stern - contextualizing and criticizing poliheuristic theory

Contextualizing and Critiquing the Poliheuristic TheoryAuthor(s): Eric SternReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 48, No. 1, The Poliheuristic Theory ofForeign Policy Decision Making (Feb., 2004), pp. 105-126Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176271 .Accessed: 18/03/2012 07:37

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Contextualizing and Critiquing the Poliheuristic Theory ERIC STERN CRISMART, Swedish National Defense College Uppsala University

The poliheuristic theory of decision (PH) is placed in its proper historical context through a brief dia- chronic overview of the evolution of the foreign policy decision-making tradition from Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin to the present. The PH program is examined and contextualized in synchronic fashion via juxtaposition with three parallel lines of theoretical and empirical foreign policy decision-making research: cognitive institutionalism, problem representation, and decision units. These approaches are found to exhibit different methodological strengths and weaknesses and to emphasize different aspects of the decision-making process. Substantial complementarities exist, suggesting that the potential for synergy and cross-fertilization is great.

Keywords: Poliheuristic theory; decision making;foreign policy; cognitive institutionalism; problem representation; decision units

THE CONTEXT1

The study of foreign policy decision making-the tradition to which the poliheuristic theory of decision making clearly belongs-has been characterized by alter- nating periods of feast and famine since its beginnings in the 1950s. A first wave of studies began with Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin's (1963) programmatic manifesto, which outlined an alternative to the post-World War II realist orthodoxy (e.g., Morgenthau 1948; see also Vasquez 1983) and ended with Paige's (1968) landmark study of the Korean crisis. A second wave of pioneering studies came in the 1970s, bringing the organizational and psychological foundations of foreign policy making into sharper focus (Allison 1971; Janis 1972; Steinbrunner 1974; Halperin 1974; Cottam 1977). Despite many noteworthy contributions (e.g., George 1980; Lebow 1981; Smith and Clarke 1985; Larson 1985; Janis 1989; Hermann, Kegley, and Rosenau 1987) during the 1980s, it is fair to say that much of the attention of the scholarly international rela-

1. This section depicts the evolution of the discourse on foreign policy decision making in political science and international relations. For reviews of the psychological literature on decision making, see, for example, Abelson and Levi (1985) and Dawes (1998).

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Several sections of this article draw on a working paper titled "Emerging Theories of Foreign Policy Decision Making," coauthored with Margaret G. Hermann.

JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, ol. 48 No. 1, February 2004 105-126 DOI: 10. 177/0022002703261052 ? 2004 Sage Publications

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106 JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

tions community was directed elsewhere, and not least at the neorealist-neoliberal debate (e.g., Baldwin 1993). However, from the vantage point of the first decade of the new millennium, it is clear that a third wave of foreign policy decision-making studies was launched during the 1990s (e.g., Vertzberger 1990; 't Hart 1994; Khong 1992; Lebow and Stein 1994; 't Hart, Stem, and Sundelius 1997; Farnham 1997; Haney 1997; Garrison 1999). A further signal of the mounting interest in the topic is the re-

publication and/or revision of several of the seminal works mentioned above (Allison and Zelikow 1999; Snyder, Bruck and Sapin 2002; Steinbrunner 2002). Much progress has been made, and significant accumulation has taken place (Ripley 1993; Hud- son 1995; Carlsnaes 2002). There can be no doubt that we now have a more differenti- ated (Lawrence and Lorch 1969; Suedfeld and Leighton 2002) picture of the foreign policy-making process than ever before.

Some scholars have responded to this mounting differentiation by embracing it and attempting to turn it into a methodological virtue. The multiperspectivist approach consists of identifying several alternative decision-making (or policy-making) models from the literature and considers how well each illuminates and accounts for a given empirical case (or cases). Allison's Essence of Decision, initially published in 1971, is one of the most widely cited contributions to the foreign policy analysis literature and an important exemplar of this approach. This monograph's impact derived at least as much from its juxtaposition of three ways of theorizing about how and why foreign policy decision are made as from its relatively early (9 years after the fact) empirical work on the Cuban missile crisis. Allison's research demonstrated that both the questions posed and the explanations found changed dramatically as the analyst shifts perspective across the three "paradigms" (rational actor, organizational process, and governmental [cabinet/bureaucratic] politics). Although criticized on both empirical and theoretical grounds (see, e.g., Krasner 1972; Bendor and Hammond 1992; Welch 1992; Ster and Verbeek 1998), Allison's work has proven influential in terms of its research design. A number of scholars since have attempted to pit alternative models or paradigms against each other, often expecting one to come out the "winner" in the

competitive race (see, e.g., Steinbrunner 1974; cf. Parker and Stern 2002).2 A particularly noteworthy successor to Allison and an important methodological

exemplar in this tradition is Marieke Kleiboer's (1998) study The Multiple Realities of International Mediation. Kleiboer bridges the gap between foreign policy analysis and international relations by developing four models of international conflict (power political, political psychological, human needs, and structural determinist), which can be used to explain and evaluate empirical cases of third-party intervention. Kleiboer's study is exemplary in its systematic derivation of the models from an "ontological matrix." In so doing, her study is not particularly vulnerable to one of the main criti- cisms of Allison's work-namely, the idiosyncratic selection of and overlapping among the models. Kleiboer's study convincingly demonstrates that much of the dis- agreement among empirical analysts assessing particular historical cases (such as the first Camp David Accords and the Falklands/Malvinas conflict) stems from a lack of

2. Multiperspectivism has also been successfully applied in neighboring fields, such as organizational sociology and public administration (see, e.g., Morgan 1986; Bovens and 't Hart 1996).

Stern / CONTEXTUALIZING POLIHEURISTIC THEORY 107

clarity regarding normative and ontological frames of reference, which are often left

implicit in the empirical discourse. Kleiboer's study also suggests that instead of view-

ing the alternative perspectives as competitors, it might be more appropriate to view them as complementary.

