The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy

1972 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 751-785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander L. George
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Harmful Effect ◽  
Role Conflicts ◽  
Personal Power ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Effective Advocacy ◽  
Security Affairs ◽  
Do So

The system of multiple advocacy attempts to convert intraorganizational conflicts over policy into a balanced system of policy analysis and debate. This requires the executive to (1) structure and manage the policy-making system to ensure that there are advocates to cover the range of interesting policy options on a given issue; (2) equalize or compensate for disparities among the actors in the resources needed for effective advocacy; (3) identify and correct possible “malfunctions” in the policy-making process before they can have a harmful effect on the executive's choice of policy. Nine types of malfunctions are identified in this paper via critical diagnosis of U.S. foreign policy making in cases in which the executive had to decide questions of commitment, intervention, or escalation. Responsibility for identifying and correcting such malfunctions and for managing multiple advocacy effectively should be clearly fixed with the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. However, the Special Assistant should not combine the role of “custodian-manager” of the policy-making system with the additional tasks of (a) policy adviser to the President; (b) public spokesman for existing policies; (c) “watch-dog” of the President's personal power stakes; or (d) implementer of policy decisions already taken. The attempt to do so invites serious role conflicts that can undermine the Special Assistant's performance of the all-important task of custodian.

The Sociology of Diplomats and Foreign Policy Sector: The Role of Cliques on the Policy-Making Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992090195
Author(s):  
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Career Path ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Organisational Process ◽  
Governmental Politics

This paper studies the sociology of elites and the role of cliques on the foreign policy-making process through an exploratory case study of Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It identifies elite sociology as the independent variable triggering a policy-making process in the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in line with organisational process or governmental politic approaches. It shows that until the 1980s, the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs was marked by strong hierarchical tradition triggered by a certain career path and cliqueism leading to the homogeneity in the sociology of elites. This in turn triggered a foreign policy-making process based on organisational process. The role of cliqueism weakened along with the incremental circulation of elites in the post-1980s and particularly in the post-2005 period as the elite structure in the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs became even more heterogeneous, foreign policy-making process moved towards governmental politics which allowed taking into account diverse schools of thought. Nevertheless, newly emerging programmatic elites employed deliberate efforts for elite circulation by altering the dominant career path and relying on political appointments. The resulting outcome was the emergence of a new clique of ruling elites subordinate to political elites which led to the politicisation of the foreign policy decision-making process in the post-2011 period.

Foreign Policy and Communication

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Roselle
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Willingness To Cooperate

Communication has a significant impact on foreign policy, both in the policy-making process and at a higher level associated with the nexus of foreign policy and international relations. Communication involves the transmission or conveying of information through a system of symbols, signs, or behavior. Communication connects individuals and groups; (re)constructs the context; and defines, describes, and delineates foreign policy options. The current trends are the synthesis in many areas, with a focus on the psychological processes associated with who communicates, how, to whom, and with what effect in the realm of foreign policy; and with the structural characteristics of communication or discourse. The major areas of study on foreign policy and communication include: (a) the making of foreign policy and the role of mass media in this process; (b) how foreign policy is understood as a communicated message by allies and adversaries in international relations; and (c) constructivism, poststructuralism, and discourse analysis. Within the scope of foreign policy and media falls work associated with the CNN effect, framing, and public opinion. Work within international relations has focused on how foreign policy signals international intent, including threat and willingness to cooperate. Constructivism and discourse analysis emphasize the need to look at the (re)construction of ideas, identities, and interests rather than taking them for granted.

China’s Foreign Policy Making Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Suisheng Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
China’S Foreign Policy ◽  
Bureaucratic Agencies

China’s foreign policy must rely on opaque and behind-the-scenes coordination organs to work through a large number of bureaucratic agencies of the state, party, and military, whose primary roles are information gathering and the implementation and recommendation of policy. In addition, some new players, such as think tanks, media, local governments, and transnational corporations, have played a variety of roles to influence China’s foreign policy. This chapter examines the evolving role of the paramount leader, the foreign policy coordination and elaboration organs, the bureaucracies, and the new players in the making and transformation of China’s foreign policy. Providing a historical overview, it also observes how President Xi Jinping has centralized and personalized foreign policy making power in the name of strengthening a unified party leadership.

