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Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 12:22 PM
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Today, I'd like to try a bit of crowd-sourcing. Specifically, I'd like to ask readers of this blog for some help with one of my courses. The course is a graduate-level survey of international and global affairs, designed for public policy students concentrating in that area. One of the components I'm adding this year is a session explicitly focused on the topic of "policy analysis in international and global affairs." By "policy analysis," I mean the method (or for some, the art) of analyzing concrete policy problems and deciding which policy options will best achieve some intended goal.
Here's the problem. There is an extensive literature on policy analysis, including well-known works by Eugene Bardach, Michael Munger, John Kingdon, Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser, Deborah Stone, and many others. Yet the bulk of these works focus on domestic policy analysis (i.e., on the analysis of problems that policy analysts face in purely domestic contexts). So far, I have yet to discover any serious work explaining how to do policy analysis in the realm of foreign policy or international and global affairs.
There is a large literature on the analysis of military budgets and defense management--dating back to the heyday of "systems analysis" in the Pentagon-but this literature views these problems as essentially a domestic issue (e.g., the choices decision-makers make between guns vs. butter, or between Weapon System #1 vs. Weapon System #2, etc.). There are also works like Wolfgang Reinecke's Global Public Policy, but this book is an extended argument for why we need to situate policymaking at the global rather than national level. It is not a primer explaining how one actually performs the analysis of a concrete global policy issue.
I'm not saying that such works do not exist; I just haven't been able to find them. And assuming that there aren't any/many, it's interesting to speculate on why that is the case. I think it is partly because scholars in international relations have tended to focus on grand theory (realism, liberalism, constructivism, etc.), or on trying to identify recurring laws or tendencies between states or other groups. In short, they are mostly engaged in a positivist search for regularities, and trying to devise theories that explain them). In other words, most scholars stand apart from the policy process and treat international affairs as something to be studied from a safe distance, much as a biologist might study animals in the wild. There's just not that much interest in the academy in giving students practical advice on how to solve problems, and it's not clear that most academics would have much to contribute even if they were interested. With the exception of some important work on environmental issues (which tend to be global in scope), that task has been mostly addressed by scholars of public management or public administration, not IR.
Similarly, the field of "foreign policy analysis" tends to focus on explaining why governments make the foreign policy decisions that they do, and not on developing methods or techniques for analyzing different foreign policy options. So this literature investigates how regime type, bureaucratic politics, interest groups, social and individual psychology and any number of other "independent variables" influence government decisions. In other words, the subfield of "foreign policy analysis" does not tell you how to analyze a concrete policy problem or compare the merits of alternative policy choices.
For whatever reason, scholars working in the broad area of international and global affairs have not devoted much attention to helping would-be policy analysts learn how to do the jobs that most of them will eventually occupy. Instead, I suspect graduates of leading public policy schools end up learning this on-the-job.
One might ask: why can't we just take the existing literature on "policy analysis" and apply it to foreign policy? I think students can get some useful insights from that literature, and that some of the specific analytic techniques developed there (such as cost-benefit analysis) are clearly germane and valuable. But there are some key differences between the situation facing a domestic policy analyst and someone addressing an international or global problem. In general, policy analysts working on domestic issues are dealing with situations where there is clear legal authority and where politics, though never absent, is less salient. If your job is figuring out how to cut costs for an urban bus system, decide how to accommodate increased enrollment in a local public school, or come up with proposal to improving health care improve, etc., the main task is to identify the goals, figure out the alternatives, identify the likely results of different choices, and eventually decide which alternative will best accomplish the intended goal. Once the decision is reached, legitimate authority to implement it presumably exists (although one may also have to develop a strategy for building sufficient political support).
In global affairs, by contrast, the rule of law is far weaker and there are often competing power centers with very different interests. Strategic interactions loom much larger, and the success of a given policy choice often depends not just on the intrinsic merits of the specific initiative but on how other key actors will respond to it. (Among other things, this is why simple game theoretic models are often useful for analyzing certain international policy problems). To the extent that the issues are truly global, the correct policy choice depends far more on bargaining, persuasion, in some cases coercion, and on developing solutions that either elicit others' voluntary compliance or achieve the objective in the face of opposition. Such features are not entirely absent in domestic policy discussions, but they play a larger role in interactions between states, corporations, and non-state actors operating in the anarchic world of international politics.
Whatever the reason, there seems to be a large and regrettable gap in the existing literature. Note to potential authors: we need a good book or article that gives students a useful guide to performing policy analysis in international and global affairs.
Unless, of course, such a work already exists. So here's your chance to shape what my students read next term: is there anything good to read about global policy analysis? Anybody got any good suggestions?