The multiperspectivist challenge not withstanding, much of the half century of research on foreign policy decision making has been characterized by the impulse to identify and integrate the variables and processes that shape policy formulation and execution-an impulse clearly visible in the work on the poliheuristic theory (see below). Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin's (1963) original framework contained an often- cited (and occasionally ridiculed) figure schematically depicting "an actor in a situation," which combined a broad range of domestic and international variables relevant to the policy-making process. Derided by some as overly complex, inadequately specified, and difficult to operationalize, the framework was, in fact, successfully deployed in a pioneering analysis of the Korean conflict (Paige 1968) and has been a major source of conceptual and methodological inspiration to several generations of foreign policy analysts (M. G. Hermann 2001; Hudson 2003). In the decades that followed, a number of scholars have attempted to formulate integrative frameworks depicting the

policy-making process as a whole or focusing on particular parts of it. For example, one influential attempt combined elements of Easton's (1953) sys-

tems theory of politics and political psychology, positing a so-called input-process- output model of the foreign policy-making process (e.g., Brecher, Steinburg, and Stein 1969; Brecher 1974). This body of research was noteworthy in several respects, not least due to its emphasis on contextual analysis of the settings in which policy making takes place, the emphasis on process tracing, and the dynamic notion of multiple policy- making "cycles." The research by Brecher and associates, which came to emphasize the challenge of crisis decision making and international crisis management, contin- ues in modified form to this day in the International Crisis Behavior project (e.g., Brecher 1993, 1999; Brecher and Wilkenfeld 1997). Other important integrative conceptual contributions include work done under the auspices of the Comparative Research on the Events of Nations (CREON) project (e.g., East, Salmore, and Hermann 1978; Callahan, Brady, and Hermann 1982), work on integrative taxono- mies of explanation (Carlsnaes 1986, 1992), and the nearly simultaneous encyclope- dic, integrative monographs on foreign policy decision making by Vertzberger (1990) and Maoz (1990). Although these latter two works have made significant conceptual contributions, they have not yet spawned a large and cumulative body of empirical research (but see Vertzberger 1998). It seems that the complexity and scope of these frameworks may have posed something of an obstacle to empirical application.

Having looked back at the context of foreign policy analysis that spawned the poliheuristic theory, let us now focus our attention on the poliheuristic theory itself before moving on to examine three adjacent bodies of emerging theoretical and empirical research. In fact, it can and should be argued that the poliheuristic theory and its intellectual "cousins" complement each other and together form a relatively rich conceptual and empirical basis for reflecting on the processes of foreign policy decision making.


THE POI,IHEURISTIC THEORY OF DECISION

One of the most significant, fruitful, and cumulative empirical research programs in the area of foreign policy decision making is the poliheuristic theory of decision (PH). This research program attempts to draw on and integrate insights from both the cognitive and rationalistic approaches to the study of (foreign policy) decision making. Growing out of pioneering work reported in Mintz (1993, 2003), Mintz et al. (1997), Mintz and Geva (1997), and Redd (2002), the PH program has generated an impressive and rapidly growing body of published work that makes use of a variety of methodologies and empirics. For our present purposes, it is important to note that PH focuses on what we have termed the back end of the decision-making process, that is, options development and choice (cf. Mintzberg, Raisanghani, and Theoret 1976; Burstein and Berbaum 1983).3

What, then, are the key research questions, concerns, and assumptions of the PH research program? Redd (2002, 336) has recently described it as follows:

The poliheuristic theory of decision incorporates the conditions surrounding foreign policy decisions as well as the cognitive processes associated with these surroundings.... In other words, it concentrates on the "why" and the "how" of decisionmaking, which makes the theory relevant to both the contents and processes of foreign policymaking.4

The term poliheuristic is inspired by the prefix poly (an elegant play on words refer- ring both to many and to the politicized character of foreign policy making) and heuristic (shortcuts). The latter denotes the various cognitive means used to cope with complexity (Redd 2002, 336; Mintz and Geva 1997, 82, 84). Simplifying somewhat, it can be argued that the core questions of the PH program are as follows:

* How do decision makers actually make decisions (Mintz and Geva 1997, 81)? * How do decision makers choose a certain policy from a portfolio of alternatives (Mintz

and Geva, 1997, 81)?

Decision making is conceptualized as consisting of two stages. The first is a cog- nitively based screening of alternatives, serving to simplify and reduce the "decision matrix." The second is a more rationalistic treatment of the remaining alternatives and dimensions and tends to be based on analytic, expected utility or lexicographic rules of choice (Redd 2002, 336).

PH focuses on five distinctive process characteristics that are thought to reflect high-level decision making in natural (as well as laboratory) settings (Mintz and Geva 1997, 84-88; Redd 2002, 338):

* Nonholistic search: Decision making derives not from "evaluation and comparison of all alternatives across different dimensions" but rather from the use of "heuristic decision rules that do not require detailed and complicated comparisons of relevant alternatives,

3. Despite its "back-end" orientation, the poliheuristic theory of decision (PH) has thus far not explic- itly focused on implementation (cf. Allison and Zelikow 1999; Smith and Clarke 1985).

4. This passage is adapted from Mintz et al. (1997, 554).


and adopts or rejects undesirable alternatives on the basis of one or a few criteria" (Mintz 1993, quoted in Mintz and Geva 1997, 85).

* Dimension-based processing: So-called "attributes" (values or aspects) of a problem drive the search rather than alternatives. Alternatives that fail to meet minimum standards on key dimensions are discarded. Dimensions tend to be applied sequentially; the sequence is heavily influenced by the availability of information that is interpreted in a manner that directs analytical attention to a particular dimension or triggers a shift of emphasis to another (Mintz and Geva 1997, 85).

