4Rethinking the Concept of Foreign Policy Change

Whereas numerous studies have focused on foreign policy change, it nonetheless remains a peripheral topic in foreign policy analysis (FPA; Renshon, 2008). In fact, FPA has dedicated very little theoretical effort to explaining foreign policy change in comparison to other issues and phenomena. As I argue above, compared with most social theories, FPA tends to focus on stability. According to Marková (2003), Western philosophies of knowledge have historically searched for stability and certainty. Since the early writings of Plato and Aristotle, change has been equated with chaos, leading individuals to search for permanence and constancy (Marshak, 2002). Stability has been understood as the ideal and preferred state, while change has been considered a deviant departure from this condition. In fact, “the history of European science in general, and social science in particular shows that in order to study change, the reference point is stability” (Marková, 2003: 6).

When change has been considered, it has traditionally been done so through rational accounts. From this perspective, change is described and explained by identifying the underlying features and dynamics involved in some kind of process, which leads to a variation in a particular state-of-affairs. This process-oriented perspective highlights the different states and stages at different moments in time. Stage-based approaches to change, such as punctuated equilibrium and the planned change approach presented above, reinforce the notion of stability as the norm (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002).

However, in recent years, research carried out in several scientific disciplines, particularly in organizational theory, has focused considerably on change and questioned many of the existing conventional assumptions. In an attempt to clarify some of the different prevailing approaches to change, Van de Ven and Poole (1995) identified four ideal-type theories of change, which are still valid today.48 The first are life-cycle theories that have an underlying organic metaphor in which organizations progress from birth to death following a predetermined set of stages. Impending change is a conviction of life-cycle theories, which postulate that organizations develop in conformity with prefigured unitary processes moving toward a predetermined endpoint.

Teleological theories, for their part, focus on a particular objective or purpose that steers change. From this perspective, an overriding goal drives change in organizations by compelling individuals and groups to formulate actions, implement them, and monitor their progress toward the desired end state. Life-cycle and teleological theories are the most common explanations of change. However, unlike the former, teleological theories do not stipulate an obligatory order of events or detail the specific course that organizational development will follow. Thus, various means of change are conceivable since theoretically “there is no prefigured rule, logically necessary direction, or set sequence of stages in a teleological process” (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995: 516).

The third approach identified by the authors is that of dialectical theories. Stability and change are described through processes of opposition and conflict that result from the plethora of differing and contradictory values and goals inherent within an organization and in its relationship with its environment. The balance of power established between the opposing bodies will determine the degree of stability or change in the organization. In other words, “change occurs when these opposing values, forces, or events gain sufficient power to confront and engage the status quo” (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995: 517).

Finally, evolutionary theories, which subscribe to a biological outlook, envision change through an uninterrupted process of variation, selection, and retention. Variation implies that changes in organizations result from unpredicted or random opportunities, that is, they simply happen. Selection involves the competition for securing scarce resources in which the environment chooses the most adequate resources available. Finally, retention occurs due to the perpetuating forces that uphold certain actions and behaviors.

While Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) classification is useful for identifying the units and modes of change, it also reveals the different dynamics that mediate between stability and change in organizations. Particularly interesting is the fact that the majority of the traditional approaches to change tend to emphasize the core dynamics inherent in punctuated equilibrium and planned change models.

However, the traditional perspectives of episodic and planned change have come under question in recent years. Several criticisms have been leveled against these dominant approaches to change (Burnes, 2004a; By, 2005; Weick, 2000). First of all, many authors argue that the turbulent nature of today’s World is not compatible with the hierarchal, inflexible, and rule-based models used in organizational development studies, which emphasize consistent and stable environments. Secondly, the episodic and planned change approaches are criticized for their incapacity to deal with the complex dynamics of most organizational environments. Critics argue that planned change is not suitable for situations that require rapid and constant organizational transformations. This is particularly relevant, given the emphasis placed on the rapid pace of change in the contemporary international political environment. According to Brown and Eisenhardt (1997: 29), contemporary environments resemble complex systems, which, rather than achieving a stable equilibrium, are continuously changing by remaining at the “edge of chaos.” In fact, many of the assumptions underlying continuous change approaches are derived from complexity theories (Burnes, 2005). The fundamental concern with all such theories is in understanding systems which are constantly changing and in which the laws of cause and effect do not apply in a linear fashion.