I haven’t read any of the domestic policy analysts you cite, nor am I an IR scholar, but it seems to me that since this is a graduate course, students could be asked to begin developing a theory of policy analysis in international and global affairs. For it seems to me that it’s from this generation of grad students that international policy analysts will emerge. It would be worth emphasizing that point in class.
Assuming that this is a small class – seminar size – and that the unit on this topic extends over more than just a class or two, I would ask students to choose one one of the domestic policy analysts you've cited, and in a 4-page paper discuss the problems and possibilities of extending the thought of that analyst into the international sphere. Each student would then read his/her paper to the class, and students could take up a discussion of it. This would at the very least get students actively to grapple with the problem of the gap between domestic and international policy analysis. In short, get them to try to solve the problem.
Marteen Hajer's article, "Policy without Polity: policy analysis and the institutional void," is a recent classic in the policy studies field, and it opens the domestically oriented policy studies field to the more general problem of situating analysis in an international or other non-state context where formal institutions such the state (and by extrapolation, the nation state) need not be assumed to be the principal actors that determine policy outcomes.
These volumes gathers the great contributions in the field. In particular the Goldstein/ Keohane, Yee, and Laffey and Welders texts provide excellent tools for students to theorize about foreign policy, according to me. The vast theoretical and methodological contributions included underscores the complexity of studying the ’global’, and the many ways that arguably leads us to Rome.
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book229020
How do others perceive policy making?
How about introducing your student to how much the world perceives their world? Peasant societies have perceptions different from ours and those perceptions create a national political culture. We have to deal with those political cultures, but we can not gain many positive results if we only know how to deal from our western frame of reference. Peasant societies affect much of the world.
With that in mind, here is an article that really hits the spot. At least, from my personal experiences, this article provides a good primer about how to approach policy making and politics in peasant based countries.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1965.67.2.02a00010/pdf
Bob Spencer
That sure sounds pejorative. There are more differences than that. Our very view of the world is different, our logical syllogisms different. We, following Aristotle's lead tend to categorize the world as "A" and "not A, B" where the Chinese may well see this as "A" defines "B" and "B" defines "A" If you were to construct truth tables, with these different constructions, you'd have different conclusions in a few circumstances. And, that's just East Asia. There are many fundamental differences in how we perceive the world around us. One of the stupidest divisions is the "communist" and "capitalist" when both, in fact all economies are deeply concerned about securing natural resources, "profiting" from the development and improvement of those resources.
Our construction of the world sees more opposition than is really there, that will lead us to miss opportunities and possibilities.
but have you thought about contacting the editors a PSJ, JPART or JPAM to put together a symposium on the topic - they sometimes do that for special topics. And I'd said you raised a question - no policy analysis in IR like that in American politics - which qualifies as a special topic.
Also, you omit Wildavsky's name in your post, and that surprised me, in part because of the Berkeley connection; he wrote on budgeting in poor countries.
But a good question, and no quick answers spring to mind.
Why Leaders Lie
John Mearsheimer
Drezner's book All Politics is Global does some of the work you're talking about, treating policy as goal-oriented and complicated by various power centers. In some ways he oversimplifies policy making by emphasizing only the conflicting interests of great powers. It is somewhat theoretical in that way, but he does bore down into some of the actual policy products. There's a lot of room in the text for students to interact with Drezner's theory by engaging with primary sources too.
Context before detail; understanding before action
Professor,
Coming after your yesterday's piece regarding US/China relationship, I realized we have scant knowlege/understanding on how Chinese processes its thinking, regarding domestic/foreign policies and public/personal interaction, in view of its own tried-and-true history and modern application. I would begin with two book-ends of Chinese philosophy: Taoism and Confucianism.
Start with Confucianism's Four-Books (i.e. Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects, and Mencius.)
For example:
Main passage from the book Great-learning (regarding Chinese attitude for education and China's for 'harmonius' world), courtesy of Wikipedia,
.................................
???????????????
Wishing to order well their States, they first regulated their families.
??????????
Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons.
??????????
Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.
??????????
Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts.
??????????
Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost of their knowledge.
??????????
Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
?????
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete.
??????
Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere.
??????
Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified.
??????
Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated.
??????
Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated.
??????
Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed.
??????
Their States being rightly governed, the entire world was at peace.
???????
..............................................
Lao-zi's Dao De Jing (Taoism) is another integral-thought governing high level Chinese outlooks in life, which is very different from Confucianism.
Funny that two 6th century BC philosophers would be "bookends," perhaps a bit awkward, if valid metaphor.
