This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Newmann, W. W. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Foreign Policy Decision Making, Garbage Cans, and Policy Shifts

The Eisenhower Administration and the "Chances for Peace" Speech

Virginia Commonwealth University

The organizational process, bureaucratic politics, and presidential management models of U.S. foreign policy decision making have dominated scholarly analysis. However, these models have difficulty explaining major changes in policy. This article modifies the garbage-can model of organizational choice, combining it with the foreign policy decision-making models, to explain policy shifts. If the four streams of policy hypothesized by the garbage-can process are divided into active and passive categories, policy shifts are a two-step process: a catalytic phase in which decision makers decide whether they see an opportunity to change established policy, followed by a connecting phase in which decision makers try to connect policy streams to produce a policy shift. During this second phase, the foreign policy models are most useful. Further study of policy shifts is important in a complex and unstable post-cold-war environment in which policy shifts may be more typical.

The American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 28, No. 2, 187-212 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/027507409802800205


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?