From this perspective, the international environment was particularly dynamic during the Carter Presidency, especially in the Middle East. Despite its emphasis on preventive diplomacy, the Carter Administration had to deal with numerous concurrent international crises, which kept it constantly engaged in policy development. Thirdly, planned change supports a view in which a common agreement for change is straightforward and that all the change agents involved are willing and interested in changing, ignoring the possibility of organizational conflicts and politics. Directly associated with this is the notion that problem representation and resolution is straightforward and painless. This fact acquires additional relevance if we consider the alleged competition for defining foreign policy within the Carter Administration. Lastly, most sponsors of planned change tend to assume that one approach is suitable to every organization regardless of time, place, and context. As I have already noted, the Carter Administration was particularly inclined to favor a case-by-case approach to foreign policy issues, refuting prototypical policies.

The critics of episodic and planned change constitute a heterogeneous group. They do, however, share two common assumptions (Burnes, 2004a). To begin with, they accept that change is an emergent and ongoing process rather than a sporadic linear, preplanned procedure with a well-defined beginning and endpoint. Additionally, they believe that organizations are open systems, which affect and are affected by the environment and thus are not likely to be rationally managed. These assumptions have gained exceptional receptivity and have made the continuous change approach the dominant model for understanding change over the last two decades (Burnes 2004a). Much of the success of the continuous change approach is due to the fact that most researchers and decision makers have acknowledged that “in a rapidly-changing world, the ability to align an organization’s internal arrangements with the demands of the external world is crucial for its survival” (Burnes, 2004c: 890). Organizations today are seen more as “works in progress” than unchanging and enduring institutions (Burnes, 2004a).

Rather than focusing on change as a sporadic process separated into several distinct stages, the emergent approach acknowledges change as the norm. This perspective does not deny that there are specific events that can contribute to broad changes in policy. The events of 11 September, 2001 certainly served as a catalyst for a revision of US foreign policy. Yet, as stated before, upon careful consideration US foreign policy can be seen as having been in a state of flux for a prolonged period. In this sense, Weick and Quinn’s (1999) observation that the analysis of change depends on the perspective of the observer is thoroughly appreciated.49 Thus, continuous change should be acknowledged as a complementary approach to other perspectives on change, namely planned change. This is particularly important to this study since it focuses on small group decision-making and, as such, we must espouse a more focused and nuanced view of the change process, that is, a microlevel analysis.

By approaching change as a continuous phenomenon in groups and organizations, we can overcome many of the impediments inherent in punctuated equilibrium’s stage-based approach to change. Standard “unfreeze, change, refreeze” models simply do not appreciate the subtle complexities of change, such as its fluid, pervasive, unrestricted, and indivisible nature. By attempting to understand change through a sequence of distinct stages, we run the risk of obfuscating complex dynamics involved in foreign policy decision-making.

Therefore, in this study, change can also be regarded as an emergent phenomenon, that is, constant, evolving, and cumulative (Barrett et al., 1995; Tsoukas, 1996; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Weick, 2000, 2009; Weick and Quinn, 1999). The basic underlying assumption is that governmental organizations are systems that are in a constant flux. As Tsoukas and Chia (2002: 580) clarify, organizations are not continually changing; rather “there are ongoing processes of change in organisations.”

