POS/INT 363: US Foreign Policy: Research Paper:

    The assignment will be to examine a specific US foreign policy decision using the models of decision making that we will discuss the first week in class and are contained in the following readings. You will need to do some of the following readings in order to do the research paper. These readings are all on reserve at Cabell Library of available as indicated below. You don't have to do all of these readings, but skim through them and see which ones will be helpful to you. The only readings you should definitely read pretty thoroughly are at least two of either George, Johnson, or Snow and Brown.

Research Paper Readings:

For reference: We will talk about the organization of the US government for foreign policy, but this will allow you to answer any questions on it as well. It’s a great reference tool.

Sam Sarkesian, US National Security, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO., 1989 (UA 23 .S275 1989): Important just to familiarize you with the organization of the executive branch for foreign policy making.

• Chapter 4: The President and the Presidency, pp. 53-71;
• Chapter 5: The Policy Triad and the National Security Council, pp. 72-84;
• Chapter 6: The Military Establishment, pp. 85-93.
• Chapter 7: The Intelligence Establishment, pp. 94-111.

The following three readings are the ones that detail the presidential management model. You must read at least one of these, but I would recommend two. Without reading these and understanding them you cannot do the paper. 

1. Richard T. Johnson, Managing the White House, New York, Harper and Row, 1974, pp. 1-8, and 230-240; (JK518 .J63 1974)

2. Alexander George and Juliette George, Presidential Personality and Performance, Westview Press, Boulder, CO., 1998 (JK 511 .G46 1998): Chapter 6, "Presidential Management Styles and Models," pp. 199-280 (pp. 263-280 are footnotes; This has a section on every president from FDR to Clinton so you can get some ideas on each president’s decision style from this chapter.)

3. Donald Snow and Eugene Brown, Puzzle Palaces and Foggy Bottom, New York, St. Martins, 1994, pp. 40-70. (JX1417 .S634 1994)

What is the assignment?

1. Pick a specific US foreign policy decision: the decision to invade Grenada in 1983, the decision to renew China's Most Favored Nation status, the decision to deploy troops to Europe in the 1950s, the decision to isolate Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Anything!!!! Except the Cuban Missile Crisis (too many of the case studies used to illustrate the models of presidential decision making already examine the missile crisis). Remember this is one decision made by one president. It should be a narrowly defined decision. What I mean is this: the Johnson administration's decision making on Viet Nam is not a suitable topic. That is a book, not a term paper. Hypothetically, if you were interested in that topic then you could narrow it down: Johnson's decision making during the Gulf of Tonkin Crisis or Johnson's decision making to escalate the war from February 1965 to July 1965 or Johnson's decision to de-escalate the war in the winter of 1968.

2. Presidential decision making is a key focus of this course. Many scholars hypothesize that presidents attempt to bring order to decision making. Without some order, the decision making process can be chaotic. The hypothesis that a president attempts to structure, control, or manage the decision making process is often called the Presidential Management Model (PMM). Johnson, George, and Snow and Brown outline three management styles presidents have used to gain control of their administration's foreign policy decision making process: (1)Competitive style, (2)Formalistic style, and (3)Collegial style. In the first week of class we will discuss foreign policy decision making and the PMM model in detail though we will not go into the three different styles with any depth. That is part of your job as you research and write your paper. Look at the three management styles of the PMM, and examine the decision you have chosen. Which theoretical management style best describes the decision process during the specific case you have chosen?  In other words, is the decision making style competitive, collegial, or formalistic?  A brief, but important note:

THIS IS NOT AN EXAMINATION OF WHETHER THE DECISION WAS A GOOD DECISION TO MAKE!!!!...THIS IS NOT AN ANALYSIS OF HOW THE DECISION SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE!!!!!...THIS IS NOT AN ANALYSIS OF WHY THE DECISION WAS MADE....WHAT THIS IS, IS SIMPLY AN ANALYSIS OF HOW THE DECISION WAS ACTUALLY MADE!!!!!

The goal is to look at the historical record -- how the senior decision makers actually made their decision -- and then compare that to the three management styles of the PMM model. In your opinion, which management style more accurately describes the decision making process?

3. So, what you are really doing is examining a decision, deciding which management style describes the decision process, then using your research on the decision making process to prove your point. You also need to prove why the other management styles are less accurate in explaining the decision process as you see it.

4. Now, of course, you may decide that a decision has attributes of more than one management style. Excellent. You just need to illustrate that in your paper. You may also decide that the president lost complete control of the decision making process. A president may have attempted to manage the decision making process but failed to do so, or a president may have never attempted to manage the process. In effect, there was no management style, only chaos, the type of free-for-all that in the Allison readings and class lectures is called the Bureaucratic Politics Model of decision making. But then again, is this really no management style or is it a deliberate attempt by the president to have a wide open, freewheeling decision process. Maybe the president likes anarchy.

