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Decision-making in American and British foreign policy: an open and shut case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Zara Steiner
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Extract

In the foreign policy arena, decision-making represents that area of governmental action where domestic and foreign interests intermesh. Regardless of size, resources or power, all states operate in an international environment not of their own making and not under their own control. This international system creates and limits the state's possible actions and reactions. At the same time, all those involved in national foreign policy making act in a domestic context which shapes the national interest and the choice of options. Given this Janus-like position, nations respond to common problems but evolve distinctive and different methods of handling them. A comparison between British and American practice reveals striking parallels and contrasts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1987 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1987

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References

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10. I am indebted to Peter Hennessy for most of this information on the Cabinet Office. Some material comes from a chapter, ‘The Cabinet Machine’ to be published in a forthcoming book. The four standing committees named by Mrs Thatcher are Oversea and Defence; Economic and Industrial Scientific; Home, Legislation and Information; Intelligence and Security.

11. The six secretariats are Economic; Oversea and Defence; European; Home Affairs; Science and Technology; Security and Intelligence.

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‘Now that the Cabinet's gone to dinner

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Racking his brains to record and report

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17. There is a mass of information, in sharp contrast to the British case, with regard to the administration of American foreign affairs. I have used for this lecture: Destler, I. M., Presidents, Bureaucrats and Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ, 1972)Google Scholar; Destler, , Making Foreign Economic Policy (Washington, DC, 1980)Google Scholar; Destler, , Gelb, Leslie and Lake, Anthony, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; de Santis, Hugh and Heinrichs, Waldo, ‘The Department of State and American Foreign Policy’ in Steiner, Zara (ed.), The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World (London, 1982)Google Scholar; George, Alexander, Presidential Decision Making: the Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, Colo., 1980)Google Scholar; George, , ‘The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy’, The American Political Science Review, Ixvi (1972)Google Scholar; American Foreign Service Association, Toward a Modern Diplomacy (Washington, DC, 1968)Google Scholar; Bacchus, William, Inside the Legislative Process: The Passage of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Westview Replica Edition, 1983)Google Scholar.

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23. Ibid., questions 277 and 280, pp. 56–7.

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30. Examples include the pressure for the creation of a post of permanent under secretary and the amount of attention given to the permanent interdepartmental committee (SIG) which assists the secretary of state with the co-ordinating of interdepartmental matters, and to the working of the Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRG) which are concerned with ambassadors and country teams working abroad and are responsible for the direction, co-ordination and supervision of interdepartmental matters in their geographic regions of responsibility. There was also a demand for a post in each of the regional bureaux to serve as a single focus of responsibility. Many of these ideas were spelled out in detail in Toward a Modern Diplomacy, pp. 146, 150–6 and have subsequently been implemented.

31. Private interview with a foreign service officer at the London Embassy.

32. W. Wallace, Foreign Policy Process in Britain, p. 128. This is not often so in Washington.

33. In Britain, 1984–85, there were a total of 202 interchanges, 147 inward and 55 outward, including 10 diplomats assigned to the Cabinet Office. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Diplomatic Service: Basic Facts and Figures (Foreign Office information publication, no date).

34. G. Moorhouse, The Diplomats, p. 115.

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40. Ibid., p. 76.

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42. Plans have been prepared for such a campaign but have yet to be implemented.

43. Cited in Steiner, Zara, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898–1914 (London, 1969), p. 168Google Scholar.