The Take-Off of Third World Studies?: The Case of Foreign Policy

Abstract

Why is the analysis of Third World foreign policies still labeled the underdeveloped study of underdeveloped countries? Do we know how social cleavages, structures of post-colonial states, and types of dependency influence international behavior and patterns of decision making? Do the barriers to the take-off reside in data problems, lack of sophistication among Third World specialists, or in the state of foreign policy theory itself? Three problems have to be solved if this subfield is to advance conceptually and to provide us with cumulative knowledge about Third World countries: (1) the “what” of foreign policy; (2) the “why” of foreign policy; and (3) the “how” of foreign policy. Despite individual limitations, the authors reviewed here have collectively applied relevant concepts and unearthed needed data. These advances put us on the runway ready for a speedy take-off in the 1980s.