In contemporaneous times, foreign-policy analysis can no longer be dependent solely on the study of state structures and on verifing how they work as a gatekeeper between foreign pressures and domestic demands. This limitation happens due to two main facts. Firstly, interactions between domestic actors and foreign ones may take place beyond the anarchical space formed by states that represent nations-states. For instance, firms and NGOs can establish relationships with their external counterparts without the consent of the state which warranties order in the territory where they are based. Secondly, those same firms and NGOs may clash over a given set of interests in a given country, which eventually may lead the state to design approaches to negotiate participation in international regimes in order to stabilize internal disputes. Considering these facts, I propose a theoretical framework that goes beyond the anarchical account of the international system, and that is able to consider the interplay between both economic and non-economic interests in foreign-policy analysis. I argue that both the nation-states and the international system are composed by three major arenas that frame anarchy: the arena of association, mostly known as civil society, and the arena of production, which came to be the market, and the political arena, where disputes among societal groups take place to define criteria of redistribution of material and symbolic resources. That said, within the nation-state, there is a fourth arena: the state as government.
