Jordan Tama

Crises, Commissions, and Reform The Impact of Blue-Ribbon Panels

Scholars have found that, even when a crisis creates demand for reform, a focal point is often necessary to overcome obstacles to change. I argue that, with surprising frequency, U.S. blue-ribbon commissions use their bipartisan political credibility to provide this focal point and thereby catalyze postcrisis government reform. Since commission-inspired reform is often designed to integrate or centralize policy making, I further explain that commissions can be useful presidential tools for asserting power over agencies. I test my argument on an original data set that includes new measures of commission influence.

Tradeoffs in defense strategic planning: lessons from the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review

ABSTRACT Defense ministries conduct strategic planning in various ways. In this article I outline tradeoffs in the design of strategic planning processes, and consider the implications of these tradeoffs for choices about the conduct of defense planning in different circumstances. Whereas an inclusive and transparent planning process is well-suited to building internal and external buy-in for a defense strategy, a more exclusive and opaque process is more likely to generate a defense strategy that departs from the status quo and speaks candidly about key challenges. The design of a defense planning process should therefore be informed by certain features of its context, such as whether the international security environment is stable or in flux and whether the defense ministry enjoys or lacks strong political support. I base the article’s findings on an in-depth analysis of the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review, which served for nearly two decades as the major strategy process of the U.S. Department of Defense. This analysis draws on interviews I conducted of 23 defense officials and experts, as well as primary and secondary sources. More generally, my findings highlight for scholars and practitioners the importance of understanding how planning processes can shape defense and national security policies.

The politics of strategy: why government agencies conduct major strategic reviews

In recent years, United States (US) policymakers have instituted quadrennial strategy reviews in several major policy areas. In this article, I examine why policymakers have initiated these large strategic reviews, and why a particular model for them has diffused from the US Defense Department to other government agencies. I find that policymakers have initiated the reviews principally to spur organisational change in agencies and influence the relationship between agencies and the Congress, and that policymakers have replicated the Defense Department’s review model because of that department’s strong political support. My findings suggest more generally that formal strategy activities are often driven more by legislative-executive and bureaucratic politics than by a search for new strategic ideas. Commonalities between the diffusion of quadrennial reviews in the US and the diffusion of other strategy and planning processes internationally underscore the broader applicability and significance of these findings.

How an agency’s responsibilities and political context shape government strategic planning: evidence from US Federal agency quadrennial reviews

ABSTRACT This paper extends the strategic planning literature by developing four original propositions about factors that affect the conduct of strategic reviews by government agencies. The propositions highlight how a strategic review’s design, analytical tools, and content are influenced by the extent of an agency’s reliance on collaboration or capital investments, the strength of an agency’s political support, and the existence or absence of a legislative mandate for a review. A plausibility probe involving qualitative analysis of three major quadrennial reviews by US national security agencies generates evidence that is largely consistent with the propositions.

Independent Commissions as Settings for Civil–Military Deliberation The Case of Women in the Military

US combat operations involving women and revelations of sexual abuse in the US military have periodically sparked intense political debates about women’s military roles. In the midst of these debates, US policy makers have repeatedly created independent advisory commissions on issues concerning women in the military. This article uses qualitative case studies of three such commissions to evaluate whether commissions can foster meaningful civil–military dialogue on contentious matters involving the military and society. This article finds that commission deliberations have sometimes led military professionals to change their views of sensitive issues, but that commissioners have been less open to deliberation if they have been affiliated with an organization possessing a distinct political agenda on women in the military. More broadly, the findings suggest that independent advisory bodies can provide valuable mechanisms for civil–military dialogue, so long as policy makers appoint to them individuals who are relatively open minded and unconstrained by political commitments.

From Private Consultation to Public Crusade: Assessing Eisenhower's Legislative Strategies on Foreign Policy

Existing scholarship describes Congress as deferring to Dwight Eisenhower on foreign policy during the majority of his presidency. In this article, I demonstrate that Congress resisted key elements of Eisenhowers foreign policy agenda throughout his presidency, and that Eisenhower needed to employ a variety of sophisticated strategies to obtain congressional backing. On foreign aid—one of his top presidential priorities—Eisenhower launched a multifaceted and innovative campaign to build congressional support, which included the establishment of White House-funded private advocacy groups to educate the public about the issue. Eisenhowers approach on foreign aid reveals that he was willing to depart from his “hidden-hand” leadership style when necessary to advance a top priority, but that even when going public, Eisenhower relied in part on others to deliver his message.

Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof (eds), The National Security Enterprise: Navigating the Labyrinth

added information and insight to the media/ intelligence complex. All governments, including the current Obama administration, are sensitive to leaks. Surprisingly, they are less sensitive to a lack of intelligence production. Governments like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and similar governments in Europe have one thing in common. They are all very strong, even a government like Belgium which seems most of the time to have no government. No matter how embarrassing the leak, no matter how justified or unjustified the leak, these governments all survive because they are middle class democracies under the rule of law. The implication throughout the book is that both the media and government need better-educated professionals with experience, judgment and integrity. The problem is a serious deterioration in the general level of education and experience in both domains of media and intelligence.