NIVELES MÁXIMOS DE EMISIÓN DE RUIDO PARA FFR

2.5.1 Putnam’s Two Level Game

The analytical framework proposed by this thesis incorporates a multi-level approach, stressing the importance of the interplay between the individual, the state and the international system. The preceding approaches reviewed in this chapter have tended to restrict themselves to one level of analysis. However, previous attempts have been made to develop multi-level approaches. It is to these we now turn.

Addressing the relationship between international and domestic politics Putnam noted, “It is fruitless to debate whether domestic politics really determine international relations, or the reverse. The answer to that question is clearly ‘Both, sometimes.’ The more interesting questions are ‘When?’ and ‘How?’”.⁵⁹ In response, Putnam developed a model which tries to integrate both levels in order to analyse the areas of entanglement between them.

Putnam restricts his model to studying international negotiations between state representatives. He develops the concept of the two-level game in order to illustrate this relationship:

At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favourable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing

58Hill, C. (2003) The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (London: Palgrave), p90

59 Putnam, R. D. (1988) ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games’ International Organisation 42/3, p427

coalitions between those groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments.⁶⁰

As a result of the leader having to play both levels simultaneously, it is possible for decisions to be rational at one level but not at the other.

At the heart of Putnam’s model lies the concept of the ‘win-set’. This is the combination of all possible agreements reached at the international level which will be approved by a majority of domestic constituents. If a large win-set exists, there is increased chance an international agreement will be struck. Many factors combine to determine the size of the win-set. Putnam identifies the following three as major determinants of success: domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic institutions, and the international negotiator’s strategies.

These three factors set the scene of the game. They determine how much leverage a negotiator has on an issue. If they have domestic support, they will be in a strong bargaining position. However, the existence of the opponent and their domestic constituencies complicate the picture. If the negotiator does not take into account the domestic situation facing his opponent then it is unlikely they will strike an agreement at the international level, let alone have it ratified by constituents in the foreign country.⁶¹

The chief negotiator is assumed to be the only formal link between the domestic and the international, and is assumed to act as an honest broker on behalf of his constituents.

However, Putnam acknowledges this is an oversimplification. In reality, there is the possibility the chief negotiator’s preferences may diverge from those of his constituents. If the negotiator’s incumbency is dependent on his domestic constituents then ““he is more likely to present an international agreement for ratification, the less of his own political capital he expects to have to invest to win approval, and the greater the likely political returns from a ratified agreement”.⁶² The chief negotiator therefore has what amounts to a veto power over possible agreements. An agreement may be acceptable to the domestic constituents, but if a negotiator is opposed to it then they are unlikely to present the agreement for ratification. We therefore have an example of when a leader can ‘make a difference’.

60 Ibid., p434

61 Ibid., p441-452

62 Ibid., p457

Although Putnam’s analysis is restricted to international negotiations, its insights are still important for the multi-level framework developed in this thesis. It introduces the relationship between international politics and domestic constituents, and the games leaders must play in order to make foreign policy. This is the case with US foreign policy where the President is forced by the constitution to share foreign policy power with Congress. Therefore the relationship between the president and Congress will be central to our analysis. This will be shown in the case studies with the success of Truman in ‘selling’ the Truman Doctrine to Congress and in Reagan’s continued struggle to get Contra funding from Congress. One president was able to maximize their win-set, the other was less successful.

2.5.2 Neo-Classical Realism

While Putnam has restricted his analysis to international treaty negotiations, a broader development has taken place in recent neorealist theorising. A group of scholars have attempted to “weaken” Waltz’s systematic theorising by incorporating domestic variables into their approach. However, these neoclassical realists make it quite clear that what they are developing is not a theory of international politics in the style of Waltz, but rather, they offer a theory of foreign policy. Fareed Zakaria, a leading neoclassical realist, is adamant on this point. He argues that theories of international politics are distinguished by that which they seek to explain. A theory of international politics seeks to explain international events between states by making assumptions about each state’s motivation. A theory of foreign policy is a completely different approach. It seeks to explain why state preferences change over time and why different states strive to achieve different goals in similar circumstances.

Rather than making assumptions about states’ motives, a theory of foreign policy attempts to explain state motivation.⁶³ But that is as far as the theory should go, according to Zakaria.