This requires calling attention to an important caveat. Continuous change should not be confused with incremental change. As several researchers have suggested, incremental change describes adjustments in particular departments, operations, or policies (Burnes, 2004a; By, 2005). Even punctuated equilibrium theory concedes that an organization can register incremental change in policies during periods of stability. Incrementalism results from erratic adjustments to environmental or organizational constraints. Nevertheless, despite a random adjustment, the organizational policies remain largely unaltered. Continuous change for its part is concerned with wholesale organizational and political change (By, 2005). It is focused on changes that revamp existing policies as they are understood. Therefore, continuous change rejects the arguments put forward by incrementalist and punctuated equilibrium models.

Marshak (2002) has associated continuous change with the notion of “morphing” to express the rapid, unbroken process of change, which is involved in this perspective. In this sense, representations and meanings in an organization are in perpetual flux, resulting in changes in members’ interpretations and behaviors. Yet, the concept of continuous change espoused in this study differs from some of the prevailing perspectives, which still persevere in framing continuous change within a stage-based theory. For instance, while Schein (2002) accepts that change is a perpetual process, he maintains that changes can be broken down into the discrete stages of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. In his view, “we are constantly bombarded by various kinds of unfreezing forces, are scanning and imitating in areas where we are already unfrozen, and are experiencing the new confirmations or disconfirmations that will determine what gets refrozen” (Schein, 2002: 41). There is a homeostatic principle underlying this reasoning, which defends that systems have a tendency to search for internal equilibrium, that is, stability.

Conversely, the view of continuous change subscribed to here advocates the performative nature of change.50 In this case, change is distinguished by occurring in a continuous, open-ended process of organizational adaptation to changing circumstances and environments. In this sense, it involves the “realization of a new pattern of organizing in the absence of explicit, a priori intentions” (Orlikowski, 1996: 65). Rather than being planned and guided, continuous change results from improvisation, adaptation, and learning. These qualities are considered indispensable for coping with the complexity and uncertainty of the environment (By, 2005). Accordingly, it is founded on recurrent interactions between the members of an organization who develop ongoing responses to the challenges encountered:

Each variation of a given form is not an abrupt or discrete event, neither is it, by itself, discontinuous. Rather, through a series of ongoing and situated accommodations, adaptations, and alterations (that draw on previous variations and mediate future ones), sufficient modifications may be enacted over time that fundamental changes are achieved. There is no deliberate orchestration of change here, no technological inevitability, no dramatic discontinuity, just recurrent and reciprocal variations in practice over time. Each shift in practice creates the conditions for further breakdowns, unanticipated outcomes, and innovations, which in their turn are responded to with more variations. And such variations are ongoing; there is no beginning or end point in this change process. (Orlikowski, 1996: 66)

This conceptualization of change repudiates accounts of change which focus exclusively on episodic, stage-centered processes. It argues that individuals, groups, and organizations do not achieve change only through planned and structured stages of intervention. Rather, change is also understood as an ongoing, improvising enterprise, which produces observable and prominent transformations in groups and organizations actions and behaviors through adjustments, adaptations, and revisions of their existing representations and practices. Continuous change generally takes place without being noticed since “small alterations are lumped together as noise in otherwise uneventful inertia and because small changes are neither heroic nor plausible ways to make strategy” (Weick, 2009: 238–239). Nevertheless, proponents of continuous change approach argue that continuous change can lead to the same outcomes, but without the dramatic flair of revolutionary episodic change models such as punctuated equilibrium. According to this view, small continuous changes are amplified into something greater than initially intended and can, over time, lead to radical change (Balogun and Hailey, 2004; Plowman et al., 2007; Weick, 2009).

Continuous change also contrasts with cybernetic explanations of policy change. While cybernetic theory also repudiates many of the assumptions of rational choice, namely by favoring incremental change rather than planned change, it also fails to embrace the opportunities offered by the continuous change approach. Cybernetic theory states that instead of choosing value-maximizing options, decision makers possess limited repertoires of “responses” and decision rules devised from past experiences that determine their course of action (Steinbruner, 2002). When the repertoire of action is no longer able to maintain “acceptable-level goals” and “performance failures” are detected, decision makers use feedback channels to adjust policies. This process creates a narrow assortment of solutions due to the fact that the use of a limited set of preestablished, sequential response actions leads only to marginal policy adjustments. Once acceptable-level goals are achieved, policy routines are again activated. Therefore, policy change is restricted in terms of options and process. In other words, according to cybernetic theory, change in a response pattern can occur “if it restores the critical variable to its desired range, then persists until another disruption occurs” (Steinbruner, 2002: 78). This perspective does not leave any room for innovation and human agency. In fact, according to cybernetic theory, decision makers are devoid of creative thinking and incapable of widespread political transformation.

