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Issue area and foreign policy analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

William C. Potter
William C. Potter
Affiliation:
Assistant Director of the Center for International and Strategic Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the editor of the forthcoming book Verification and SALT: the challenge of strategic deception.
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Extract

The past decade has witnessed the investment of considerable energy and ingenuity in the refinement of the categories of foreign policy determinants proposed in James Rosenau's famous essay, “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy.” A sizable literature on foreign policy behavior is now developing, based upon empirical tests of the explanatory power of such variables as size, wealth, degree of political accountability, decision-maker attributes, environmental stimuli, etc. Surprisingly little attention in the field of comparative foreignpolicy, however, has been directed at specifying more precisely and in operational form the concept of issue area—an important component of Rosenau's “pre-theory” and an analytic concept that has received much attention in the public policy field. Moreover, among those scholars who do employ the concept there is little consensus as to the merits of a content based as opposed to a process oriented treatment of issue area or to the implications for empirical research of selecting one approach over the other. This essay seeks: 1) to review the foreign policy literature that attaches major importance to issue area; 2) to assess the merits of alternative treatments of the concept in terms of their contribution to the development of a theory of comparative foreign policy; and 3) to specify the conditions under which different issue area approaches can be used most profitably in comparative foreign policy research.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , Summer 1980 , pp. 405 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1980

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References

I am grateful to Joel King for his assistance in the preparation of an earlier version of this paper. I also wish to thank Dan Caldwell, Robert Keohane, Stephen Krasner, William Zimmerman, and Dina Zinnes for their helpful comments.

1 Rosenau, James N., “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Approaches to Comparative and International Politics, Farrell, R. Barry, ed. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 27–92Google Scholar.

2 Greenberg, George, Miller, Jeffery, Mohr, Lawrence, and Vladeck, Bruce, “Developing Public Policy Theory: Perspectives from Empirical Research,” American Political Science Review (12 1977): 1534Google Scholar.

3 Lowi, Theodore, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics (07 1964): 677–715Google Scholar.

4 McGowan, Patrick J. and Shapiro, Howard B., The Comparative Study of Foreign Policy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1973)Google Scholar.

5 Hermann, Charles F., “Decision Structure and Process Influences on Foreign Policy,” in Why Nations Act, East, Maurice A., Salmore, Stephen A., and Hermann, Charles F., eds. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1978), p. 76Google Scholar.

6 Rosenau, , “Pre-theories,” p. 53Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 74.

8 Ibid., p. 81.

9 Rosenau, James N., “Foreign Policy as an Issue Area,” in Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, Rosenau, James N., ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 50Google Scholar.

10 The five sets of independent variables critical to Rosenau's framework are referred to as idiosyncratic, societal, role, governmental, and systemic factors.

11 Rosenau's 1967 article curiously obscures the thrust of his 1966 essay by highlighting the dissimilarities between domestic and foreign policymaking processes.

11 Brecher, Michael, Steinberg, Blema, and Stein, Janice, “A Framework for Research on Foreign Policy Behavior,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution (03 1969): 75–101Google Scholar. See also Brecher, Michael, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Brecher, Michael, “Inputs and Decisions for War and Peace: The Israel Experience,” International Studies Quarterly (06 1974): 131–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brecher, Michael, Decisions in Israel's Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

12 Brecher et al., p. 87.

13 Ibid., p. 88.

15 Ibid., p. 87.

16 Brecher, “Inputs and Decisions for War and Peace.”

17 Zimmerman, William, “Issue Area and Foreign Policy Process: A Research Note in Search of a General Theory,” American Political Science Review (12 1973): 1204–1212Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., p. 1204. The Wolfers essay appears in Wolfers, Arnold, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962), pp. 3–35Google Scholar.

19 Lowi, Theodore, “Making Democracy Safe for the World,” in Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, Rosenau, James N., ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 295–331Google Scholar.

10 Lowi subsequently added a fourth issue area, constituent policy, to his well-known triad of distributive, regulatory, and redistributive categories. See Lowi, Theodore, “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” Public Administration Review (07/08 1972): 298–310Google Scholar.

21 Zimmerman, p. 1208.

22 Ibid., p. 1212. For an interesting treatment of issue area in comparative public policy analysis in which structural characteristics of different political systems are related to preponderant policy type (i.e., distributive, regulatory, etc.) see Peters, B. Guy, Doughtie, John C., and McCulloch, M. Kathleen, “Types of Democratic Systems and Types of Public Policy: An Empirical Examination,” Comparative Politics (04 1977): 327–355Google Scholar.

23 Hermann, Charles F., “International Crisis as a Situational Variable,” in International Politics and Foreign Policy, Rosenau, James N., ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 409–421Google Scholar.

