they occur although relative significance tends to vary. French foreign policy in Africa is directed toward the maintenance of decades of carefully cultivated ties to assure that French companies will continue to benefit from advantages denied rivals from other developed countries (p. 1:9).
Foreign policy initiatives are often interpreted as being actions based solely upon national interests. Contemporary theoretical developments in political science, however, tend to cause such foreign policy initiatives to be viewed in the context of linkages that are defined as recurrent political behaviors that originate in one political system and are reacted to in another political system (Chafer, 1992, pp. 37-51). When viewed in the context of linkages, foreign policy initiatives may be viewed as either inputs or outputs, and as either environmental or polity in underlying character. Expanding the analytical framework, foreign policy initiatives may be further viewed as being either adaptive or maladaptive within the context of essential structures and acceptable limits.
Viewed from the perspective of the theory of linkages, a foreign policy initiative may be assessed quite differently from the way it would be assessed when interpreted as being an action based solely upon national interests (Chafer, 1992, pp. 37-51). Thus, when the French government arrested 17 sympathizers of the Islamic Salvation Front following the killing of five French civilians in Algeria, the action was interpreted as a shift in French foreign policy to provide support for Algeria's military backed government in that government's battle against Islamic fundamentalism. Within France, however, the action of the French government was interpreted as a retaliation for the attack on French citizens. Regardless of the motivation of the French government, however, the action tends to place French foreign policy on a course of involvement in the Algerian conflict.