Chapter 4: Foreign
Policy Decision
Making
Rational Choice Perspective
• Generally the model presented by leaders
as how they decide on policy
 Assumes policy decisions are made
carefully through well defined
processes that pursue clearly defined
goals.
 Risks and benefits are measured and
balanced
 Optimal solutions are selected as
policy
2
Policy Making as
Rational Choice
1.
2.
3.
4.
Problem recognition and definition
Goal selection
Identification of alternatives
Choice
 Associated with realist/state as unitary
actor
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Factors Impacting Foreign Policy
 System Level Factors
• Polarity
• Degree of concentration of
military/economic power among major states
• Polarization
• How firmly minor states cluster around the
major powers in alliances
• Geopolitics – Impact of geographic
characteristics
4
Domestic Factors:
 Military Capabilities
• States actions are constrained by their
military strength
• No aggression w/out power projection
capability
• Boldness connected with military
capability
• Japan? Iran? Canada? US? Etc…
5
Domestic Factors:
 Economic Capacity
• Capable to supply, resupply a military?
• Capable to sustain a siege
6
Domestic Factors:
 Government type
• Democracy
• Autocratic rule
• Is there a connection between type of
government and foreign policy?
• Democratic Peace?
• Democratic weakness?
• Autocratic aggressiveness?
7
Domestic Factors:
 Rational political ambition
hypothesis:
• Leaders like to maintain or expand
their role – foreign policy decisions
made to keep leaders in power
•
•
•
•
Britain – Argentina in the Faulklands
“Wag the Dog” concept….
Clinton in Lybia?
Bush in Iraq?
8
Organizational Factors
 Bureaucratic Politics
• Competition / Rivalry of various
agencies
• Inability / Unwillingness to share across
bureaucratic boundaries
• Standard Operating procedures
9
Organizational Factors
 Bureaucratic Politics
• Competition / Rivalry of various
agencies
• Inability / Unwillingness to share across
bureaucratic boundaries
• Standard Operating procedures
• Tendency to inertia
• Limited innovation
10
Individual Level
 Individual leaders matter
• Individual talents and limitations
determine much of policy
• Hitler, Chamberlain, Churchill, etc.
 Leaders self-image, confidence:
“political efficacy”
 Individual leaders are more influential
in unusual, crisis situations
• Bush 9/11, Roosevelt in Depression and
WW II
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Constraints on Policy-making
 Leaders project (and Realists expect)
“Rationality” and states as “Unitary
Actors”
 Leaders face constraints on
Rationality:
• 2-level game
• Maintain domestic influence and power
• Promote desirable foreign policy
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Constraints on Policy-making
 Complexity and limited processing
ability may lead to:
• Satisficing: Choosing an option that
meets a minimally acceptable level of
satisfaction rather than pressing on for
the very best or optimal level of
achievement
13
Constraints on Policy-making
 Prospect Theory:
• The idea that leaders level of risk
tolerance is greater when avoiding a loss
than when pursuing a gain.
• Leaders will risk a huge loss to avoid a
minor loss
• Leaders will risk only minor losses in pursuit
of even major gains
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Constraints on Policy-making
 Leaders focus on “Sunk Costs”
• Rational decisions consider future
looking costs/benefits
• Sunk costs are gone and can’t be changed
• Rational decisions disregard sunk costs
• Making decisions based on sunk costs is
“throwing good money after bad”
• Political leaders tend to fall into the sunk
costs trap
• “they must not have died in vain”
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Constraints on Policy-making
 Group Think
 Newgroup Syndrome: Tendency to
bandwagon with prominent, assertive
thinkers
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Transnational Actors