Taoism reveals one big distinction between us and them in their finding balance where we see opposition. This is part and parcel of our Manichean view of the world versus theirs. We see evil enemies lurking everywhere, where they see challenge and competition. But like many with superstitions about the world, our delusions of danger may well bring us down. Our tilt toward total world dominance foments resent, bankrupts us, bears tremendous opportunity cost. The benefits of our policies are understated, though frankly, most of those benefits redound to a select few, who happen to direct/lobby for these policies.
"Avoiding Trivia", edited by your FP colleague Dan Drezner has some good chapters on how to think about (foreign) policy planning and set it up organizationally.
"Being useful: policy relevance and international relations theory", is more a book about how theory can be applied to policy, but is a good place to start. The chapters by Jentleson and Lepgold are especially useful for the purpose of your class, I think. Alexander George's foreword is insightful, as ever.
"Managing Strategic Surprise", edited by Ian Bremmer and Paul Bracken, is a good collection on risk assessment and management in international affairs. Bremmer's "The Fat Tail" is a good treatment of this type of policy analysis as it applies to investment policy, but that could easily be applied to foreign policy with minor modifications.
"The Predictioneer's Game", by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita takes it one step further and discusses his prediction business in surprising and refreshing candor (the chapter on the pitfalls of prediction is especially amusing).
"Why Intelligence Fails", by Bob Jervis is not only a terrific account of the problems of intelligence, but also of the political and institutional obstacles to good policy analysis, that any good policy analyst should have in mind.
Finally, I would suggest that the students learn from the masters of policy analysis. Reading policy papers and policy articles by people like Bernard Brodie, Tom Schelling and Raymond Garthoff can serve as lessons and inspiration to those aspiring to be policy analysts.
Cheers,
Dani Nedal
I'm not in IR, but I do work in policy/public administration, and you're completely right. We have doctoral students wanting to bridge that gap and find it difficult to get a strong foothold in existing literature. I love the idea of a potential special issue on the topic and will be forwarding this article to a couple of editors just to see if anyone might be interested.
Extra points for "There's just not that much interest in the academy in giving students practical advice on how to solve problems, and it's not clear that most academics would have much to contribute even if they were interested." Unfortunate, but certainly accurate.
No where in the process of actually crafting policy, are these questions anything but rhetorical asides. Policy is pushed by acute interests, and the academic question Walt asks is for those on the sidelines, it's sport. Less relevant than sidebets at a craps game--and at least a sidebet has something riding on it. All this is ACTUALLY about is giving the Monday Morning Quarterbacks some paradigm to order their BS.
Scott,
Why don't you go over to USA JOBS and enter in the search term "policy analyst" and see what you get. Your view of politics is as narrow as it is critical. The skill of policy analysis is used extensively in bureaucracies. And while bureaucracies are never really neutral neither do they function as "cabals". Serious work at trying to develop policy options and adjudicate between them in a rigorous fashion does occur.
And for all of you who think universities can not teach this you are only partially right. The way good IR and Foreign Policy professors teach involves the ongoing arguments between several worldviews that focus on different aspects of foreign policy that may be relevant and how evidence tends to support those differing views. In order to analyze policy options you need to be able to conceive of what options are really possible. That requires the ability to try on multiple perspectives and think about how the world works from that perspective. This is the necessary first step in good policy analysis and we in the academy can (unfortunately not all do) do this well.
It is not the inherent nature of universities to be irrelevant to real policy, rather it is the incentive structure of tenure and the esoteric interests of some academics that is the problem.
If you want to see what can be done with professors that are policy focused in conjunction with motivated undergraduate students go look at the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS) and William and Mary and scroll down to the research project generated by the undergrads there
http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/PIPS/
And no, I am not affiliated with the program, I am on the opposite coast.
So I hope people stop slamming the academy on this issue and take time to look at the good stuff that is being done and think about how we can do more of it.
Perhaps you mistake the definition of "academic" that I am using. I mean it as synonymous with "moot" or "removed from reality." Take Iran. Iran has no nukes, no known nuke program, and is apparently in compliance with the letter of the NPT. However, it is treated as an established fact that Iran is a rogue nation, counting down the seconds till they unveil their vast arsenal of nukes. So, again, facts matter to any system we'd devise, but facts are cooked, those with ulterior motives determine the "facts," propaganda influences perceptions of threats, and in foreign policy this is more true. As, there is not political costs to sins against others in other nations, as there are to welfare reform, taxes on the rich or other domestic maneuvers.
