Centralizing Advisory Systems: Presidential Influence and the U.S. Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process

This study is motivated by a simple yet vitally important question for an understanding of U.S. foreign policy. Quite simply, how does a president's choice of management style influence the U.S. foreign policy decision-making process and decision outcomes? Presidents play a critical role in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy; however, the presidential studies literature and foreign policy analysis literature arrive at very different conclusions regarding how presidents influence the policy process and both are often inaccurate. This study develops an Advisory Systems Typology to address how presidents influence the decision-making process. In addressing this question, this study overcomes the deficiencies of both the presidential studies and foreign policy analysis literature. Four different types of decision-making processes are produced by a president's choice of advisory structure and level of centralization. In addition, the study identifies "unstructured solutions" that indicate how the presidential advisers and president choose to resolve policy disagreements, thereby providing an indication of the decision outcome. The identified decision-making processes and their associated decision outcomes are explored using four cases of decision making on security policy drawn from the Nixon (Vietnam War), Carter (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II), Reagan (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks I), and Clinton (Bosnia conflict) administrations. The case studies are constructed using the method of structured–focused comparisons, whereby a set of theoretically based questions and anticipated observations to those questions are made in order to guide the research and allow for comparison of decision making within and between cases.     

Issue definition and two‐level negotiations: An application to the American foreign policy process

This article builds on the two‐level games and international negotiation literatures and shows how the use of an issue typology can shed light on the nature of the interactions between domestic political forces and international negotiations. This is done by presenting four foreign policy process models illustrating that the decision‐making process varies depending on the type of issue that is involved in a particular situation. The varying structure and nature of the process affects the range of the domestic level win‐set and hinders or aids the achievement of international agreement depending on which model is in play. Although the focus in this article is on the American foreign policy process, the argument is generic to the broader theoretical development of the two‐level games approach because similar, but country‐specific, decision‐making models can be developed for use in the study of non‐American foreign policy. Such generalizations build on recent work focusing on the impact of state structure on the foreign policy process and its outcomes.     

Cantankerous Cooperation: Democracies,Authoritarian Regimes,and the Prisoner's Dilemma

One of the most important debates in the field of international relations is over the effect of regime type on militarized conflict. This debate, however, has rarely extended to how regime type influences other aspects of foreign policy. Using a computer simulated intergroup prisoner's dilemma, we investigate whether democratic decisionmaking groups are more cooperative than authoritarian decisionmaking groups. We argue that differences between cooperation tendencies of groups can be explained by the structure of the decision process. Repeated simulations show that democracies tend to be more consistent in their decisions in comparison to authoritarian groups. Implications for international relations theory and policy are discussed.     

Accounting for Extra-Dyadic Sources of International Outcomes

Leaders consider the broader international landscape when making foreign policy choices. This landscape could encompass a single external actor, the local region, or even the whole international system. Quantitative analyses of international outcomes, however, frequently do not account for this broader context. This study suggests a corrective, illustrating the value of incorporating extra-dyadic variables into analyses with dyadic and monadic outcomes. The challenge is to parsimoniously capture theoretically salient elements of the multilateral environment. We contend that a measure that links distributions of power within any k-set of relevant states to uncertainty over conflict outcomes is a promising option for two reasons. First, the measure builds from and accords with canonical theories of international politics. Second, it offers scholars a simple and flexible means to define and account for the set of states that constitute the relevant multilateral landscape. Illustrative applications linking power distributions and outcome uncertainty to alliance formation and pursuit of nuclear weapons demonstrate that extra-dyadic factors consistently influence foreign policy outcomes. This study thus shows that situating such outcomes within their broader context is both feasible and substantively important. Moreover, it contributes to recent efforts to address shortcomings of monadic and dyadic studies.     

U.S. Foreign Aid and UN Voting: An Analysis of Important Issues

Many previous studies assessed the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid by focusing on voting coincidence rates of all UN votes and found no relationship between U.S. aid distribution and UN voting coincidence rates. Most UN resolutions, however, are simply not important enough for the U.S. to expend its scarce resources in influencing the outcomes. The U.S. government would not be likely to exercise pressure on all UN resolutions but would do so on issues considered vital to America's national interests. If there is any effect from receiving U.S. foreign aid on political outcomes in the UN, it is therefore most likely to emerge in voting coincidence rates on important issues. Using data collected for sixty-five developing countries between 1984 and 1993, a pooled cross-sectional and time-series research design is adopted to examine this hypothesis. Contrary to the argument that foreign aid is an ineffective policy instrument in the pursuit of America's global influence, the currentfindings suggest that the U.S. government has successfully utilized foreign aid programs to induce foreign policy compliance in the UN on issues that are vital to America's national interests.     

