Blair's War - Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British Choice in Iraq

8/8/2019 Blair's War - Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British Choice in Iraq

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/blairs-war-institutional-and-individual-determinants-of-the-british 1/46

Blair's War: Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British

Choice in Iraq

Stephen Benedict DysonDepartment of Political Science

St. Olaf College

Northfield, MN [email protected]

Brianna K. Lawrence

Department of Political ScienceWashington State University

Pullman, WA [email protected]

Prepared for Presentation at the 46th

Annual Convention of the International Studies

Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii. 1st

-5th

March 2005.



2

BLAIR’S WAR: INSTITUTIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS OF THE

BRITISH CHOICE IN IRAQ.

A divide is often posited between individual and institutional modes of analysis in

political science. Individualists attribute great importance to the personal characteristics

and motivations of prominent actors within the political process. Institutionalists, by

contrast, argue that configurations of formal political organizations and informal norms

shape and structure interests, behavior and political outcomes. This divide has been

prevalent in most sub-fields of the discipline, and has certainly been influential in shaping

studies of decision making in the British central government. Individualist perspectives

informed the long-running and ultimately inconclusive debate concerning the relative

distribution of power between Prime Minister and Cabinet, and in particular the question

of whether apparent increases in Prime Ministerial power had transformed the British

central government into a psuedo-Presidential system1. Many of these arguments were

centered on the personality and performance of specific Prime Ministers. The

“rediscovery of institutions”, which swept political science from the mid 1980s onward,

refocused the debate from the influence of individuals and onto their relative

insignificance when set against organizational structures, values and practices which

were transmitted from government to government2. The strongest version of this

argument suggests that political life can be understood as "a collection of institutions,

rules of behavior, norms, roles, physical arrangements, buildings, and archives that are

relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the

idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals"3.

However, there have been prominent arguments which suggest taking

simultaneously an individual micro perspective and an institutional macro perspective



3

approach to the study of executives and decision making4. Many individualists now

recognize the significance of institutional factors, and argue that these should be

incorporated explicitly into conceptual models. Indeed, the political psychologist Paul 't

Hart suggests that a consideration of factors such as institutional norms and structured

interactions is critical to a credible account of central government decision making:

Social and political psychologists cannot afford to ignore the broader institutional

forces that govern the perceptions, calculations, and behavior of real-world

policy makers. They do so at the risk of arriving at reductionist explanations and

identifying all sorts of biases, irrationalities, and information-processing

pathologies, whereas seasoned observers of organizational and political behavior,

who are more aware of meso-level considerations and constraints, and of

paradigms of governance that do not accord a central place to its problem-solvingand information-processing functions, would find these conclusions to be both

overly-simplistic and normatively crude5

At the same time, many institutionalists are aware of the dangers of structural

determinism, and stress that while organizational structures and informal norms constrain

actors, these constraints are contingent and partial, and therefore provide opportunities

for individual agency6. Indeed, March and Olsen indicate a preference for a theory

sensitive to "a rather complicated intertwining of institutions, individuals, and events"7.

Additionally, as Burch and Holliday argue:

(It is important to) avoid either of the extreme positions which state on the one

hand that the individual is the key determinant of political outcomes and on the

other that structural factors are decisively important...Individuals occupying

positions and having access to resources...operate in structured situations within

which constantly shifting opportunities for significant action arise. The key task

is to identify the conditions under which individual action can be significant8

.

This perspective is the basis for the current study. In institutional terms, I adopt

the core executive approach to the study of the British central government which has

recently come to prominence9, specifying the particular form it takes in foreign policy

matters. In order to avoid structural determinism, I conceptualize the importance of the



4

Prime Minister as an individual through an application of “leadership trait analysis”,

which identifies individual characteristics with relevance to political decision making. I

then apply this framework to the British choice to go to war with Iraq. I find that Prime

Minister Tony Blair scores as a low complexity, high need for power individual, with a

high belief in his ability to control events. I find that he behaves broadly as we would

expect of an individual with this trait configuration. His representation of the situation

was in ‘black and white’ terms, with an imperative for the removal of Saddam Hussein,

the impossibility of a diplomatic settlement, and an absolutist view of the alliance with

