FPITW-C3: The Making of Foreign Policy
Class: IS401 Created Time: November 3, 2021 7:24 PM Database: Class Notes Database Last Edited Time: January 5, 2022 4:40 PM Type: Lecture, Presentation Notes, Reading Notes
1. Introduction
1.1. What is Foreign Policy Making
- Foreign Policy Making (FPM) is the process by which the government analyse existing problems, evaluate policy alternatives, and take appropriate actions to solve the important issues and maximize national interest.
💡 Five frameworks for the making of FP
- Four broader steps: (1) identifying the problem, (2) searching for alternatives, (3) choosing an alternative, and (4) executing or implementing the alternative.
- Six steps of FPDM: (1) framing, (2) agenda setting, (3) options, (4) decision, (5) Implementation, and (6) Evaluation within individual, governmental and social scale.
- 11 steps of FPDM: (1) Goal setting, (2) information gathering/intelligence, (3) option formulation, (4) option planning, (5) option programing, (6) decision making, (7) implementation, (8) monitoring, (9) appraisal, (10) modification, (11) memory storage and recall (achieve)
- There are five types of FPDM based on the situation the FP is made: (1) one-shot decisions (single decision in a particular single case), (2) interactive decisions (decision made by at least two actors), (3) sequential decisions (a series of interrelated decisions), (4) sequential-interactive decisions (similar to 3 and involved by at least two actors), and (5) group decisions.
- Another way to classify FPDM is based on the issues: macro (about regional and international) issues, micro (domestic or administrative) issues, and crisis (urgent/unexpected) decisions.
- Policy making is important for many fields, especially important FP making
- FP making has problem of
- Level of Analysis: whether to scope int’, national, local, individual… etc
- FP isn’t as important as the decision in the first place. Sometimes policy makers have no choice but to follow decisions made by one or a small group initially.
- Reliable analysis of foreign policy requires the acquisition of information to test hypotheses and reach conclusions
- closed countries: hard to get your hand on in some cases
- too much information makes contention of what is reality
- unreliable or fragmented information
2. Three different images of FP making
- Historical case analysis for FP making is inefficient and doesn’t apply in many cases
- Generalization using analytical frameworks/models/images is the way
2.1. Rational Actor Image
- The approaches that retain an assumption of rationality.
- 1st approach: Realism view
- human preoccupation with power results in a competitive international system.
- 2nd approach: Structural Realism
- Neo-Realist perspective places an emphasis on the structural features of the international system, in particular, its anarchic nature.
- International politics is reflective of self-help actions in the distribution of power
- 3rd approach: Rational Choice Theory
- It accepts that policy makers operate under constraints of time, knowledge and place.
- The considerations of rationality that are central to the different accounts are supported by three arguments.
- Policy makers themselves often claim to be acting in a rational manner.
- It considers the distinctive nature of foreign policy.
- Iterates to the seeming simplicity and analytical elegance of the idea of rationality itself.
- Yet, the rationality assumption has not been without its detractors, certain problems, which are the terminological, and the general point relates to the nature of the policy-making unit.
2.2. Images of ‘Political’ Foreign Policy Making
- Political and bureaucratic elites have a great influence over the FMP through political activities.
- bargaining process on whether a policy should be accepted
- Bureaucratic politics model: created to better understand the political policy process
- the view FP makers try to promote is influenced by their bureaucratic positions
- fill the gap for
- Explain FP making by focusing on government instead of its context/environment
- the view FP makers try to promote is influenced by their bureaucratic positions
- Policy makers often involved in Two-Level Game theory
- To balance the benefits between the domestic and international level groups
- calculate cost/benefits
- negotiate with international and domestic actorszz
- Policy makers, when making policies, have to cope with demands of their political system and external demands as well.
- favour domestic groups or the international level, or find a mutually beneficial solution
- To balance the benefits between the domestic and international level groups
2.3. ‘Psychological’ Images
- Assumption: Personal characteristic of policy leaders will have a determining impact on the nature of policy
- perception of the policy sometimes differs from the reality: FP makers can only imagine their ideal ‘subjective’ world and hope it translate to the favorable ‘objective’ world of reality.
- Cognitive biases, perceptual distortion due to uncertainty and complexity
- They fall back on personal core beliefs
- There are 2 possible methods in examine FPM:
- Moving between different images depends on the circumstances of FPM under critical observation.
