Lecture 8 Foreign Policy Decision Making Part I

Lecture #8 Foreign Policy Decision Making Part I: Leaders’ Beliefs and Personal Characteristics

Introduction • Models that focus on regime types, power distributions, and other structural forces identify important causal factors in IR

Introduction • But individual human beings (particularly elite decision-makers such as presidents, prime ministers, kings, and dictators) can sometimes have an important impact on foreign policy and IR: • Leaders’ beliefs and personalities may affect policy • Psychological biases that affect all humans will affect these key decision-makers and may shape outcomes in IR (misperceptions, groupthink, etc. )

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Leader has an interest/expertise in foreign policy (Bush 41 vs. Clinton)

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Dramatic means of assuming power

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Ambiguous external situation (leaders must define the situation and in the absence of compelling evidence they rely on their preconceptions to do so)

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Crisis situations (short decision time, high threat, surprise): decision-making authority contracts upward to a small group of leaders

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Greater institutional authority over foreign policy (e. g. , presidential vs. parliamentary systems)

Conditions under which leaders’ beliefs/personalities are more likely to influence foreign policy • Foreign policy bureaucracy is less developed

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Operational codes (Holsti, Walker) • Images (Herrmann) • Problem representations (Sylvan) • Conceptual/integrative complexity (Hermann, Tetlock, Suedfeld) • Locus of control • Motives: need for power, achievement, affiliation • Orientation toward constraints (Keller): “constraint challengers” vs. “constraint respecters”

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Operational codes (Holsti, Walker) • Philosophical beliefs: the nature of world politics and character of one’s adversaries • Instrumental beliefs: which policy instruments and approaches are most effective

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Images (Herrmann) • 3 dimensions: threat/opportunity, relative power, relative culture • Resulting images: ally, enemy, colony, degenerate, imperial, barbarian, rogue • Each image is associated with a specific “script” of likely policy actions

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Problem representations (Sylvan) • Ontology (world view) shapes problem representation, which in turn determines which options are generated as viable

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Conceptual/integrative complexity (Hermann, Tetlock, Suedfeld) • Affects openness to information and deliberativeness

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Locus of control • Affects risk-taking propensity

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Motives: need for power, achievement, affiliation • Affect reliance on cooperative vs. competitive strategies, arms control, use of force, etc.

Types of beliefs and personal characteristics that may affect foreign policy decision-making • Orientation toward constraints (Keller): “constraint challengers” vs. “constraint respecters”