Foreign Policy Elites, Ideology and Decision-Making

The structure and content of the Finnish foreign policy elite's ideology concerning the issue area of relations with the Third World and development cooperation is dis cussed. The purpose of the analysis is to increase the understanding of the nature of foreign policy formation. Both potential and actual elites are studied. First the criteria by which the potential elite can be defined are discussed and then, in order to discover the actual elite, various means of influence are analysed. The various elements of the ideology of the elite are studied in detail. The relationship between the content of the ideology and the functional and structural position of the elite as well as its general societal ideology is also analysed in order to discover the factors which influence the content of the ideology.