24 Zimmerman, p. 1212.

25 See Hermann, Charles F. and Coate, Roger A., “Substantive Problem Areas,” Mimeo, Mershon Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1977Google Scholar and East, Maurice A. and Hutchins, Gerald L., “Substantive Problem Areas and International Politics: Issue Specific Characteristics of Foreign Policy Behavior,” (Paper presented at the Southern Political Science Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, 3–5 11, 1977)Google Scholar.

26 For a description of the PRINCE project see Coplin, William D., Mills, Stephen L., and O'Leary, Michael K., “The PRINCE Concepts and the Study of Foreign Policy,” in Sage International Yearbook of Foreign Policy Studies, Vol. 1, McGowan, Patrick J., ed. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1973), pp. 73–103Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., p. 87.

28 Ibid., pp. 81–84.

29 Ibid., pp. 89–90.

30 Some findings are reported in Coplin, et al. and in Handelman, John, O'Leary, Michael, and Shapiro, Howard, “A Partial Test of a Model on International Interactions Using Issue-Coded Events Data: A Report of the PRINCE Project,” (Paper presented at the International Studies Association Convention, 03 1972)Google Scholar. See also O'Leary, Michael and Coplin, William, Quantitative Techniques in Foreign Policy Analysis and Forecasting (New York: Praeger, 1975)Google Scholar.

31 O'Leary, Michael, “The Role of Issues,” in In Search of Global Patterns, Rosenau, James N., ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1976), pp. 318–325Google Scholar.

32 Over three dozen issue area categories have been identified by O'Leary and his colleagues.

33 These five issue areas are subdivided into 66 types of basic problems or deprivations. Hermann and Coate and East and Hutchins are not consistent in their use of “substantive problem areas” to refer to the five general issue categories or to the 66 more specific problem types. See Hermann and Coate, pp. 10 and 13 and East and Hutchins, pp. 7–8.

34 Hermann and Coate, pp. 10–11.

35 The two geographical categories are “within the actor's political boundaries” and “within another political unit's boundaries.”

36 Hermann and Coate, p. 11. The three categories of relational space identified in the CREON framework are intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental transnationalorganizations, and symbolic relationships or ideas.

37 See, in particular, East and Hutchins, pp. 12–16 and Hermann and Coate, pp. 17–24 and 37.

38 Brewer, Thomas L., “Issue and Context Variations in Foreign Policy,” in The Journal of Conflict Resolution (03 1973): 89–114Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., p. 89.

40 Ibid., p. 108.

41 See, for example, Azar, Edward E. and Sloan, Thomas J., Dimensions of Interaction, Occasional Paper No. 8, International Studies Association, Pittsburgh, 1975Google Scholar and Andriole, Stephen J., Wilkenfeld, Jonathan, and Hopple, Gerald W., “A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Foreign Policy Behavior,” International Studies Quarterly (06 1975), pp. 160–198Google Scholar. An interesting application of the Andriole et al. framework, which includes an issue area dimension as part of the dependent variable cluster, is described by Wilkenfeld, Jonathan, Hopple, Gerald W. and Rossa, Paul J., “Sociopolitical Indicators of Conflict and Cooperation,” in To AugurWell, Singer, J. David and Wallace, Michael D., eds. (Beverly Hills: Sage Pub. 1979), pp. 109–151Google Scholar.

42 Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1977)Google Scholar. For an extension and elaboration of his earlier work with Nye see Keohane, Robert, “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967–1977,” in Change in the International System, Holsti, Ole, Siverson, Randolph, and George, Alexander, eds. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, Forthcoming 1980)Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., pp. 24–25. See Coplin et al., pp. 86–87 for a similar perspective.

44 Keohane and Nye acknowledge their work's stress on “theory over method.” See p. viii.

45 Keohane and Nye, pp. 64–65.

46 Ibid., p. 65.

47 See Keohane and Nye, pp. 64–65.

48 Ibid., pp. 30–31 and 126.

49 Ibid., pp. viii and 223. The CREON and PRINCE projects also examine certain international and transnational dimensions of issue area, but are not interested in the issue area/policy process nexus. The same is true for Lambert et al. who develop a model of a world of “multiple issue-systems.” See Lambert, Donald E., Falkowski, Lawrence S., Mansbach, Richard W., “Is There an International System?” International Studies Quarterly (03 1978): 143–167Google Scholar.

50 Keohane and Nye, pp. 5 and 21. Keohane and Nye's suggestion that regimes may be categorized in terms of the degree and type of political integration among actors adhering to them resembles the public policy issue area categorization scheme proposed by Robert H. Salisbury. See Salisbury, , “The Analysis of Public Policy,”in Political Science and Public Policy, Ranney, Austin, ed. (Chicago: Markham Press, 1968), pp. 151–175Google Scholar.

51 Keohane and Nye, p. 21.

52 Ibid., pp. 21 and 54.

53 Keohane and Nye's explanation that a nonregime situation exists “when there are no agreed norms and procedures or when the exceptions to the rules are more important than the instances of adherence” (p. 20) is obscured by their tendency at times to treat formal and informal procedures and rules, as well as norms and institutions, as indicators of regimes. For a discussion of the underspecification of the concept of regime see also Caldwell, Dan, “International Systems, Arms Control Negotiations, and Regimes,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 22–25 02, 1978, pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

54 Van Dyke, Vernon, Political Science: A Philosophical Analysis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960), p. xGoogle Scholar.

