Bureaucracy is a set of ideas or theories relating to the filed on public administration, foreign policy affairs and other areas relating to that.
It is a big part of foreign policy making because it sets down rules and regulations on how the operations of foreign service should be carried out. The main reason as to why bureaucracy is a vital part of foreign policy making is because it involves a large analysis of foreign policy as well as policy making functions.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that turned into a global crisis after the US dropped missiles on Italy and Turkey which in turn led to the Soviet Union doing the same thing in Cuba. Historians and political experts consider this to be the incident where the Cold War came closest to turning into a full blow nuclear war.
The reason behind the crisis turning into one is because towards the end of World War 2 and the start of the Cold War, the US had become increasingly concerned about the growth of communism which is what further aggravated the situation.
In this case, the main instigating point was the growth of communism and the resulting factor was the crisis which was the conflict that arose from the resultant.
This crisis has been in the limelight for many reasons including the fact that it involved two of the world’s most powerful nations on opposing sides.
Along with this, it is considered important in the field of political science and bureaucracy because after this took place, 7 years later in 1969, Graham Allison came up with the book “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis” and again in 1971 with another book called “ Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis” which gave birth to many new ideas and theories regarding different and useful political models in the field of bureaucracy and foreign policy.
Bureaucratic politics model and how it impacted the Cuban missile crisis
The books by Graham Allison introduced two new decision-making approaches which include: the bureaucratic politics model and the organizational process model. The bureaucratic political model has shown to have more popularity as compared to the organizational politics model.
The bureaucratic politics model states that the foreign policy decisions are a result of the negotiations between political leaders in government positions. These decisions result from a foreign policy process where there are many political players, each with their own ideas and perspectives and bargain based on the “conduct of policy.”
Political experts say that the confrontation that took place between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis is a classic example of how the foreign policy decisions regarding the matter were the result of the two states involved in the crisis and whatever final decisions were taken were because the leaders in the government positions decided to take these decisions resulting in the Cuban missile crisis.
The main aim behind these theories introduced by Graham Allison was to explain to the readers about what the Cuban missile crisis was really about.
It was not simply about two states confronting each other on a pressing issue but it was the perfect real-life example of the bureaucratic political model.
This is because in this scenario, two countries which included some of the top political leaders involved, coming face to face resulting in an inevitable conflict. The bureaucratic political model is the perfect example of this which is why it has been said to impact the Cuban missile crisis.
Compared to the bureaucratic political model, the organizational political model states that the foreign policy actions are generated by what the organizations are saying. And according to this theory, foreign policy is actually a result of the input that the organizations give.
This political model is considered the most accurate one because it is about the competition game as well as the political resultants which were both prevalent in this situation because in the Cuban missile crisis, the states were at a conflict as a result of political differences which led to the deteriorating of the crisis at hand.
Politigory provides in-depth reviews of science, history, humanities, religion, social sciences and arts 🌎
