Christina

"American Foreign Policy" Glenn Hastedt (6th ed. 2004) pp. 244-258

Models of Policy Making:

1. Rational Actor Model

-most frequently employed

-Characterized as an action-reaction process. "Foreign policy is viewed as a calculated response to the actions of another actor." This is thought to lead to a unitary and rational policy-making process. 

Basic elements of a rational decision process:

a. "goals are clearly stated and ranked in order of preference

b.  all options are considered

c. consequences of each option are assessed

d. a value-maximizing choice is made"

Two types of analyses used to examine rational actor decision making:

a. Inductive- the analyst tries to examine the situation from the perspective of the government in order to understand the government's logical processes

b. Deductive- relies on logical/mathematical formulations to predict how governments should behave  under given conditions, often used by military strategists and deterrence theorists. 

Examples:

-Israeli-related policy-making

-Argentinian-related policy-making

Criticisms of the Rational Actor Model:

- understates the complexity of foreign affairs

- doesn't account for the importance of chance, accident, coincidence

- the type of information processing demanded by the rational actor model may exceed human cognitive capabilities to consider and weigh all contingencies 

2. Bureaucratic Politics

Definition:

- "the process by which people inside government bargain with one another on complex public policy questions"- policy making is conceptualized as a conflict resolution process between many actors, agencies, and institutions. 

Characteristics:

- downplays the importance of the individual- "no individual is in a position to decide matters alone. Power is shared." This breeds disagreement between the many institutions that decide policy because everyone has a different perspective. 

- the importance of deadlines to this model is discussed- deadlines force policies to be made, and to further complicate matters, everyone has different deadlines (eg the adjournment of Congress, the beginning of a fiscal year, election seasons). 

Criticisms:

-Overstates the importance of the "political bargaining process" while understating the importance of deliberate choice. 

-When this model is employed, new policies are unlikely to differ substantially from prior policies because during the bargaining process, both sides will be unlikely to make major concessions or deviate from their existing commitments. This is called the "minimal decision" paradigm. 

-Bargaining is an expensive and time-consuming process.

-When this model is employed, it is difficult to assign responsibility for decisions that are made. 

-This model is also criticized for being "too complex"- virtually anything can be seen as impacting policy. 

3. Small Group Decision Making 

-Many policies are made by small groups that cannot accurately be described as single actors or large bureaucracies. 

-This model is the most susceptible to the groupthink phenomenon. 

Advantages:

-Fewer viewpoints means less conflict

-A small environment fosters free and open discussion

-"Swift and decisive action"

-"possible innovation and experimentation"

-"maintaining secrecy"

Three Types of Small Groups:

a. Informal small group- "meets regularly but lacks a formal institutional base" (e.g. Tuesday lunch groups of Johnson administration). 

b. ad hoc group- "created to deal with a specific problem and ceases to function once its task is completed." (e.g. ExCom group under Kennedy administration during Cuban missile crisis). 

c. Formal small group- permanent, has an institutional base, created to perform a series of functions. (e.g. subcommittees of National Security  Council). 

Examples of Small Group Decision-making:

-W.Bush's "war cabinet" post September 11

-Pearl Harbor, Bay of Pigs, Korea, Vietnam

-Iranian hostage rescue mission

-Iran-Contra initiative 

Criticisms of small group decision-making/ groupthink 

- highly susceptible to groupthink

symptoms of groupthink: 

a. "overestimation of the group's power and morality"

b. "closed-mindedness"

c. "pressures toward conformity"

d. members of the group cope with stress by enacting "concurrence-seeking behaviors"

-proposed decisions likely won't work.

-policy makers may choose whatever option accords with their pre-existing opinions

-policy makers may do nothing if confronted with too many options

4. Elite Theory 

-Emphasizes the importance of individuals in the government in making foreign policy. 

-Decisions that are made are said to disproportionately reflect the personal interests of those making the decisions, and are said to serve only a small sector of society.

-"Special interests (of the elite) are transformed into national interests through the pattern of office holding and the structure of influence that exists in the U.S."

-"Those who hold office are seen as being a stable and relatively cohesive group that share common goals, interests, and values... Those outside the elite group are held to be relatively powerless, reacting to the policy initiatives of the elite rather than prompting them."

Disagreements over the nature of elite theory:

- Some believe that the elites have unlimited power, others believe that public opinion has the ability to "short circuit" the elite agenda periodically. 

- Some conceptualize the elites as being very conspiratorial, others do not.

Examples of elite theory analyses:

-Reagan and Carter administrations

5. Pluralism 

Tenets:

a. "Power in society is fragmented and diffused

b. Many groups in society have power to participate in policy-making

c. No one group is powerful enough to dictate policy

d. An equilibrium among groups is the natural state of affairs.

e. Policy is the product of bargaining between group

and reflects the interests of the dominant groups

f. The government acts as an umpire supervising the competition and sometimes compels

a settlement. "

-Pluralists acknowledge that power is differentially and disparately distributed, but the attributes of power (such as wealth, status, etc) don't mean you actually possess power.

-A deficiency in one area of power may be offset by a surplus in another area (e.g. leadership abilities offsetting a lack of wealth) 

Integrating Models:

Obviously, a single model doesn't accurately capture the whole of U.S. policy-making. Instead, models can be integrated in the following ways:

a. shift from model to model as the focus of the analysis changes (e.g. analyzing something from historical vs economic vs personal perspectives) 

b. select whichever model(s) are most appropriate for the situation in question. Generally, bureaucratic and pluralist models are seen as being more useful for broader and more drawn-out situations, while rational actor, elite theory, and small group models may have more utility for more specific issues.

c. shift from model to model as the policy problem develops over time.

d. letting one's personal values inform model choice.