Parliamentary Committees

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingvar Mattson
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Minority Government ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Swedish Politics ◽  
Opposition Parties

This chapter describes the role of the Swedish parliament, and parliamentary committees in particular, in the policy-making process. The role depends on the parliamentary situation: whether there is a majority government or minority government in power. In essence, the chapter shows that Parliament mainly approves governmental bills and seldom initiates legislation. It is an arena for both political conflict and consensus. Political negotiations between governmental parties and opposition parties occur in which the opposition has influence on parliamentary decisions in the policy process. Due to increased conflict between the two blocs in Swedish politics, the importance of the committees as grounds for negotiating compromises has, however, decreased.

Debunking myths about oil: A case study of oil subsidies

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-200
Author(s):  
Jung Taek Han ◽  
Seo Yeon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Oil Politics ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
States Government ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Mass Participation

Despite increasing demands for the reform of oil subsidies, the United States government fails to enact substantial reform policies on the issue. The paper visits the biggest unresolved cleavage in the environmental policy literature where there have been no attempts to quantitatively assess the influence of lobbying and mass participation on the policy-making process. It thus attempts to quantify and examine various factors behind legislators’ votes, and the results are hard to square with a pure lobbying model. While the role of lobbying is certainly not ruled out of the explanatory model per se, this paper observed that congressional preferences may instead also be driven by the voter perception towards environmental regulation in each state. The thrust of the argument is that lobbying, while being a decisive factor, may not be the only one influencing legislators’ decisions for the oil subsidy reform bills. This study hypothesizes that the exchange model theory might not fully provide an explanation of why oil subsidies continuously fall through. It suggests that oil politics may instead follow the neo-pluralist model: While lobbying is an important factor in voting results, legislators are mindful of voters’ perspectives in spite of the fact that they are unorganized—and that they might in fact be even more powerful determinants than the lobby variable.

Feminist Perspectives on Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie D'Aoust
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
The Impact

Foreign policy analysis (FPA) deals with the decision-making processes involved in foreign policy-making. As a field of study, FPA overlaps international relations (IR) theory and comparative politics. Studies that take into account either sex, women, or gender contribute to the development of knowledge on and about women in IR, which is in itself one of the goals of feminist scholarship. There are two main spheres of feminist inquiries when it comes to foreign policy: the role of women as sexed power holders involved in decision-making processes and power-sharing in the realm of foreign policy-making, and the role of gendered norms in the conduct and adoption of foreign policies. Many observers insist that feminism and foreign policy are linked only by a marriage of convenience, designed to either acknowledge the political accomplishments of women in the sphere of foreign policy such as Margaret Thatcher and Indira Ghandi, or bring attention to so-called “women’s issues,” such as reproduction rights and population control. Scholarship on women and/or gender in relation to foreign policy covers a wide range of themes, such as the role of women as political actors in decision-making processes and organizational structures; women’s human rights and gender mainstreaming; the impact of various foreign policies on women’s lives; and the concept of human security and the idea of women’s rights as a valid foreign policy objective. Three paradigms that have been explored as part of the study of women in comparative politics and IR are behavioralism, functionalism, and rational choice theory.

scholarly journals Parliament and Foreign Policy-Making Process

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Mohammed Salman Tayie ◽  
Ibrahim Mohammad Dashti
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Institutional Approach ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Systems

Objective: The study discusses the role of the parliament in foreign policy-making. The role of the parliament has increased over time in light of the complexities and intertwined interests among countries and the emergence of globalization phenomenon, which has dehumanized the nature and reality of international relations, the need to deepen cooperation among the parliamentarians of countries has increased and expanding it to various fields, and hence emerged the role of parliament in foreign policy-making, so that Public Diplomacy is a substitute for government diplomacy.Method: The study is based on the institutional approach, which is one of the oldest methods used in political analysis. It stems from the study of political institutions in terms of composition and competencies. The institutional approach in its origins is due to the traditional constitutional school in the study of political systems, which was confusing the concept of state and the political system, and the latter is seen as the system of government as defined by constitutional law, i.e. the set of rules and laws governing public authorities and defining their terms of reference and functions.Results: The study concluded that parliamentary diplomacy has become a substitute for the official diplomacy and contributes side by side to the exclusion of war crises and finding the pursuit peaceful diplomatic solutions. The Public Diplomacy is a tributary of support for official diplomacy if coordinated together and the value of Public Diplomacy increases as the goals and orientations of the country's foreign policy express the values and aspirations of the people truthfully.Conclusion: The study concluded that parliaments - especially in democratic systems - play an important role in the process of foreign policy-making, and that there are external and internal factors affecting the effectiveness of the role of parliament in foreign policy. The Kuwaiti parliamentary experience reflected this development of parliamentary diplomacy and its role in foreign policy-making.

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