* Noncompensatory decision rules: Low scores on salient dimensions cannot be compensated by high scores on another. Minimum standards must be fulfilled, or the alternative is discarded (Mintz and Geva 1997, 85-86).5

* Satisficing behavior: The search ends when an acceptable alternative survives scrutiny on the key dimensions. Ambiguity, uncertainty, and value complexity-as well as cognitive and practical constraints-tend to rule out "maximizing" (Mintz and Geva 1997, 86-87).

* Order-sensitive search: Unlike rationalistic models, which assume that variations in the manner in which alternatives are described and the order in which they are presented do not affect decision makers' preferences, the poliheuristic theory suggests that such variations may in fact have profound effects on preferences and choices (Mintz and Geva 1997, 87; cf. McDermott 1998).6

Like the emerging research on problem representation (see below), PH has been characterized by a pragmatic, interdisciplinary multimethod approach to empirical research and theoretical development. Researchers associated with the PH perspective have made use of a variety of methodologies and research designs, including case studies (Mintz 1993, 2003), large-N comparative studies (DeRouen and Sprecher 2004), formal modeling (Goertz 2004), and a series of experimental simulations,

many of which have made use of variants of the innovative "decision board" method-

ology. The decision board is a matrix-based platform for the controlled manipulation of information provided to subjects and the monitoring of the choices they have made

(Mintz and Geva 1997, 90-93). The potential external validity of the experimental findings has been heightened by the use of policy practitioners (especially military officers) in addition to university students. Unlike the research on problem representation (see below), PH has been characterized by a clear and consensual commitment to variable centric, positivistic social science research. PH stands out as a thriving research program, which (like the other three perspectives emphasized in this article) serves as a useful complement and alternative to the rational choice perspective. In

fact, it should be noted that one of the key features that qualifies PH as an integrative approach is its relatively successful effort to bridge the gap between cognitive and rationalistic paradigms (e.g., Mintz 2003; cf. Steinbrunner 1974; Lepgold and Lam- born 2001).

5. For a parallel analysis of noncompensatory decision-making behavior in politics, public policy, and private life, see Fiske and Tetlock (1997) on taboo trade-offs.

6. PH thus also bears a family resemblance to the various social contingency theories of judgment and decision making that emerged during the 1980s and 1990s in social and organizational psychology. See, for example, Farnham (1997) and Chaiken and Trope (1999) for overviews.


Despite the considerable theoretical merits of the PH approach and a mounting body of empirical evidence (especially from the laboratory setting) to support the basic contours of the model, the perspective has some blind spots and limitations.

1. PH tells us relatively little about how problems are detected, how decision makers are activated, and how decision units are formed in real-world settings (cf. Brecher 1993; Ster 1999; Ster and Sundelius 2002; M. G. Hermann 2001). This probably stems in large measure from the relatively heavy emphasis on experimental simulation in which the experimenters themselves select, motivate, and delegate tasks to the decision makers.7

2. Although the notions of dimension-based search and elimination by aspects do con- tribute to our knowledge of how problems are "represented" or "framed," contextual and institutional variables have not been emphasized, with the significant exception of the domestic political constraints, which are, as we will see, heavily if not overemphasized. For example, PH can tell us little about why policy makers frame a given problem as a crisis or noncrisis situation, which tends to have a dramatic impact on the nature of the decision-making process (C. F. Hermann 1963; Brecher 1993; Stem 1999; Eriksson 2001). Nor has PH been of much help in understanding why a given decision problem is framed in terms of gains or losses-a factor thought by prospect theorists to be closely linked to the risk-taking propensities of foreign policy decision makers (cf. Farham 1997; McDermott 1998).

3. The PH researchers correctly note and emphasize the multiple constraints that operate on foreign policy decision makers. In particular, they have argued and found some degree of experimental support for the notion that domestic political considerations are very close to an absolute constraint on policy making. The logic is at first glance compel- ling. Politicians must maintain political support to stay in power. Therefore, they will not take any course of action that is incompatible with domestic political imperatives. Barbara Farham (1997, 233-34) has reached similar conclusions on the basis of her detailed historical case study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision making during the Munich crisis. However, this argument overstates the case somewhat. First of all, historical evidence suggests that policy makers do indeed sometimes embark on foreign policy projects in the face of heavy (even preponderant) political opposition. Woodrow Wilson's ultimately futile crusade for the U.S. membership in the League of Nations (which cost him his health and most likely contributed to not only his political but physi- cal demise) is perhaps the classic example (George and George 1964; Walker 1995). In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy ( 1961) provides a number of inspiring examples of political figures who dared to swim against the dominant public and political tides of their times. A more recent (and somewhat less extreme) example was the Clinton administration's decision to support and subsequent failure to secure Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Jones 2002).

4. The sensitivity of policy makers to the domestic political context should be seen as a contingent rather than a general phenomenon. A substantial body of empirical research clearly demonstrates that decision makers differ greatly in their sensitivity to and degree of autonomy with respect to the domestic political context (see the discussion of decision units above). Pragmatists (generally high self-monitors) tend to be highly sensitive to such cues, whereas crusaders (generally low self-monitors) tend to ignore such

7. The recent (re-)emphasis on case studies and large-N comparative studies of decision making in natural settings (e.g., DeRouen and Sprecher 2004) is likely to further compensate for the external validity limitations of laboratory simulations and suggest ways of extending the PH approach to cover these dimensions (cf. Mintz 2003).

