Tai Lieu Chat Luong Foreign Policy Analysis Foreign Policy Analysis Classic and Contemporary Theory Second Edition Valerie M. Hudson ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hudson, Valerie M., 1958– Foreign policy analysis : classic and contemporary theory / Valerie M.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-2003-4 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4422-2004-1 (pbk. International relations--Decision making.
International relations--Psychological aspects.101--dc23 2013038144 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39. Printed in the United States of America Contents Acknowledgments vii I: Overview and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis 1 1 Introduction: The Situation and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis: A Road Map 3 II: Levels of Analysis 37 2 The Individual Decisionmaker: The Political Psychology of World Leaders 39 3 Group Decisionmaking: Small Group Dynamics, Organizational Process, and Bureaucratic Politics 73 4 Culture and National Identity 117 5 Domestic Politics and Opposition 141 6 The Levels of National Attributes and International System: Effects on Foreign Policy 161 III: Putting It All Together, or Not 183 7 Theoretical Integration in Foreign Policy Analysis 185 8 The Future of Foreign Policy Analysis 211 Bibliography 223 Index 245 About the Author 257 v Acknowledgments This book has taken many long years to complete, and I would be remiss if I did not thank all of those who helped and supported me along the way. First, to Jennifer Knerr for having faith in my vision of a Foreign Policy Analysis textbook. Second, to Susan McEachern for so seamlessly picking up where Jennifer left off, and for encouraging me forward to a second edition.
Third, to Douglas Van Belle, for his helpful suggestions on one of the early chap- ters, and to Rose McDermott for friendship and good suggestions. Fourth, I would like to thank my old mentors in Foreign Policy Analysis, such as Donald Sylvan, Chuck Hermann, and Peg Hermann, for the excellent educa- tion they provided and the passion for Foreign Policy Analysis they inspired in me. Fifth, I would like to thank my research assistant, S. Matthew Stearm- er, for all of his help, especially with the ins and outs of graphics inserted into text files.
Sixth, I would like to thank the George H. Bush Chair at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University, for support given to this effort. Seventh, I would like to thank those publishers who graciously granted me permission to use some of my writings previously published with them, including Palgrave, Blackwell, and Lynne Rienner.
Eighth, I would like to thank my Foreign Policy Analy- sis students, past, present, and future, for all that they have taught me in years past and will teach me in the years to come. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family—my husband, David, and my children Jo- seph, John, Thomas, Jamison, Hope Rose, and Eve Lily—for their unflag- ging support. I wish to dedicate this volume to my dear daughter, Ariel, who died as I was finishing the first edition. We will be together in the eternities, Ariel, and if you wish it, I will tell you all about Foreign Policy Analysis then.
vii I Overview and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis Chapter One Introduction: The Situation and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis A Road Map Every theoretical discipline has a ground. A “ground” means the conceptual- ization of the fundamental or foundational level at which phenomena in the field of study occur. So, for example, the ground of physics is now that of matter and antimatter particles. Economists often use the ground of firms or households.
It is upon such ground that theories are built, modified, and even discarded. Sometimes just the knowledge that the ground exists frees the researcher from having to anchor his or her work in it, permitting greater heights of abstraction to be reached. A physicist can work on problems related to black holes, and economists can speak of trends in world markets without having to begin each new research effort by going over the ground of their respective disciplines. International Relations (IR) as a field of study has a ground, as well.
All that occurs between nations and across nations is grounded in human deci- sionmakers acting singly or in groups. In a sense, the ground of IR is thus the same ground of all the social sciences. Understanding how humans perceive and react to the world around them, and how humans shape and are shaped by the world around them, is central to the inquiry of social scientists, even those in IR. However, your previous training in IR probably gave you the impression that states are the ground of International Relations.
Or, in slightly alternative language, that whatever decisionmaking unit is involved, be it a state or a human being or a group of humans, that that unit can be modeled as a unitary rational actor and therefore be made equivalent to the state. Sometimes this 3 4 Chapter 1 approach is referred to as “black-boxing” the state, or as a “billiard ball model” of state interaction. You may have even been taught that IR is not the study of foreign policymaking. Alas, dear students, you have been taught amiss.