Whether a state’s foreign policy succeeds or not is determined by the intentions and capabilities of other states with which it interacts with in the international system. Thus, if one wishes to “explain the outcomes of international interactions – colonization, the formation of alliances – one must consult a theory of international politics”.⁶⁴

Although departing from Waltz’s international theory approach to offer a theory of foreign policy, Zakaria shares Waltz’s belief in the need for generality. He argues that a theory of

63 Zakaria, F. (1998) From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp13-18

64 Ibid., p14

foreign policy must begin by analysing the impact of the international system on state behaviour. This is essential because every state operates within the anarchic international system; therefore the ability of a state to implement a successful foreign policy is in large part determined by its material capability in relation to its competitors. Beginning with an assessment of a country’s relative standing in the international system also allows a theory to generalize across different countries. However, generalizations can only ever offer a partial explanation. The neoclassical realists argue that we can sacrifice generality by narrowing the theory’s scope to a particular state and incorporating additional variables from lower levels of analysis.⁶⁵ Thus a good explanation of a particular state’s foreign policy will include both systemic and domestic factors. Zakaria warns against relying solely on domestic factors to explain state behaviour and discusses an interesting example, that of German expansion from 1933 to 1945:

Clearly, Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideology are crucial to an understanding of German aggression, but that aggression did not arise in a vacuum. As critics of the Treaty of Versailles continually pointed out, Germany’s post-1919 position in the international system made some form of German revanchism almost inevitable. Only Hitler and Nazism can explain the particularly ghastly form this revanchism took.⁶⁶

The neoclassical realists argue for the inclusion of domestic variables because they contend that the impact of material power on foreign policy is indirect and problematic. The first domestic variable they incorporate is the role of state leaders. Gideon Rose explains that systemic theories such as structural realism assume that the rational actor model produces a direct link between changes in material capabilities and state behaviour.⁶⁷ Friedberg states that “In most structural realist formulations... assessment [of relative power] through rational calculation plays the part of a reliable but invisible transmission belt connecting objective [material] change to adaptive behaviour”.⁶⁸ The international system provides constraints and opportunities which state leaders are assumed to react to rationally. If the rationality assumption holds constant, then changes in state behaviour can be explained by changes in the international system.

65 Ibid., p16-18

66 Ibid., p17-18

67 Rose, G. (1998) ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy” World Politics 51.1 pp144-172

68 Friedberg, A. (1988) The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton:

Princeton University Press), p13, footnote 24

However, the neoclassical realists believe that the assumption of rationality and a

“smoothly functioning mechanical transmission belt is inaccurate and misleading”.⁶⁹ Material power is not converted directly into state action; instead it is filtered through the perception of state leaders. Foreign policy analysts must therefore attempt to engage with the contextual reality that state leaders find themselves in, that is, to try and understand how state leaders perceive their environment. As Rose has argued, “What this means in practice is that the transition of capabilities into national behaviour is often rough and capricious over the short and medium term”.⁷⁰

The second domestic variable incorporated into neoclassical realist theory is the level of state power in relation to domestic society. The material capabilities of a state may increase, but it is not always possible for state leaders to turn national material capabilities into state power. Their ability to increase state power requires two developments. The first is the state’s ability to extract wealth; the second is the degree of centralization of decision-making power within the state. If these two conditions are not met then no state can be classed as strong.

Thus “state-centred [neoclassical] realism predicts that nations try to expand their political interests abroad when central decision-makers perceive a relative increase in state power”.⁷¹ The nature of neoclassical realist theorising demands a very specific methodology. If one wishes to explain a particular case of foreign policy then in order to analyse the perceptions of state leaders, and to determine how much access to state resources they had, then this will require in-depth empirical research. This is the result of “their appreciation of the degree to which their central, parsimonious independent variable needs to be studied in conjunction with a variety of messy contextual factors in order to say much of interest about their subject matter”.⁷² In depth knowledge of the country to be studied is essential to complement the theoretical premises of neoclassical realism. Critics may question if this is a theory of foreign policy at all, but Rose argued that “its very looseness, in other words, makes it a useful framework for carrying out the kind of midrange theorizing that so often is the best social science can hope to achieve”.⁷³ Critics of the neoclassical realists have also questioned if

69 Rose, G. (1998) ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy” World Politics 51.1, p158

70 Ibid., p158

71 Zakaria, F. (1998) From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p30

72 Rose, G. (1998) ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy” World Politics 51.1, p166, emphasis in original

73 Ibid, p168

their approach can really be called realist at all, arguing that they have in fact abandoned the core assumptions that separate realism from competing paradigms.⁷⁴

Although this thesis does not adopt an explicitly neo-classical realist framework, it is important to acknowledge the intellectual debt it owes to these scholars. They have taken steps towards integrating the domestic and the international and weakening the abstractions of their neorealist colleagues. They have argued for the inclusion of ‘messy contextual factors’ and the role of individual leaders, particularly their perceptions, to explain foreign policy. This thesis will build on this intellectual tradition by focusing on the role of the president in US foreign policy making within the multi-level framework. How Truman and Reagan perceived their contextual environment was crucial to the formulation of the Truman and Reagan Doctrines, and will be discussed in detail in the following chapters.

The preceding discussion has shown what attempts have been made to incorporate the role of domestic agency into theories of foreign policy. This provides us with a working assumption that individual leaders are an important source of influence in foreign policy, the questions we must now address are to what extent are individuals able to influence the foreign policy making process, and under what circumstances do they make a difference?