Equally important, the continuous change approach departs from planned change models by emphasizing the role of power and politics in the change process (Burnes, 2004a). In fact, the dispersed nature of power within organizations was already identified by Long (1949) when analyzing US governmental administration over 60 years ago. Therefore, in accordance with Pettigrew (1985: 64), to appropriately understand organizational change, attention must be paid “both to man’s capacity and desire to adjust social conditions to meet his ends, and the part played by power relationships in the emergence and ongoing development of the processes being examined.” Given that government organizations are composed of an assortment of groups and subgroups with different (and sometimes conflicting) interests and objectives, assessing the internal power relationships involved in determining the definition of the policy problems and options in the decision-making process is crucial (Pfeffer, 1992).

This line of reasoning is in harmony with the emergent change approach’s accent on the “bottom-up” dynamics of change. Contrary to the rational and hierarchical, “top-down” perspective characteristic of planned change, emergent change envisions actors from all levels of an organization acting as potential change agents. The underlying rationale underlying this perspective is twofold. First, it is argued that due to the speed and rate of environmental change, organizations must respond quickly to new challenges and opportunities. Therefore, only by empowering actors throughout the organization, can actions be galvanized fast enough to be effective (Burnes, 2004a). A second line of reasoning is that contemporary organizations are essentially political entities composed of competing perspectives and interests (Butcher and Atkinson, 2001). In this perspective, different individuals and groups compete over agendas and resources within the organization.

This conception of emergent change applies unsurprisingly well to foreign policy. Foreign policy decisions rarely are obtained during a single decision process. On the contrary, issues are usually dealt with by several parts of the policy-making apparatus and are structured in a succession of decisions (Allison, 1980; Weiss, 1989). Even within the context of the ultimate decision unit, foreign policy is rarely the result of a one-shot decision (Hermann, 2001). What’s more, FPA has also attested to the fact that “most foreign policy problems continue over an extended period of time and that policy makers often find themselves returning again and again to the task of coping with an issue they have addressed before” (Billings and Hermann, 1998: 53). Accordingly, foreign policy is continually evolving as decision makers are constantly adapting and adjusting to their perceived environment. In fact, officials involved in foreign policy decision-making resemble Orlikowski’s (1996: 65) organizational actors who, in trying to make sense of and act coherently in the world, enact ongoing improvisations devoid of “predefined scripts and choreographed moves.”

Moreover, power clashes are a standard of political decision-making within modern governmental organizations (Allison and Zelikow, 1999). Different individuals and groups will constantly seek to advance their policy recommendations, leading to unremitting struggles to define foreign policy. I have previously indicated that the scholarly literature on the Carter Presidency greatly emphasizes the struggle within the Administration to define foreign policy. While it is generally accepted that Brzezinski came to dominate the foreign policy decision-making, namely by garnering greater influence over Carter, competition did exist to define the foreign policy agenda, even beyond the confines of the Administration.

Therefore, there are numerous advantages to adopting a perspective that privileges continuous change in FPA. For instance, we could better understand the microprocesses of change at work in foreign policy decision-making, which are usually overlooked in more rational or cognitive oriented approaches. Moreover, by viewing change as a fait accompli, we miss identifying many of the complex mechanisms permanently involved in foreign policy decision-making and the dynamic nature of the foreign policy-making process. Thus, it seems more appropriate to heed Weick and Quinn’s (1999: 382) suggestion to shift our vocabulary from “change” to “changing” to gain a “greater appreciation that change is never off, that its chains of causality are longer and less determinate than we anticipated, and that whether one’s viewpoint is global or local makes a difference in the rate of change that will be observed, the inertias that will be discovered, and the size of accomplishments that will have been celebrated.”