8. For important recent exceptions that suggest that the PH researchers have become aware of this oversight and are well on their way to remedying it, see Mintz and Redd (2003).


cues-sometimes like Wilson, to their peril (Stoessinger 1979; Preston 2000; Kowert 2002; M. G. Hermann 2001). Furthermore, contextual factors such as the nature of the regime and political situation (and degree of leader autonomy, dependence on coalition partners, high/low general public approval ratings, etc.) are often highly significant. Finally, a factor as simple as proximity to elections can have a major impact on the degree of political autonomy perceived by the decision makers. For example, they are likely to perceive a greater degree of freedom from political constraints with a successful election just behind them (as opposed to when a personally salient one is approaching). A "lame duck" U.S. president may perceive himself to have been liberated from domestic political constraints and free to seek his place in history or make a contribution to forging a new, but not necessarily domestically popular, new world order, as George H. W. Bush probably did when he contemplated the intervention in Somalia after his defeat at the hands of (but before handing over the reins of power to) Bill Clinton.

5. In a similar way, political constraints should be conceptualized in dynamic rather than static terms, as Alexander George (1980) and Irving Janis (1989) have convincingly argued.9 Constraints can sometimes be shifted through the efforts of leaders (and their policy or political allies) to change them (cf. Byman and Pollack 2001). Decision makers can lead public and elite opinion as well as follow it. They can use their political resources and "bully pulpits" in attempts to educate, persuade, cajole, coerce, or buy the necessary support (Neustadt 1990; Hargrove 1998). Such attempts are likely to be polit- ically risky and consume large quantities of scarce resources, such as leaders' time, energy, resources, and political capital. Although such "transformational leadership" (Bass 1997) may be less common than some observers of foreign (and domestic) policy making would like (e.g., MacGregor Bums and Sorenson 2000), it is possible and should not be overlooked when conceptualizing the nature of the domestic political constraints on policy making.

COMPLEMENTARY COUSINS?

Let us now turn to some of the other emerging bodies of research that should be seen as complements to the poliheuristic theory: cognitive institutionalism (CI), problem representation (PR), and decision units (DU).

COGNITIVE INSTITUTIONALISM

Cognitive institutionalism (CI) takes as its point of departure an emphasis on

dynamic subjectivity and the processes of framing/representation, which characterize the social psychological literature on social cognition and naturalistic decision making (Fiske and Taylor 1991; cf. Klein 2001) and several strands of the so-called new institutionalism (Kingdon 1984; Anderson 1987; Peters 1999) in sociology and political science (Stern 1999; Stern and Sundelius 2002; Stern et al. 2002; Brandstrom and

Kuipers 2003). Essentially, the approach suggests that problem setting and problem solving by individuals, groups, and organizations are heavily influenced by experien- tial and contextual factors that can best be uncovered through relatively detailed or "thick" process tracing and structured, focused comparison (cf. George 1997). The

path-dependent context in which policy making takes place shapes propensities

9. See also Farnham (1997, 39-43).


toward problem perception as well as identification or construction of particular courses of action.

This approach examines how beliefs, expectations, and organizational cultures and agendas shape the ways in which policy makers perceive and frame problems (cf. Vertzberger 1990; Rochefort and Cobb 1994; Eriksson 2001). The limited information-processing capacity of these policy makers leads them to take shortcuts and to use heuristics to define their environments and current problems. Such perceptual biases may lead policy makers to deny or exaggerate threats and, in some cases, respond in a rigid fashion (Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton 1981). Furthermore, as Janis and Mann (1977, 15) have observed, cognitive institutionalism views the decision maker

not as a cold-blooded fish, but as a warm-blooded mammal, not as a rational calculator always ready to work out the best solution but as a reluctant decision maker-beset by conflict, doubts, and worry, struggling with incongruous longings, antipathies, and loyalties.

Thus, political cognition can be, and often is, "hot" as well as "cold" (Crawfoord 2000).

CI closely examines the factions, groups, networks, and organizations in which policy makers are located, arguing that these mesostructures affect the flow of information, the distribution of political administrative power, and dispositions toward cooperation and conflict within a given policy-making system ('t Hart, Ster, and Sundelius 1997). This neoinstitutional focus acknowledges the pervasiveness of rules, roles, and routines in the modern governmental apparatus and examines how they structure policy discourse, shape the policy agenda, and influence coordination between and within organizations.

The cognitive-institutional approach has been used most often in the study of crisis decision making (but see Sundelius 1995 on the Swedish decision to join the European Union [EU]). Well over 100 cases have been subjected to process-tracing analysis inspired by this approach, and dozens more are currently in progress. These cases are drawn from a wide range of national settings (e.g., Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Fin- land, Iceland, Spain, France, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania, Argentina, the United States, China, and New Zealand). Other studies have been focused on international policy crises in various parts of the EU institutional apparatus (Gronvall 2001; Olsson 2001) and the United Nations system. It should be noted that CI focuses on policy decision making (in both the domestic and foreign policy domains), enabling systematic comparison of patterns across policy sectors and types of cases.

Some key conceptual and comparative empirical findings include the following points:

* As cognitivist theories predict (cf. Larson 1985; Khong 1992; Rosati 2001; Dawes 1998), problem definitions are highly sensitive to circumstantial cues. For example, fallout from the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 was initially framed as a possible Swedish nuclear accident (largely because the USSR refrained from warning its neighbors that the accident had occurred), and the radiation was first discovered at a Swedish nuclear power


plant (Stem 1999, 202). This plant promptly (and unnecessarily) evacuated some 800 persons before it became clear that the emerging environmental crisis was of international rather than domestic origins.

* Findings from Cherobyl and many other cases similar to those studied by CI researchers (e.g., Stern and Sundelius 1997; Ster and Hansen 2001; Gronvall 2001) suggest that strong versions of the so-called threat-rigidity hypothesis (in which decision makers cling rigidly to established problem frames or courses of actions) underestimate the capacity of crisis decision makers to shift cognitive gears under pressure under certain favorable circumstances (cf. Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton 1981; Billings and Hermann 1998; Klein 2001).

