Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making
by Alex Mintz , Karl DeRouen JrFormat: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2010-02-22
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
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Summary
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making presents a psychological approach to foreign policy decision making. This approach focuses on the decision process, dynamics, and outcome. The book includes a wealth of extended real-world case studies and examples that are woven into the text. The cases and examples, which are written in an accessible style, include decisions made by leaders of the United States, Israel, New Zealand, Cuba, Iceland, United Kingdom, and others. In addition to coverage of the rational model of decision making, levels of analysis of foreign policy decision making, and types of decisions, the book includes extensive material on alternatives to the rational choice model, the marketing and framing of decisions, cognitive biases, and domestic, cultural, and international influences on decision making in international affairs. Existing textbooks do not present such an approach to foreign policy decision making, international relations, American foreign policy, and comparative foreign policy.
Author Biography
Alex Mintz is Dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at IDC-Herliya, Israel. Karl DeRouen Jr. is Professor of Political Science, Director of the International Studies Program, and a College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellow at the University of Alabama.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. xiii |
| Introduction | |
| Why Study Foreign Policy from a Decision-Making Perspective? | p. 3 |
| Foreign Policy Decision Making | p. 3 |
| Why Study Foreign Policy Decision Making? | p. 5 |
| The Rational and Cognitive Schools | p. 7 |
| Comparative Foreign Policy | p. 9 |
| Limitations of the Decision-Making Approach | p. 10 |
| Plan of the Book | p. 10 |
| The Decision Environment | |
| Types of Decisions and Levels of Analysis in Foreign Policy Decision Making | p. 15 |
| Types of Decisions | p. 15 |
| Unilateral, Negotiated, Structured, and Unstructured Decisions | p. 16 |
| Holistic, Heuristic and Wholistic Decisions | p. 17 |
| Trade-offs in Decision Making | p. 17 |
| The Level of Analysis in Foreign Policy Decision Making | p. 18 |
| Individual-Level Decisions | p. 18 |
| Group-level Decisions | p. 19 |
| Coalition Decision Making | p. 20 |
| Case Study: Israel's Foreign Policy Making by Coalition | p. 21 |
| Another Example of Coalition Decision Making: Iceland's Cod War, 1971-1974 | p. 23 |
| The Decision Environment | p. 25 |
| Time Constraints | p. 25 |
| Information Constraints | p. 26 |
| Ambiguity | p. 27 |
| Familiarity | p. 27 |
| Dynamic Setting | p. 27 |
| Interactive Setting | p. 28 |
| Risk | p. 28 |
| Stress | p. 28 |
| Accountability | p. 30 |
| The Role of Advisory Groups | p. 31 |
| Information Search Patterns | p. 32 |
| Holistic versus Nonholistic Search | p. 33 |
| Order-Sensitive versus Order-Insensitive Search | p. 33 |
| Alternative-Based versus Dimension-Based Search | p. 33 |
| Maximizing versus Satisficing Search Patterns | p. 34 |
| Compensatory versus Noncompensatory Rule | p. 34 |
| Noncompensatory Decision Rules | p. 35 |
| Conjunctive Decision Rule (CON) | p. 35 |
| Disjunctive Decision Rule (DIS) | p. 36 |
| Elimination-by-aspect (EBA) Decision Rule | p. 36 |
| Lexicographic (LEX) Decision Rule | p. 36 |
| Conclusion | p. 37 |
| Biases in Decision Making | p. 38 |
| Case Study: The U.S. Decision to Invade Iraq In 2003 – the Effect of Cognitive Biases on Foreign Policy Making | p. 41 |
| Groupthink | p. 44 |
| Groupthink in American Foreign Policy | p. 45 |
| Beyond Groupthink | p. 47 |
| Groupthink and Multiple Advocacy | p. 48 |
| Polythink | p. 49 |
| Case Study: Polythink at Camp David, 2000 | p. 50 |
| Did Polythink Lead to the Collapse of the Camp David Talks? | p. 52 |
| Group Polarization Effect | p. 53 |
| Conclusion | p. 54 |
| Models of Decision Making | |
| The Rational Actor Model | p. 57 |
| The Rational Actor Model | p. 57 |
| Case Study: New Zealand's Defiance of the United States and ANZUS | p. 59 |
| The Expected Utility Model of War Decision Making | p. 60 |
| Opportunity Costs | p. 61 |
| Game-Theoretic Models | p. 62 |
