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Chapter Three

2. Levels of Analysis: The Making of Foreign Policy
VALERIE HUDSON
“’The national interest…’is more productively viewed as the interests of various players—not all of which may coincide, and not all of which are coherently related to anything resembling an objective national interest.”
STEPHEN D. KRASNER
“The state has purposes of its own. The national interest does have empirical reality if it is defined as a consistent set of objectives sought by central decision-makers.”
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3. The Sources of State Behavior
This chapter seeks to answer to key questions:
What are the key factors or inputs that shape the foreign policies of individual states?
How do key foreign policy decision-makers process those inputs into state policy?
For example, why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003?
There are many answers: combining them might produce a full picture of the sources of U.S. policy, each examined at different levels of analysis.
Kenneth Waltz’s 1959 book Man, the State, and War introduced the now common framework of images, or levels of analysis.
Three images or levels of analysis:
Individual
State/domestic
International system
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4. International System Level of Analysis
Dominant view of structural, or neo-, realists
Two primary characteristics of the international system according to structural realists:
Anarchy
Mandates self-help and the acquisition of power
Recall the security dilemma from the last chapter
The number of actors and the distribution of power in the system
Systems are classified by number of powerful actors (unipolar = one great power; bipolar = two great powers, multipolar = more than two).
The Billiard Ball Model
International system level of analysis assumes that a state’s foreign policy/behavior can best be understood/predicted without reference to the internal characteristics of the state.
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5. International System Level of Analysis
For realists, the “national interests” most commonly refers to factors such as:
The physical security of the country, its borders, and people
The economic security and prosperity of the country as a whole
The political sovereignty and independence of the state
No references to the personality, ideology, or religious beliefs of leaders of the state, nor the domestic political interests of actors.
Other theoretical traditions consider structural factors as well, though they differ from realists.
Liberalism considers the level of economic interdependence as well as the web of international institutions in which states operate.
Constructivism considers the prevailing normative views that define the international system (a focus on sovereignty, for example).
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6. International System Level of Analysis
The primary benefit of using a systemic level of analysis is the elegance of the theoretical approach that allows for explanations of state behavior without delving into the complexities of each state.
The primary drawback is that while it is often useful in explaining the constraints that states face, it is less effective at explaining variations in behavior within the system.
I.e., if the system is constant, how can it explain variation?
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7. The State Level of Analysis
Many scholars believe the international system level tells only part of the story.
Factors at the domestic or state level can shape behavior.
Significant variables at the domestic level:
Type of government
Economic system and performance
National style
Cultural identity
Interest groups and public opinion
Often consistent with liberal and constructivist theoretical explanations
For liberals, the democratic peace focuses on regime type, and commercial liberalism often examines the role of different societal actors.
For constructivists, explanations can focus on domestic level norms.
Domestic level analysis is usually not consistent with realist explanations.
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8. The Individual Level of Analysis
World Politics at the Individual Level
Belief Systems
Refers to a set of substantive values and understandings of the world that an individual holds
Ideology: integrated set of assumptions and understandings about how the social, political, and economic world both is and should be structured.
Operational code: leaders’ “beliefs about the nature of politics and political conflict”
Personality Attributes
Hermann’s typology
Using 7 personality traits collapsed into two categories—responsiveness to external constraints and openness to information—presidents can be classified into 1 of 4 leadership types (see following slide).
Ex. of super-empowered individual
Osama bin Laden
The other approaches assign little assistance to the role of individuals in world politics.
Great man theory of history suggests that individuals do matter.
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10. Foreign Policy Decision-Making
The “levels of analysis” question is concerned with where the key inputs or variables shaping foreign policy are located.
How do decision-makers take those inputs and transform them into the actions and behaviors that constitute foreign policy?
What happens inside the “black box” of government?
Ex: Iraq 1990 invasion of Kuwait
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12. The Rational Actor Model
Policy-makers begin with a shared sense of national interests.
Common perception of external stimuli requiring response
Policy-making is a rational, intellectual process.
Clarify goals, identify policy options, weigh cost and benefits of those options
Once a policy choice is made, it will be implemented more or less as decision-makers had intended.
The state is a unitary actor that follows the best policy path.
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13. Criticisms of the Rational Actor Model
Some potential impediments to rational action
Satisficing: settling for an outcome that minimally satisfies a more limited set of national objectives
Intellectual shortcuts
Historical analogies that may not be applicable
Poliheuristic theory: two-stage decision-making that begins by eliminating politically costly alternatives and then choosing from the rest
Misperception
The rational actor model assumes that decision-makers have a clear understanding of their own interests as well as the interests and the motives of their adversaries.
But misperceptions arise including confirmation bias, ascribing overly hostile intent to other states, overestimating the level of organization of another state, and considering only worst case scenarios
3. Groupthink
Refers to the tendency most often found in small, cohesive groups operating under conditions of stress to quickly abandon critical thinking in favor of consensus perspectives and viewpoints that reflect group solidarity
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14. The Bureaucratic Politics Model
Institutional pluralism model
Sees foreign policy-making as a competitive struggle among various government institutions and actors to promote their version of the “national interest.”
Rests on four key assumptions
Policy-making is a social process.
There is no single version of the national interest.
Policy decisions are compromises.
Politics does not stop once a decision is made.
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15. The Bureaucratic Politics Model
International politics is a two-dimensional exercise that occurs both externally and internally.
The external level includes competition for power and influence among states, as well as efforts to cooperate.
The internal level is a struggle between different bureaucracies for internal power and influence driven by differences of
Interests
Role and mission
Organizational process
Ex. of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
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17. Different Models for Different Circumstances?
Consensus in the literature is that both models, the rational actor and the bureaucratic politics model, provide insights, and the relative utility of the two models varies with the circumstances.
Three rules of thumb
Nature of the situation
Crisis versus noncrisis.
Nature of the leader
Interested and/or knowledgeable about the issue? Level of popular support?
Nature of the regime
Democratic or authoritarian? Level of centralization of decision-making?
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18. Paradigms and Decision-Making Models
The clearest and most unambiguous relationship between paradigms and decision-making models is that between structural realism and the rational actor model.
Liberal institutional, liberal commercialism, and neo-Marxism are also compatible with the rational actor model.
In some instances, the connection between paradigms and decision-making models becomes a bit more ambiguous.
Some theorists argue that the study of foreign policy is not bound by paradigm.
Best way to think about the relationship between paradigms and decision-making models is by focusing on differences of emphasis rather than on hard and fast boundaries.
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19. Conclusion
No single level of analysis or decision-making model is capable of fully explaining how the world works.
May need to shift among levels and decision-making models, depending on the foreign policy behavior they are trying to explain.
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20. Conclusion
Certain differences of emphasis are inherent in the competing paradigms.
Realist’s assumptions separate them from their critics.
States are rational and unitary actors with preestablished preferences or interests.
States act to defend those interests and assert those preferences in response to the larger international context.
Domestic or individual level factors are, at best, used to explain residual variance.
Critics of realism believe the emphasis needs to be altered.
Realism’s assumptions, while elegant, are too simplistic to provide sufficient explanatory power.
Factors at other levels of analysis are necessary to provide a more complete explanation of state behavior.
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