Foreign policy:

Foreign policy refers to general objectives that direct relationship and activities of one country in
its relations with other countries. Foreign policy development is stimulated by domestic
concerns, the behavior or policies of other countries, or strategies to improve certain geopolitical
plans. Some economists emphasize that the main factors which influences the foreign policy are
the externals threats and the geography where as others are of the point of view that domestic
factors shape the foreign policy largely. The tool of foreign policy is diplomacy and the
international alliances, trade and war are the manifestations of it.1

There are four aspects of foreign policy - political, external and internal security and economy. A
successful foreign policy behavior protects and develops one country’s national interests,
preserves and enhances power and status of that country without damaging those of other
countries. It also tries to avoid conflicts and minimize the expected damage to countries own
status, national interests and power.2

The development of foreign policy process is designated as process of decision making.

Countries take actions because decision makers - people in governments - choose those actions. 3
Decision making is a steering process where amendments are incorporated with respect to the
response achieved from the outside world. In foreign policy the decision-making process
involves the assessment and analysis current and past data in order to discover the requirements
and available option for achievement in the future and the similarly the implication of these
options for the promotion and protection national interests.

The foreign policy decision making process has become very complex as compared to the past
years due to the following reasons:

 The appearance of ethical issues as important elements of foreign policy such as

disarmament, human rights, democracy etc.

1
Jeannette L. Nolen. (2009, April 15). foreign policy. Encyclopedia Britannica . Chicago
2
B. Raman. (2000, April 30). DECISION- MAKING IN FOREIGN POLICY. (Eminence Interactive Solutions) Retrieved
September 13, 2013, from South Asisa Analysis Group: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/note86
3
Walter, Thomas, Risse, and Beth A. Simmons, eds. (2002). Handbook of International Relations. Sage.
  More emphasize on non-political aspects such as environmental, economic etc.
 Requirements of enhanced security aspects due to propagation of mass destruction
weapons, trans-national religious threats, terrorism, narcotics smuggling etc
 Greater trans-nationalization of the decision-making process
 the increasing influence of trans-national and national non-State actors such as the NGOs,
think tanks etc on the decision making process
 The non state actors networking at the trans-national and national levels in order to
strengthen their influence on policy making process and its implementation.
 The insatiable demand of accountability and transparency from public and non-State
actors
 The role of media – printed, digital and electronic in creating awareness of process
database and in providing measure through which the success of the policy development
and implementation could be evaluated. Internet has contributed to a greater participation
of non-State actors in making, implementation and analysis of policy process. 4

Foreign Policy development:

Basically three models recommended for the development of foreign policy which are as
following;
 Rational Model
 Organizational Process Model
 Government bargaining (or bureaucratic politics) model

Rational Model:

A common process of decision-making in foreign policy is the rational model. According to this
model, decision makers first put objectives, analyze their relative significance, determine the
costs and benefits of every possible mode of action; then choose the one with lowest cost and the
highest benefits. 5

4
Raman. (2000)
5
Bernstein, & Barton J. (2000). Understanding Decisionmaking, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In
International Security (pp. 134-164)
The selection can be difficult because there is always uncertainty about benefits and costs related
with certain actions. The decision makers, in such cases, may consider the probabilities of each
possible result of an action. These factors can affect the importance of various alternative
outcomes that may also be produced from an action. Certainly it may be believed that decision
makers are rational but it cannot be accepted that the states can be treated as unitary actors.
Individuals make Governments and they may pursue their goals rationally. But the goals of
different individuals concerned in decision making may complicate as may the objectives of
various state agencies. For example, the secretary of defense of a country may have a different
goal than the U.S. secretary; Similarly, National Security Council may observe a situation
differently than the Central Intelligence Agency does.

This model of decision making is a little complex owning to the uncertainty and the multiple
objectives of different decision makers and may lead to complete disaster in its foreign policy.6

Government bargaining (or bureaucratic politics) model:

This Model involves the bargaining process among different state government agencies with
rather conflicting outcome interests the foreign policy making. Therefore foreign policy
decisions show a mix of the interests of different state agencies. 7
It’s argued that decision
making process in this model exhibits three characteristics;

 There is a diversity of objectives and value before arriving at reconciled decision

 Occurrence of groups of competing people brining in alternative principles and goals
 Relative power of cluster of people relevant in final decision

This model is grounded in the view that foreign policy development results in the political
conflicts among various actors in the government.8
Organizational process model:
6
B. Ripley. (2008, March 26-29). Being Bureaucratic: Social cognition and Organization Behavior in Foreign policy.
Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the international studies Association (ISA) . San Francisco, California.
7
David A. Welch. (1992). The Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics Paradigms. In Retrospect and
Prospect. International Security (2 ed., pp. 112-146)
8
David A. Schultz. Foreign Policy. In Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy (pp. 175-180)
This Model passes over the toil struggle of recognizing objectives and alternative actions rather
considers most of the decisions on standardized responses commonly referred as standard
operating procedures. For example, a State Department receives daily thousand of inquiries or
reports from its embassies around the world and also sends out thousands of responses or
instructions back to those embassies. The organizational process model entails that most of
foreign policy is a results of “management by muddling through.9 This models emphasis in
essence that information about how organizations think and act could be very helpful in
explaining the decisions of foreign policy.