| Prisoner's Dilemma | p. 64 |
| Chicken | p. 65 |
| Tit-for-Tat | p. 66 |
| Conclusion | p. 67 |
| Alternatives to the Rational Actor Model | p. 68 |
| Bounded Rationality and the Cybernetic Model | p. 68 |
| Bureaucratic Politics | p. 70 |
| Organizational Politics | p. 73 |
| Prospect Theory | p. 75 |
| Sunk Costs | p. 77 |
| Integrating the Rational and Cognitive Models: Poliheuristic Theory | p. 78 |
| What is Poliheuristic Decision Making? | p. 79 |
| Case Study: The Decision not to Invade Iraq in 1991 - An Application of Various Decision-Making Models to a Foreign Policy Event | p. 81 |
| Background | p. 81 |
| A Rational Actor Interpretation | p. 82 |
| A Cybernetic Explanation | p. 83 |
| A Prospect Theory Explanation | p. 84 |
| A Poliheuristic Explanation | p. 85 |
| An Organizational Politics Explanation | p. 86 |
| A Bureaucratic Politics Model | p. 87 |
| Applied Decision Analysis | p. 87 |
| A Simple Example: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Decision Matrix | p. 88 |
| ADA: A Closer Look | p. 89 |
| Application to Decisions of Leaders of Terrorist Organizations: Bin Laden and al-Qaeda | p. 92 |
| Conclusion | p. 93 |
| Determinants of Foreign Policy Decision Making | |
| Psychological Factors Affecting Foreign Policy Decisions | p. 97 |
| Psychological Factors | p. 97 |
| Cognitive Consistency | p. 98 |
| Evoked Set | p. 99 |
| Emotions | p. 99 |
| Images | p. 101 |
| Beliefs, Belief Systems, and Schema | p. 101 |
| Operational Code Analysis | p. 102 |
| Analogies and Learning | p. 103 |
| The “Munich Analogy” and Use of Analogies in U.S. Foreign Policy | p. 104 |
| Case Study: Analogies in U.S.-Cuban Relations, 1954-1967 | p. 106 |
| The Analogies Provided by Guatemala, 1954 | p. 106 |
| The Bay of Pigs | p. 108 |
| The Cuban Foco and Africa, 1965 | p. 109 |
| Bolivia, 1966-1967 | p. 111 |
| Leaders' Personality | p. 114 |
| Leadership Style | p. 115 |
| Types of Leaders: Crusader, Strategic, Pragmatic, and Opportunistic | p. 116 |
| Cognitive Mapping | p. 119 |
| Conclusion | p. 120 |
| International, Domestic, and Cultural Factors Influencing Foreign Policy Decision Making | p. 121 |
| International Factors | p. 121 |
| Deterrence and Arms Races | p. 121 |
| Strategic Surprise | p. 125 |
| Alliances | p. 126 |
| Regime Type of the Adversary | p. 127 |
| Domestic Factors | p. 129 |
| Diversionary Tactics | p. 129 |
| Economic Interests and Foreign Policy Decisions | p. 130 |
| The Role of Public Opinion | p. 131 |
| Electoral Cycles | p. 132 |
| The Effect of Domestic and International Factors on Foreign Policy Decisions: Two-Level Games | p. 133 |
| Case Study: The Domestic and International Underpinnings of Decision Making - the Falklands War, 1982 | p. 134 |
| Diversionary Behavior | p. 134 |
| Deterrence and Misperception | p. 135 |
| Electoral Impact | p. 136 |
| Decisions on the Use of Economic Instruments of Foreign Policy | p. 136 |
| The Decision to Use Sanctions as an Instrument of Foreign Policy | p. 137 |
| The Decision to Use Aid in Foreign Policy | p. 138 |
| Negotiation and Mediation Decisions | p. 139 |
| Decisions on Foreign Policy Substitutability | p. 141 |
| Gender Differences in Decision Making | p. 143 |
| Cultural Differences in Decision Making | p. 144 |
| Conclusion | p. 145 |
| Marketing Foreign Policy | |
| Framing, Marketing, and Media Effects on Foreign Policy Decision Making | p. 149 |
| Marketing Effects | p. 149 |
| Framing Effects | p. l50 |
| The Frame as a Political Lens | p. 151 |
| Who is Framing Whom? Framing the Public | p. 152 |
| Framing beyond the Borders | p. 155 |
| Advisory Group Framing and Manipulating | p. 156 |
| Summary | p. 159 |
| Media Effects | p. 160 |
| Case Study: The Marketing of the U.S. Invasion of Grenada, 1983 | p. 162 |
| Background | p. 162 |
| The Key Decision Makers | p. 163 |
| The Marketing of the Decision | p. 163 |
| The Decision Process | p. 164 |
| Could the Process Actually Have Been a Compensatory One? | p. 166 |
| Conclusion | p. 166 |
| Conclusion | |
| Conclusion | p. 169 |
| What Does it All Mean?: A Case Study of the U.S. Decision to Invade Iraq in 2003 | p. 171 |
| Conclusion | p. 175 |
| Appendix: Foreign Policy Simulation and Exercise | p. 177 |
| References | p. 179 |
| Index | p. l99 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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