* CI findings suggest that decision makers differ in their capacity to make use of historical analogy as a policy-making heuristic. Some deploy history in a rigorous and effective fashion, making use a relatively wide range of analogies and maintaining sensitivity not only to situational and contextual similarities but also to differences (cf. Vertzberger 1990; Khong 1992; Bynander 1998; Houghton 2001), as was the case in the French response to the terror bombings of 1995. By contrast, the response of the 14 EU heads of government to the prospect of Jorg Haider's right wing extremist party FPO (Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs) taking a place in Austria's ruling coalition revealed a striking insensitivity to the lessons of the Waldheim case during the 1980s, when Austri- ans rallied to their controversial president (and former UN secretary general) in the face of foreign criticism (Larsson and Lundgren 2003). Although decision makers cannot transcend the individual limitations of human cognition (Vertzberger 1990; Khong 1992), they can indeed be encouraged, even taught, to use history in a somewhat more balanced and effective manner (Neustadt and May 1986; Bobrow 1989). However, it should be kept in mind that history is used not only as a problem-solving heuristic but also for a number of other purposes. Thus, history may serve not only as a metaphorical "teacher" (providing lessons from the past and templates for appreciating the present) but also as "filter," "prison," "blind spot," and rhetorical "weapon" (Brandstr6m, Bynander, and 't Hart, forthcoming).

* National contexts (and particular administrations) differ widely in the extent to which crisis decision making is an institutionalized policy-making function (cf. Paige 1968; Haney 1997). For example, Swedish foreign policy (and domestic) crisis decision making have tended to take place on an ad hoc basis and not infrequently have entailed depar- tures from existing legal frameworks (e.g., Stem and Sundelius 1992).10 Successful crisis innovations, including a number of quasi-legal behaviors, have often been subsequently formalized and ratified post hoc (Sundelius, Stem, and Bynander 1997). By contrast, Estonia (like the United States, which served as a model in developing the Estonian system) has aspired to a more institutionalized "crisis committee" system for the management of crises (Haney 1997).

* National contexts differ substantially in their capacities and propensities to learn and reform on the basis of crises experience. For example, the generic and relatively broad crisis concept developed in Estonia (which encompasses not only foreign policy and military security crises but also natural disasters, environmental catastrophes, severe eco- nomic turbulence, and terrorism) has encouraged a succession of Estonian governments to attempt to draw lessons and make reforms after major events (Ster and Nohrstedt 1999; Stem 1997). In practice, this impulse has resulted in tendencies toward hyper- llearing in which reform efforts are undertaken prematurely and without systematic analysis of the performance and potential of any given set of institutional arrangements for crisis management. However, the experiences from Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Poland suggest that this pattern is not typical of all transitional democracies. In these countries, the evidence from most of the 1990s is suggestive rather of a pattern of

10. It should be noted that a number of important steps toward institutionalizing a system for crisis management in Sweden have been taken in recent years by the Persson government.


transitional decline and neglect-a reactive rather than a pro- or hyperactive stance with regard to institutionalizing crisis management capacity (Porfiriev and Svedin 2002). This is partly the result of sectoral fragmentation in the absence or late arrival of a generic crisis management concept (Stem and Hansen 2000; Stem et al. 2002).

*The EU has had great difficulty in making crisis decisions but has gradually been developing its capacity to respond more effectively and legitimately to critical foreign and domestic challenges (Lintonen 2002). The relatively secretive EU institutions are not immune to process tracing. Strenuous efforts to open the black box of Brussels have proved worthwhile and revealed that the intragovemmental politics and organizational processes taking place there are largely comparable with those taking place in large West- ern nation-states (Gr6nvall 2001; Olsson 2001; cf. Verbeek and Reinalda 1998).

The data-gathering and analysis activities taking place under the banner of cognitive institutionalism have thus yielded results directed toward both scientific and more

practically oriented discourses. They have been regularly used to develop training tools (teaching cases and crisis simulations) that are widely used to train government officials in Sweden and abroad. However, this research and training program also has its limitations and shortcomings:

1. Heavy reliance on qualitative methods: Virtually all of the research conducted to date has employed qualitative, process-tracing, and structured comparative methods (George 1979; George and McKeown 1985; cf. Kaarbo and Beasley 1999). Complementary use of quantitative techniques for coding and analyzing empirical findings would add another element of rigor (cf. Brecher 1993; Brecher and Wilkenfeld 1997; DeRouen and Sprecher 2004). In a similar way, because an interest in crisis communication (domestic and international) supplements the focus on crisis decision making that is the focus of this study (e.g., Newlove, Ster, and Svedin 2003), quantitative analysis of public opinion data or media discourses would be helpful in calibrating shifts in the perceptions of various stakeholders regarding the credibility, legitimacy, and political support for foreign policy makers and their policies. Important factors and worthy objects of research in their own right, credibility, legitimacy, and political support are crucial components of the context of foreign policy making (cf. Goertz 1994; Farnham 1997; Stern 1999). Although crisis simulations and scenario exercises have frequently been conducted for the purposes of training practitioners and students (Ster and Sundelius 2002), these ses- sions thus far have not been structured in a fashion suitable for social scientific expe- rimentation. Clearly, cognitive-institutional research would benefit from application of the experimental simulation techniques developed by the poliheuristic theory researchers.

2. Interanalyst reliability: Central to the cognitive-institutional approach (like that of the decision unit framework discussed below) is the notion of dissecting policy making (especially, but not exclusively, crises) into occasions for decision. However, extensive experience with empirical application of the framework (Ster 1999) suggests that there is significant variability in the ways analysts choose to "slice" a given crisis (Lindgren 2003). Although this criticism has motivated the researchers to attempt to make more explicit the criteria for identifying and selecting decisions occasions (Ster and Sundelius 2002), the problem has been minimized but not completely eliminated.

