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Policy Crises (policy + crisis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Kinds of Policy Crises

foreign policy crisis

Selected Abstracts

Chinese Choices: A Poliheuristic Analysis of Foreign Policy Crises, 1950,1996

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2005
Patrick James
This paper uses the Poliheuristic Theory (PH), developed by Mintz, which incorporates both psychological and rational choice components in a synthesis of these previously isolated approaches, to explain decision making in Chinese foreign policy crises. China is an interesting initial case for this project for two reasons. One is its importance as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and rising superpower. The other is China's reputation as a nearly unique "black box",an especially challenging case,with regard to decision making in foreign policy crises. Taken from the authoritative compilation of the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project, the nine cases (with available data) in which China is a crisis actor span the period from 1950 to 1996. A comparative analysis of Chinese decision making in times of crisis is used to test hypotheses derived from the PH. The hypotheses focus on how decisions are anticipated to occur over two stages. Principal expectations are that the non compensatory rule, which places priority on political considerations, will determine viable alternatives at the first stage, while choices more in line with expected value maximization or lexicographic ordering will characterize the second stage. [source]

Constructing Foreign Policy Crises: Interpretive Leadership in the Cold War and War on Terrorism

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2007
Wesley W. Widmaier
Over the past century, crises have often driven shifts in U.S. foreign policy, as a liberal tradition has been permissive of varying tendencies to isolationism, pragmatism, or a crusading internationalism. While materialist analyses emphasize the impacts of crises on the capabilities of state and societal agents, they obscure the role of agents in interpreting crises. In this paper, I therefore offer a constructivist analysis, stressing the role of presidential rhetoric in the construction of crises as events which legitimate shifts between variants of the American liberal tradition and definitions of the national interest. I specifically examine interpretations of the Cold War and War on Terror offered in the March 1947 Truman Doctrine speech and September 2001 Bush Doctrine speech. Truman and Bush each reinterpreted international challenges as pertaining to "ways of life," transforming security and partisan debates in ways that delegitimated isolationism. In sum, this analysis highlights the enduring traditions and mass understandings which can themselves constrain elite debates. [source]

Chinese Choices: A Poliheuristic Analysis of Foreign Policy Crises, 1950,1996

Leadership Style, Regime Type, and Foreign Policy Crisis Behavior: A Contingent Monadic Peace?

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2005
Jonathan W. Keller
While a substantial body of theory suggests that democracies should behave peacefully toward all states (monadically), most empirical evidence indicates they are only pacific in their relations with fellow democracies (dyadically). A new theoretical synthesis suggests that the missing link between democratic constraints and pacific monadic behavior is leaders' perceptions of, and responses to, these constraints. Research on political leadership indicates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, leaders respond in systematically different ways to domestic constraints: "constraint respecters" internalize constraints in their environments, while "constraint challengers" view such constraints as obstacles to be surmounted. An analysis of 154 foreign policy crises provides strong support for this contingent monadic thesis: democracies led by constraint respecters stand out as extraordinarily pacific in their crisis responses, while democracies led by constraint challengers and autocracies led by both types of leaders are demonstrably more aggressive. [source]

Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 4 2002
Kelly M. Greenhill
This paper presents a case study of the August 1994 Cuban balseros crisis, during which more than 35,000 fled the island and headed toward Florida in the span of a few weeks. It argues that Castro launched the crisis in an attempt to manipulate US fears of another Mariel, and in order to compel a shift in US policy, both on immigration and on a wider variety of issues. The paper further contends that from Castro's perspective, this exercise in coercion proved a qualified success , his third such successful use of the Cuban people as an asymmetric political weapon against the US. In addition, the paper argues that Castro's success was predicated on his ability to internationalize his own domestic crisis and transform it into an American domestic political and foreign policy crisis. Finally, it offers a novel explanation of how, why, and under what conditions, states and/or non,state actors may attempt to use refugees as coercive political weapons. Although dwarfed in size by the larger 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1994 crisis is important for several reasons. First, despite its brevity, it had far reaching consequences for US,Cuban relations. Without warning or preamble, it catalyzed a shift in US policy vis,à,vis Cuban immigration that represented a radical departure from what it had been for the previous three decades. Second, it influenced US domestic politics on the national level, by expanding the scope and salience of the issue, and mobilizing not only Floridians, but also the larger public concerned about illegal immigration. Third, the crisis illustrated the potential potency of engineered migration as an asymmetric weapon of the weak. Finally, the brief, but significant, interactions of international and domestic actors in this case warrant examination because, although the 1994 crisis was limited, in its dynamics it resembles myriad other international refugee crises, large and small. Thus the case offers valuable lessons that may aid in dealing with future (real or threatened) crises. [source]