America. This is consistent with a low complexity individual. Blair scores very highly in

need for power, meaning that he would be predicted to take decisions in small, informal

groups I find that in the Iraq case Blair did indeed behave in this manner, often bypassing

the regularized channels of policy making. Finally, Blair scores highly in terms of his

belief in ability to control events. Individuals who measure high in this trait have a strong

sense of personal efficacy in relation to the political world. Again, Blair displayed

evidence of this during the Iraq decisions, showing great confidence in his personal

abilities to shape outcomes. I therefore find evidence that Blair’s individual

characteristics are reflected in his choice for war. However, in institutional terms, the

Prime Ministership is not a command position, and Blair’s policy preference does not

automatically become the foreign policy of the British state. Blair faced unease and some

outright opposition within the core executive institution regarding Iraq policy. He was

forced to allow more open Cabinet discussion than he would have liked, and had to

carefully manage the decision making process. He was fortunate in that the two actors in

the strongest position to undermine him, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw, did not openly



5

disagree with him, although Straw expressed doubts privately on several occasions. I find

overall that Blair was in a strong political position prior to the Iraq decisions, and that he

required the resources this strength gave him in order to translate his policy preference

into British foreign policy. I argue that the combination of an institutional and individual

approach yields a more convincing account of the British government’s Iraq decision

making than either approach utilized in isolation.

Institutions: The Foreign Policy Core Executive

The core executive approach conceptualizes the British central government as an

interactive and dynamic group of Prime Minister, Ministers, civil servants, advisers, and

departments, each constrained by constitutional and organizational structures, and each

possessed of certain resources and with agency to use them in varying ways. From this

perspective, decision making is ill explained by abstractions such as ‘Prime Ministerial’

or ‘Cabinet’ government, as "power is everywhere and understood through the language

of dependence, networks, governance, and choice"10. In the following, I define the core

executive approach more precisely, and elaborate a model of structure, resources, and

agency within the area of foreign policy decisions. I argue that while the core executive

approach is a highly useful macro-perspective, it requires supplementation with a theory

explaining differential strategies of individual agency in order to realize its full

explanatory potential.

The Core Executive Defined

Rhodes defines the core executive as

the complex web of institutions, networks and practices surrounding the Prime



6

Minister, Cabinet, Cabinet committees and their official counterparts, lessformalised ministerial 'clubs' of meetings, bilateral negotiations and

interdepartmental committees. It also includes coordinating departments, chiefly

the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the law officers, and the

security and intelligence services11

These various parts of the core executive have fluid relationships to one another.

Crucially, each has resources, but none has the resources (information, authority, control

of an organization, finance) to achieve their goals unilaterally. This means that the core

executive is characterized by an irreducible mutual dependence. The dependence-

dynamics and wider operation of the executive are determined by three factors: the

structure of the interaction between parts of the core executive; the resources possessed

by each part of the core executive; and the manner in which the various actors exercise

individual agency, both in using their resources and acting to increase them12.

Structure

The structure of the core executive includes both its constituent organizational

parts and a series of formal and informal rules and norms. These structural factors shape

the resources available to core executive actors and condition the options which can be

employed in their service. Structure therefore acts both to constrain and to enable.

The primary organizational forums for foreign policy core executive decision

making are the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet committees. The treatment of issues varies

according to which of these bodies considers the issue and which is the ultimate site of

decision. The full Cabinet is populated by actors of independent political stature,

representing divergent interests within the government13

. Consequently, we should expect

the organizational influence of extensive discussion and decision making in the full

Cabinet to be felt in the presence of a variety of views and the possibilities of policy



7

outputs being the result of compromises between powerful core executive actors. Sub-

Cabinet committees are, however, empowered to take many decisions in their own right.

Cabinet committees are smaller forums for policy analysis and decision, and their size,

composition, and remit is often decided, or at least heavily influenced, by the Prime

Minister14. As Giddens notes, Cabinet committees are "a useful management tool for the

Prime Minister, whose responsibility it is to decide which committees shall be

established, what shall be referred to them and, perhaps most crucially of all, who is to

serve on them and by whom they will be chaired"15

. The organizational influence of

extensive discussion and decision making in sub-Cabinet level committees is likely to be

a greater homogeneity of views and specialization of membership, perhaps allowing for

more focused deliberations, but which considers a narrower range of viewpoints and

interests. The evolving structure of the core executive has increasingly provided for a

support staff of advisers and aides for the Prime Minister. We would expect decisions

taken here to be efficiently made but again be characterized by a more narrow range of

discussion.

