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analysis of the foreign policy formulation process. They also provide importantclues about the levers of power in society, and what the priorities of the nationalcommunity are. Even debates challenging governing party interpretations of threatsand justifiable means of achieving international goals shed light on contendingviews of domestic priorities. This is a key variable in the capacity of states torespond to international threats and opportunities. While governing parties may notbe able to shift course entirely on foreign policy, for various structural, historicaland cultural reasons, they still play an important role in defining national threats,and in determining the best of use of the means to resist them.The main concern here is not with electoral politics and the variations in publicopinion on foreign policy in developing countries. Rather, the main concern of thethesis is the personal and institutional impact of key individuals in governing partiesin the states considered, upon foreign policy. A second key concern is with theprocess of how certain party principles, or foreign policy platforms, are convertedinto national foreign policy, resulting in foreign policy choices that may be predictedneither by a strict realist approach, nor a strict liberal approach.Operationalising the variablesThe key variables regarding the role of governing parties in this framework are asfollows:• Institutional freedom to convert national power into state power, i.e. latitude tomobilize national resources and extract them for foreign policy purposes. Thisfreedom is gauged by the following factors, among others: the relationshipbetween the executive and legislative branches of government; the size of thenumerical majority of the governing party in the legislature (where the legislaturepossesses some power over the foreign policymaking process); the relativestrength of various components of the executive, such as the presidency and therelevant ministries. This is a variant of state structure arguments in foreignpolicy analysis.• Legitimating power to convert national power into state power, i.e. reasons forinternational action or a given foreign policy activity resonate with the governingparty’s own stated views and principles, or with those of the broader society.Legitimating power depends on factors such as shared identity, reasoned97