The Whisper in the Leader's Ear: How Do Foreign Policy Advisers Perform their Job?

Abstract

This study seeks to identify the factors that determine advisers' choice of tools and assess their influence under different circumstances. It uses historical process tracing methods to examine the `battle' between President Truman's foreign policy advisers over the formulation of US policy towards the Palestine question. It finds that: (1) advisers' self-perception determines the degree of their flexibility in the choice of tools; (2) the distribution of formal powers, the personalities involved and the type of policy question determine the intensity of the advisory battle; (3) non-expert advisers can win the advisory battle by using psychological tools of persuasion but only under certain specific conditions, which existed in this case; and finally that (4) an adviser's influence will be limited by the extent to which the leader is willing and able to independently form an opinion on the policy question.