Core executive relations are also structured by the formal and informal rules and

norms of the central state16. These rules are a central feature of institutional analysis, and

not only constrain in negative terms but also structure action in a positive sense, as they

are internalized by actors through processes of socialization17

. As Burch and Holliday

note, "like other established institutions, the British central executive has developed

accepted modes of behaviour, which limit options available to individuals". Although

these modes of behavior "shape and steer" core executive operations, however, a space

for individual agency is reserved: "rules are always partial, and the process of applying



8

them is always compromised. Scope for individual initiative always exists"18

. The Prime

Minister is constrained in normative terms to secure Cabinet consent to major foreign

policy actions, although this could consist of a spectrum of actions ranging from full

consultation and acceptance of Cabinet will to the use of Cabinet as merely a rubber-

stamp on decisions made elsewhere. The support of the Parliamentary party is desirable

but not immediately essential, although the Prime Minister will pay a political price in the

future for unpopular or ill-fated foreign actions19.

More specifically, several important norms are associated with the British core

executive, and are stable features of its operation. When these norms are invoked either

tacitly or explicitly, they can have a substantial effect on the nature of decision making.

Crucially important is the norm of central state secrecy20

. When this norm is strongly in

evidence, decision making takes on a more closed character, consultation is more narrow,

and access to information becomes restricted to only a few core executive actors.

Secondly, the norm of collective Cabinet responsibility can be extremely important in

shaping decision making. This practice holds that while disagreement between ministers

over policy is legitimate in private and prior to a decision point, the decision that emerges

cannot be dissented from in public or in Parliament - ministers must either support the

decision or resign21

. This norm, when prominent, leads in the happiest scenario to a

genuinely unified government policy, but also has the potential to hinder the

reconsideration of a failing policy and compel ministers to subsume their private doubts

beneath a facade of consensus.

Resources



9

While structure conditions the Prime Minister's relationships with the core executive and

their range of options, it is not determinative22. Indeed, the structure of the British core

executive provides the Prime Minister with a great reserve of resources to utilize as they

will. As Shell notes, "the office itself has no formal definition, as might be provided by a

written constitution...There are certain duties a Prime Minister must carry out, but beyond

that the job is very much what they make of it- and what their colleagues will allow them

to make of it"23.

The relative resources of core executive actors vary according to the issue area

under consideration

24

. In foreign policy as in other areas, the Prime Minister is the most

“resource-ladden” core executive actor. Of course, the Prime Minister is the primary

beneficiary of the organizational capacity offered by the PM’s office and the Cabinet

office. However, institutions of the central government provide important bureaucratic

capacity to all prominent core executive actors, differentially advantaging the Prime

Minister but also providing resources to other Cabinet Ministers. In particular, the

Foreign Secretary has a large specialized foreign policy bureaucracy at his disposal as

well as the normative presumption that he will be involved in foreign policy decisions.

A series of additional resources are available to the Prime Minister in foreign

policy terms. Firstly, they have the right to intervene directly and take control of foreign

policy matters, or to allow the Foreign Secretary and Cabinet to make most policy. As

Shell notes, Prime Ministers have large discretion in determining their degree of activity

versus passivity:

On the one hand, they can choose to become 'workaholics', attempting to inform

themselves about everything and intervening in as many decisions as

possible...On the other hand, a Prime Minister could conceivably sit back and let

ministers get on with reaching decisions, while as Prime Minister fulfilling a



10

head of government role, making ministerial appointments and chairing

Cabinet25

Sir Philip de Zulueta, a former private secretary to three Prime Ministers, attributes this

discretion to the earlier noted lack of a formal 'job description' for the office: "...while not

directly responsible for anything, they are indirectly responsible for everything, and can

meddle in anything they choose"26.

The Prime Minister also possesses resources deriving from patronage, in

particular the power of appointment over key ministries. A Prime Minister can appoint a

political ally in a key position in order to exert influence over policy in that area, or,

alternatively, appoint a 'weak' or deferential minister likely to exercise limited

independence from the Prime Minister. However, discretion in appointments is limited as

Prime Ministers' also have to take into account a basic level of ministerial competence

and the independent political bases which certain individuals will have accrued, giving

the individual concerned leverage in picking their post and acting somewhat

autonomously once in Cabinet27

.

