Konsep Politik Luar Negeri

E. Konsep Politik Luar Negeri

Foreign policy Public policy lays out courses of action for government and its various agencies. Foreign policy refers, broadly, to attempts by governments to influence or manage events outside the state‟s borders, usually, but not exclusively, through their relations with foreign governments. Foreign policy-making involves the establishment of goals and the selection of means to achieve them. In view of the increased interpenetration of domestic and foreign affairs in modern global politics, the term „external relations‟ is sometimes preferred to foreign policy, allowing for interactions that take place on multiple levels and which involve multiple actors. At the very least, the realm of foreign policy can no longer be confined simply to relations between foreign ministers/ministries or between national diplomatic services.

 National Interest In broad terms, the national interest refers to foreign policy goals, objectives or

policy preferences that benefit a society as a whole (the foreign policy equivalent of the „public interest‟). The concept is often vague and contested, however. It is most widely

. Valerie M. Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis (2005) 1: Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International Relations, p. 3-4.

used by realist theorists, for whom it is defined by the structural implications of international anarchy and so is closely linked to national security, survival and the pursuit of power. For decision-making theorists, the national interest refers to the strategies and goals pursued by those responsible for the conduct of foreign policy, although this may mean that it degenerates into mere rhetoric. Alternatively, it may refer to foreign policy goals that have been endorsed through the democratic process.

 How decisions are made The making of decisions, and specifically of bundles of decisions, is clearly central

to the policy process. Although policy-making also relates to the acts of initiation and implementation, the making of decisions and reaching of conclusions is usually seen as its key feature. However, it may be difficult to establish how and why decisions are made. In foreign policy-making a levels-of-analysis is commonly adopted, in line with the three levels at which Waltz (1959) analyzed the causes of war:

 The level of the individual decision-maker (involving personal priorities, psychological and cognitive dispositions and so on).

 The nation-state level (involving the nature of the state, type of government, bureaucratic structure and so on).

 The systemic level (involving power balances within the international system, the web of state interdependence, dynamics of global capitalism and so on).

Nevertheless, a number of general theories of political decision-making have been advanced. The most important of these are rational actor models, incremental models, bureaucratic organization models, and cognitive processes and belief-system models.

 Rational actor models Decision-making models that emphasize human rationality have generally been

constructed on the basis of economic theories that have themselves been derived from utilitarianism. Developed by thinkers such as Anthony Downs (1957), these theories are usually based on the notion of so- called „economic man‟, a model of human nature that stresses the self-interested pursuit of material satisfaction, calculated in terms of utility (use-value; the balance of pleasure over pain). In this light, decisions can be seen to be reached using the following procedures:

 The nature of the problem is identified. An objective or goal is selected on the basis of an ordering of individual preferences.

 The available means of achieving this objective are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness, reliability, costs and so on.

 A decision is made through the selection of the means most likely to secure the desired end. This type of process assumes both that clear-cut objectives exist, and that human beings are able to pursue them in a rational and consistent manner. The best example of such an approach to decision-making is found in the use of cost –benefit analysis in the making of business decisions. In line with the goal of profit maximization, business people make decisions that will ensure the least possible cost and the greatest possible benefit, both calculated in monetary terms. Realist theorists make similar assumptions about decision-making in international politics. In their view, foreign policy is guided by a single overriding goal: the pursuit of vital national interests, understood, at minimum, as ensuring state survival, and beyond that the pursuit of power to enable the state to achieve its national ambitions. This may be dictated by system-level pressures (as neorealists suggest) or by egoistical pressures that operate in and through the state itself (as classical realists argue); either way, it implies that the role of individual decision-makers is largely restricted to the selection of the best means of achieving a pre-determined end.

The rational actor model is attractive, in part, because it reflects how most people believe decisions should be made. Certainly, politicians and others are strongly inclined to portray their actions as both goal-orientated and the product of careful thought and deliberation. When examined more closely, however, rational calculation may not appear to be a particularly convincing model of decision-making. In the first place, in practice, decisions are often made on the basis of inadequate and sometimes inaccurate information. Such difficulties encouraged Herbert Simon (1983) to develop the notion of „bounded rationality‟. This acknowledges that, as it is impossible to analyze and select all possible courses of action, decision-making is essentially an act of compromising between differently valued and imprecisely calculated outcomes. Simon described this process as „satisficing‟. The second problem with rational actor models is that they ignore the role of perception: that is, the degree to which actions are shaped by belief and assumptions about reality, rather than by reality itself. Little or no importance is thus attached to individual and collective psychology or to the values and ideological leanings of decisionmakers.

 Incremental models

Incrementalism 41 is often portrayed as the principal alternative to rational decision- making. David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom (1963) termed this model „disjointed

incre mentalism‟, neatly summed up by Lindblom (1959) as the „science of muddling through‟. This position holds that, in practice, decisions tend to be made on the basis of

inadequate information and low levels of understanding, and this discourages decision- makers from pursuing bold and innovative courses of action. Policy-making is therefore a continuous, exploratory process: lacking overriding goals and clear-cut ends, policy- makers tend to operate within an existing pattern or framework, adjusting their position in the light of feedback in the form of information about the impact of earlier decisions.

Indeed, incrementalism may suggest a strategy of avoidance or evasion, policy- makers being inclined to move away from problems, rather than trying to solve them. Lindblom‟s case for incrementalism is normative as well as descriptive. In addition to

providing a perhaps more accurate account of how decisions are made in the real world, he argued that this approach also has the merit of allowing for flexibility and the expression of divergent views. „Muddling through‟ at least implies responsiveness and flexibility,

consultation and compromise. However, the model is clearly best suited to situations in which policy-makers are more inclined towards inertia rather than innovation. It thus explains the foreign policy trends of pro-status-quo states more easily.