Applicability of the Systemic. Approach The previous discussion focused on the substantive arguments of the systemic approach. However, the key question for us is whether or not the systemic approach can help explain the foreign policy of a state. In this context, Xxxxxxxx (2005, 17) argued: Xxxxx and various other IR theorists do endorse the importance of prediction in theoretical pursuits. While their theories do not generate specific, policy-useful predictions, they do generate predictions … Empirical theories at a high level of generality are typically not anti- predictive. In many instances, they are reasonably seen by their authors as an element in a scientific complex of description, explanation, and prediction, which can aid policy-makers. However, there is a potent argument to deem inappropriate the use of the systemic approach for the analysis of whether and, if so, to what extent elites of a society influence foreign policy. Despite the recognition that the international system does pose constraints on the behavior of states, systemic factors merely offer a menu of choice rather than determine a specific choice of action unless those constraints are very narrow (Stein 2006, 190). Another perspective reiterating a similar argument acknowledges that the international system cannot explain behavior even though such a system may be a powerful constraint in the context of foreign policy making (Voss 1998, 21-22). At a first glance, a systemic approach does not seem relevant in assessing the influence of elites on foreign policy. However, with deeper scrutiny it may still be possible – though perhaps unlikely – that analysts can profitably use the systemic approach for the following reason: [Though] each state arrives at policies and decides on actions according to its own internal processes, … its decisions are shaped by the very presence of other states as well as by the interactions with them (Waltz 1979, 65). Xxxxx’x insight leads to the conclusion that though the foreign policy of states increases the power position and the capability of states to make alliances, the foreign policy ‘menu of choices’ from which states pursue remain largely determined by the international system. From the surface of this systemic approach, domestic factors seem irrelevant for the study of foreign policy. However, the systemic approach does not address the uncertainty as to how states should normatively react to these given conditions within their own polities. Hence, there is room for domestic d...
