The foreign-policy consensus: an interim research report

From the time they first tried to establish a separate discipline, political scientists have sought to understand how decisions of government are made and by whom.1 But, in contemplating government and its workings, each new generation has used a different method and approach-a different theoretical model. The first approach was an analysis of the legal powers of formal institutions, the constitutional rights and prerogatives of the President and Congress, and it is useful still. Few of the analytical approaches that followed were so durable, but some stand out as milestones. One, for example, was the discovery of lobbies and interest groups. Not the least of its contributions was that it attracted the attention of