Can Bureaucracies Be Rational Actors? Foreign Policy Decision-Making in North Vietnam

Abstract

This research provides one basis for more comparative study of governmental decision-making. It examines North Vietnamese foreign policy decision-making during 1972 and 1973, using event data for source information, and is placed in the context of Allison's (1971) rational actor and bureaucratic politics models. The rational actor analysis is used to identify North Vietnamese foreign policy goals and policy alternatives and possible decision strategies for interactions vis-à-vis the United States. No one decision strategy appears to correspond fully with North Vietnamese behavior, and in fact there appears to be a switch in strategies during the analysis period. The bureaucratic politics analysis is employed to identify the source of this switch and the reasons for its occurrence during 1972. That analysis suggests that the military began to support a negotiated settlement with the United States during 1972 to strengthen its bureaucratic position among North Vietnamese policy makers.