A further resource available to the Prime Minister is to attempt to determine the

location and composition of the primary decision making group. As noted earlier, Prime

Ministers can either use the Cabinet as a genuine decision making body, have major

discussions on significant issues with all its members, and abide by the consensus view,

or else reach decisions in smaller groups or individually with the responsible minister,

thereby reducing Cabinet to the role of providing a 'rubber stamp'28. However, Prime

Ministers do not have an entirely free hand in these matters, and are usually compelled to

involve the Foreign Secretary and key Cabinet colleagues even when the Prime Minister

is in a politically powerful position.



11

Due to the irreducible mutual dependency of core executive relations, wherein

every actor has some resources but none has sufficient resources to achieve their goals

unilaterally, the question of the precise distribution of resources and the manner in which

they are used during a particular episode is an important variable in understanding

decision making. We would expect a politically strong Prime Minister to be able to

operate much more independently of other core executive actors in comparison with a

weak Prime Minister more immediately dependent on the support of others. The

presence, in the foreign policy core executive, of two heavily resource-laden actors (the

Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary) makes the relationship between the two

significant. A Foreign Secretary at odds with the Prime Minister in policy terms and with

independent resources can act as an important influence on the decision making process,

compelling the Prime Minister to compromise or generating a more conflictual policy

dynamic. However, all core executive actors have some resources, and so the potential

exists for manipulation, alliance forming, tactical information sharing/ withholding, and

other intensely political core executive maneuverings29.

Agency

While the core executive perspective attributes a large role to structurally-given resources

and structural constraints, it also allows a significant role for individual agency. Indeed,

the manner in which a Prime Minister chooses to deploy the resources available to them

in coordinating the core executive is crucial to understand. As Smith states, even "when

faced with what are seen as irreducible structural forces, there is still room for maneuver,

and structural forces provide opportunities as well as constraints”30. Prime Ministers



12

employ different strategies and tactics as they utilize their resources in a given structural

situation. Indeed, differences in Prime Ministerial usage of resources are observable even

on casual analysis. As Smith notes: “the three most recent Prime Ministers have had very

different strategies and tactics. Thatcher’s strategy was generally interventionist, Major

was more collectivist, and Blair’s appears directive”31. This perspective accords with

other accounts of the British executive. King comments that “the Prime Ministership is a

highly dynamic office. The people who hold it vary wildly in operating style, and in the

purposes to which they wish to put the office”32

, and, as J.M. Lee notes, “similar

situations are dealt with differently by different Prime Ministers"

33

. Moreover, Prime

Ministers, as “reflexive agents”, can actually change the structure around them and create

new structures for their successors- as one Prime Minister’s agency translates into the

next’s structure34.

The place reserved for individual agency within the core executive perspective

allows, as illustrated in depth below, the application of the body of work in foreign policy

analysis concerned with making the case that “who leads matters”35.

Individuals: Characteristics of the Prime Minister

The core executive perspective requires supplementation with a theory explaining

variation in individual agency, in short, an individualist perspective. The danger absent

this is that core executive accounts of agency become narrative and ad hoc, preventing

the approach from realizing its full potential. Indeed, there is recognition from core

executive scholars that the approach can benefit from an application of theories focused

on the characteristics of individuals: “The systematic analysis of leadership influences is



13

still in its infancy in the UK....There is no equivalent to the sophisticated analysis of how

leadership personality transmutes into characteristic institutional and policy styles which

figure large in accounts of the US presidency”36

.

The field of elite assessment has sought to incorporate psychological theory into

the study of the political behavior of elites, usually although not exclusively in foreign

policy decision making contexts37

. Winter has distinguished three main lines of research

in this approach to political "personality"38. Firstly, "traits" are "the public, observable

element of personality, the consistencies of style readily noticed by other people"39

.

Secondly, "motives", which "involve anticipation and pursuit, over time, of goals or

desired end states", or avoidance of undesired end states40. Finally, "cognitions" consist

of "a wide variety of mental representations, schemas, models, categories, beliefs, values,

and attitudes"41.