冷战后世界秩序的变化与重构

冷战结束后,世界秩序发生重大变化。新的世界大战打不起来,但是,局部战争和地区冲突持续不断,国际恐怖主义成为新的安全威胁,美国的新干涉主义政策成为新的战争形式。两大意识形态对抗支配国际关系的时代已经结束,国家利益重新置于外交政策的首要地位。经济全球化加深了国际相互依存关系,扩大了寻求共同利益和国际合作的基础,也加剧了国际竞争和冲突。世界格局多极化是历史发展的大趋势,在多极均衡基础上构建世界新秩序是现实的选择。     

Global Credit Markets,Political Violence,and Politically Sustainable Risk Premia

How do international financial conditions affect civil unrest? Existing studies examine the domestic economic roots of political violence but say little about the role of external financial conditions. We explore the interactions between international lending, government policy, and domestic unrest. In particular, we note that because of sovereign risk and defensive lending dynamics, credit ratings and interest rate premia are endogenous to expectations about civil violence. We test these claims using instrumental variables techniques and daily data on sovereign bond yield spreads, credit ratings, and episodes of civil violence in 59 developing countries from 1990 through 2004. After correcting for endogeneity, we find that exogenous increases in the price of foreign capital are robustly associated with increased odds of civil conflict. Primary commodity dependence, low economic growth, and poverty can also increase the odds of civil conflict by reducing access to foreign capital.     

Norway and a major international crisis: Suez ‐ the very difficult case

This article reviews Norway's policy during the Suez crisis in 1956, how the policy was formed and how it can be explained. Emphasis is put on the decision‐making process and on the role of the powerful Norwegian Shipowners’ Association. It also discusses Norway's most important interests and considerations in policy formation, and how they were balanced. Norway's Suez policy is seen in connection with the close relations with Israel, which could be viewed as in conflict with the protection of Norway's NATO membership and vital economic interests, represented by the powerful shipowners. In the end, Norway's Suez policy is put in the context of the change in Norwegian foreign and security policy in general, a shift in emphasis from being Britain's close ally and friend to being under the protective umbrella of the US, the new superpower.     

Counting the development costs of the conflict in North-Eastern Nigeria: the economic impact of the Boko Haram-led insurgency

Nigeria presents an important case for examining the interaction between economic emergence and (in)security on account of the Boko Haram-led insurgency. This paper interrogates long-standing theoretical assumptions about the economic consequences of violent conflict in such a complex space. It analyses the cost of North-East Nigeria’s conflict on development by considering its impact on the economy at the national and subnational levels. Generalised assumptions about the ways through which conflict affects development appear to hold in some regards but not in others. Evidence suggests some disruption in fiscal adjustments at the macro level, trade and investment as well as agricultural production and commerce within the North-East but less so with regard to economic growth and foreign direct investment flows at the national level. The paper finds evidence of a dichotomy in terms of the impact of the conflict on the national and subnational economy. There is a high degree of containment of the repercussions of the conflict at the subnational level. However, there remains a degree of interconnectedness across these strata that are influenced by both domestic and international political economy dynamics.     

Thinking Outside the Bloc: Explaining the Foreign Policies of Small States

What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the proliferation of small states over the past century, this topic has received relatively little systematic attention. When researchers do focus on small states, the emphasis has been on external and international factors, and the primary conclusion has been that small states are more likely to bandwagon with threatening great powers than to balance against them. In this article, we suggest that state- and individual-level variables can play a greater role in explaining the foreign policy behavior of small states and that small states sometimes choose to balance rather than bandwagon, especially when elite ideology is deeply embedded in formulating foreign policy. We develop this claim in terms of elite ideas about the identity and purpose of the state and examine its plausibility using primary sources and exclusive interviews with the security and foreign policy elite in Georgia. We find that this approach offers a more plausible explanation for Georgia's otherwise puzzling foreign policy behavior than frameworks that focus on the international or regional system. Although Georgia may be the exception that proves the rule, it can advance an understanding of the conditions under which standard explanations of small-state foreign policy behavior may miss their predictive mark and when incorporating the role of elite ideas can provide additional explanatory leverage.     