55 See, for example, Barth, Ernest A. T. and Johnson, Stuart, “Community Power and a Typology of Social Issues,” Social Forces (10 1959): 29–32Google Scholar; Froman, Lewis A. Jr, “The Categorization of Policy Contents,” in Political Science and Public Policy, Ranney, Austin, ed. (Chicago: Markham Press, 1968), pp. 41–51Google Scholar; Salisbury, Robert H., “The Analysis of Public Policy,” in Ranney, Austin, pp. 151–175Google Scholar; Davies, Race, Policy Content and Political Behavior: Policy Making in the California State Legislature (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis, 1974)Google Scholar; Ripley, Randall and Franklin, Grace, Congress, the Bureaucracy, and Public Policy (Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press, 1976), pp. 16–21Google Scholar.

56 Rosenau, , “Foreign Policy as an Issue Area,” p. 11Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., pp. 11–12.

58 The number of basic issue areas identified varies substantially across typologies. The three dozen plus issue area categories suggested by PRINCE project researchers (O'Leary and Coplin, pp. 270–271) and the 66 substantive problem areas identified in the CREON framework (Hermann and Coate, pp. 28–32) probably exceed the limit of what Rosenau would regard as conducive to theory building. This is certainly true for the nonexhaustive issue area categories in Keohane and Nye's framework.

59 Rosenau, , “Foreign Policy as an Issue Area,” pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

60 Brecher et al., pp. 87–88.

61 Keohane and Nye, p. 65.

62 Hermann and Coate, p. 13.

63 Greenberg etal., p. 1532.

64 Rosenau, , “Foreign Policy as an Issue Area,” p. 49Google Scholar.

65 Rosenau, , “Pre-theories,” p. 86.Google Scholar My emphasis.

66 Greenberg et al., p. 1542.

67 Zimmerman, p. 1204.

68 Greenberg, et al., p. 1542.

69 Brewer, p. 95.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid., p. 108.

72 Keohane and Nye, especially p. 126.

73 Brecher et al., p. 87.

74 Ibid.

75 Lewis A. Froman, Jr., p. 43.

76 East and Hutchins, p. 7. A similar assumption characterizes the work of the PRINCE investigators.

77 Hermann and Coate, p. 6, and East and Hutchins, pp. 5–6.

78 See Hermann and Coate, pp. 22–23; East and Hutchins, pp. 9–12; and Coplin et al., 89–90.

79 See, for example, East and Hutchins, p. 13.

80 For an example of how the Brecher issue area typology can be adapted for research using the CREON data set see Potter, William and King, Joel, “Issue Area and the Comparative Study of Foreign Policy: An Empirical Approach,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association/West, San Francisco, 03 18–20, 1976, pp. 22–25Google Scholar.

81 For a candid acknowledgement of their atheoretical approach see East and Hutchins, p. 6.

82 See Coplin et al., pp. 90–95 for a discussion of their analysis of Gamson, William and Modigliani, Andre, Untangling the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971)Google Scholar.

82 The CREON foreign policy events data set represents the most ambitious effort to include variables tapping internal processes. The CREON variable “Action Creates Dislocation in Economy,” for example, might be refined to capture an element of Zimmerman's concept of domestic political impact. As it presently is operationalized, however, the variable provides so little differentiation among events (fully 99 percent of the events fall in the category “coder infers no economic dislocation likely”) that its utility as an explanatory variable is dubious. See Hermann, Charles F., East, Maurice A., Hermann, Margaret G., Salmore, Barbara G., and Salmore, Stephen A., CREON: A Foreign Events Data Set (Beverly Hills: Sage Professional Papers, 1973), p. 92Google Scholar.

84 See George, Alexander L. and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), pp. 94–97Google Scholar.

85 An excellent discussion of the case survey method for aggregating case study data and assessing the quality of each case study in a reliable and replicable fashion is provided by Yin, Robert K. and Heald, Karen A., “Using the Case Survey Method to Analyze Policy Studies,” Administrative Science Quarterly (09 1975): 371–381Google Scholar. Greenberg et al. also suggest the possibility of using aggregated case study data to test quantitatively policy process hypotheses (p. 1532). I am grateful to Stephen Linder for directing me to the public policy literature on the case survey method.

86 The failure of most issue area analysts to consider an international systemic level of analysis is matched by the neglect by students of world politics of the insights of process based issue area typologies. It would be interesting, for example, to analyze the politics of international regimes such as monetary policy, oceans policy, strategic arms control, etc. in terms of Lowi's distributive, regulatory, and redistributive typology and Zimmerman's concepts of symmetry of impact and tangibility of political goods.