Networks of Influence: Think-Tanks in the Foreign Policy-Making Process

1996 ◽  
pp. 65-79
Author(s):  
Donald E. Abelson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Making Process

China’s Foreign Policy Making Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Suisheng Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
China’S Foreign Policy ◽  
Bureaucratic Agencies

China’s foreign policy must rely on opaque and behind-the-scenes coordination organs to work through a large number of bureaucratic agencies of the state, party, and military, whose primary roles are information gathering and the implementation and recommendation of policy. In addition, some new players, such as think tanks, media, local governments, and transnational corporations, have played a variety of roles to influence China’s foreign policy. This chapter examines the evolving role of the paramount leader, the foreign policy coordination and elaboration organs, the bureaucracies, and the new players in the making and transformation of China’s foreign policy. Providing a historical overview, it also observes how President Xi Jinping has centralized and personalized foreign policy making power in the name of strengthening a unified party leadership.

Academic Analysis and U.S. Policy-Making on Africa: Reflections and Conclusions

1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
David S. Wiley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
Private Foundations ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Voice

Late in the 1980s, several major U.S. private foundations concluded that the concern for Africa in the country was weak. This weakness was reflected in the faint focus on U.S. foreign policy toward Africa in all three branches of government, in the halting voice for Africa or for U.S. interests there in the non-governmental organizations (think-tanks, religious organizations, lobbies), and in the small concern for U.S. policy or for affecting it in the African studies scholarly community. Indeed, the voice for Africa in the United States was neither strong nor effective.

The Sociology of Diplomats and Foreign Policy Sector: The Role of Cliques on the Policy-Making Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992090195
Author(s):  
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Career Path ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Organisational Process ◽  
Governmental Politics

This paper studies the sociology of elites and the role of cliques on the foreign policy-making process through an exploratory case study of Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It identifies elite sociology as the independent variable triggering a policy-making process in the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in line with organisational process or governmental politic approaches. It shows that until the 1980s, the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs was marked by strong hierarchical tradition triggered by a certain career path and cliqueism leading to the homogeneity in the sociology of elites. This in turn triggered a foreign policy-making process based on organisational process. The role of cliqueism weakened along with the incremental circulation of elites in the post-1980s and particularly in the post-2005 period as the elite structure in the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs became even more heterogeneous, foreign policy-making process moved towards governmental politics which allowed taking into account diverse schools of thought. Nevertheless, newly emerging programmatic elites employed deliberate efforts for elite circulation by altering the dominant career path and relying on political appointments. The resulting outcome was the emergence of a new clique of ruling elites subordinate to political elites which led to the politicisation of the foreign policy decision-making process in the post-2011 period.

Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies

1991 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Risse-Kappen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
The Impact

The paper discusses the role of public opinion in the foreign policy-making process of liberal democracies. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, public opinion matters. However, the impact of public opinion is determined not so much by the specific issues involved or by the particular pattern of public attitudes as by the domestic structure and the coalition-building processes among the elites in the respective country. The paper analyzes the public impact on the foreign policy-making process in four liberal democracies with distinct domestic structures: the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. Under the same international conditions and despite similar patterns of public attitudes, variances in foreign policy outcomes nevertheless occur; these have to be explained by differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures. Thus, the four countries responded differently to Soviet policies during the 1980s despite more or less comparable trends in mass public opinion.

The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 751-785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander L. George
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Harmful Effect ◽  
Role Conflicts ◽  
Personal Power ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Effective Advocacy ◽  
Security Affairs ◽  
Do So

The system of multiple advocacy attempts to convert intraorganizational conflicts over policy into a balanced system of policy analysis and debate. This requires the executive to (1) structure and manage the policy-making system to ensure that there are advocates to cover the range of interesting policy options on a given issue; (2) equalize or compensate for disparities among the actors in the resources needed for effective advocacy; (3) identify and correct possible “malfunctions” in the policy-making process before they can have a harmful effect on the executive's choice of policy. Nine types of malfunctions are identified in this paper via critical diagnosis of U.S. foreign policy making in cases in which the executive had to decide questions of commitment, intervention, or escalation. Responsibility for identifying and correcting such malfunctions and for managing multiple advocacy effectively should be clearly fixed with the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. However, the Special Assistant should not combine the role of “custodian-manager” of the policy-making system with the additional tasks of (a) policy adviser to the President; (b) public spokesman for existing policies; (c) “watch-dog” of the President's personal power stakes; or (d) implementer of policy decisions already taken. The attempt to do so invites serious role conflicts that can undermine the Special Assistant's performance of the all-important task of custodian.

scholarly journals Federal vs. Central Foreign Policy German Foreign Policy Structure An Analysis of Decision-Making Process

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebin Dr. Fard
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Research Question ◽  
German Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Policy Structure ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Domestic Level

<p>To answer the research question , I focus on the domestic level to draw up a profile of the German foreign policy making process. For the analysis content analysis is used as a research method in order to examine the legitimate actors who make foreign policy decisions and determine the guidelines of German foreign policy. </p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document