The Management Style And Foreign Policy Decisions Of The US Presiden

The study of international relations can be divided into strategic studies,political studies,and decision-making studies.This paper focuses on the field of decisionmaking research,and attempts to explore the relationship between decision-making processes and outcomes.The research perspective chosen in this paper is the management style of the American president.The research question derived from this theme is: What is the management style of the US president? How to examine the management style of the US president? How does the management style of the US president affect foreign policy decision making?scholars have long observed the influence of bureaucratic politics and groupthinking in the process of decision-making.Many classic studies have also been produced from the rationality,cognition and personal characteristics of decision makers.Relatively speaking,management style,as an influencing factor that can build a bridge between decision-makers and decision-making groups,has received little attention.Management activities have an influence on the behavior of decision-making groups,so it can affect the decision-making process and ultimately affect the decision-making results.Due to the diversity of presidential management activities and management objects,based on the analysis of management,management style,leadership style and governance style,this paper defines presidential management style as the characteristics that the president exhibits in managing the foreign policy-making process which can influence the decision-making.The paper is based on Richard Tanner Johnson’s three classic management models.Johnson once summed up three classic presidential management models: collegial,formal and competitive.After comparing the characteristics,advantages,and disadvantages of the three models,this paper extracts three core dimensions for examining the presidential management style:decision-making process,control,and team relations.Decision-making process refers to whether the president attaches importance to order in the management of the decision-making process,which is mainly investigated through the procedures adopted by the president in the decision-making process.Control refers to the president’s control over the decision-making system,mainly manifested in the control of the decisionmaking process and the control of the behavior of subordinates.Team relations refer to the state of relationship that the president desires among team members during the decision-making process: harmony,shared responsibility,or conflict.These three dimensions can affect decision-making by influencing the information gathered by the president in the decision-making process.This article selects the representative foreign policy-making of three presidents,Bush,Obama and Trump,for comparative analysis.Chapter 3 focuses on the issue of decision-making order,and compares Bush’s decision to star war in Afghanistan(2001)and the decision to invade Iraq(2003).Chapter 4 focuses on centralization,comparing Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan(2009)with his decision to peacefully resolve the Syrian “chemical weapons” crisis(2013).Chapter5 focuses on team relations,and compares Trump’s limited strike against Syria(2017)and his decision to increase troops in Afghanistan.The research of this paper finds that the three factors of process,control and team relationship are the three core dimensions of presidential management style.The president’s management style is not static,and changes in the pressure of the decisionmaking environment can affect the change of the president’s management style.Second,attaching importance to decision-making process can help the president’s foreign policy-making process to be more standardized,thereby avoiding mistakes to a certain extent.Third,the high degree of control does not necessarily guarantee the quality of decision-making output,but it can make the decision-making results more in line with the president’s wishes and prevent the decision-making process and results from being dominated by other decision-making participants.Fourth,the conflicting management style is not common in the decision-making process.This management style has extremely high requirements on the leadership of the president.The innovation of this paper lies in the clear definition of the president’s management style from the perspective of decision-making research,the clarification of the three dimensions in the investigation of the president’s management style,and the proof through case analysis.At present,domestic research results on the president’s management style and foreign policy-making are relatively lacking.It is even rarer to systematically compare and analyze the management styles and foreign policy-making of Bush,Obama,and Trump.Against the background of the current international situation with increasing uncertainty and instability,the active role of leaders in shaping the future is highlighted.The U.S.president and his core decision-making circle dominate the direction and output of U.S.foreign policy-making.Therefore,the influence of the US president as a manager on foreign policy decisions should receive more attention.In the current background of increasingly complicated Sino-US relations and intensified competition,it is necessary to strengthen the research on the decision-making level of the United States.