Cognitive Process and Foreign Policy Decision-Making

As the analysis of foreign policy decision-making has become a more theoretical enterprise, the production of historically oriented case studies has been supplemented by a growing number of investigations employing psychological or socialpsychological perspectives. Early studies of foreign policy decision-making with a psychological orientation emphasized the influence of various psychological traits on those involved in foreign policy decisions (e.g., Levinson, 1957), but, more recently, the emphasis has been on perception, cognition, and information-processing. The cognitive process approaches, by contrast, have attempted, in varying degrees, to map out the belief structures of decision makers and explore the implications of these structures for the way international events are understood and policy alternatives are considered. Studies under this rubric have focused upon the perceptions of particular foreign policy decision makers (Holsti, 1962), on the perceptions and choices of groups of persons simulating the roles of foreign policy decision makers (Driver, 1962; Hermann, 1969; Hermann and Hermann, 1967; Shapiro, forthcoming), and on the decision process of national decision groups focused upon particular policy problems (Steinbruner, forthcoming).