Limitation of Organizational process model:

According to this model, the foreign policy is the output of organization’s behavior. Model
emphasizes that individuals matter less to any organization in order to perform reliably to deliver
better decisions. As an Organizations can replace its Standard operating procedures (SOPs) the
same it can replace the individuals. Organizations perform their functions according to their pre‐
defined practices. Organization’s programs and SOPs do not change much over the time
therefore organizations do not change considerably but if they change it can be either due to
financial reasons or due to extreme performance malfunction. This means that the organizations
have their own cultures that bring either slow change or no change at all. Furthermore
organizations ability to learn is very slow therefore they modify slow, take action slowly which
ultimately slows the process of innovations in any organization. They do change by learning
gradually. Striking changes occur in organizations as a result of major disasters. Both change and
learning is influenced by existing procedures and organizational capabilities. 10
Organizational behavior model curbs the authority of decision makers’ choices in policy making
and limits the choice for establishing objectives and goals to standard operating procedures. Each
organization develops an agreement specifying its mission, functions and programs to achieve its
objective. Performance of any organization depends largely on financial support and budget.
Therefore organizations’ SOPs are the tools mainly to enhance performance and efficiency to

9
Deborah D. Avant. (1995). Political Institutions and Military Change. In Lessons from Peripheral Wars. Cornell.
10
Graham Allison; Phillip Zelikow,. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.).
Longman
achieve satisfied results rather than optimization. In this model the behavior of government can
be summarized as action chosen by a rational decision maker which is centrally controlled,
entirely informed and value maximizing. The behavior of government and a large numbers of
individual must be coordinated. Coordination requires SOPs and that requires established
program. A government includes existing organizations, each having their defined SOPs and
programs. The behavior of these organizations and accordingly that of the government in
response to any issue in a particular situation is therefore determined by these already
established procedures.
This Model emphasizes that Government’s Action is that of the Organizational output which
clearly explains that reasons of international politics is the output of organizational processes due
to three critical reasons:
 Organizational output
 Range of choices available to government decision maker who are facing any problem
 Organizational output change the face of an issue completely when the problem is
confronted by the government. 11
The model reflects on organizational actors not a government or monolithic nation rather a
collection of loosely connected organizations having government leaders on the top. That gives
rise to fractioned power and factored problems. Supervision of different aspects of foreign affairs
needs that problem to broken down and delivered to various organizations. 12
.While every
organization has its own mission; they shape their organizational output accordingly. In creating
foreign policy outputs organization are stimulated by pre‐established routines, objectives, SOPs,
programs and repertoires, organizational learning, financial support, problem directed search,
uncertainty avoidance and extreme performance failures. 13
This model also emphasizes that the key to governmental action is control and central
coordination which requires decentralization of power and responsibility and is evidenced that
the decisions of government leaders is that of the connected organizations.
There are few propositions of this model which are as follows;
 Government choice is influenced by existing organized capabilities
 Organizational implementation are shaped by organizational priorities
11
Graham Allison. (1971). Essence of Decision. Boston: Little, Brown and Company
12
David A. Schultz. Foreign Policy. In Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy (pp. 175-180)
13
Andrew Farkas. (1996). Evolutionary Models in Foreign Policy. International studies Quarterly (41), 343-361
  Implementation depends on existing established routines
 Directed change
 Long‐range planning
 Leaders at their peril ignore administrative feasibility calculation
 Limited incremental change and flexibility
 Imperialism
 prevention and force attitude 14

Conclusion:

Besides all the drawbacks of this model, its strengths are extremely deep. As it claims that the
process of policy making is the actions of organizational output. Therefore many organizations
participate in any decision making and have their say. However, organizations perform as per
their own established routines and norms. Weakness of the model is mainly related with the
bounded rationality which is not true at all times. Because the government considers all the
available options in restricting situations and allows for delegation using fractional power and
factored problems. Hence the government is not a black box as compared with the other two
models. And the real advantage of the model while beating all its odds is that it eventually gets
the goal achieved. Furthermore, foreign policy making and any crisis management is not possible
for a single person and therefore many organizations are needed to get involved. Therefore this
Model imparts significance to essential domestic political effects on foreign policy decision
making.15

This model is also important to organizational theory and public administration that is why it is
prioritizes in the foreign policy decision making process. 16.

Bibliography

14
Dan Caldwell. (1977). Bureaucratic Foreign Policy‐ Making. American Behavioral Scientist (21), 87-110
15
Allison & Zelikow (1999)
16
Schultz (p. 175-180)
Andrew Farkas. (1996). Evolutionary Models in Foreign Policy. International studies Quarterly
(41), 343-361.

B. Raman. (2000, April 30). DECISION- MAKING IN FOREIGN POLICY. (Eminence

Interactive Solutions) Retrieved September 13, 2013, from South Asisa Analysis Group:
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/note86

B. Ripley. (2008, March 26-29). Being Bureaucratic: Social cognition and Organization
Behavior in Foreign policy. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the international studies
Association (ISA) . San Francisco, California.

Bernstein, & Barton J. (2000). Understanding Decisionmaking, U.S. Foreign Policy and the
Cuban Missile Crisis. In International Security (pp. 134-164).

Dan Caldwell. (1977). Bureaucratic Foreign Policy‐ Making. American Behavioral Scientist
(21), 87-110.

David A. Schultz. Foreign Policy. In Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy
(pp. 175-180).

David A. Welch. (1992). The Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics Paradigms. In
Retrospect and Prospect. International Security (2 ed., pp. 112-146).

Deborah D. Avant. (1995). Political Institutions and Military Change. In Lessons from
Peripheral Wars. Cornell.

Graham Allison. (1971). Essence of Decision. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Graham Allison; Phillip Zelikow,. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis (2nd ed.). Longman.

Jeannette L. Nolen. (2009, April 15). foreign policy. Encyclopedia Britannica . Chicago.

Walter, Thomas, Risse, and Beth A. Simmons, eds. (2002). Handbook of International
Relations. Sage.