| A crisis situation | A circumstance or event that is a surprise to decision makers, that evokes a sense of threat (particularly physical peril), and that must be responded to within a limited amount of time.
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| authoritarian governments | A political system that allows little or no participation in decision making by individuals and groups outside the upper reaches of the government.
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| democratic governments | The governmental system a country has in terms of free and fair elections and levels of participation.
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| foreign policy–making actors | The political actors within a state—including political executives, bureaucracies, legislatures, political opponents, interest groups, and the people—who influence the foreign policy process.
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| groupthink | How an individual's membership in an organization/decision-making group influences his or her thinking and actions. In particular there are tendencies within a group to think alike, to avoid discordance, and to ignore ideas or information that threaten to disrupt the consensus.
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| Munich analogy | A belief among post–World War II leaders, particularly Americans, that aggression must always be met firmly and that appeasement will only encourage an aggressor. Named for the concessions made to Hitler by Great Britain and France at Munich during the 1938 Czechoslovakian crisis.
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| poliheuristic theory | A view of decision making that holds it occurs in two stages. During the first stage, non rational considerations such as how an issue and the response to it will affect a decision maker's political or professional future are applied to narrow the range of choices. During the second stage, decision makers use strategic considerations and other rational criteria to make a final policy choice.
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| political culture | A concept that refers to a society's general, long-held, and fundamental practices and attitudes. These are based on a country's historical experience and on the values (norms) of its citizens. These attitudes are often an important part of the internal setting in which national leaders make foreign policy.
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| state-level analysis | An analytical approach that emphasizes the actions of states and the internal (domestic) causes of their policies.
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