AbstractIn attempting to understand continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy, analysts have tended to place too much emphasis on the importance of process and too little on that of values, interests, and strategies. In formulating policies toward the conflict in El Salvador, both the Carter and Reagan administrations were constrained by some enduring moral and political factors in the U.S. civic culture and by some fundamental processes of decision‐making, which together account for the similarities in policy between administrations. Despite such factors, each administration's remaining space for choice produced a decidedly different set of policies with different outcome