Political explanations in comparative foreign-policy research typically center on the assumption that foreign-policy decisionmakers in democratic regimes are far more politically constrained than are their counterparts in authoritarian polities. Disputing this assumption, Hagan draws on case studies of the politics of foreign policy in a variety of non-U.S. settings to develop direct measures of actual political opposition and thus to capture its pervasiveness across all types of political systems.

The book includes an extensive empirical analysis of the foreign-policy behaviors of eighty-eight political regimes identified in a diverse set of thirty-eight national political systems. Using innovative measures of the strengths and orientations of various types of opposition, he shows that the behaviors of highly constrained regimes are marked by distinctive levels of commitment, initiative, and hostility. The magnitude and direction of the linkages between opposition and foreign-policy making are, however, conditioned in complex ways by regime vulnerability and political system accountability and institutionalization.

This analysis demonstrates the practicality of cross-national research on political influences and points to the value of incorporating regime concepts into broader examinations of such phenomena as interstate wars and foreign-policy restructurings.

Joe D. Hagan is professor of political science at West Virginia University and associate director of the university's International Studies Program. He is coeditor of Foreign Policy Restructuring: How Governments Respond to Change.