scholarly journals Learning McNamara's Lessons: How the War Powers Resolution Advances the Rule of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Shane
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
War Powers ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Military Engagement ◽  
Military Decision Making

This essay considers Robert S. McNamara’s 1995 memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. First, it explores McNamara’s Lessons to understand the dangers of military policy making conducted without genuine input from Congress. Further, it argues that the pathologies of Vietnam War decision making are not likely to be unique—that is, the realities of executive branch organization and its decision-making processes are likely to re-create those pathologies when Congress is only tenuously involved in resolving the most basic policy questions regarding any substantial military engagement. The essay asserts that the values of sound military decision-making are well served by preserving a state of ambiguity as to the allocation of military decision-making authority in all by the easiest cases. To the extent, the War Powers Resolution has helped Congress to exploit this ambiguity in leveraging its own military policy making role, it has performed a useful function.

scholarly journals The Obama War Powers Legacy and the Internal Forces That Entrench Executive Power

2016 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ingber
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
War Powers ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
President Elect ◽  
Internal Forces ◽  
To Come

As we contemplate the incoming presidential administration, we stare ahead into uncharted space. It may seem as though recent history leaves us unprepared for what lies ahead. What can a discussion of the Obama war powers legacy, and the transition from the Bush to Obama administration, tell us about a transition from Barack Obama to the next president, and beyond?Yet there are lessons here. Noone can predict precisely how the president-elect and the team that is installed will confront the rule of law or grapple with the bureaucratic norms that I discuss in this paper. But systemic forces exist inside the executive branch that influence presidential decision-making in each modern administration and, barring a total reimagining of the executive branch, will operate on administrations to come. These internal forces include mechanisms and norms that fall within two broad categories: (1) those that favor continuity and hinder presidents from effecting change, and (2) those that incrementally help ratchet up claims to executive power.

Developing a Systematic Decision-Making Framework: Bureaucratic Politics in Perspective

1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerel A. Rosati
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Decision Context ◽  
Policy Application ◽  
Decision Making Framework ◽  
Decision Making Behavior

The bureaucratic politics model has achieved great popularity in the study of decision making. Yet too often the term “bureaucratic politics” is used by scholars and practitioners without clearly stating its policy application. The decision-making behavior that occurred during the Johnson and Nixon administrations for SALT I serves to illustrate many of the limits of the model. First, the decision-making structure posited by the bureaucratic politics model is not nearly as prevalent within the executive branch as is commonly assumed. Second, even where the bureaucratic politics structure is present, the decision-making process is not always one of bargaining, compromise, and consensus. Finally, the decision context and the decision participants are ignored in the model. To provide a clearer understanding of policy-making behavior, a more systematic decision-making framework is offered, which should contribute to the development of better model- and theory-building.

Feminist Perspectives on Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie D'Aoust
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
The Impact

Foreign policy analysis (FPA) deals with the decision-making processes involved in foreign policy-making. As a field of study, FPA overlaps international relations (IR) theory and comparative politics. Studies that take into account either sex, women, or gender contribute to the development of knowledge on and about women in IR, which is in itself one of the goals of feminist scholarship. There are two main spheres of feminist inquiries when it comes to foreign policy: the role of women as sexed power holders involved in decision-making processes and power-sharing in the realm of foreign policy-making, and the role of gendered norms in the conduct and adoption of foreign policies. Many observers insist that feminism and foreign policy are linked only by a marriage of convenience, designed to either acknowledge the political accomplishments of women in the sphere of foreign policy such as Margaret Thatcher and Indira Ghandi, or bring attention to so-called “women’s issues,” such as reproduction rights and population control. Scholarship on women and/or gender in relation to foreign policy covers a wide range of themes, such as the role of women as political actors in decision-making processes and organizational structures; women’s human rights and gender mainstreaming; the impact of various foreign policies on women’s lives; and the concept of human security and the idea of women’s rights as a valid foreign policy objective. Three paradigms that have been explored as part of the study of women in comparative politics and IR are behavioralism, functionalism, and rational choice theory.

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.

scholarly journals The Implementation of the REACH Authorisation Procedure on Chemical Substances of Concern: What Kind of Legitimacy?

