MA International Relations
Module The Making of American Foreign Policy – M14045 (30 Credits)

Is Foreign Policy – Making RAtional?

Introduction. Albert Einstein once said that “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. This quotation by one of the most famous physicists, surprising in that a scientist would be expected to extol rationality, summarizes very well the debate within social sciences between those who want to believe that it is achievable and others who deny this capacity to Man. In the field of International Relations, the question has never been so accurate than regarding foreign policy. Indeed, discussing if foreign policy making is rational or not leads to other questions not less important such as the predictability of State actions. It is understood by rational foreign policy that foreign policy is an action-reaction process between two or more actors and as a knock-on effect leads to a constant readjustment of the policies carried on. Through the simplifying assumption of rationality, the decision-maker follows a specified set or rules in making and to arrive at the best decision to maximise his goal (Verba, 1961:106)[1]. These rules or steps are in the following order: the goals are clearly stated and ranked in order of preference; all options are considered; the consequences of each option are assessed; a value-maximising choice is made (Hastedt, 2006:248)[2]. The state is therefore considered as unitary for it responds with one voice to international affairs, by calculating the costs and benefits as well as the means and the ends. It could be argued that foreign policy making is rational as long as it stays in the framework in which it was conceived at the very beginning. But, considering that the world is in constant motion, rationality generates several questions: Until what extent can humans be rational?; Is