Mintz, A., & DeRouen, K. R., 2010, ‘Understanding foreign policy decision making, pp. 18-37,
New York, Cambridge University Press, Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0c7a/42d12a3710ba23fea4459fa2515728d0683f.pdf
Alex Mintz is currently the dean of Launder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at IDC-Herzliya, Israel. The recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award for distinguished contribution to the field from the Foreign Policy Analysis of the International Studies Association. He has published edited or co-edited nine books and is an author of multiple articles in top journals such as the American Political Science Review and American Journal of Political Science.
Karl DeRouen Jr. is a Professor of Political Science, Director of the International Studies Program and a college of Arts and Science Leadership Board Faculty Fellow at the University of Alabama. His works have appeared in a number of journals such as Journal of Politics, International Organizations, Journal of Peace research and so forth. He is currently working on Civil war related projects funded by the Folke Bernadotte Academy of Sweden and the Marsden Fund of New Zealand and a National Science Foundation funded project on negotiated settlements.
In this chapter of the book both authors persist on with the types of decisions made at the three levels of analysis in foreign policy decision making. The three levels of FPDM however, differ from the three levels of analysis in international relations as they focus on the individual, state and system whilst in FPDM it is all about the leaders, groups and coalitions who make foreign policy decisions. The size and composition of the decision unit directly influence FPDM and the dynamics are applied differently by the leaders, groups or coalitions in the process of making foreign policy decisions.
The information shared is targeted towards students of International Relations who would one day be policy and decision makers so they would critically analyze the decisions of foreign policy at the three main levels. Subsequently, they would be in a right position to enforce the decisions for the benefit of their state and others by avoiding all means of conflicts.
The information shared was gained through methodological experiment and their personal knowledge. Meaning that, there were many other books, journal articles and reviews that were also consulted to gain data. Some of these sources were both these author’s works. The research carried out is tremendous.
The literature was focused on the constraints and components of FPDM that affect how leaders, groups and coalitions make decisions. The decision making environment consist of a set of decision alternatives, such as applying sanctions and decision criteria like diplomatic or military. The environmental factors that affect foreign policy decisions are time constraints, information constraints, ambiguity, familiarity, accountability, risk, stress, dynamic vs. static setting and interactive setting. The piece also elaborated on the information search patterns that policy makers utilize to perceive and access information. Thus, the way information is gathered, processed and framed affects foreign policy making. The wide variety of search patterns includes holistic vs. non-holistic, order sensitive vs. order insensitive, alternative based vs., dimension based searches, maximizing vs. satisficing and compensatory vs. non- compensatory search rules. Additionally the authors deeply specified the non-compensatory decision rules like the conjunctive, disjunctive, elimination by aspect and lexicographic that affect, foreign policy decisions as well.
The information share is vital to the unit I am studying, IR333 Foreign Policy Analysis because it focuses on the key areas of my study such as the levels of analysis and the factors that affect foreign policy making. Thus the literature equivalent information like the provision of the cases of Israel’s Foreign Policy Making by Coalition and Iceland’s Cod War which are foreign policies made by coalitions. Such can be related with how decisions are made at the system level of analysis in international relations.
The only limitation in the text was the author’s elaboration mainly on how decisions are made by coalitions and provided cases to justify firmly. Hence, the authors stated that there are many different avenues for exploring FPDM environment. The chapter outlined a number of them.
In conclusion both authors indicate that all these perspectives provide a rich tapestry for exploring how and why foreign policy decisions are made.
The work fits in perfectly to the discipline and course I am studying because in IR333 Foreign Policy Analysis we analyze decisions made at three levels of analysis, the factors that influence foreign policy making and other components.
whatsREEL 