Eschewing single-variable approaches, Margaret G. Hermann has developed a

multivariate scheme of elite political propensities42

. Hermann argued that several

different motivational, cognitive, and trait variables could be combined into assessments

of political "personality". This approach was chosen as the basis for the assessment of

individual influences in this study for three reasons. Firstly, the approach utilizes insight

from studies of individuals qua individuals (based in psychology), but does not import

these insights directly into political science. Rather, the categories and concepts

suggested by psychological studies were refined by Hermann to relate directly to

essentially political questions of choice propensity, information need, and prioritization

of goals. Secondly, there is a large base of research literature employing this approach

which has established the validity of the theoretical scheme43. Finally, a content analysis



14

measurement scheme accompanies the theoretical framework, providing reliable,

quantified data relating to Hermann's variables. Three variables from Hermann’s scheme

are important in providing a basis for understanding differential strategies of individual

agency. Belief in ability to control events refers to the leader's cognitive representation of

the political world as amenable to manipulation versus driven by broad impersonal

forces44

. Political leaders who believe they can control events tend to formulate policy in

a proactive manner, seeing a utility payoff in doing so. Conceptual Complexity refers to

"the degree of differentiation an individual shows in describing or discussing other

people, places, policies, ideas, or things"

45

. Those higher in conceptual complexity are

more sensitive to multiple policy dimensions and complex value trade offs than those

lower in this trait. They are also more attentive to contextual information concerning a

political situation, and will seek information from a wider range of sources than those

lower in complexity. Need for Power "indicates a desire to control, influence, or have an

impact on other persons or groups"46

. Political leaders higher in need for power have

been found to prefer a more hierarchical decision making process, and maintain a greater

degree of personal involvement throughout policy making than leaders lower in need for

power47 .

The underlying presumption of this individualist approach is that in political

affairs, actors vary in decision propensities, information needs, and goal rankings, and

that this variation is significant to political processes and outcomes. As Fred I. Greenstein

succinctly states, "different individuals, in the same situation, act differently", a condition

referred to as "actor dispensability". Greenstein continues with a qualification termed

"action dispensability": For this variation to be of interest to political explanation, the



15

individual has to be important to the political phenomena in question48

. The desirability

of combining the institutional and individual approach is that institutional factors

structure problems and decisions, and additionally provide opportunities for individuals

to be causally significant, while individual factors determine whether and how these

opportunities are taken. Separately, the institutional approach directly addresses the issue

of "action dispensability", but fails to address the question of "actor dispensability". The

reverse is true for the elite assessment approach.

I argue therefore that the combination of the institutionally-focused core executive

approach with the individually-focused leadership trait analysis approach is a promising

basis for a comprehensive understanding of foreign policy making in Britain. In the

remainder of the paper I apply this approach to the British choice in Iraq. In the following

section I present a research strategy to accomplish this.



16

METHOD AND DATA

Measuring individual characteristics

A content analysis measurement scheme accompanies the Leadership Trait

Analysis conceptual framework. The scheme is a theoretically-driven content analysis of

a leader's verbal output. More specifically, "an assumption is made that the more

frequently leaders use certain words and phrases in their interview responses (and other

verbal behavior) the more salient such content is to them...At issue is what percentage of

the time when leaders could exhibit particular words and phrases they are, indeed,

used"

49

. Procedures consist of an identification of opportunities within a leaders’ text for

exhibiting verbal behavior associated with the trait variables, recording whether this

opportunity was taken and whether the words used are indicative of a positive or negative

score on that trait based on the coding dictionary developed with the technique, and the

summing of all such instances within the piece of text. Finally, a ratio “trait score” (0-

100) for that leader is calculated. Table 1 summarizes the conceptualization of each trait

variable, as well as the associated coding rules.



17

Table 1: Trait Conceptualization and Coding Rules.

Trait Description Coding

Belief in Ability toControl Events

Perception of the world as an

environment leader can influence.

Leader's own state is perceived asan influential actor in the

international system.

Percentage of times verbs are

used that reflect action or

planning of the leader orrelevant group.

Conceptual

Complexity

Capability of discerning different

dimensions of the environment

when describing actors, places,

ideas and situations.

Percentage of frequency of

words related to either high (i.e.

"approximately", "possibility",

"trend") or low (i.e."absolutely", "certainly",

"irreversible") complexity.

Need for Power A concern with gaining, keeping

and restoring power over others.

Percentage of times verbs are

used that reflect actions of

attack, advise, influence on the

behavior of others, concern withreputation.

Initial studies employing the Leadership Trait Analysis framework employed

hand-coding of texts. These procedures were labour-intensive and time consuming, and

raised concerns over the necessarily small samples of text used and the potential for

scorer bias50. However, developments in computer processing capabilities and software

design have allowed for the automation of Hermann’s technique, with the content

analysis conducted by desktop computer. This eliminates inter-coder reliability concerns

as the computer perfectly replicates the coding results for a given piece of text each time.