I don't doubt that policy analysts are used, but this is not a science. The thoughts of a 1000 policy analysts don't affect policy one iota. Rather we are moved by marketing, propaganda, and the agendas of big money--that's how politics and policy are crafted in this country. If you think otherwise, you are naive. Another example is that it has long been the policy of the US to oppose Israeli settlement expansion, yet, we've seen this flouted incessantly since devised. We have scores of policies that Israel violates, but there is no penalty, no reprimand, not even the acknowledgement of violations. If that's not "academic" I don't know what is.
"pop"
This is not something that universities are that good at. Law school curricula, for example, is good at teaching the history and theory of law but does not really prepare students to do practical every day law -- they learn that in their apprenticeships.
I do not think a general treatise is really possible for this subject because most of the academics that have had success as analysts in government have carefully crafted their analyses to the political contingencies of the time. These are continually changing.
The best "objective" analysts here in the US have been those working in the CIA and the State Department over the years. Perhaps you should consider some of the better examples of such work. George Kennan's famous 1946 paper in FA might be used as an example. I was impressed with Michael Scheur's "Imperial Hubris" (I know, I know, when his personal politics intrude into this book it can seem blood curdling, but leaving that aside, his assessment of what we were facing in Afghanistan seemed pretty profound to me). Ask Jim McGovern, he was a CIA analyst for many years, he should have some good ideas.
How about Essence of Decision?
"Essence of Decision" by Allison and Zelikow seems to be one of the best examples of merging public policy decision making theory (ie Kingdon's policy streams approach) and real world policy making, in this case the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Please keep posts like this coming, its great fodder for students like like me who are just starting to put together our thesis proposals.
there aren't any books on foreign policy because the question you ask never arises. Nations have interests and a cabal will sue to pursue some interest to them. It's all insider trading and dealing. Nowhere are the questions you ask, asked. Why fool yourself, or your students?
There's a better argument that higher taxes increase GDP and business investment, however we never hear it, why? Cause there's no lobby money for it. Foreign policy is decided by the most influential/richest lobby. Often, the issues are NOT equally represented, since these are foreign policies. I actually am offended by your question, as it lends pretense that FP is a deliberative, self conscious formulation. It is anything but, as the victims are OTHER there is no consideration for them. No consideration of blowback, no consideration of the cost to the citizens. It is all for the elites, for access to markets, and believe me those interests will direct policy makers to the policy they want. Your lackey, lick-spittle, sycophant students know which side the bread is buttered. They don't get there being contrarians, or questioning the powers that be.
You need to teach them the golden rule, "do unto others..." This is really all there needs to be. They are callous, mendacious, self-serving people limited only by the limits of might--and would be judged harshly by the golden rule. Thomas Jefferson has it right that people will endure much, "but when a long train of usurpations..." they will react. That reaction is the test of foreign policy. Does it result in blowback, does it erode our reputation/good will? What is the cost of that? One tidy metric would be the mineral contracts that we've lost in Afghanistan. Cause, like it or not, the demos is one thing that can't be controlled (both in the scientific sense and the law and order sense) and we will never "know" what will trigger revolt and resentment.
You would do well to go over to the philo dept, and get a primer on epistemology--do we ever "know" anything? or are we seeking "to know that we know?" The latter is a measure that is unattainable, but what you're asking for in this article.
So much of the premises you'd be working with are utter BS too. It would be like trying to seriously study football (or any sport) by relying heavily on the interviews with the athletes and coaches before and after the game. In FP as in sports, the commentary of the participants is very circumscribed, intentionally generic and, if perchance some substantial words are issued, they are very often a ruse.
How widely known was the fraud of Gulf of Tonkin? Remember the Maine? How can you even pose the question when the very facts of the famous "trigger" events are dubious? I sure wasn't fooled by the Bush admin's dubious case for WMD in Iraq. Don't know how any earnest, diligent observer could have been fooled, but how many Congressmen were? How many are incapable of viewing data critically? Doesn't the frailties of this human perception matter more than any other variable or constant? How do you control for such things? Any "science" that relies on the mercurial mind is a futile effort--though damned interesting. Invariably, we are stuck with the simple phenomenon that we are incapable of seeing ourselves as others see us. We can't even look on our own image in the mirror, or in a photo and see that as we see the others next to us. We see through a glass (of human consciousness) darkly, and that is our inescapable fate.
Terry Pratchett:
1. Jingo
2. Thud!
Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford U.)
1. Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations
Michael Porter (Harvard U)
1. On Competition
2. Competitive Advantage of Nations
Then again, there is no shortage of 'theory'
As the old economist joke goes:
'that may be perfect for the real-world, but it will never work in theory."