So in essence, this adds a fourth, fifth, and sixth choice, if you want:

• 1. Competitive;
• 2. Formalistic;
• 3. Collegial;
• 4. a combination of some of the above;
• 5. Failed Management Style: an attempt at one of the above that does not succeed;
• 6. No Management Style/or Deliberate Anarchy. No attempt at managing the process, allowing bureaucratic and organizational politics to twist decision making in all directions either inadvertently or by design.

That is excellent as well. Again, you just need to illustrate that in your paper. That's the key: using details from the actual decision making process to support your analysis and conclusions about that process.  There is no right or wrong answer.  The question is how well you make your case -- analysis backed up by evidence drawn from your research.

How is this done? You can do it in a number of ways.

A. Pick the management style you think is the most accurate. Explain how this model best illustrates the decision making process, then briefly (about two pages) tell why the other two styles are not accurate descriptions of the decision making process.

B. Show why several of the management styles (or lack of management) are relevant, and why you think that several of the styles are evident in the decision making process. Of course, address why the leftover (if any) management style is not relevant.

C. IMPORTANT: In explaining the decision process you should concentrate on answering the following:

• who was involved in the decision?
• who was not involved, and what does that say about the decision process?
• how did they decide -- command? consensus building? debate?
• when did they decide -- over a long time period? over a short time period? one big decision? a series of small decisions?

In essence, you are trying to look at how presidents organized (or failed to organize) the advice given by decision makers and the method presidents used in choosing a policy. Be specific. Don't give me only generalities. You must illustrate your point with the historical record. When were decisions made? What were the key meetings? Who was there? Who was not there and why?

5. A note on sources: Researching decision making is particularly interesting. The best sources are memoirs. Most major policy makers have written memoirs to tell their side of the story -- how all the successes were their doing and how all the failures were someone else's fault. So, normally, the first step in researching might be the usual PAIS, Reader's Guide, and computer searches (VCU on line journals or the DCAT, but pay careful attention to any computer databases -- how far back in time do they go.  A computer database that begins in 1990 may not be very helpful in researching a decision made in 1953).  For decision making, however, the first step should be to see if the senior decision makers, including the President, wrote memoirs (I've given you a list of senior decision makers for every administration since McKinley). Talk to me about problems you may have in researching. IMPORTANT: The library probably has one copy of any given memoir; so if everyone waits until the last minute, there will be no way you all can get hold of particular sources. So, start your research early!!!! And when you're finished with a book please return it to the library promptly, so other students may use it.  If you have problems getting hold of a copy of a specific memoir, talk to me.

IMPORTANT: On reserve and on line is a RESEARCH MANUAL!!!! It will tell you everything you need to know about a research paper. Please read it!!! I worked on it for a long time. It tells you a lot of important things you can use for any research paper, in any class. It also tells you what I expect. I guarantee that the people who read it will get better grades than the people who do not read it. It will help you both in your researching and writing of the paper. In addition if you want to know how to write a research paper and in particular how to organize a paper and write an introductory paragraph read any one of the assigned readings in Brown, et al., in particular the opening paragraphs.  This is how everyone should write. The journal that these readings come from is the best researched and most well-written journal on national security issues.

This paper should be 8-10 pages of text, with footnotes (endnotes, whatever) and a bibliography. For proper style of footnotes and bibliography see Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers, or copy the style used by one of the books you used for your research. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!! You must learn how to footnote properly, and how to write a bibliography with the correct and complete information. This is easy to do, but more important than you think. Whether you go into academia or business you will be judged on the quality of your information, and that means people will want to know where you found your information. They will judge you, at first, before they read your text, on your bibliography and citations (footnotes/endnotes). So make sure you include all the important information in both notes and bibliography. Since I have instructed you to pay attention to notation and bibliographic style, and have provided you with a specific place to look for the proper styles I will take points off of your paper if you do not do this in the correct manner. This is simple. If you do not do it correctly it means one or both of the following: 1) you are not taking the assignment seriously or are too lazy to do the paper correctly; and/or 2) you are doing the paper at the last minute. Both of these are good reasons why you will not get the grade you are able to earn.

You should use at least ten (10) sources, NOT including assigned class readings. Any less and I will take points off. You can't get any depth in your research if you use fewer.

DO NOT use contractions in the paper. As a general rule, contractions should not be used in formal papers. They are fine for fiction, especially in the case of dialogue, but they are inappropriate for non-fiction.

Also, do not waste your time quoting secondary literature. Only quote, if necessary, participants in the events you are describing. In the case of literature written by scholars, there is no need to quote, just paraphrase the idea in your own words and use a citation to give credit to the source of the idea. Go easy on quotes, in general. This is a small paper. If you use too much of it on quotes, I will not get to see your ideas and analysis, and your grade will suffer.

If you have any questions about any aspect of the assignment or research methodologies or anything about the paper talk to me, early and often.