An example of continuous change is the US Cold War policy of containment. Conventional accounts describe containment as the dominant US policy toward the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. However, as several authors have accurately pointed out, the policy of containment experienced numerous variations in its articulation and application since Kennan’s initial conceptualization in the immediate postwar period (Bernstein, 2002; Gaddis, 2005). In his masterful volume on the strategy of containment, Gaddis (2005) has identified five distinctive variations of the containment policy throughout the second half of the 20th century, that is, original strategy, NSC-68 adaptation, “New Look” version, flexible response variation, and détente adaptation. In his narrative, we can corroborate how the policy of containment was reinterpreted and reconstructed throughout the decades. And while Gaddis identifies five distinct variants, a careful reading reveals the ongoing nature of policy change, beset with continuous adaptations and adjustments. For example, although NSC-68 reinterpreted and changed the original proposal for containing the Soviet Union (until a new interpretation was shaped by the Eisenhower Administration’s “New Look”), there were continuous policy adjustments brought on by other ensuing strategic evaluations, such as NSC-135/3 and NSC-141 (Gaddis, 2005).

While the continuous change approach is certainly relevant for FPA, this does not imply that we must choose any particular approach vis-à-vis the other. On the contrary, we should view the multiple approaches as complementary. As numerous studies have demonstrated, countless organizations, especially those with large, hierarchical structures, such as national governments, demonstrate both planned and continuous processes of change (Esain et al., 2008). Foreign policy results from both types of change. We may adopt Burne’s (2004a) perspective and try to identify the type of change in accordance with the nature of the political environment. In this case, planned change is usually more characteristic of stable environments, whereas turbulent environments are more susceptible to emergent change. However, this might not always be the case. As argued above, many times, minor ongoing adjustments to policy might, over time, lead to large-scale policy transformations (Orlikowski, 1996; Weick and Quinn, 1999). The key to understanding foreign policy change is thus assessing the approach that best accommodates the reality of organizational life.

In the particular case of the Carter Administration, I claim that the continuous change approach is the most appropriate approach for explaining the dynamics involved in foreign policy-making. More precisely, in this study, the Carter Administration’s foreign policy change is regarded as an emergent phenomenon. I argue that the Carter Doctrine and its emphasis on the Middle East was not an abrupt and radical break with the Administration’s former policies resulting from the external shocks that occurred in 1979. The Carter Doctrine was, on the contrary, the result of the continuous and cumulative policy adaptations and adjustments that decision makers enacted to try to deal with their perceived international environment since the beginning of the Carter Presidency. I do not deny that the Administration’s foreign policy changed radically. However, I claim that the radical change was the result of the continuous dynamics involved in foreign policy decision-making. It was the product of intentionally planned endeavors, as well as of the unexpected opportunities and consequences resulting from the continued interactions between multiple decision makers competing to develop a coherent foreign policy. Therefore, rather than surfacing from a derivative position in the Carter Administration’s foreign policy agenda, the Middle East had always been of central concern. The understanding of the region’s relationship with the US and with other international actors was, however, continuously shifting throughout the Presidency.

Several researchers have already alluded to the cumulative nature the Carter Administration’s Middle East policy. Recent studies drawing on archival research and first-hand accounts have revealed the strategic importance that the Administration placed on the Middle East from the onset. For instance, in his revisionist account of Carter’s foreign policy, Njølstad (1995, 2004) has acknowledged that American emphasis on the Middle East predated the events of 1979. In addition, the author has put forward a thesis (i. e., restoration thesis) in which the Administration’s foreign policy change was explained by emphasizing “evolution rather than metamorphis” (Njølstad, 1995: 15). Nevertheless, Njølstad (2004: 22) sustains that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan “was instrumental in paving the way for a new and ambitious US-led security framework for the Persian Gulf region.”

