| In a visit to Texas A&M University in April 1995, former President George Bush noted that during the Persian Gulf War, information from military, political, and other advisers was presented to him in ways that differed from situation to situation. On some occasions he would meet with all of his advisers at the same time. At other times he would meet with Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and James Baker, and then afterwards meet with Brent Scowcroft privately to get his assessment about what the others had said. Building on this interesting observation, this dissertation seeks to determine the influence of advisers on foreign policy processes and choice, and how decision processes themselves affect foreign policy outcomes.; To this end, I extend the poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making (Mintz et al. 1997) to include advisers in the decision unit. Hypotheses are derived testing the effects of advisers on the use of decision strategies and choice, and on the relationship between decision strategies and foreign policy outcomes. I use two previously developed measures of decision strategies: alternative vs. dimension-based and compensatory vs. noncompensatory. In addition, I develop a new measure for maximizing vs. satisficing decision strategies. I utilize process-tracing techniques in two experimental studies to test the hypotheses. I conclude with a case study, the air strikes against Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999, to support the theory and make the experimental findings more robust.; The findings show that decision makers are highly sensitive to and cognizant of the political ramifications of their decisions. Specifically, political advice and advisers acted as a sensitizing mechanism for decision makers, which led them to adopt noncompensatory and satisficing decision strategies. Advisers also influenced foreign policy choices. Finally, the decision strategies themselves affected the foreign policy choices made by decision makers. The findings have significant implications both for the study of foreign policy decision making as well as for our understanding of real world foreign policy decisions. |
