The Arab States in the Regional and International System:
III. Foreign Policy Decision-Making: An Academic View
Dr. Bahgat Korany

Dealing with foreign policy and decision-making, we are changing levels of analysis. We are shifting to the micro or country level, the level of the tree (as opposed to the forest, as in dealing with the regional system). The way decisions are made in a certain country is very revealing. Indeed, the decision-making process can be likened to the microcosm of the whole political world with its different participants and influences - domestic and foreign or external. The analysis of a country’s decision-making in this respect is like opening a box and seeing what is inside.

Unfortunately, we do not have time to deal with all the complexities of decision-making analysis, because this would require contributions from psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, political scientists and even medical doctors, biologists, system analysts and engineers. We must limit ourselves to our topic: decision-making in the realm of foreign policy. In this respect, I need to emphasize two important points.

Decisions, although important, are only one part of a country’s foreign policy. There are many other aspects, for instance, a country’s foreign policy orientation or general strategy. A country may decide - as a principle - to reject alliances and stay non-aligned (e.g., India, Abdul Nasser’s Egypt) or to be pro- or anti-American. Britain, for instance, has traditionally collaborated with the US, forming an Anglo-Saxon front, even against some European political positions.

Another aspect of a country’s foreign policy is its specific behavior in its relation with others: it can be diplomatic or commercial, and depends on the partner and the subject in question (e.g., recognition/non-recognition of a new government, trade with other countries).

These overall policy orientations comprise the basis for a country’s decision-making; they direct a country in its decisions as to whether to launch a war or sign a peace treaty. Examples are Sadat’s decision to visit Jerusalem in 1977, and the PLO’s decision to sign the Oslo Accords and recognize Israel in 1993.

In social science theory and methodology, these aspects are known as dependent variables, i.e., the factors that need to be explained and that are themselves determined by other factors, known as independent variables. These independent variables are the sources of foreign policy, the determinants - economic, military, geographic, historical, etc. - that shape decisions and foreign policy in general.

The second important point to be emphasized is that there are two main schools of thought as to what shapes foreign policy decisions. Analysts are divided about whether decisions are individual or group acts. Many people who analyze decision-making in Third World countries think of these countries as dominated by strong individuals who monopolize the decision-making process and its outcome. Although this is not wrong, the role of individuals should not be exaggerated as one may easily fall victim to a ‘great man theory of history.’ Leaders do count in Third World countries but neither they nor their countries are completely free agents. They suffer from constraints and pressures, both domestic (e.g., factions and pressure groups) and external (e.g., international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other funding organizations, and superpowers such as the US with an influence in some Latin American countries, or France in French-speaking Africa). As a result, in many Third World countries, especially the poor and small ones, the decision-making process is much more akin to decision-taking.

Other important questions concern exactly how rational decisions are and even if they are always rational. Although most leaders would claim otherwise, decisions are not and cannot always be completely rational. Rationality pre-supposes complete and objective information beforehand. A leader cannot know everything about the international system, its countries and their interims before making decisions. As a result, analysts agree in general that decisions are based on and restricted by limited rationality, and that decision-makers should try to obtain as much basic information as possible before deciding to prevent a decision from being a failure or leading to a catastrophe.