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Culture as an independent value affecting foreign policy

Contemporary FPA Scholarship

Effect of the media on foreign policy

The origins of FPA:

Three paradigmatic

work.

Classic FPA Scholarship

Group Decision Making

Rosenau

Snyder,

Bruck, and Sapin

(1954 and 1962)

Numerous scholars echoed this theme in their work, which ranged from the study of foreign policy-making in very small groups to the study of foreign policy-making in very large organizations and bureaucracies.

Encouraged scholars to develop systematically what we would now call actor-specific theory.

Small Group Dynamics

Inspired researchers to look below the nation-state level of analysis to the players involved

Janis shows convincingly that the motivation to maintain group consensus and personal acceptance by the group can cause deterioration of decision-making quality.

Underscored the need to integrate information at several levels of analysis, from individual leaders to the international system, in understanding foreign policy.

Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics

Organizations and bureaucracies put their own survival at the top of their list of priorities.

The organization will jealously guard and seek to increase its turf and strength, as well as to preserve undiluted what it feels to be its ‘‘essence’’ or ‘‘mission.’’

Bequeathed to FPA its characteristic emphasis on foreign policy decision-making in which variables such as spheres of competence of the actors involved, communication and information flow, and motivations of the various players would figure prominently.

Comparative Foreign Policy (CFP)

James Rosenau’s challenge to build a cross-national and multilevel theory of foreign policy and subject that theory to rigorous aggregate empirical testing created the subfield known as comparative foreign policy (CFP).

Events Data

The collection of ‘‘events data’’ was funded to a significant degree by the U.S. government.

Students were employed to comb through newspapers, chronologies, and other sources for foreign policy events, which they would then code.

Sprout and Sprout

Integrated Explanations

Suggested that analyzing power capabilities within an interstate system, without reference to foreign policy undertakings, which they associated with strategies, decisions, and intentions, was misguided.

CFP research aimed explicitly at integrated multilevel explanations.

Independent variables at several levels of analysis were linked by theoretical propositions to properties or types of foreign policy behavior

The value of Foreign Policy Analysis.

The single most important contribution.

The point of theoretical intersection between the primary determinants of the state behavior (material and ideational factors) it is the human decision makers.

By emphasizing decision-making as a central

focus, we have provided a way of organizing

the determinants of action around those

officials who act for the political society.

The mind of a policy maker is influenced by factors such as beliefs, attitudes, values, experiences, emotions, self-conceptions, etc.

The second mayor contribution.

Incorporating a more robust concept of agency into IR theory.

‘‘Foreign policy substitutability’’ (Most and Starr, 1986) for any possible combination of material and structural conditions there will still be variability in resulting foreign policy.

The third mayor contribution.

Moving beyond a description or postulation of natural law-like generalizations of state behavior to a fuller and more satisfying explanation for state behavior that requires an account of the contributions of human beings.

to probe the ‘‘why’’ [...]then decision-making analysis is

certainly necessary. (Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin, 1962)

The Fourth mayor contribution.

A natural bridge from IR to other fields, such as comparative politics and public policy.

"two level game"

Under certain conditions, the personal characteristics of the individual would become crucial in understanding foreign policy choice

Culture could have an effect on cognition

It might have consequences for the structuration of institutions such as bureaucracies.

Defining an operational code

Identifying the core political beliefs of the leader

Different cultures have different resolution techniques

The inevitability of conflict

The leader's estimation of his or her own power to change events

Domestic cultural imperatives could be obtained by probing elite and mass opinion

Propensity to be involved in war

Who is more likely to go to war?

Exploration of the preferred means and style of pursuing goals

Almond - Lippman Consensus

  • Large nations or small nations
  • Rich nations or poor nations
  • Authoritarian regimes or democracies

Public opinion is incoherent and lacking unity in foreign policy issues

Not a large impact on the nation's conduct in foreign policy

No lawlike generalizations

Contradicted by the Vietnam War

Relative lack of war between democracies

"Ground"

Conclusion

  • Foundational level where all the phenomena in the field of study occur.

Late 1980's

The actor-specific theory of FPA provides the theoretical micro-foundations upon which actor-general IR theory may be grounded as a social science enterprise

Actor-specific theory is the type of theory most suited to aid foreign policy decision making

  • It is upon the ground where theories are built, modified or discarded.

Foreign Policy Analysis

It is an International Relations subfield.

Develops the Actor-Specific Theory.

Human decision makers, acting singly or in group, are the ground of all that happens in International Relations and such decision makers are not best approximated as unitary rational actors equivalent to the state.

International Relations

Advances in neuroscience have not filtered to FPA. It could profoundly alter theories of human decision making.

Two developments ushered a new period of FPA scholarship

Internal fragmentation of a regime has substantially less effect on foreign policy behavior than military or party opposition to the regime

The role of emotion, pain and illness in decision making

Hallmarks of the Foreign Policy Approach

  • The need for a renewed progression in actor-specific theory after the Cold War

CNN Effect

Apparent connection between intense media coverage and the involvement of Western powers in complex humanitarian emergencies

Human decision makers acting singly or in groups.

Computer interfaces

Computer interfaces allow for more detailed process tracing of decision making. This technology has been used to observe the previously unobservable

The explanandum of FPA includes the process and resultants of human decision making.

The horizon of interest is delimited to decision making performed by those with the authority to commit resources, but not always the legitimate authorities of nation-states.

  • The central methodological paradox of the classic FPA scholarship was accomplished. Comparative foreign policy largely disappeared.

The six hallmarks.

- factors that affect Foreign Policy decision making and makers.

- from the most micro to the most macro.

- insights from many intellectual disciplines.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Multifactorial

Multilevel

Interdisciplinary

Integrative

Agent-oriented

Actor-specificity

- information across levels of analysis and numerous disciplines of the human knowledge.

- only humans can be true agents, their agency is the source of international politics.

- specific and concrete information about the decision makers.

Foreign Policy Analysis: Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International Relations.

Amanda Cristina López Gutiérrez

Michelle Rodríguez Pérez

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