There appears to be no shortage of theories for strategy, whether domestic or global. To quote: "There's just not that much interest in the academy in giving students practical advice on how to solve problems, and it's not clear that most academics would have much to contribute even if they were interested."
to continue: "For whatever reason, scholars working in the broad area of international and global affairs have not devoted much attention to helping would-be policy analysts learn how to do the jobs that most of them will eventually occupy. Instead, I suspect graduates of leading public policy schools end up learning this on-the-job."
If that's the case, then rather than searching for more theoretic academy driven PhD subsidizing articles or textbooks, why not contact the State Department or Congressional comittee on Foreign Relations, and see if they have an intro handbook for members & new hires.
In this vein, it would seem that the focus should be more on practical examples and 'war-stories' to bridge the gap between theory and real-world.
Kissenger (On China and Diplomacy) would seem to be a leading candidate. Or, stretching the State Dept idea, contact former SoS's and ask them what was beneficial to both them and their staff.
Try Richard J. Heuer's, 'The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis'.
Originally produced for the CIA, this is a great book, and can be downloaded free from the internet. I've given it to my students with a very positive response. I'd recommend it to any student studying public policy, even if their area of policy has nothing to do with intelligence. Heuer's discussion of cognitive biases and how they affect analysis, and his suggestions of how to address this, are just as valid for policy analysis as intelligence. Tools he proposes, such as Analysis of Competing Hypothesis, are also applicable to policy. [Incidentally, you can also download for free computerized Analysis of Competing Hypothesis software from the Palo Alto Research Center, which students can try out to see how it works].
That should be 'hypotheses' plural!
Steve,
The was a volume, Foreign Policy Implementation written (edited) many years ago (1985?) by Steve Smith and Michael Clarke. the cases are long out of date but if my memory serves their introductory essays and so forth did a really fine job of emphasizing the importance of policy implementation. IMHO, this aspect of the policy process and thus policy analysis is often under-emphasized, largely because most want to focus the top-end, strategic choices rather than the nitty-gritty detail of what happens and why to policies once they are decided upon either by the President, his senior staff, and or in a different sense by Congress.
Not sure this volume has had much resonance if I were teaching this I would look for something similar or use a chapter or two to adress an area I considered much-neglected.
Peter
Prior to "analyzing concrete policy problems and deciding which policy options will best achieve some intended goal" it is good to understand something about
the countries in question. For this, one should first discard texts by foreign policy experts and CIA analysts. Choose those authors who were involved with the country in non-selfish way, a Westerner would do better than native for the first reading. Say, for Middle East it could be Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" (and, yes, Thesiger's "Arabian Sands"), for Afghanistan Elliot's "Unexpected Light", for Russia Satter's "Darkness at Dawn". The possible result would be that the student will see that most of "intended goals" are rather not to be pursued though.
Stephen,
For conceptual analysis of foreign policy, you might consider the Diebel Model in the late Terry Diebel's book Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft (Cambridge University Press, 2007). The conceptual model could be adapted to other countries and case studies for comparative analysis:
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1163822/?site_locale=en_GB
Richard K. Betts' new book American Force (2011) may also be relevant for a US-oriented perspective of global strategic affairs.
You might also consider John Glenn or Jeffrey Lantis' work on strategic culture and national security, in order to contrast neo-realist and other perspectives.
Regards,
Alex Burns
Thinking in Time by Neustadt and May?
Does this fit?
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Time-Uses-History-Decision-Makers/dp/0029227917
Scan "Small Wars Journal" for practical issues in policy analysis and evaluation... For example: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/best-practices-guide-for-conducting-assessments-in-counterinsurgencies. There are many others. . . .
Policy Analysis for National Security
There's the book by Richard Kugler, "Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs: New Methods for a New Era." Put out by NDU. I believe you can still find pdf copies online but I have it if you're interested and can't find it.
When a fact challenged sophist like Richard Haass leads the leading "foreign policy thinktank" CFR, all your theories are worthless. Sophism cannot be made into sensible policy.
Global Policy Analysis/Dr. Robert M. Clark
Here is a book on intelligence policy analysis. The author is Dr. Robert M. Clark is an independent consultant, former President and CEO of the Scientific and Technical Analysis Corporation, and Group Vice President of BTG, Inc. Dr. Clark served in the USAF as an Electronics Warfare Officer and Intelligence Officer, reaching the reserve rank of Lieutenant Colonel; and in the CIA as an analyst and executive in the Intelligence Directorate. He is the author of Intelligence Analysis: Estimation and Prediction. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from George Washington University. He is a Presidential Interchange Executive, a member of the Virginia State Bar, and a Patent Attorney.
The link to the book is below.
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Analysis-Target-Centric-Robert-Clark/dp/156802830X
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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