article, I concur with Walter Carlsnaes 2 in arguing that attention should focus more on exploring the role of human agents, i.e. leaders that make actual foreign policy decisions, when explaining and predicting FPC. Specifically, I use the leadership traits analysis (LTA) framework to argue that a leader's level of conceptual complexity interacts with external stimuli (system- and/or domestic-level factors) to affect: (i) the leader's willingness to change course in response to policy failure and (ii) the type of changes that the leader is likely to carry out.
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