From containment to inclusion: United States foreign economic policy and the former Soviet Union

This research explores the puzzle of foreign policy change. What are the conditions that favor foreign policy change under changing international conditions and what factors shape the direction and character of foreign policy change? In particular, the research focuses on the determinants of change in the conduct of economic statecraft. In posing answers to these questions, the research seeks to explicate the dynamic interaction between changing international conditions, state leaders, ideas, and domestic politics and structures in the process of foreign policy change.;Empirically, the research examines the historical development of U.S. foreign economic policy toward the former Soviet Union, using a comparative case study approach. The period covered dates from the Bolshevik Revolution through the early 1990s, with special attention given to changes in the 1990s. The theoretical interest is on how state leaders respond to changing international conditions and on how domestic structures and politics impede or enable state leaders as they respond to the international environment.;The research suggests that changing international conditions prompt state leaders to consider foreign policy change only if they determine that international change has led to the creation of significant new opportunities or threats. International conditions do not operate automatically to compel policy change. These changing conditions must be interpreted and defined by state leaders before changing conditions can lead to policy change. How state leaders respond to those changes is shaped by how they define the new opportunities or threats. The direction and character of foreign policy change is vastly dependent upon this ideational change in the minds of state leaders. Successful policy change depends upon whether state leaders can build an authoritative consensus (based upon their ideational understandings) for change within the larger policymaking community, which is encompassed by domestic politics and institutional structures. The greater the consistency and coherence of changing international conditions the greater the likelihood that state leaders will be successful in implementing foreign policy change.