3. Heavy data requirements: Reconstruction of the problem frames, options, choices, and implementation of multiple decision occasions for a given crisis is highly data intensive. Properly documenting and analyzing a crisis generally requires finding a large and di- verse body of empirical material ranging from government documents, interviews, oral histories, and participant memoirs to journalistic and social scientific secondary accounts. Amassing the material, subjecting it to source criticism, and integrating it tend to


consume large amounts of time and resources-expenditures that may not appeal to the more parsimoniously inclined. On the other hand, such rich case descriptions can be added to the growing CI "case bank" and used for a variety of research and training purposes (Stem and Sundelius 2002).

PROBLEM REPRESENTATION

The growing bodies of research on problem representation and CI share a focus on the subjective dimension of foreign policy making and shine the analytical spotlight on how problems are interpreted and depicted. Yet, the two approaches emphasize different dimensions of problem framing. As we have seen, CI's relatively contextual approach poses the question of why decision makers come to frame problems in a particular fashion (cf. Garrison 2001; Mintz and Redd 2003). Furthermore, in CI, problem frames have a dual role. On one hand, proto-frames are critical determinants affecting responsibility allocation. Perceptions as to the nature of the problem strongly influence the composition of the decision unit and the balance of power among advo- cates within it (Stern 1999; George and Ster 2002). On the other hand, frames arise in the minds and communications (some would say discourses) of institutionally embed- ded actors. As such, the frames may be seen as both dependent variables produced by endogenous psycho-organizational processes and as independent variables that structure and guide choice.

Over the course of the past decade, a sustained research program on the broad theme of foreign policy problem representation has coalesced around the work of Donald Sylvan and James Voss (1998). The work of these scholars and their many col- leagues strongly suggests that the subjective specification and depiction of problems is a fundamental aspect of foreign policy making and one that sets the stage (and, some would argue, largely stacks the deck) for choice (Sylvan, Ostrom, and Gannon 1994). As Sylvan (1998b, 341) circumspectly claims, "Systematically studying problem representation can provide insights into foreign policy decision-making that would not necessarily be forthcoming without such systematic study." Although some of this work examines problem representation as a dependent variable (Sylvan 1998a; Taber 1998, 29-38), the main thrust of this eclectic body of work has been about exploring the causal impact of problem representation on foreign policy behavior.

One innovative line of research in this tradition draws inspiration from the jury studies of Pennington and Hastie (1981, 1988), which have given rise to a story model of decision making. Sylvan and Haddad (1998) argue that people think in terms of stories that simplify and focus their perceptions of foreign policy problems. These stories imbue particular facts with salience and meaning and propose causal relationships. Stories highlight certain dimensions of problems while obscuring others. They make some options appear plausible and attractive while hiding or tending to discredit others (cf. Khong 1992). Although individuals are perceived as thinking in terms of stories, their function is not limited to individuals.

Sylvan and Haddad (1998, 188) suggest that stories focus the cognitive efforts of policy-making groups as well, becoming "a composite of the group's common social and substantive meanings that helps to delimit the group's problem space" and thus


imposing a kind of structure on policy problems that are ill structured in their raw form (Voss 1998, 11-14). As Charlick-Payley and Sylvan (2000, 699) put it:

The story becomes a guide for inferencing, and, as it develops through group members' interactions, new information is understood in a way that will accommodate the story. After some time, the story (rather than new information) becomes the primary source for decisions.

Although much of this line of research has been based on laboratory experiments using undergraduate subjects (Sylvan and Haddad 1998), there have been attempts to make use of quasi-experimental designs drawing on empirical material from natural settings.

For example, Charlick-Payley and Sylvan (2000, 702-6) conducted a comparative narrative content analysis of the stories told by military officers in France (1945-1962) and the Soviet Union/Russia (1980-1996) about the imperatives and, subsequently, the decline of empires. The hypothesis of the study (Charlick-Payley and Sylvan 2000: 707) was that

when a military experiences the loss of its state's empire, officers will formulate a new story that justifies the change in its status. The new story will motivate new patterns of civil military relations in the post-imperial era.

They found that in both countries, imperial decline resulted in both significant narrative shifts and bifurcation because the officer corps interpreted the new developments in different ways. One faction clung to the old imperial narrative, arguing that political elites had abandoned and betrayed a vital and viable national mission. Others made more far-reaching changes in the imperial story, arguing that elements of the old mission (which included preparing "colonies" for a more autonomous future) had been fulfilled or had become anachronistic and that the withdrawals were a sensible

response to resource constraints and environmental changes. Charlick-Payley and

Sylvan (2000,721-24) found that the frame shifts and splits helped to explain new (and generally more conflictual) patterns of civil military relations after imperial decline.

This body of research has produced a number of key findings and claims that are

worthy of further scientific and practical examination:

1. Students of foreign policy decision making must attend to "prevailing narratives as a crucial part of the cognition of leaders" (Sylvan et al. 1996; Charlick-Payley and Sylvan 2000, 725).

2. Knowledge "of the operative story and/or the way to 'weave' a story may be major determinants of successful foreign policy influence attempts" (Charlick-Payley and Sylvan 2000, 725).

The latter point, which resonates with the so-called argumentative turn in policy analysis (Fischer and Forester 1993; Weldes 1998), suggests that skill in the manipulation of narratives may be a critical factor in competitive political and policy-making settings. This may help us to understand the seemingly anomalous success of leaders such as

Stern CONTEXTUALIZING POLIHEURISTIC THEORY 117

Ronald Reagan, whose alleged deficiencies in other areas were compensated by his mastery of political narrative (Hargrove 1998).

Reflecting more critically on this body of work, one can point to some limitations and tensions:

1. Much of the research to date has focused on artificial laboratory settings and subject population which differ in important respects from top-level decision makers in real- world settings. This raises some important external validity issues, which researchers working in this area are working to address.

