Towards A Quantum Mechanical Model of Foreign Policy Analysis

Abstract

The bid to fully understand varied actors’ choices in international politics has over the years led to efforts aimed at providing a theoretical framework that best analyses foreign policy. Such efforts culminated in the skillful forgery and application of a pool of theories and approaches that claim relevance in opening the blackbox of policy making. However, no theory has since been consensually accepted to possess a general explanatory power for the foreign policy actions of all state and non-state actors across time and places. These theories, often regarded as orthodox and heterodox approaches to foreign policy analysis, are shown to be infected by serious shortcomings of inconsistencies and inadequacies similar to the problems of classical physics. They are therefore taken to be consistent with Newtonian mechanics of the physical sciences. Considering that classical mechanics tend to have given way to quantum mechanics in the explanation of physical reality, the mechanistic thought of quantum physics is herein adopted as a useful tool for foreign policy analysis. This study is a new trend in foreign policy analysis, a trans-disciplinary thinking which attempts to blend the study of international politics with some aspects of the physical sciences.

Keywords: Newtonianism, Quantum, Foreign Policy, uncertainty, simplicity, bivalence, interconnectivity.