U.s. Foreign Policy Decision-making Mechanism

The thesis mainly studies the process of foreign policy decision making of the United States. Through inspecting the main parts of foreign policy decision making, it studies how the organization is established and what is the function of making foreign policy decision, it also studies how the powers are divided in the process of making foreign policy decision. Based on this, the thesis studies the case of the Iraqi war, in this part, it applies the theory of making foreign policy decision in western countries, it analyzes the procedure of making foreign policy decision of the United States.The thesis's focal point is as follows:At first, it introduces three kinds of theory that is relevant with making foreign policy decision in western countries. They are macroscopic model, middle model such as organizational process model, bureaucratic politics model, political process model and microcosmic model such as psychological cognitive model, so that it can serve as foil for the following practice studying.Secondly, it inspects the main parts of making foreign policy decision system of the United States. In this part, it points out three levels of the main parts in the process of making foreign policy decision. They are president and his adviser, bureaucratic organization, congress, interest groups, think tanks, public media and public opinion. This part answers who make the foreign policy of the United States.Thirdly, it studies the procedure of foreign policy decision making through the case of the Iraqi war that is launched by the United States. The thesis applies the microcosmic model such as psychological cognitive model and middle model such as politic process model to analyze how the policy is put forward, how the agenda is established, what is the target of the Iraqi war, how the plan is formulated and chosen, and how the government of Bush evaluated the resultand adjusted the policy.Finally, the thesis makes some thinking of foreign policy decision making system of the United States through the Iraqi war.