| Summary/Abstract |
This study explores the intra-elite role contestation and resolution within the State Department during the Portuguese Revolution, focusing on Henry Kissinger and the US ambassadors to Portugal, Stuart Nash Scott (1973–75) and Frank Carlucci (1975–78). The Portuguese revolutionary period presents an ideal case for the exploration of intra-elite disagreements in defining foreign-policy roles; specifically, the national role conceptions that elites hold about their states’ foreign-policy behavior toward other states. This case presents an interesting puzzle to test and build on the theory's explanatory value at the domestic and individual levels of foreign-policy making: why did Kissinger's proposed role conceptions not prevail when he was one of the most significant foreign-policy entrepreneurs at the time? The analysis builds on previous theory-development efforts by considering a new institutional location for national role conceptions—the State Department—and a new type of relevant actor, the ambassador. In the process, the study makes contributions to the literature on the agency of ambassadors in foreign policy, as well as to the growing literature on domestic contestation and resolution of national role conceptions.
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