Comparative Public Health: The Political Economy of Human Misery and Well-Being

Nearly 10 percent of the world's economic resources are devoted to health care. But why do certain countries devote more resources to public health? Why are some countries better than others at achieving tangible health outcomes using the same level of economic resources? Surprisingly, political scientists and public health scholars have done only limited systematic research on these important questions. We address them by developing and testing an analytical framework of domestic and international political influences on public health. We use new data from the World Health Organization to examine cross-national variation first in the level of public expenditures on health, and then in the level of achievement of health outcomes. We measure these influences and their relative impact in terms of dollars and years of health, respectively. Dictatorship, severe income inequality, ethnic heterogeneity, and persistent international hostilities substantially depress the amount of public resources allocated to health care. Moreover, we analyze the extent to which, given the same level of resources allocated to public health, overall national health performance suffers further from unequal provision of services, rapid urbanization, and civil conflict.     

Issue definition and two-level negotiations: An application to the American foreign policy process

This article builds on the two-level games and international negotiation literatures and shows how the use of an issue typology can shed light on the nature of the interactions between domestic political forces and international negotiations. This is done by presenting four foreign policy process models illustrating that the decision-making process varies depending on the type of issue that is involved in a particular situation. The varying structure and nature of the process affects the range of the domestic level win-set and hinders or aids the achievement of international agreement depending on which model is in play. Although the focus in this article is on the American foreign policy process, the argument is generic to the broader theoretical development of the two-level games approach because similar, but country-specific, decision-making models can be developed for use in the study of non-American foreign policy. Such generalizations build on recent work focusing on the impact of state structure on the foreign policy process and its outcomes.     

Religion as a Factor in Ethnic Conflict: Kashmir and Indian Foreign Policy

ABSTRACT

Ethnic conflicts with a strong religious component do not have merely domestic or foreign causes and consequences. As a result, internationalization of ethnic conflict has become an important subject of inquiry both in terms of pure research and policy-oriented studies. This article presents a case study of Indian-Pakistani relations over Kashmir, used to evaluate the role of religion and the explanatory power of the approach presented here. The aim of the study is to apply a foreign policy approach that simultaneously incorporates domestic and external factors in an analysis of how and in what ways religious elements of the Kashmir question affect India's foreign policy. The approach, an application of “systemism,” contributes to current developments in the realist school of international relations through its emphasis on the need to look at both international and state levels in combination. Earlier applications of realism, as both neotraditional and structural realism clearly demonstrate, tend to remain restricted to one level or the other. In this approach, a religious dynamic can have a domestic source yet be effectively examined in terms of international ramifications.     

Information inconsistency and the cognitive algebra of foreign policy decision making

This paper explores a special feature of the information complexity that underlies foreign policy decision making, i.e., inconsistency in information. We use the actor and action images to categorize types of inconsistency. The consequences of inconsistency for process and outcome are analyzed within the framework of a cognitive algebra model. Finally, we demonstrate the implications of the model in an experimental study. Our findings show that not every inconsistency is detected and those that are detected do not always affect the choice. The critical inconsistency is the one that presents an imbalanced structure of the actor and the action image. This inconsistency affects the choices made by decision‐makers and sensitizes them to the within image inconsistency. Furthermore, the results suggests that in the context of the scenarios employed in this experiment the actor image has a more dominant status for the foreign policy decision making process than the action image.     

Brazil as ‘Southern donor’: beyond hierarchy and national interests in development cooperation?

This article analyses Brazil's growing role in external development assistance. During Lula da Silva's presidency, cooperation with developing countries grew dramatically. While the official position is that Brazilian development assistance is moved not by national economic or political interests, but by international ‘solidarity’, and does not reproduce the North–South traditional aid relations, we suggest that it is not completely divorced from national, sub-national or sectoral interests and cannot be viewed apart from Brazil's broader foreign policy objectives. Brazil does pursue political, economic and commercial interests and, concomitantly, has made a positive difference in the recipient countries. However, more empirical research and field investigation are needed to better gauge the impact of Brazil's assistance initiatives and their contributions to South–South cooperation more broadly. During Lula's terms (2003–2010), Brazil could be classified as a ‘Southern donor’, which expresses the country's own novelties, and tensions, of simultaneously being a donor and a developing country.     