2. Many of the studies that do use empirical data gathered from real-world settings (e.g., Charlick-Payley and Sylvan 2000) focus on discourse in public arenas, which (as they acknowledge) makes it difficult to disentangle sincere reflection from "strategic" justifi- cation (cf. Khong 1992; Tetlock 1985). More work making use of (historical) process- tracing methods, such as archival materials, interviews, and so forth, would improve our knowledge of problem representation "backstage." In fact, to the extent that future circumstances permit, it would be useful to explore the possibility of using anthropologi- cally inspired direct observation methods to monitor and analyze the stories (and other forms of problem representation) employed by policy makers. It may well be the case that such methods could be field tested in alternative settings (nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], local politics, or even in the national bureaucracies of smaller countries, such as Sweden or the Netherlands), where access may be more forthcoming than in the foreign policy-making institutions of great powers.

3. It is both an advantage and a disadvantage that the community of researchers working on problem representation conceptualize decision making in significantly different terms and work according to a variety of metatheoretical prescriptions (Sylvan 1998b, 333- 335, 341). Some focus on information processing (e.g., Voss and his associates), whereas others emphasize stories (Sylvan and his associates). Some use positivistic criteria in designing and implementing research; others (e.g., Rubino-Hallman 1998) use discourse analysis conducted according to "postpositivist" epistemological stances. Still others (Taber 1998; Young 1998) explore the potential of artificial intelligence and automated content analysis as heuristics and research facilitators. Although this diver- sity is certainly a potential source of creative inspiration and one that has already resulted in the development and application of a wide range of investigative techniques to the empirical domain under study, it also raises issues of interparadigmatic communication and commensurability, which have yet to be fully addressed.

THE DECISION UNITS FRAMEWORK

Another sustained body of integrative foreign policy decision-making research that clearly complements PH is the decision units (DU) project (Hermann, Hermann, and Hagan 1987; Hermann and Hermann 1989; Stewart, Hermann, and Hermann 1989; Hermann 2001). The decision units project focuses on specifying the conditions under which alternative decision unit configurations are likely to be involved in committing the resources of the government or ruling body. The framework acts as a theory selector that synthesizes the nearly 50 years of research in foreign policy analysis that has

explored the effects of leaders, groups, and coalitions on the policy-making process.

11. The Project on International Negotiation (PIN) is a good example of a research effort that has successfully used such political anthropological methods to good effect. For a description of the project and its numerous publications, see the home page of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA): http://www.iiasa.acat/Research/PIN.


The DU framework (1) views policy makers as responding to foreign policy problems and occasions for decision; (2) focuses on three types of authoritative decision units- leaders, groups, and coalitions; (3) defines the key factors that set into motion alternative decision processes in each of these types of decision units; and (4) links these alternative decision processes to particular foreign policy outcomes. The research focuses on elaborating how the theory selector works by describing the key contingency variable for each type of decision unit (sensitivity to the political context for predominant leader, identification with the group for single group, and presence of established rules for coalitions), the theories that are exemplified by changes in these key contingencies, and the processes that are likely to result for each of these key contingencies.

To its credit, the DU project has drawn on multiple modes and methods of analysis in its study of foreign policy decision making. Conceptualization and operation- alization are explicit, rigorous, and grounded in the vast multidisciplinary literatures (M. G. Hermann 2001). In designing and conducting the empirical research, generic expertise on the foreign policy-making process has been complemented by area expertise on the specific contexts in which foreign policy making takes place. The DU project demonstrates a sincere commitment to cross-national comparative research designed to compensate for what the project leaders perceive to be a U.S.-centric bias permeating much of the literature (M. G. Hermann 2001, 49). In vivid contrast to its

precursor, the CREON, the DU project makes use of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies (cf. Brecher 1999) and reveals a shift of emphasis from extensive

congruence-based procedures toward intensive process-tracing research procedures (cf. George 1979; Callahan, Brady, and Hermann 1982; Khong 1992).

According to the leading practitioners of this perspective, key lessons learned from

applying the decision units framework to 65 cases from 31 countries are as follows: (1) the nature and composition of the decision unit often changed across the course of a case; (2) there was no one type of decision unit associated with a particular kind of

government or type of domestic political system; (3) 83% of the time, there was substantial congruence between what happened in the historical case and the outcome of the application of the decision units framework; (4) decision units tended to either reinforce domestic, international, or cultural constraints and, as a consequence, am-

plify the importance of the constraints on choices, or they discounted such constraints and reinforced the unit's own interpretations of what was occurring; (5) it is possible, using the framework, to specify which types of decision units will engage in which of these types of behavior and when; and (6) the framework can be used to examine not only single point decisions but also patterns of participation, reconsideration, and policy change over time (M. G. Hermann 2001).

Although the DU project also has made important contributions to the state of our knowledge regarding foreign policy decision making, some critical observations are in order:

1. Both a strength and a weakness of the decision units project is its contingency approach. Making use of the theory selector enables an analyst to leverage his or her efforts and quickly and systematically focus on what appears to be the most relevant model. When


used effectively, this strategy can provide a modicum of parsimony to the complex task of tracing foreign policy decision making. However, this procedure does pose risks. An- alysts may be induced to prematurely select out a variety of nested contextual dynamics that may, in fact, play a crucial role in determining outcomes. For example, a preliminary analysis of the failure of the U.S. government to respond vigilantly to the threat posed by Al Qaeda prior to 911 was found to be the result of interlocking psychological, institutional, and political leadership factors not likely to be adequately captured by any one of the three decision unit models (cf. Parker and Stem 2002).

2. Despite considerable effort to identify so-called control variables (which indicate which variant of the three models is indicated) and an elaborate decision tree-based operation- alization, it has proven difficult to specify the boundaries between a number of the diag- nostic categories. For example, it proved difficult to determine whether Chamberlain acted as a predominant leader or a leading member of an internally "loyal" single group in the Munich crisis, given a high degree of scholarly dissent on the nature of the process taking place within the British inner cabinet (Beasley et al. 2001, 228; cf. M. G. Hermann 2001, 63-64).