LATE PAPERS: PAPERS ARE DUE AT THE START OF CLASS ON THE DUE DATE!!!!!   I will mark late papers down ONE GRADE for each day late. That means that an almost perfect paper -- one that I would give 98 points to -- becomes an 88 if one day late, 78 if two days late etc...all the way down to 8 points if nine days late, and zero points if ten days late. Talk to me if you are having some family or personal problems. If there is a serious need to get an extension on the paper, I will give you an extension. No problem.  I understand that there are more important things in life than this class and this assignment.  Talk to me.  Computer problems do not count as a problem that warrants an extension.  If you are writing your paper at the last minute and you have a problem, the moral of the story is that you should not have been writing your paper at the last minute.  If you have a printer problem, no problem, give me your disk and I will print up the paper, or come to my office hours and we'll print up the paper at my office.  If you have some kind of computer problem, and you are not writing your paper at the last minute, let me know.  Maybe I can help.

On Writing a Good Paper

1. Make sure you have a subject and verb in every sentence. (You would be surprised how many important journals and books allow non-sentence sentences). This is non-fiction, not fiction. So you need to observe the basic rules of grammar.
2. A long sentence is not necessarily a better sentence -- each sentence should express only one thought. Don't be afraid to break up a long sentence into two or three shorter ones. It will usually flow better that way.
3. Make an argument in the paper. State your conclusions in the introduction and explain how you will prove them in the paper. Don’t leave the conclusions for the end.
4. The introduction of your paper may be the most important part of it!!!) Make sure that the reader of your paper knows: (1) what is the decision you have chosen; (2) what is your conclusion; and (3) why did you come to that conclusion. This should be done all within the first couple of paragraphs of the paper. In other words, these first paragraphs or first paragraph should provide your reader with a "road map" that explains exactly what you will say during the paper. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Basically, what you need to do is write the outline you have for your paper in sentences in the first few paragraphs of the paper.

Your opening paragraph (or couple of opening paragraphs) should also give the reader some reason to be interested in your topic and in your argument. Tell the reader why this subject is important. Here is an overly simplified example of an opening paragraph (using an example that might have been written in the early months of 1992).

The George W. Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq can best be described as a collegial decision making process, in which the president relied on all his advisors to give him options and evaluations of options. However, the final decision was made by Bush himself after close consultation with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who appears to have been a “first-among-equals” adviser for Bush. (There's the topic and conclusion). During the deliberations in 2002 and 2003 all senior advisers participated in the decision making process. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a known supporter of continued sanctions against Iraq was always allowed to air his views in the National Security Council. While divisions did exist between the Dept. of Defense and Vice Presidents office (supporters of intervention) and the Dept. of State (supporter of sanctions) and the White House and NSC staff (less committed supporters of intervention) no views were left out of the debate (the specific argument and your evidence). This decision making process will be illustrated and analyzed through a focus on the intra-administration debate between January of 2002 and March of 2003, with a brief introduction on pre-September 11, Bush policy on Iraq. The narrative of the decision will be followed by an analysis of the decision process in the context of the presidential management models. (your road map).

So, this paragraph tells me what you think, summarizes why you think that is true, and explains how you will illustrate your point.

You can use lots of topic headings and subheadings to correspond to the points on your "road map" -- they'll help you organize your thoughts, and they'll help your reader clearly identify where he is on the "road map." The above paper might have five main sections:

• Introduction: Your intro paragraph(s)
• Pre-9/11 Policy on Iraq
• Divisions within the Administration on Intervention
• Key Meetings
• Analysis: Collegial Decision Making
• Conclusion:

As you make the points that support your argument, you'll probably be aware of the places in which your argument is controversial or in which a reasonable person might disagree with you. Preempt those controversies in your text. Point out what those opposing arguments might be, and why you think your point of view is more accurate or reasonable.

The VCU honor system covers plagiarism. It is not a fine line. Either ideas are yours, or they are not. But just because someone else has already written an idea that you agree with 100% doesn't mean you can't discuss it in your paper. Just point out whose idea it is; paraphrase it in your own words, cite the source of the idea, and expand upon it. Generally, that is how Political Science works. 90% of all Political Science articles and books do the following:

There are various explanations for the Bush decision process to invade Iraq. Stan argues that the process was formalistic (Stan 2005). Kyle disagreed, contending that Bush’s reliance on National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice illustrates a very informal model that almost resembles a competitive model as advisers fight to gain access to the president and Rice (Kyle 2004). Cartman believes that the decision to invade is best described as collegial, but consensus to intervene had been reached in late 2001 and the debate that followed really only concerned the timing of the invasion and the method of justifying it to the public (Cartman 2004).

The article would then outline the theories of Stan, Kyle and Cartman, analyze each one, and then develop the fourth theory. There is no problem as long as Stan, Kyle, and Cartman get credited with developing their theories, and the fourth theory is new. If the fourth theory belongs to a fourth author (Kenny? Timmy?), the reader must be told that the fourth theory is Kenny's or Timmy’s and your article will show why his theory is superior to the other three.

Ask questions if you have them.