In recent years, more than 40 articles and chapters have utilized Poli-heuristic Theory to analyze critical decisions made by foreign leaders and U.S. presidents. In this paper, I introduce the Poliheuristic Proce-dureFa series of steps that one can use to explain or predict decisions by world leaders. Subsequent articles in this Symposium present examples of poliheuristic analyses of decisions made by Presidents Carter, Clinton, Gorbachev, Mussaref and Saddam Hussein. These case studies provide strong support for Poliheuristic Theory: leaders use a two-stage process in making decisions: they first use simple heuristics to eliminate alternatives based on the avoid-major-political-loss principle, and then use more analytic calculations in selecting an alternative from a subset of surviving alternatives.
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Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making - Chapter 2
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making presents a decision making approach to foreign policy analysis. This approach focuses on the decision process, dynamics, and outcome, highlighting the role of psychological factors in foreign policy decision making. The book includes a wealth of extended real-world case studies and examples that are woven into the text. The cases and examples, which are written in an accessible style, include decisions made by leaders of the United States, Israel, New Zealand, Cuba, Iceland, United Kingdom, and others. In addition to coverage of the rational model of decision making, levels of analysis of foreign policy decision making, and types of decisions, the book includes extensive material on alternatives to the rational choice model, the marketing and framing of decisions, cognitive biases and errors, and domestic, cultural, and international influences on decision making in international affairs. Existing textbooks do not present such an approach to foreign policy decision making, international relations, American foreign policy, and comparative foreign policy.
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Several analysts have bemoaned the overemphasis of political and economic theory on the rational choice framework. This is especially evident in foreign policy decision making models. In response, some analysts have proposed alternative theoretical frameworks that hold great promise. This essay considers three of the seminal works in the theory of foreign policy and political decision making, highlighting their respective contributions, their main arguments and the strengths and weaknesses of their various methodological approaches. The works considered are Graham T. Allison’s Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crises (1971), John D. Steinbruner’s Cybernetic Theory of Decision (1974) and Irving L. Janis’ Groupthink (1982). A common thread across all the works considered is their emphasis on the limitations of the rational choice model and their development of alternative explanatory paradigms for the analysis of foreign policy and the political decision making process. In this vein, the future of foreign policy analysis appears bright.
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Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of Foreign Policy Decision Making - Chapter 1
There are currently two “schools” of thought in political decision making in general and foreign policy decision making in particular: the rational choice school and the cognitive psychology school. This book introduces a theory of decision making that integrates elements of both schools.
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