If you are taking this course, then someone in your department feels that the ground of IR is human decisionmakers who are not best approximated as strictly unitary rational actors, and who are not equivalent to the state. And, furthermore, that “the state” is a metaphysical abstraction that is useful as a shorthand for IR’s ground, but cannot be a realistic conceptualization of it. In this course, you are entering a realm of IR theory that you may have never been exposed to otherwise; remember to thank your professor for this oppor- tunity. HALLMARKS OF FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS THEORY If the ground of IR is human decisionmakers acting singly or in groups, several other theoretical hallmarks follow naturally and serve to characterize Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA).
Explanandum: That Which Is to Be Explained in FPA The explanandum, or that which is to be explained or understood, will be decisions taken by human decisionmakers with reference to or having known consequences for entities external to their nation-state. Such decisions entail action, inaction, and even indecision. Usually such decisions directly target external entities in the form of influence attempts (even influence in the first place of domestic actors), but they may include decisions that target domestic entities but have ramifications for external entities. One is almost always examining not a single decision, but a constellation of decisions taken with reference to a particular situation.
Indeed, as Brighi and Hill note, “Foreign policy decisions should be seen primarily as heightened moments of commit- ment in a perpetual process of action, reaction, and further action at many different levels and involving a range of different actors” (2012, 166). Fur- thermore, decisions may be modified over time, requiring an examination of sequences of decisions. Furthermore, the stages of decisionmaking may also be the focus of inquiry, from problem recognition, framing, and perception to more advanced stages of goal prioritization, contingency planning, and op- tion assessment. Last, FPA traditionally finds itself most interested in deci- sions taken by human decisionmakers in positions of authority to commit the resources of the nation-state, though it is quite possible to analyze decision- makers who do not hold such positions.
Indeed, the only things not examined are likely to be accidents or mis- takes, or decisions that cannot be conceptualized as having an international The Situation and Evolution of Foreign Policy Analysis 5 component. In the first case, the action was not purposeful. It is difficult to explain nonpurposeful action. In the latter case, the decision can be analyzed, but probably would not be analyzed by foreign policy analysts, but rather by domestic policy analysts.
Though some have opined that “in conditions of globalization, all politics has become foreign policy in one way or the other,” there is still a meaningful distinction to be made (Brighi and Hill 2012, 153). Even if one were to concede that point, which we are not inclined to do, the same conceptual and methodological tools used in FPA would still be useful in examining non–foreign policy decisions. That is, what you learn in FPA may help you to analyze human decisionmaking regardless of substantive focus. In the world of foreign policy, however, the actual decisions (or indeci- sions) made may not be immediately observable to the analyst.
Indeed, they may be secret, and may remain so for decades due to national security con- cerns. In many cases, this means the analyst is working with historical data, or contemporary data insofar as public sources provide that information (which may be incomplete or even false). Another approach is to use artifacts of decisions—the traces that decisions to act leave in newspapers or chronol- ogies, and which are eventually concatenated into histories. These artifacts are termed “events,” and the data produced by accumulating them are called “events data.” (We will examine events data in more detail in a following section of this chapter.) This distinction between the foreign policy decision and the foreign poli- cy action bears additional discussion.
The distinction is worth making for several reasons. First, a decision may never result in action; indeed, there may be a decision taken not to act, or there may be insufficient consensus among the members of the decisionmaking group to act. While leaving no action artifact, such decisions are as likely to be as important as decisions to act, and well worth analyzing. Second, a decision may be taken to act in a way that does not reveal, and indeed, is possibly designed to conceal, the true decision taken.
Such deceptions, insincerities, and concealments are quite common in foreign policy. The Soviets stated they had shut down their biological weapons program after signing the BWC (Biological Weapons Convention), but in fact such a program persisted even past the demise of the USSR, and perhaps continues to this very day. Last, implementation issues routinely plague even the most important decisions to act, often leading to profound slippage between the direction of the decision taken and the direc- tion of the action executed. These issues of implementation may be logistical and unintentional; on the other hand, they may be political and purely inten- tional on the part of subordinates or other actors.
Furthermore, the coordina- tion of policy in different policy areas may be lacking, resulting in policies in one area seemingly contradictory to policies in another, such as the United States’ tacit economic support of the Hugo Chávez regime. Multilateral 6 Chapter 1 foreign policy initiatives, of course, are very vulnerable to implementation misdirection. As Brighi and Hill put it, “The implementation of policy mak- ing always involves some loss of momentum through transaction costs, polit- ical friction and disillusion” (2012, 166). A focus on the decision may also be more prudent because, in addition to the distinction between decision and action, there is also a distinction to be made between decision and outcome.