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Chapter 14: Decision Making in Politics Chapter Summary | Chapter Objectives | Suggested Readings | Links
To answer these questions we present the following models: (1) the rational actor, (2) the political actor, (3) the organizational actor, (4) the elitist actor, and (5) the idiosyncratic actor. While these models are not mutually exclusive, they emphasize different factors in, and different approaches to, decision making. In the rational actor model of decision making, decision makers seek to accomplish four tasks: accurately identify the problem that confronts them; take into account the key factors that bear on the problem; critically examine alternative courses of action; and make a choice that will wisely maximize benefits and minimize costs. In the political actor model, decision making is not essentially rational deliberation. Rather, it is characterized by decision makers involved in a struggle for power, and decisions emerge from that struggle. This kind of decision making necessitates bargaining, accommodation, and consensus, as well as controversy, conflict, bluff, threat, and even deceit. The bottom line is that key decisions are most often the result of bargaining among diverse political interests. The organizational actor model affirms the organization’s crucial role in decision making, and it stresses the importance of the organization’s vital interests, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and capabilities. It emphasizes how the organization sees problems, obtains information, shapes alternatives, assesses costs and benefits, and makes choices. The elitist actor model of decision making asserts that very powerful individuals or limited groups of influential people, known as elites, make the really significant decisions in politics, and they do so to protect their own self-interest and power. Proponents of this model recognize an iron law of oligarchy that makes elite rule inevitable, particularly in large organizations. Finally, the idiosyncratic actor model of decision making recognizes the role of personality in politics. Factors such as the personal intuition, communication skills, charisma, compassion, demagoguery, ruthlessness, or dogmatism of a leader become important to understanding his or her decisions. A decision maker’s role may be destructive, as in the case of leaders like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein, or it may be creative, as in the case of Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Chapter 14 examines decision making at various levels in American politics, looking at the roles of the voter, the legislative representative, the president, and the Supreme Court justice--and how these decision makers make the choices they do.
The following readings supplement those suggested in chapter 14 of the text. Dye, Thomas R. R., and L. Harmon Ziegler. The Irony of Democracy: An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Jenkins, Roy. Churchill. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. Kennedy, Robert. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Norton, 1999. Kingdon, John W. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2d ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1997. McGuire, Kevin. Understanding the U.S. Supreme Court. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Myerson, Daniel. Blood and Splendor: The Lives of Five Tyrants, from Nero to Saddam Hussein. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Rvsd. ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
Click on this link to access the PBS Newshour transcript of an October 16, 1997, discussion about the Cuban missile crisis. Participating in the discussion are Sergei Khrushchev (son of Nikita Khrushchev), presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, journalist Haynes Johnson, and discussion leader Jim Lehrer. The site also links to a thorough background report on the crisis. The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb Virtually everything you would want to know about the development of the atomic bomb and the decision to drop it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 can be found on this site by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. It includes timelines, key biographies, accounts of critical meetings, Department of War documents, among other things. The Marshall Plan was the U.S. aid and recovery program for Western Europe following World War II. The program allocated nearly $12 billion to assist sixteen European nations and their 270 million citizens to recover from the ravages of the war. The Marshall Plan has been looked upon by many as farsighted and historic. This site, maintained by the George C. Marshall Foundation, not only describes the plan, but offers significant insight into the decision-making process that brought it about. This PBS Web site, called “The Presidents,” draws on television films produced for PBS’s The American Experience series. U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Ronald Reagan are featured on this site. For each president, topics for exploration include early career, presidential politics, domestic policy, foreign affairs, and legacy. This official site of the United States Supreme Court provides an excellent overview of the Court, with information on the docket system, oral arguments, bar admissions, Court rules, case handling, and opinions.
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