Foreign Policy Decision-Making and the Environment: The Claims of Snyder, Brecher, and the Sprouts

Underlying the analyses of Snyder, Brecher, and the Sprouts is a common contention regarding the relationship between environmental influences and foreign policy decisions: that environmental factors influence foreign policy decisions neither invariably nor directly, but only insofar as they affect or are mediated through the perceptions and attitudes of relevant decision makers. With regard to this claim, this paper suggests that (1) the criticisms Zinnes has directed against the Sprouts' formulation of this thesis are irrelevant or unconvincing; (2) close examination of their respective arguments reveals certain significant differences between Snyder and Brecher on the one hand, and the Sprouts on the other; and (3) the relationship between environmental factors, decision makers' perceptions of these factors, and state decisions may be a good deal more complex than supposed either by Snyder or Brecher, or by the Sprouts, and that environmental factors may play a larger role in this relationship than they each suppose.