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Roles and Reasons in Foreign Policy Decision Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Martin Hollis  and
Steve Smith
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Extract

Explaining the foreign policy behaviour of states has proved a particularly difficult task for theorists of international relations. For centuries it relied on an analogy between states and individuals in the state of nature, so that an endemic tendency to international anarchy resulted from states having ‘interests’; systemic, determinist theories could therefore explain foreign policy by appealing to such notions as national interest and power maximization. The elusive, contestable character of these notions later led many analysts to focus on the empirical decision-making process for explanations of foreign policy behaviour. Yet these attempts have run into a fundamental problem: the proper weight to be attached to the perceptions and reasons of the actors. Some of the literature takes the actors very seriously and relies either on a psychology of perception or on a decision-theoretic model of individual choice. Some of it, on the other hand, by-passes the actors altogether and concentrates on such structural features as bureaucratic position. In this article we shall argue the case for a concept of role, requiring a less mechanical view of action than the standard approaches allow, both separately and in combination.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 1986 , pp. 269 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 This is discussed in Smith, Steve, ‘Foreign Policy Theories: An Historical Overview’, Review of International Studies, XII (1986), forthcoming.Google Scholar

2 The detail of the case-study is dealt with in a number of sources. Particularly useful are Christopher, Warren, ed., American Hostages in Iran (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985)Google Scholar and McFadden, Robert D., Treaster, Joseph B. and Carroll, Maurice, No Hiding Place (New York: New York Times Books, 1981).Google Scholar The outline that is used in this article follows the treatment in Smith, Steve, ‘The Hostage Rescue Mission’, in Smith, Steve and Clarke, Michael, eds, Foreign Policy Implementation (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 11–32.Google Scholar

3 See Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1976)Google Scholar and Janis, Irving, Groupthink, 2nd edn (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1982).Google Scholar

5 From the seizure of the hostages, the US government followed a number of paths in parallel to attempt to secure the hostages' release. They embarked on a series of economic measures (in the form of sanctions), used the offices of third parties (such as the United Nations Secretary General), built a coalition of political support for their case (for example by getting their allies to put pressure on the Iranians), and studied a range of military options. These are discussed at length in Christopher, , American Hostages in IranGoogle Scholar, and in McFadden, Treaster and Carroll, , No Hiding Place.Google Scholar

6 For the basic economic notion of rationality see, for instance, the Introduction to Hahn, F. and Hollis, M., eds, Philosophy and Economic Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).Google Scholar For the application of such ideas to politics see, for example, Goodin, R. E., The Politics of Rational Man (London: Wiley, 1976).Google Scholar

7 Allison's account of the Bureaucratic Politics model does include a discussion of how prefer ences are formed (Essence of Decision, pp. 166–8)Google Scholar but, despite his claims as to the importance of perceptions and the influence of personality, his model works by the implication that position determines preferences. Because of this, our characterization of the mechanism of the model is a stark one, but one that relates to the actual use Allison makes of the model in explaining the positions adopted in the Cuban missile crisis, since, despite Allison's claims to the contrary, the model is essentially a deterministic one with bureaucratic position dominating other sources of preferences.

8 Allison goes so far as to suggest just this combination when he writes, in a footnote, that: ‘How each [bureaucratic] player ranks his interests … is a subtle, complex problem. In one sense, players seem to have gone through a Model I [Rational Actor] analysis.’ (Essence of Decision, p. 171.)Google Scholar

9 The memoirs of the participants claim that Vance, ‘just happened’Google Scholar to be away; Vance himself claims that his exclusion was deliberate. The press reports of the time indicate that he was indeed deliberately excluded. Given his well-known opposition to a rescue mission and the extent of agreement among the other members of the decision-making group it seems most probable that the meeting was arranged for a time when it was known that he would be away.

10 This is the argument put forward in Smith, Steve, ‘Policy Preferences and Bureaucratic Position: The Case of the American Hostage Rescue Mission’, International Affairs, LXI (1985), 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Hume, D., A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, originally published in 1739.

12 Hume, , A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 413.Google Scholar For a helpful commentary see Stroud, Barry, Hume (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Hume, , A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 415.Google Scholar

14 We should also note that there is a problem with this implication of the Bureaucratic Politics model, albeit one outside the focus of this article. This is that it is by no means obvious that certain positions are hawkish or doveish. The Bureaucratic Politics model works by assuming this to be the case (since otherwise one would not be able to deduce preference from position), yet it does seem rather simplistic to assume that a given position automatically requires a hawk or a dove.

15 See Smith, Steve, ‘Groupthink and the Hostage Rescue Mission’, British Journal of Political Science, xv (1985), 117–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 We gratefully owe a large debt to Lukes, Steven, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and his other writings on the subject. The next paragraph relies on his ‘first dimension’ where power is the ability to win in overt conflict. The following paragraph is about his ‘second dimension’ where the crux is the ability to keep opposing views off the agenda. But we diverge at the ‘third dimension’, which Lukes discusses in terms of real interests, whereas we are content to talk about the manipulation of opposing desires. (Against Lukes, we believe that people can exercise power contrary to their own real interests.)

17 See the discussions on this in Snyder, Glenn H. and Diesing, Paul, Conflict Among Nations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 297–310Google Scholar; George, Alexander L., Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 55–80Google Scholar; and Betts, Richard, Soldiers, Statesmen and Cold War Crises (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 174–82 and 209–12.Google Scholar

18 See Freedman, Lawrence, ‘Logic, Politics and Foreign Policy Processes’, International Affairs, LII (1976), 434–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 The point has been excellently made by Quentin Skinner in his studies of history and political thought. See, for instance, his essay ‘The Principles and Practice of Opposition: the Case of Bolingbroke versus Walpole’ in McKendrick, N., ed. Historical Perspectives (London: Europa Publications, 1974), pp. 93–128.Google Scholar For further discussion see Mollis, M., Models of Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 74et seq.Google Scholar