Making foreign policy; presidential management of the decision-making process

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005

JZ1480

2004-028579

0-7546-4463-4

Making foreign policy; presidential management of the decision-making process.

Mitchell, David.

Ashgate Publishing Co., [c]2005

271 p.

$79.95

Mitchell (Bucknell U.) develops the Advisory Systems Decision Framework to investigate how a US president's choice of management style influences the government's foreign policy decision-making process and decision outcomes. Foreign policy analysts have addressed the relationship, he says, but have failed to take seriously into account centralization as a key variable in determining the nature of the decision-making process, and have dealt only superficially with the connection between the process and its outcomes. He argues that the unstructured solutions the president and advisers use to resolve disagreements has implications for the outcome.