3. Some of the key variables that shift the analyst's attention from one type of unit to another are relatively empirically intractable. For example, the difference between a predominant leader unit (with advisory consultation) and an autonomous group may ultimately rest on the leader's subjective perception of what is happening: "As long as the leader retains the authority to make the choice he or she prefers, the decision unit is a predominant leader. If, however, the leader views the advisers as members of a decision- making team, the decision unit takes on the characteristics of a single group that is interactive and collective in its decisionmaking" (M. G. Hermann 2001, 63).

4. From a source-critical perspective, it is clear that both interviews and various forms of documentary evidence may not fully capture the leader's view of the mode of decision making on any given occasion. Neither leaders nor advisers may be fully conscious of these distinctions and are likely to differ in their perceptions and recollections of the mode of decision making. Furthermore, both leaders and advisers may have incentives to misrepresent their respective roles in and conceptions of the decision-making process (George 1980). The suggestion that the analyst should look to previously established patterns of leader-adviser interaction (M. G. Hermann 2001, 63) as a clue is useful but neglects the variability of leader-adviser dynamics within administrations and under varying degrees of generic and issue-specific stress (C. F. Hermann 1963; Lebow and Stein 1994; Haney 1997; Kowert 2002).

5. The decision units project tends to focus our attention squarely on the leader, the single group, or interactive autonomous coalitions. Yet, modem social and institutional theory suggests that much of the "action" determining foreign policy outcomes takes place in the interfaces between individual and group, group and organization, and organization and the wider policy-making (sub)system (George 1980; 't Hart, Ster, and Sundelius 1997; Stem 1999; Preston 2000; Kowert 2002).

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

What, then, is the result of this contextualized overview of the poliheuristic theory and some of its peers? These bodies of research tend to emphasize and illuminate different aspects of the policy-making process. Cognitive institutionalism and problem representation direct our attention to the manner in which problems are discovered, perceived, and framed. Like the poliheuristic theory, they emphasize the subjective nature of foreign policy decision making and the need to cope with the informational


complexity of the problems and contexts under study. Cognitive institutionalism has devoted attention to examining framing as a dependent variable and poses the question, "Where do frames come from?" Problem representation scholars, like those working with prospect theory (Levy 1997; McDermott 1998), have tended to treat framing as an independent variable that affects policy dispositions and choices.

Neither PH nor PR tells us much about the formation of the decision unit. CI and DU focus more heavily on this aspect, following in Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin's (1963, 2003) footsteps and correcting chronic neglect of this fundamental prior question. Clearly, the question of who chooses precedes and affects choice processes and outcomes. In fact, the relationship between problem framing and choice is complex. Proto-frames are crucial in determining which officials and agencies "own the problem," thus helping to determine the composition of and pecking order within decision units. Yet, once they have coalesced, deliberations within decision units tend to drive

framing and reframing processes (Ster 1999; Ster and Sundelius 2002, 75). Viewing themselves, in part, as a corrective to a choice-centric mainstream in eco-

nomics and political science, cognitive institutionalists and problem representation scholars have tended to gloss over the mechanics of choice. Clearly, better specified and more rigorous renderings of choice and typologies of outcomes are to be found in the poliheuristic and decision unit projects. A particularly promising candidate for further empirical examination, in both laboratory and natural settings, is the notion of the

two-stage process. According to this conception, decision problems are quickly sim-

plified and many alternatives eliminated in the first stage. This enables a subsequent choice process resembling "maximizing" in consideration of a limited number of sur-

viving alternatives (Mintz and Geva 1997, 82-83). This theoretical account of the deci-

sion-making process is compatible with state-of-the-art psychological conceptions of the decision-making process and has been supported empirically (Mintz et al. 1997). In addition, this conceptualization helps to bridge the gap between cognitive and rationalistic approaches to decision making in a constructive fashion (cf. Lepgold and Lamborn 2001).

So-called "stage models" of the policy-making processes generally include treatment of implementation as a key factor that affects policy outputs and outcomes (Allison 1971; George 1980; Khong 1992). Of the four bodies of work examined in this study, only cognitive institutionalism has emphasized the importance of implementation. In fact, results from many of the CI case studies clearly demonstrate that implementation is a crucial factor that affects policy outcomes. Yet it is important to

keep in mind that both "top-down" and "bottom-up" perspectives on implementation are needed. The former calls our attention to the problem of fidelity between strategic- level choice and operational-level action. The latter emphasizes the autonomy and informational advantages that sometimes enable implementers to improve on the

products of top-level decisions. Vigilant implementation can serve to detect and cor- rect flaws in strategic-level decisions, whereas sloppy implementation can turn even a

strategically sound decision into a fiasco (Sabatier 1993; Bovens and 't Hart 1996). Both PH and DU view foreign policy making as a multilevel game centered on the

decision-making process (cf. Peterson 1996). In stark contrast to realist renderings, PH asserts the primacy of domestic politics but tends to overstate the case in its heavy


emphasis on the application of the noncompensatory principle to this dimension. In contrast, DU highlights the contingent nature of domestic (and, for that matter, international) constraints, convincingly arguing that individual and collective characteristics of the decision unit can either serve to amplify or to mute the impact of external constraints, helping us to understand why some leaders (and groups) allow themselves to be paralyzed by domestic political constraints, whereas others ignore or transcend them (Bass 1997).

The third wave of foreign policy decision-making research that began in the 1990s is still going strong. Further progress will require intensified communication across disciplines, subfields, and foreign policy decision-making research sects. Different groups of researchers have been accumulating important pieces of the foreign policy decision-making puzzle. The best way to maintain the momentum that has been built up is to put the pieces on the table together and see what emerges. Although our sub- field has already benefited greatly from such professional cross-pollination, the complementarities and synergies among the various schools of foreign policy decision making have yet to be fully exploited.

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