- Involving with simultaneously elements of more than one type of image of FPM.
💡 No image is better than the other, they are used depends on the context or circumstances
3. FP making in the context of the transformed world
- The world is always changing and so does the world politics.
- Therefore, the student of foreign policy and policy makers themselves have to be more responsive to a fluid, more complex agenda and an increasing diversity of actors upon the world stage.
- To analyze FPM in this environment, we need to look back to the three sets of images that influence FPM:
3.1. Rational actor images
- Kenneth Waltz: dismisses changes in the international system as it’s still anarchic
- FP making are unchanged
- Objective is still survival and security
3.2. Images of political foreign policy making
- this set of images make a link between changing nature of foreign policy and political processes on three separate grounds:
- Increased complexity of international events required adaptation in FPM
- new institutions, processes, methods to adapt to
- Complexity has increased the domestic political significance of foreign policy
- Multiple channels of contact among societies
- intergovernmental channel: ex: EU, they still need to pay more attention to multinational channel
- Ministerial channels: functional necessaties of different ministries from different countries working with another country’s ministry
- Transnational Channel: social movement, economic, environmental issues to pressure government to make change
- Lobby state to create policy to favour their scope of interest
- Increased complexity of international events required adaptation in FPM
3.3. Psychological images
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situation of uncertainty and flux could exacerbate the existing difficult approaches to FPM
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=> cognitive inconsistency as changing contemporary global politics contradict individual belief systems.
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The use of analogies: looking back at historical solutions to problems and applying it to the present’s problem.
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As international system is changed, the past’s solution won’t work for today’s context
💡 Ex: Vietnam War vs Korean War solutions
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Exaggerating threats to national security…
- US focusing on security against USSR while it’s economy is in ruin
4. Comparison of FP making during a routine and crisis policy making process
- The manner of FPM differs according to the situational circumstances in which it is made.
- There are two groups of countries cantered their foreign policy differently than the other
- The Core:
- military issues are of low significance
- FPM is focused on economic interdependence: free trade, open economy, FDI, free labor flow.
- mutually beneficial, and institutional linkages well-established.
- The Periphery:
- military threats persist: FPM is focused on security
- FPM in this setting is conditioned by the power and the influence calculations beloved of realists.
- economic relations are characterized by underdevelopment and subordination
- institutional cooperation is notable by its absence
- military threats persist: FPM is focused on security
4.1. Routine FP Making
| Routine FPM | Crisis FPM |
|---|---|
| Policy initiation based on incremental adjustment | Policy making as response to surprise event |
| Lew/moderate stress level | High stakes and stress level |
| Wide number of policy makers | Small number of policy makers |
| Braod range of options | Narrow range of options |
| Long lead time in policy formation | Limited time to respond |
| No likelihood of force | Likelihood of force |
5. FP Making in Different Types of Political System
5.1. Democratic
- Multiplicity of actors influencing the policy making process
- 3 sources of countervailing influence
- The office of the executive is an elective one
- Constitutional arrangements
- The influence of other agencies of the state on the executive
5.2. Authoritarian
- FP attributes are determined by one leader’s characteristics
- The concentration of power is rarely absolute because of political factionalism
- Political conflict isn’t absent within authoritarian states
- most authoritarian states has succumb to democratic pressure, civil war, and coups.
5.3. Transitional
- The survival of personnel and practices from the old regime
- replacing administrative staff in security and governmental system is difficult to do
- previous personnel are still hired
- previous bad attributes of old regimes remains
- replacing administrative staff in security and governmental system is difficult to do
- Continuity of political disruption: reordering institutions requires
- Political fragmentation
💡 Applies to all Regimes: political executive is the most influential in FPM
6. Conclusion
Models of FPDM
- Rational Actor Model (RAM) - realist thinking and rationality based on ‘means-ends’
- Define the situation based on objective assessment
- Specify the goal to be achieved and if there is conflict among them prioritize the goal
- Consider possible alternative means to achieve the goal
- Select the final alternative that is calculated to maximize achievement of the goal
- Take the necessary actions to implement the decision
- Organizational Process Model (ORM)
- Different from RAM, OPM claims that the state of the national government is no longer a unitary or the most important actor.
- Focus on the routines, standard patterns of behavior, and institutional perspective of particular agencies and their impact on FPDM.
- Primarily, it includes key leaders in the top political organizations.