Decision Making Processes and Decision Making Models in Foreign Policy Analysis

Scholars studying in the field Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) make use of explanatory variables that can be obtained from all levels of analysis as long as they influence the decision making process. The field of interest of the FPA can be defined as analyzing the interactions of the various actors, primarily states, in various geographies. This perspective mainly focuses on organizations, institutions, parties, cultural formations and human beings who give life to them. In that sense, FPA regards decision makers, in other words individuals, as the most important component of this interaction. However, the assumption of the individual as a rational actor can bring about a result of fitting into a mechanical process through ignoring such qualities as social context, belief, perception and desire. Therefore, in this study although individual level of analysis will be centered on, it would also be sought to put forward an approach involving analytical analysis of social structures in a certain extent; and institutions will not be excluded through examining the bureaucratic processes of foreign policy making. In this article, after mentioning three levels of analysis as individual, state, and system, Decision Making Models in FPA would be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to understand which models have been developed about political decision making and which model is feasible in various aspects