The Tangibility of Issues and Global Conflict: A Test of Rosenau's Issue Area Typology

While the concept of issue area in foreign policy has received wide theoretical attention, there has been little empirical research on it. This analysis tests five propositions derived from Rosenau's pre-theory in order to assess the role of issues in foreign policy cooperation-conflict. The findings show that the tangibility of issues is a potent variable in analyzing cooperation-conflict when combined with other intervening variables such as the number of actors, the costliness of employed resources, the frequency of contention, persistence, and linkages to other issues. The findings are then used to reformulate Rosenau's analysis into five new propositions which stipulate the conditions under which the tangibility of issues will lead to cooperation-conflict and the kinds of behavior associated with each of Rosenau's four issue areas.