Advisory Power Games: Manipulating Foreign Policy in the Carter Administration

• In Event: The Tension in Foreign Policy: A White House Perspective

Abstract

While close relationships between presidents and their advisers have been described at length, the manner in which American foreign policy advisers systematically influence both the advisory process around the president and the definition of policy options remains relatively unexplored. Instead, most studies of the presidency and most analyses of foreign policy focus on the formal/structural and organizational arrangements, the small-group relations, and the individual characteristics of the president (such as personality) that shape the advisory process. Even studies in the bureaucratic-politics tradition, which discuss the “pulling and hauling” among contending bureaucratic factions, fail to illustrate exactly how and why individuals shape the advisory process.
This project seeks to supplement current understandings of the advisory process with insights gleaned from a broader, experimentally validated literature in social psychology and the management sciences. Much of this work has yet to be applied to the political setting. In this light, this project seeks to explain the more personal and bureaucratic war inside the Carter administration that mirrored the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. No question consistently polarized presidential advisers more than how to manage U.S.-Soviet relations while maintaining U.S. security interests. Foreign policy advisers with different goals and beliefs battled to dominate the president’s foreign policy agenda. Since the decision-making literature does not explain satisfactorily what would motivate advisers to engage in power games, I seek more thorough explanations as to how and why individuals influence foreign policy decision making.
The study will pursue an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to provide new tools to better explain the foreign policy advisory process. This will involve a synthesis of relevant literature in foreign policy, social psychology, and management sciences that helps explain presidential advisory systems. My concern is with the unique contribution advisers make within the dynamic advisory process. The puzzle to be addressed is the nature of foreign-policy advisers’ “power games” within the advisory system. I ask how and why advisers manipulate the group process, under what conditions foreign policy advisers engage in power games, and in what situations they are most effective.
The first section of the study plans to explore the historical setting, the organizational setting, and the group dynamics that shape the power game. The second section will then develop a typology of influence strategies and tactics that explain the potential influence of advisers. Multiple sources of evidence will help in reconstructing the advisory process and reaching “convergence” around a specific interpretation of the facts. Using multiple sources helps in the search for patterns in the data which might match the theoretical framework.
The case study approach permits the in-depth analysis that is needed in order to describe the use of different influence maneuvers. This also allows flexibility to search for patterns within the administration. Both the group nature of the advisory process and the role of the individual within the group will be highlighted. Focusing on arms control provides consistency in the case selections, facilitating a study of the influence process around the president. Such analysis will include qualitative content analysis via NVivo, a computer software that allows one to systematically collect, organize and analyze content from sources such as published government documents, speeches, and interviews. With NVivo one can deeply analyze data using powerful search, query and visualization tools that can uncover subtle patterns and connections.
In researching the impact of foreign policy advisers in the Carter administration, I have already examined articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post so as to understand better the political context within which advisers operated during this time period. I also plan to examine published memoirs of key foreign policy personnel in the Carter administration (e.g., the national security adviser, secretary of state, secretary of defense, CIA director, as well as the Soviet ambassador to the U.S.). In addition, I plan to conduct a qualitative content analysis—via NVivo—on oral histories, exit interviews (conducted by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia), and government documents that I have already acquired or have online access.

Author

• Steven J. Campbell, University of South Carolina, Lancaster