Additionally, vastly greater volumes of text can be coded given the improvements in the

speed of processing in moving from hand to automated coding51

.

Data

As part of a wider research project52

, the universe of prime minister responses to

foreign policy questions in the House of Commons between 1945-2004, available

through the Hansard's Parliamentary Debates series, were collected. Unlike previous



18

studies using the leadership analysis technique, therefore, a sampling procedure for

selecting texts was not necessary. This allows greater confidence in the reliability of the

trait data, which rests on analysis of close to 1 million words spoken by the Prime

ministers, and constitutes population, rather than sample data. Prime ministerial

responses to questions in the House of Commons are appropriate materials for the

generation of trait scores: they are from a single source, eliminating differential audience

effects which might bias estimates, and are relatively spontaneous, reducing the risk that

they are pre-prepared and thus more indicative of the trait orientation of an aide or

speechwriter than the subject in whom we are interested

53

. It should be noted here I did

not include set-piece speeches, nor opening statements in debates (although subsequent

questions within the debate were included). The decision to exclude speeches and

monologues was taken as this type of material is most likely to have been substantially

shaped by an aide or speechwriter.

Collection of the responses of prime ministers involved several steps. The

responses easiest to collect were those given after 1989 - these are available on the web-

site of the House of Commons by means of a searchable database

(http://www.publications.parliament.uk). Responses between 1945-1989 were collected

from the bound version of Hansard. This involved obtaining a set of volumes, identifying

within each volume pages which contained relevant text, and photocopying these pages.

In order to render the text into machine readable form for the automated analysis, a

digital scanning device was used. However, in many instances the photocopies were of

relatively poor quality, necessitating substantial manual correction of the electronic file.

In a frustrating number of instances, the scanner output was so inaccurate as to be



19

unusable, necessitating that those sections of Hansard be entered into a word processing

package by hand. This is to say that, while automated coding is less labour-intensive than

hand coding, it is not without cost in terms of time and resources. Once in machine-

readable form, the responses were divided into quarter year sections, with a separate

electronic file created for each. The decision was taken to divide the text into quarter year

sections for three substantive reasons:

1) This procedure creates many observations: i.e. instead of Thatcher's premiership

constituting one unit of observation of her individual characteristics, the division into

quarter year sections allows for 47 separate measurements. This substantially mitigates

the small n problem by shifting the level of analysis from the prime minister to a stable

unit of time within the premiership.

2) The quarter year unit is large enough that the trait scores rest upon analysis of a

reasonable number of words. As Mahdasian has demonstrated, sub quarter year units

(days and weeks) display instability in scores from one unit to another due to the small

number of words upon which the analysis rests54.

3) Having many separate quarter year observations allows for greater precision in

measuring differences between prime ministers. In addition to reporting the mean scores

for Blair versus the other post-1945 prime ministers, an orthogonal comparison between

the quarter year observations of Blair (coded 1) and the other prime ministers (coded 0)

will give us a t-value indicating the sign and significance of such differences (see table

2).

Studying the Iraq Decisions

Making a systematic study of the Iraq decision making presents some problems. Due to



20

the recent nature of events, there are few primary source materials available. Interviewing

the participants is also difficult, as most of the key players are still in government.

However, as this situation will not improve substantially until 2033 (when the Public

Records Office in Kew will be permitted to open up the cabinet minutes, papers of the

Prime Minister etc) it seems reasonable to take seriously that evidence which is available.

I analyzed evidence from three sources. Firstly, a lexis-nexis search of the Times group

newspapers (The Times, The Financial Times) was conducted. The search paramenters

were for stories containing the keywords “Iraq” and “Blair”, and the search was bounded

from 1/1/2002 –1/4/2003. The Times group papers were selected as they are the ‘papers

of record’ in the United Kingdom. The time period encompasses the period from when an

attack on Iraq began to be discussed until well into the actual military campaign.

Secondly, official reports on Iraq decision making, made available by the British

parliament, were consulted. Finally, the available memoirs and book length studies of the

Iraq case were considered. These include the two memoirs by Robin Cook (“Point of

Departure”) and Clare Short (“An Honourable Deception?”). These memoirs provided

valuable insight, but obviously had to be cross-checked with other sources for accuracy

and interpretation, given that both Cook and Short resigned in protest over the Iraq

decisions.

