Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Scholars have developed several models of the policy process to explain how decisions are made. In this essay, I review major foreign policy decision-making models and theories with an emphasis on basic theoretical perspectives. I analyze the models based on their advantages and weaknesses, discuss the rational–cognitive debate in decision-making analysis, and examine which model could best explain the United States’ foreign policy decision-making process toward Iran’s nuclear program. I will be drawing on a comparative historical analysis over Iran nuclear program how George W. Bush and Obama Administrations dealt with that. I categorize the administrations’ differences in two main issues. First, while President Obama believed in multilateral cooperation among global powers to contain Iran’s nuclear program by tough economic sanctions, President Bush pursued unilateral action to force Iran to curb its nuclear program. Second, While President Obama differentiated between Iranian domestic factions and top decision-makers on their beliefs and interests, President Bush viewed Iranian top decision-makers as a unique team without any difference on their interests and desires in Iran’s domestic and regional activities. By pursuing a plan of strategic patience, the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran as general, and particularly on Iran’s nuclear program, had the intention to engage with and empower so-called reformist and moderate figures in Iran. The strategic patience policy was a clear break with the Bush administration's robust policy, in which it demanded Iran to change its behavior before any serious negotiation. This review illustrates that no single model is able to successfully explain the foreign policy decision-making processes of each president. The models, moreover, fail to consider the way in which each president defines or represent an international problem. I will argue that decision-makers’ mindset and cognitive system are the two most important factors affect their respective decision-making styles. I concluded this paper by comparing the similarities and differences of President Trump’s policy toward Iran and those former administrations’.