IR 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Crisis Management, Gulf Of Tonkin, Yom Kippur War
1 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
American Decisionmaking
POSC/IR 360
Unit Three
Organizing for Foreign Policy Crises (from the American perspective; macro level
management strategies largely come from US)
(much more emphasis on the way the crisis decision process works)
A. Three Models of Crisis Behavior
1. Formalistic Model
2. Competitive Model
3. Collegial Model
B. Observations about Crisis Definitions
1. Serious threat to national values or interests
2. Likely a surprise (usually when they come as a surprise they are much much worse)
3. Relatively little time to respond before you make a decision and you absolutely have to
make a decision
A Typology of Policy Formulation
1. Bureaucratic politics (always going to be bureaucratic politics, we’re never not going to
have it, it’s pervasive)
2. Advocacy models (within the American context of decisionmaking)
- Multiple advocacy (always a variety of partisan, variety of strongly presented
viewpoints competing for the leader’s attention to drive the conversation)
- Managed structures (without managing really complex structures chaos ensues)
- “Devil’s advocate” dynamic (always going to be a contrarian viewpoint because a
direction in this environment makes itself clear-a preferred result is almost obvious to
everybody, especially if it’s the opinion of the president-but a contrarian approach has
to be gone through to make the best decision)
3. Decision units (obvious decision unit is the National Security Council, but for a variety of
reasons the NSC process wasn’t cohesive with the WH decisionmaking process)
- Predominate leaders: principals (same for all intents and purposes)
o The Predominant Leader is the President but there are other predominant
leaders
- Multiple autonomous actors
o People without official roles who step into to help make the decision or advise
the predominant leader
- Small groups (not, often times, a formal decision making structure)
o Of the informal advisors or friends who punched well above their weight and
had significant influence
4. Players and topics in play
- Processes
- Political Institutions have their own bureaucratic structures and breaks that have to be
accounted for and dealt with
o Institutional processes that have to be followed, institutions have rules
- Derivative character of institutions (meaning it has the character of the people in it)
o Institutions are made of people, people have opinions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
A typology of policy formulation have it, it"s pervasive: advocacy models (within the american context of decisionmaking) Multiple advocacy (always a variety of partisan, variety of strongly presented viewpoints competing for the leader"s attention to drive the conversation) Managed structures (without managing really complex structures chaos ensues) Predominate leaders: principals (same for all intents and purposes: the predominant leader is the president but there are other predominant leaders. Multiple autonomous actors: people without official roles who step into to help make the decision or advise the predominant leader. Small groups (not, often times, a formal decision making structure: of the informal advisors or friends who punched well above their weight and had significant influence, players and topics in play. Political institutions have their own bureaucratic structures and breaks that have to be accounted for and dealt with: institutional processes that have to be followed, institutions have rules.
