Abstract/Description

Joshua Kertzer presented a paper which investigates whether advisers systematically affect foreign policy behavior. Kertzer moves beyond the existing emphasis on individual leaders and their psychological predispositions that shape foreign policy outcomes. His approach helps to explain group based decision making based on individual predisposition. Kertzer argues that foreign policy decisions made by leaders are based on the inputs they receive from their advisers. These inputs emanate from the advisers’ hawkish or dovish predispositions. Thus, the more hawkish the cohort of advisers are, the more likely foreign policy decisions made by their leader will result in conflict. Drawing upon extensive archival work from 700,000 National Security Council documents between 1947-1988 to produce 2881 records of formal and informal meetings categorized into speech acts, substantive decisions, and actor background, Kertzer concludes predispositions vary between advisers even within the same administration. His work is significant for three reasons. First, it demonstrates that advisers are influential in foreign policy decision making even though in the extant literature they are overshadowed by influential leaders. Second, it argues that group level decision making can be explained through individual level dispositions. Third, it makes use of computational archival analysis to answer longstanding questions in IR.