Former NSC staff member Odom (2006) has also reinforced this view by describing the origins of the US Central Command (CENTCOM). According to the author, the Carter Administration carried out a series of interagency reviews in the early months of the Presidency, which “significantly altered US policies in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.” Moreover, Odom (2006) also testifies to the erratic policy process involved in the Administration’s Middle East policy due to cascading events. For example, in explaining the workings of the Persian Gulf Security Framework (PGSF/SCC) meetings, the former general sheds light on the emergent nature of the policy-making process:

The NSC approach, therefore, was to avoid a major and inevitably long interagency debate that would obstruct and delay the implementation of a new policy endorsed by the president six months earlier. Instead, we sought to address a series of catalyzing issues, secure presidential decisions on them, and then allow the agencies to move further on their own. Normally the PCSF/SCC would address only two or three specific actions at a single meeting, making recommendations to the president. Usually within a day, Carter made decisions based on the committee’s recommendations, although sometimes not precisely what was recommended. At the end of each meeting, two or three new specific issues were assigned for the agenda of the next meeting that would be held three or four days later. Such rapid turnarounds—from decisions to new issues to decisions and again to new issues for analysis and proposals for decisions—put a great strain on the personnel involved. (Odom, 2006: 69)

Other researchers also bear witness to the continuous dynamics involved in the Administration’s foreign policy-making (c. f., Kupchan, 1987). However, these accounts have equally lacked an appropriate conceptual framework for explaining the change process. In order to assess how the Carter Administration’s policy toward the Middle East emerged throughout Carter’s presidential tenure, we need a conceptual framework that is capable of identifying the unremitting dynamics of the foreign policy decision-making process. In particular, due to the specific spatial quality underlying the Carter Doctrine, we need a framework that emphasizes the geographic dimensions of foreign policy. In this case, the use of geographic mental maps as an analytical concept presents itself particularly useful. Decision makers’ mental maps are never static. Policy makers are constantly re-charting policy issues, constructing and reconstructing different places and spaces. Henrikson has long argued that mental maps are well suited to the study of the fluid nature of international affairs. More precisely, he claims that one of the major strengths of mental maps is that they “[enable] us immediately to recognize the vague and shifting character of the environments within which statesmen act” (Henrikson, 1980a: 505).

This is particularly the case during the Carter Presidency. Carter himself recognized the fluid nature of international politics and even made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda. In his University of Notre Dame address, Carter (1977a) claimed that “In less than a generation, we’ve seen the world change dramatically.” In a speech at Wake Forest University on 17 March, 1978, Carter underlined some of those changes and their results for US national security:

The world has grown both more complex and more interdependent. There is now a division among the Communist powers. The old colonial empires have fallen, and many new nations have risen in their place. Old ideological labels have lost some of their meaning. There have also been changes in the military balance among nations. (Carter, 1983d: 21)

The Third World was profoundly changed by these and other related events. Moreover, the Middle East was particularly prone to this atmosphere of change. As Vance (1983) acknowledged, the events occurring in the Middle East during the previous decades compelled the US to increasingly engage with the region to try to grapple with many of its multiple challenges and problems.

By analyzing the Carter Administration’s foreign policy through a geographically focused lens, we derive an alternative understanding of the Carter Doctrine. By using geographic mental maps to assess the development of the Administration’s policy toward the Middle East region, we can overcome the tyranny of explanations focused on episodic planned change. Mental maps allow us to tell the story of the development of the Carter Doctrine differently and, therefore, broaden our understanding of the dynamics involved in foreign policy change.

However, before I can proceed to analyze the Administration’s changing mental maps, I must begin by providing a comprehensive description of geographic mental maps as a concept. While there are numerous studies applying mental maps in foreign policy research, there are several conceptual and theoretical issues that warrant a thorough explanation and rationalization. Part 2 of this book devotes particular attention to defining geographic mental maps and conceptualizing their role in foreign policy change.