Iran's perception of Western Europe: A study in national and foreign policy articulation

Acts of public communication cannot be isolated from other features of a political process. In fact, a study of public policy articulation can provide a valuable framework of national perceptions, demands and expectations through which a nation's evolving position in the international system may be analyzed. Iran offers a valuable opportunity in this regard because its policy articulation occurs through a limited number of communication channels‐one of which is the newspaper Kayhan. Kayhan has been chosen because of its clear capacity to reflect accurately the perceptions of Iran's political elite in regard to general national development and foreign policy objectives. This paper will concentrate on two reference periods‐one pre‐1973 and one post‐to analyze in terms of selected variables, Iran's evolving elite perceptions of its traditional relationship to Western Europe. Editorials and policy statements have been keyed to selected variables representing various channels of Iran's perceptions and then analyzed to chart shifting policy priorities among Iranian elites. The results indicate a radically altered self‐perception of both national development objectives and Iran's self‐perceived role in global power relationships.     

Explaining and Forecasting Leaders' Decisions: A Poliheuristic Analysis of the Iran Hostage Rescue Decision

In an increasingly dangerous world, forecasting national leaders' decisions during crises is a central concern of policy analysts. But with a wide range of specific military responses available to leaders, pinpointing a likely decision can be difficult. This essay argues that the poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making is a useful tool for aiding policy analysts in forecasting the decisions of national leaders. The theory's emphasis on a noncompensatory decision dimension facilitates the elimination of many of the possible decision alternatives, reducing uncertainty. Then, surviving alternatives are weighed against additional, nontrivial dimensions, producing a likely decision. As an illustrative case, I examine Carter's decision to implement the hostage rescue mission, demonstrating that Carter ruled out alternatives that failed to satisfy criteria on the noncompensatory decision dimension—reelection. The president's final choice was selected from the remaining alternatives according to its ability to simultaneously maximize net benefits with respect to military and strategic concerns. Following a comparison of the analysis with compensatory models of decision making, I suggest a general forecasting framework rooted in the poliheuristic theory. The theory can be applied to international crises provided that policy analysts obtain information concerning (1) the leader's noncompensatory decision criteria, (2) the set of alternatives that satisfy those criteria, and (3) the expected net benefits of the remaining alternatives on other dimensions (i.e., the military and strategic dimensions).     

Visa Diplomacy

The consular element of national diplomatic power plays an essential, but often overlooked role in international relations. This is unfortunate, since the process of globalization places increasing importance on so-called “low politics”—trade, commerce, tourism, migration—all traditional consular areas of interest. This study examines the visa component of consular diplomacy as an integral device in the conduct of international relations. The simple visa serves an important purpose in international relations and is a well-used, but little studied, instrument of foreign policy in today’s system of sovereign states.

In this article, “visa diplomacy” is defined as the use of visa issuance or denial at an individual, group, and interstate level, to influence another state’s policies. Although possessing limitations, visa diplomacy is an available signaling and retorsion instrument which makes it a viable policy option in the arena of international affairs. At the operative level, it links an individual or group to its sovereign country and respective national policies. Denial or issuance at the individual or group level can have outcomes on overall interstate interactions as illustrated in the cases selected for this study. The conclusion assesses where the use of visa diplomacy seems most effective in international relations.     

Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) and Interstate Conflict: Parsing Out IGO Effects for Alternative Dimensions of Conflict in Postcommunist Space

While the relationship between intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and conflict has captured the attention of international relations scholars for decades, the empirical results of this research agenda have presented contradictory conclusions regarding the pacifying effect normally attributed to IGOs. We address these contradictions by refocusing primarily on potential IGO effects on low-severity conflicts. We examine new states in the postcommunist space spanning Europe and Central Asia as a useful research site to explore these relationships in the post-Cold War era. We argue that especially in the case of newly emerging states, where there is little institutional memory and long-term experience in foreign affairs, IGOs expose differential policy preferences between members, and such information should be associated with the likelihood of increased low levels of conflict. We find a strong association between shared IGO membership and low severity conflict, a significant relationship between low and high severity conflict, and differences between IGO membership effects on low versus high severity conflict, consistent with our theoretical argument.     

中国在东南亚的国家角色构建及面临的角色冲突

根据角色理论,一国国家角色的构建需要在当前国际体系的背景下,通过内部定位与外部预期的互动才能得以实现。在互动的过程中,定位与预期往往会出现偏差,从而导致角色冲突的出现。角色冲突是国家角色构建过程中不可避免的现象,而中国在东南亚的国家角色构建正面临着不同程度的角色冲突,这些冲突不仅为中国推进周边外交带来挑战,也为与东盟国家共建“一带一路”和“命运共同体”带来一些阻碍。鉴于引发角色冲突的原因不仅涉及中国自身角色定位与东盟国家的传统认知思维,还受到来自域外守成国的影响,因此缓解角色冲突需构建一套完善自身角色、照顾他者情绪且能应对“不怀好意”冲击的“组合拳”。