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Klika
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Chemical Substances ◽  
High Concern ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Reach Regulation ◽  
Very High

With the increasing “agencification” of policy making in the European Union (EU), normative questions regarding the legitimacy of EU agencies have become ever more important. This article analyses the role of expertise and legitimacy with regard to the European Chemicals Agency ECHA. Based on the REACH regulation, so-called Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) are subject to authorisation. The authorisation procedure aims to ensure the good functioning of the internal market, while assuring that risks of SVHCs are properly controlled. Since ECHA has become operational in 2008, recurring decisions on SVHCs have been made. The question posed in this article is: to what extent can decision making in the REACH authorisation procedure be assessed as legitimate? By drawing on the notion of throughput legitimacy, this article argues that decision making processes in the authorisation procedure are characterized by insufficient legitimacy.

Corporatism

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-176
Author(s):  
Peter Munk Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Heart Blood ◽  
State Actors

Corporatism has played a core role in Danish policy-making for a long time. Based on positive feedback mechanisms, privileged interest groups increasingly came to be integrated in the preparation and implementation of most policy decisions during the twentieth century. After the 1970s, reform policies have sharpened the political exchange relation between state actors and interest groups. Interest groups must contribute to the realization of political preferences if they want to remain privileged insiders. If they cannot or will not contribute, they risk being left outside the decision-making arena. In such cases, state actors seek to control the policy process in order to avoid mobilization of reform resistance. Corporatism’s alternative is not pluralism but more closed decision-making processes. However, corporatism is not an either/or. Corporatism is weakened in some cases but still viable in others, even within the same sector. Danish unions have suffered many defeats on unemployment and early retirement schemes and have been kept out of decisions where heart-blood was at play. Simultaneously, the unions have entered a number of agreements using traditional corporatist means of policy-making. In the same sector and involving the same actors, corporatist structures coexist with strategic exclusion. The rumours of corporatism’s death are exaggerated.

A tale of two industrial zones: A geopolitical economy of differential development in Ulsan, South Korea, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinn-yuh Hsu ◽  
Dong-Wan Gimm ◽  
Jim Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Growth Patterns ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Industrial Projects ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Industrial Zones

Much scholarship on East Asian development has sidelined the crucial role of geopolitics by insisting that wars such as the Vietnam War had limited effects on industrial development and economic growth patterns. We find such arguments unpersuasive, and also unduly reductionist. The Vietnam War, in particular, had unambiguously powerful effects on industrial development in South Korea; but even in cases where the direct effects of war were somewhat less spectacular, such as Taiwan, the reasons for the differences were themselves deeply geopolitical and expressive of decision-making processes centered on the Vietnam War. In this paper, we explore the differential effects of such geopolitical decision-making by contrasting the development trajectories of the Ulsan and Kaohsiung industrial zones during the war period. We show, in addition, that the subsequent development of industrial projects in South Korea and Taiwan has continued to bear some of the marks of Vietnam War-era geopolitical economy.

scholarly journals Regulatory discretion: structuring power in the era of regulatory capitalism

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Rebecca Schmidt ◽  
Colin Scott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
League Tables ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Automated Decision Making

Abstract Discretion gives decision makers choices as to how resources are allocated, or how other aspects of state largesse or coercion are deployed. Discretionary state power challenges aspects of the rule of law, first by transferring decisions from legislators to departments, agencies and street-level bureaucrats and secondly by risking the uniform application of key fairness and equality norms. Concerns to find alternative and decentred forms of regulation gave rise to new types of regulation, sometimes labeled ‘regulatory capitalism’. Regulatory capitalism highlights the roles of a wider range of actors exercising powers and a wider range of instruments. It includes also new forms of discretion, for example over automated decision making processes, over the formulation and dissemination of league tables or over the use of behavioural measures. This paper takes a novel approach by linking and extending the significant literature on these changing patterns of regulatory administration with consideration of the changing modes of deployment of discretion. Using this specific lens, we observe two potentially contradictory trends: an increase in determining and structuring administrative decision, leading to a more transparent use of discretion; and the increased use of automated decision making processes which have the potential of producing a less transparent black box scenario.

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