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
Countries
International organizations
Multinational corporations
Nongovernmental organizations
Indigenous nationalities
Terrorist networks
Individuals
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Foreign Policy Analysis
 Bureaucracies
 Decision-making in organizations
 Psychological characteristics of
leaders
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Most Foreign Policy Analysis
Centers on the Executive Branch
 The head of government is
responsible for making policy
 The country needs to have a single
voice abroad
 Heads of government tend to make
foreign policy because they control
the executive branch of government
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19
Legislatures and Courts
in Foreign Policy
 The “power of the purse”
 Courts’ jurisdiction generally limited
to domestic affairs
• “Pentagon Papers” 1971
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The Rational Action Model
 A logical attempt to achieve an
identifiable goal
 Calculates costs and benefits
 What goal does this policy serve?
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Expected Utility Theory
 Payoffs and profitability
 Does not seek optimum solution, but
the policy with best ratio of
payoff/probability
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Bureaucracies
in Foreign Policies
 Department of State and Department
of Defense
 CIA and NSA
 Different bureaucracies have distinct,
and often competing, interests.
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The Organizational
Process Model
 Procedures influence decision content
 Standard operating procedures
 Efficiency is goal, difficulties when
dealing with unique situations
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Small Group
Decision Making
 Groupthink
 May be caused by need for consensus
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Individual Decision Making
 Perception and misperception
 Motivated and unmotivated bias
 Bounded rationality
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Attribution Theory
 Fundamental Attribution Bias
• Naïve scientists
• Pre-existing beliefs
 Security dilemma
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Historical Lessons

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
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
Lessons of WW I
Lessons of WW II
Lessons of Korean War
The Lessons of Vietnam
Lessons of Iraq (1991)
Lessons of Afghanistan
Lessons of Iraq (2003)
???????
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Other Theories
of Decision-Making
 Prospect Theory
• Status quo Bias




Motivated Bias
Cognitive Dissonance
Two-level games
Satisficing
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A “Funnel Vision” of the Influences
on International Decision Making
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30
Policy Making as
Rational Choice
1.
2.
3.
4.
Problem recognition and definition
Goal selection
Identification of alternatives
Choice
 Associated with realist/state as unitary
actor
• 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
• 2003 Iraq War
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Factors Affecting
Leadership Capacity






Personality
Degree of control over foreign policy
Sense of political efficacy
Amount of available information
Ability to deal with crises
“Great person” versus zeitgeist debate
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Influences on
Foreign Policy Choice
 International
• Polarity and polarization
• Geographic position
 Domestic
• Military capabilities
• Economic conditions
• Type of government
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Democratic Peace Theory
 Asserts that democracies are more
peaceful than other states.
 Ironically, could provide a rationale
for war, because a war that instills a
democracy could reduce the chances
of war in the long run.
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34
Interest Groups
in Foreign Policy
 What do they want?
• Money, protection, policy
 How do they influence foreign policy?
• Votes, money, lobbyists
 To what extent do interest groups
drive foreign policy?
• Very influential in the U.S., varies in
other states
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Public Opinion
1. What does public opinion look like?
2. What effect should public opinion
have on policy?
3. What effect does public opinion
have on foreign policy?
4. What influences public opinion on
foreign policy?
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The Media in Foreign Policy





Media in WW II? Korea?
Media in Viet Nam?
The businesses aspect of journalism
Efforts to influence media coverage
Media power: “the CNN effect”
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Three Models of Influence
 Rational action model
 Bureaucratic politics model
 Organizational process model
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Geographic Influence on
Foreign Policy
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How Free is Your Country?
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Questions for
Critical Thinking
(1 of 2)
1. What factors explain why George W. Bush did not
take action when given intelligence warnings of
impending terrorist attacks in the weeks prior to
September 11, 2001?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the
history-making individuals model? Who qualifies
as a history-making individual?
3. What factors explain why bureaucracies do not
always produce the best options?
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Questions for
Critical Thinking
(2 of 2)
4.
What are some contemporary examples of the
importance of geopolitics?
5.
In what ways does the individual level of
analysis affect foreign policy making?
6.
How does public opinion in the U.S. affect
current foreign policy?
7.
What are the three most influential mass media
in this country?
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42
Web Links
 The Cuban Missile Crisis
 Freedom, Democracy, Peace, Power,
Democide, and War
 Freedom House
 The Presidents: PBS’s The American
Experience
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