In the following sections, I apply the combined institutional / individual

framework to the Iraq case. Prior to a study of the actual decisions, I consider the critical

questions of the distribution of resources amongst the core executive, and report data on

the individual characteristics of Prime Minister Tony Blair.



21

DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES

Tony Blair was in a very strong position in early 2002, when the possibility of an attack

on Iraq began to be actively discussed. In general political terms, he had a very large

Parliamentary majority. While many within the Labour party would not consider

themselves perfectly aligned with the Prime Minister ideologically, the electoral success

he had produced in securing two successive landslide electoral victories gave him a very

strong position within the parliamentary party. Within the wider electorate, Blair was

unusually popular for a Prime Minister who had been in office for over 5 years, with a

favorable job rating.

Within the Cabinet, Blair's position was also strong. Many in the Cabinet owed

their careers to his personal patronage, and others, while figures of independent standing,

respected his electoral success and political skills. The Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who

was in the strongest formal position to influence foreign policy, was a confirmed Blairite,

somewhat new to the job, and so unlikely to offer much in the way of resistance to Blair's

preferences. Indeed, at the end of 2001, Straw was forced to assert that he did not resent

Blair's dominance in foreign policy55. The major figure within the government apart from

Blair was the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. However, Brown's brief was

domestic policy, and he had rarely shown much interest in foreign affairs.

Finally, Blair was perceived as both experienced and successful in foreign affairs.

Blair had been involved in an unusually high number of armed conflicts during his

tenure: four in five years. He had developed a foreign policy identity as something of a

hawk on the use of force. His colleagues acknowledged his expertise, with the former

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook commenting upon "the very sophisticated knowledge



22

Tony has built up of international affairs through his own first-hand contacts with the key

players"56. His reputation in this regard was enhanced in the aftermath of the September

11th

2001 attacks on the United States, when Blair was effective in transmitting the

sympathy of Britain to the U.S.

INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRIME MINISTER

Table 2: Individual Characteristics of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Belief inAbility to

Control

Events

Conceptual

Complexity

Need for

Power

Blair’s

MeanScores

44.8 50.6 30.1

Post 1945

Prime

Ministers’Mean

Scores

32.9 55.3 21.9

Difference

from post1945 Prime

Ministers (t

score)

8.698*** -2.056** 6.583***

** p = <.05, *** p = <.01

Blair scores very highly in terms of his belief in ability to control events: Indeed,

he scores the highest of modern British Prime Ministers on this trait. Individuals who

score highly on this trait have a belief in their personal efficacy in relation to the political

world, viewing events as amenable to their influence, and so conducting policy in a



23

proactive manner. Of course, the belief that one can manipulate events does not

necessarily ensure that this is the case, and so individuals with a high score on this trait

can overestimate their political efficacy. Blair is lower than the Prime Minister reference

group in conceptual complexity. This indicates that, in comparison to others who have

held the post, Blair as Prime Minister will evidence a more absolutist, black and white

view of political life. Blair scores very highly in terms of need for power. Individuals

high in this trait tend to maintain control over both policy process and outcome,

considering it undesirable to delegate control. Decisions are consequently taken in small

groups whenever possible, with the composition of the groups chosen by the leader with

minimal reference to formal organizational structures. This can have the advantage of

creating dynamic and efficient decision making procedures, but of course caries the risk

that a leader is exposed to an insufficient diversity of opinions and interests prior to

making a decision

THE BRITISH CHOICE IN IRAQ

In the period after the September 11th attacks on the United States, most attention

within the British government was focused upon the war on Afghanistan. Certainly

Cabinet discussions contained little mention of Iraq, as one Cabinet member recalls:

"None us saw Iraq as a military adventure coming on to our radar screen"57. However, the

Prime Minister became aware at this point that elements of the Bush administration were

intent on pushing for military action in Iraq, and would use the justification that Saddam

Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. This divergence between what the Prime Minister knew

and what the Cabinet knew / were told would continue to some degree throughout the

decision making process.



24

By February 2002, US rhetoric on Iraq had indicated that an attack was being

actively considered. This prompted concern both within the Parliamentary Labour Party

and the Cabinet. A survey of 100 Labour MP's by a BBC television program showed

deep skepticism as to the threat posed by Iraq (Table 3)

Table 3: Survey of 100 Labour MP's in February 2002: "Do you believe there is sufficient

evidence to justify a military attack on Iraq?"

