Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mintz ◽  
Amnon Sofrin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Unique Decision

Key theories of foreign policymaking include: the rational actor model, prospect theory, poliheuristic theory, cybernetic theory, bureaucratic politics, and organizational politics; and, at the group level, groupthink, polythink, and con-div. These theories are based on unique decision rules, including maximizing, satisficing, elimination by aspect, lexicographic, etc. A new, two-group model of foreign policy decision-making includes a decision design group and a decision approval group.

scholarly journals Critiques of the Rational Actor Model and Foreign Policy Decision Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Alden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Many

Foreign policy decision making has been and remains at the core of foreign policy analysis and its enduring contribution to international relations. The adoption of rationalist approaches to foreign policy decision making, predicated on an actor-specific analysis, paved the way for scholarship that sought to unpack the sources of foreign policy through a graduated assessment of differing levels of analysis. The diversity of inputs into the foreign policy process and, as depicted through a rationalist decision-making lens, the centrality of a search for utility and the impulse toward compensation in “trade-offs” between predisposed preferences, plays a critical role in enriching our understanding of how that process operates. FPA scholars have devoted much of their work to pointing out the many flaws in rationalist depictions of the decision-making process, built on a set of unsustainable assumptions and with limited recognition of distortions underlined in studies drawn from literature on psychology, cognition, and the study of organizations. At the same time, proponents of rational choice have sought to recalibrate the rational approach to decision making to account for these critiques and, in so doing, build a more robust explanatory model of foreign policy.

Using Applied Decision Analysis to Understand Foreign Policy Decision-Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tyson Chatagnier
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Analysis ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Osama Bin Laden ◽  
Unique Decision

A leader’s approach to foreign policy decision-making is a critical explanatory factor in understanding why certain decisions are made. While several tools are available to analysts who wish to examine the process by which decision makers settle upon their chosen alternative, one of the most compelling is applied decision analysis (ADA), which allows scholars to uncover the unique “decision DNA” associated with a given leader. This chapter surveys the literature that has used the ADA methodology to examine questions of foreign policy decision-making. It pulls from twenty studies of leaders’ decisions—with more than twenty different leaders, ranging from Winston Churchill to Mao Zedong to Osama bin Laden—which comprise more than one hundred total unique decisions, examining and discussing the findings of each. It draws inferences about which decision rules best explain leaders’ policy choices, concluding that the works in question show overwhelming support for the poliheuristic theory of decision; and it discusses how future scholars can build on the ADA research program and how this information can best be used by policymakers.

Foreign Policy Decision-Making in Nigeria. By Ufot B. Inamete. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2001. 313p. $48.50.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 882-883
Author(s):  
Michael Anda
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Independent Country

This elaborate study analyzes the Nigerian foreign policy decision-making structures and processes from 1960 (when Nigeria became an independent country) until 1999. Using Graham Allison's conceptual models of decision making (the rational-actor model, the organizational process model, and the bureaucratic politics model), Ufot Inamete examines how foreign policy decision making during the Balewa, Ironsi, Gowon, Muhammed/Obasanjo, Shagari, Buhari, Babangida, Shonekan, Abacha, Abubakar, and Obasanjo governments manifested both changes and continuities (p. 289). Importantly, theory from Allison's model is well integrated with the substantive and analytical portions of the book, and, thus, it goes beyond the theory of a strong-leader approach in Third World countries to demonstrate that developing countries do have organizational structures that deal with foreign policies.

scholarly journals Decision-making in Russia’s Foreign Policy Modelling Russia’s Decision-Making with reference to Ukraine and Moldova (2004-2018)

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Kristine Zaidi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Policy Decision Making

