How decision makers understand and represent problems they face is crucial to the decisions they make. That has been the primary theme of this volume. But how have the contributors to this book helped us learn more about the manner in which problem representation occurs and how it has affected foreign policy decisions? That question and the question of the consequences of the manner in which problem representation is studied are the two themes of this final chapter.

Information Processing

One important way to conceptualize problem representation is commonly termed information processing. In Chapter 2 of this volume, Voss carefully explicates an information-processing perspective. Such a perspective posits that foreign policy decision makers have goals that can be articulated and that guide decisions they make. An information-processing perspective also assumes that a domain can be described as having properties, such as “ill structured” or “well structured,” that can be spoken of as though they are independent of the decision maker operating in the area of foreign policy. In addition, Voss points out that an information-processing approach assumes that decision makers are serial processors and have a working memory system with a finite capacity.

To varying degrees, most of the chapters in this volume share these assumptions of an information-processing approach. What are the implications of those assumptions for the analysis of decision making, including any conclusions we might draw concerning the role of problem representation? Perhaps the most important implication flows from the information-processing assumption that actors studied have goals that motivate them. Of the empirical chapters (Part III), this assumption clearly plays a role in Young's Chapter 9, Gannon's Chapter 10, Voss et al.'s Chapter 12, and Breuning's Chapter 13. In Young's study of Carter, for instance, the notion of a goal hierarchy is central to his analysis. Were one to adopt the contrasting assumption that Carter administration actions were largely determined by bureaucratic inertia, the substantive conclusions of Young's work would be called into question. The very notion of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a potential Carter goal impediment defines the manner in which “problem representation” is employed, and it predisposes the analyst to find order (no matter how prone to change) in Carter's pronouncements.