When Things Go Wrong: Foreign Policy Decision Making under Adverse Feedback

208 Pages·2011·0.48 MB·English

by  Charles F. Hermann

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
What happens when a government begins a major foreign policy commitment
and then later receives new information that it is failing? The question of how
to deal with adverse feedback to high-stakes foreign policy speaks to a number
of important, current scenarios in international relations. Indeed, how to handle
signs that major prior commitments are not working as intended is common to
every aspect of human existence—from the owner of an old car who has to decide
whether to make additional repairs after a critical breakdown, to management
deciding what course to follow when a new investment fails.
Important work has been undertaken on this decision dilemma in a variety of
fi elds. This book brings many of these insights to bear on the especially challenging
circumstances where life and death and international politics can add dramatically
to the costs of ineffective reactions. The esteemed contributors to this book offer
explanations and illustrative case studies of these critical choice points in foreign
and national security policy. They offer alternative theoretical frameworks for
determining if and when policy will change in response to evidence of failing
efforts. Competing theories from several of disciplines—primarily psychology,
political science and management—offer insight into a subject that has been
rarely studied in foreign policy, yet is as current as today’s headlines.
Charles F. Hermann is a Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University.
WHEN THINGS GO
WRONG
Foreign Policy Decision Making
under Adverse Feedback
Edited by
Charles F. Hermann
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editor to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
When things go wrong : foreign policy decision making under adverse
feedback / Charles F. Hermann, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. International relations—Decision making. 2. International relations—Psychological
aspects. 3. International relations—Decision making—Case studies. 4. United States—
Foreign relations—20th century—Decision making. I. Hermann, Charles F., 1938-
JZ1253.W49 2012
327.101'9—dc23
2011024010
ISBN13: 978-0-415-89528-6 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-89529-3 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-80126-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and ITC Stone Sans
by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper
by Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, MD.
CONTENTS
List of tables and fi gures vii
List of contributors ix
Foreword xi
Preface and acknowledgments xiii
1 What We Do When Things Go Wrong 1
Charles F. Hermann
2 Responding to Adverse Feedback: Group Decision
Making in Protracted Foreign Policy Problems 11
Charles F. Hermann and Robert S. Billings
3 From Anticipated Victory to Sensing Entrapment in
Vietnam: Group Effi cacy in the LBJ Administration 36
Charles F. Hermann
4 The Role of Leaders in Sequential Decision Making:
Lyndon Johnson, Advisory Dynamics, and Vietnam 53
Thomas Preston
5 Policy Commitment and Resistance to Change in
U.S.–Chinese Relations: The George H. W. Bush
Administration’s Response to Tiananmen Square 89
Jean A. Garrison
vi Contents
6 The British Strategy of Appeasement: Why
Britain Persisted in the Face of Negative Feedback 111
Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer, and B. Gregory Marfl eet
7 Applying Control Theory to Sequential
Foreign Policy Decision Making 142
Jeffrey B. Vancouver
8 Dealing with Adverse Feedback 174
Charles F. Hermann
Index 187
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Tables
2.1 Group expectations for different actions and their
impact on reconsideration 14
2.2 Possible effects on subsequent action of attributing failure
to elements in prior problem analysis 25
3.1 Comparison of group effi cacy and hypothesized sources,
1965–1968 49
4.1 Leader need for control and involvement in policy process 57
4.2 Leader sensitivity to context 59
4.3 General typology of composite leadership style types 60
6.1 VICS indices for philosophical and instrumental beliefs 122
6.2 Operational codes of Chamberlain and Eden: Period I 124
6.3 Operational codes of Chamberlain and Halifax pre- and
post-March 1939 130
6.4 Evidence of simple and diagnostic learning by British leaders 133
6.5 Evidence of complex learning across periods by British leaders 134
Figures
1.1 Sequential actions by actor intending to change target’s behavior 6
3.1 The effect of group effi cacy on sustaining a policy about which
decision makers receive adverse feedback depends upon the
group’s current level of effi cacy as determined by the value of key

antecedent conditions 40
6.1 Periods in British foreign policy, 1937–1939 117
viii List of Tables and Figures
6.2 Revised Holsti typology of belief systems and outcome preferences 120
6.3 Holsti typology strategies plotted with normalized key VICS scores 125
6.4 The operational codes of Chamberlain and Eden: Period I 127
6.5 The operational codes of Chamberlain and Halifax: March 1939 131
7.1 Core cybernetic structure 146
7.2 Part of the hierarchy of action subsystems of a generic
governmental system 150–151
7.3 Some hypothesized associations thought to predict policy
change given a control theory perspective 159
7.4 A simplifi ed representation of the U.S. military command structure
in Iraq in 2003 with the postulated goals associated with each
level including those of the two illustrative units at the base of
the diagram 166
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Robert S. Billings is Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University.
Jean A. Garrison is Professor of Political Science at University of Wyoming.
Charles F. Hermann is a Professor at the Bush School of Government and
Public Service, Texas A&M University.
B. Gregory Marfl eet is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton
College.
Thomas Preston is Professor of Political Science at Washington State University.
Mark Schafer is Professor of Political Science at University of Central Florida.
Jeffrey B. Vancouver is Professor of Psychology at Ohio University.
Stephen G. Walker is Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University.
FOREWORD
ABOUT THAT ELEPHANT …
Every fi eld of research includes several questions, issues and topics that we all
know are there, that we all know are important, but we just never seem to address.
In Foreign Policy Analysis one of the biggest of those elephants standing in the
center of our room has been the puzzle of policy change. Twenty years ago, when
I was too young, eager and foolish to wonder if there might be a reason for that
yawning chasm in the literature, it was the fi rst research question I tackled. In
the process I learned that there were very good reasons for that void in the FPA
literature.
If anyone asks, I shifted away from exploring policy change because I was
intrigued by the agenda setting aspects of the domestic imperatives model, which
represents the only decent, albeit minor, publication I managed to carve out of
that effort. However, a more honest answer is that after two years of intense study, I
simply could not see a way to take the policy change question any farther. Working
from the idea that all policy actions were policy changes because the status quo
was the default policy choice, I modeled how the pressure from sustained media
coverage could drive a shift to policy action. I was happy with the resulting model,
but I also knew that what I was looking at was a very specifi c and specialized
subset of policy change and I could not fi nd a way to move conceptually from the
media as driver of change to something more generalizable. There did not seem
to be a pattern to be found in the instances where media probably should have
driven policy change, but did not. There did not seem to be a pattern or clear,
generalizable dynamic to when policy changed in the absence of overwhelming
and sustained media coverage.
Over the years, in the various editorial and research roles I have played in the
study of Foreign Policy Analysis, I have always kept an eye open for the idea,
anecdote or bit of empirical evidence that would give me the idea I needed to