ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an alternative framework for analysing US foreign policy in general and US nation-building in Afghanistan in particular. Bureaucratic politics is at core of the framework. This focus on the foreign policy bureaucracy is not, of course, without precedent. The chapter develops a new bureaucratic politics model that builds upon the strengths of the current literature, while recognizing and transcending its weaknesses. It outlines the key assumptions of the rational actor model. The chapter continues with a critique of the RAM and a discussion of the ways in which bureaucratic politics confound and obstruct decisions taken by rational actors, including the President. It elaborates an alternative model of bureaucratic politics centred on four interrelated, but distinct variables: bureaucratic interests, perceptions, culture and power. The chapter suggests that the rational actor model is an inadequate starting point for understanding US foreign policy formation and implementation, in general and in Afghanistan.