There is a substantial body of literature on Russian foreign policy; however, the decision-making aspect remains comparatively less explored. The ambition of this research developed in two directions; on a practical level, it contributes to knowledge on Russia’s foreign policy decision-making and, on a conceptual plane, to scholarship by way of theory development, underpinning academic research on decision-making in foreign policy. Russia’s decision-making was first viewed through the prism of the Rational Actor Model and Incrementalism; however, their utility was found to be limited. Blended models also did not figure strongly. Through the prism of author’s proposed model of Strategic Incrementalism and its principles, this research demonstrates that Russia’s foreign-policy decision-making is far from a case of ‘muddling through,’ it retains a long-term purposefulness, and that its incremental decisions are guided by farsightedness. The simplicity and general applicability of the model potentially suggest its broader utility.

scholarly journals Missing in Analysis: Women in Foreign Policy–Making

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
Karen E Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Policy Decision Making

Abstract Foreign policy analysis (FPA) opens the “black box” of the state and provides explanations of how and why foreign policy decisions are made, which puts individuals and groups (from committees to ministries) at the center of analysis. Yet the sex of the decision-maker and the gendered nature of the decision-making process have generally been left out of the picture. FPA has not addressed questions regarding the influence of women in foreign policy decision-making processes or the effects of gender norms on decision-making; indeed, FPA appears to be almost entirely gender-free. This article argues that “gendering” FPA is long overdue and that incorporating gender into FPA frameworks can provide a richer and more nuanced picture of foreign policy–making.

Foreign Policy Decision-Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica D. Blankshain
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Policy Decision Making

The study of foreign policy decision-making seeks to understand how states formulate and enact foreign policy. It views foreign policy as a series of decisions made by particular actors using specific decision-making processes. The origins of this focus on decision-making are generally traced to the 1950s and 1960s, with the literature increasing in complexity and diversity of approaches in more recent decades. Foreign policy decision-making is situated within foreign policy analysis (a subfield of international relations subfield), which applies theories and methods from an array of disciplines—political science, public administration, economics, psychology, sociology—to understand how states make foreign policy, and how these policies translate into geopolitical outcomes. The literature on foreign policy decision-making is often subdivided based on assumptions about the process by which actors make foreign policy decisions—primarily falling into rational and nonrational decision-making; about who is assumed to make the decision—states, individuals, groups, or organizations; and about the influences believed to be most important in affecting those decisions—international factors, domestic political factors, interpersonal dynamics, etc. While much of the literature focuses on foreign policy decision-making in the United States, there have been attempts to apply models developed in the US context to other states, as well as to generate generalizable theories about foreign policy decision-making that apply to certain types of states.

To Negotiate or Not-to Negotiate with the FDLR Rebels? President Kikwete and Tanzania’s Foreign Policy towards Rwanda (2013–2015)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Nicodemus Minde
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Abstract This article challenges traditional approaches to inter-state relations and reinforces the actor-specific nature of foreign policy analysis. Using individual decision-making theory based on the personalities of key political actors, this article proposes a case study on the foreign policy decision outcome by Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, in response to the 2013 diplomatic row with Rwanda. Tanzania’s relations with Rwanda have historically been cordial. However, President Kikwete’s proposal for Rwanda to negotiate with the rebel group Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in 2013 was not well received by Rwanda. The FDLR is a Hutu rebel outfit based in Eastern DRC, consisting of surviving Hutus who had fled into DRC, after the 1994 genocide. This article argues that in view of the diplomatic row that ensued, Kikwete’s response supports current theories on the role played by a key political actor’s personality in the foreign policy decision-making process.

The Intersection of War and Politics

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin P. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Military Doctrine ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Further Development

This study examines the decision-making process of the George W. Bush administration which led to the decision in late 2006 to order the Iraq troop surge. The study analyzes whether the bureaucratic politics model of foreign policy decision making can accurately explain the events of the case. The study seeks to further test the explanatory power and descriptive accuracy of the bureaucratic politics model, while also attaining a more textured, academic understanding of the decision-making process leading to the Iraq troop surge. The decision to order the troop surge in Iraq is one of the more important decisions in post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy and continues to impact U.S. strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and overall military doctrine. Finally, the author endeavors to contribute to the further development and refinement of the bureaucratic politics model of foreign policy decision making.

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