Yes 8

No 86

No Answer 7

Source: The Sunday Times, February 24th 2002.

In Cabinet on February 28th, Ministers expressed a desire for a full debate on Iraq policy,

and indicated that Britain should push the US to re-engage with the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. As Robin Cook, the Leader of the House of Commons, recalls:

"Before I can raise it, David Blunkett (the Home Secretary) asks if we can have a

discussion at an early meeting on Iraq. I come in to back him up by explaining that

military action against Iraq will not be supported in Europe. Nor throughout the Arab

world...'They see Sharon, not Saddam, as the problem for the Middle East'".

Blair, so dominant politically, had kept a tight rein on Cabinet discussions, and so Cook

recalls that "somewhat to my surprise, this provokes a round of hear hears from

colleagues which is the nearest I've heard to a mutiny in the Cabinet"58

.

Adding to the impression of unease within the core executive over the direction in

which US policy was heading were the public statements of Jack Straw, the Foreign

Secretary. On a visit to the US in early February, following Bush's "axis of evil"



25

comments in the State of the Union address, Straw offered the opinion that the speech

should be "best understood by the fact that there are mid-term congressional elections

coming up in November"59

. Further, Straw emphasized his position on 16th February

2002. When asked about the state of the decision making process concerning an attack on

Iraq, Straw responded that "you only take military action where there is overwhelming

evidence pointing in that direction and you are convinced there is no alternative"60

.

These were not the positions Blair was taking. In early March, the Prime Minister

stated positions on Iraq that were closer in tone and substance to those of President Bush

than those of the rest of the core executive in the United Kingdom. In early March, Blair

stated a hard-line position on Iraq, focusing on weapons of mass destruction. On March

1st during a trip to Australia, Blair stated that "It is an issue that those who are engaged in

spreading weapons of mass destruction are engaged in an evil trade and it is important

that we make sure that we take action in respect of it"61

. On March 4th, Blair reinforced

this message. What is striking is the divergence in positions taken by Jack Straw and the

Cabinet and Blair himself, and the similarity between Blair's position and that of the Bush

Administration: "If chemical, biological or nuclear capability fell into the wrong hands -

we know what some of these people are capable of. To use as Saddam has chemical

weapons against your own people - just imagine that: thousands of them being killed".

Blair, as noted earlier, scores low on the trait of conceptual complexity, indicating

that he would see the world in absolutist, black and white terms. This was evident as he

continued to explain his position on Iraq:

"These are not people like us. They are not democratically elected. They are not people

who obey the normal norms of human behavior...If these weapons fall into their hands -



26

and we know they have both the capability and intention of using them - we have got to

act on that. If we do not act we may find out too late the potential for destruction" 62.

The basic parameters for the decisions in Iraq were thus set. The Prime Minister,

with a black and white view of the situation, had placed himself very close to the Bush

Administration. The Cabinet, while not by any means in open disagreement, were

requesting greater debate and discussion and a focus on wider issues of Middle Eastern

policy.

That this was becoming clear to the public was enough to prompt John Prescott,

the Deputy Prime Minister, to issue a warning to Cabinet members during an 8th March

meeting that disagreements aired publicly were incompatible with being a member of the

Cabinet: "Anyone who goes out there telling the press that they're a dove or a hawk isn't

helping us, but is only helping those in the press who want us to have a fight" 63. The

norm that Prescott was articulating is a great resource for the Prime Minister deriving

from the institutional norms of the British central government. Cabinet Ministers could

not disagree openly with the policy of the government and remain in the Cabinet.

This does not, however, preclude internal debate, and the differences within the

core executive persisted. Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, laid out

her position that while Saddam was undoubtedly unpleasant, "the assumption that some

sort of all-out military attack is the answer to that...is of course not at all sensible"64

A

week later, she took the unusual step of hinting at resignation over the issue: "Of course

there are conditions in which I would not be able to support action but I do not expect

them to be proposed. I'm proud to be a member of the government but I've got lots of

bottom lines. I don't expect the government to breach them but if they did I would



27

(resign) That's what you should be like in politics"65

.

Blair was also experiencing some opposition from the Foreign Office. Prompted

by the misgivings of senior officials, Straw wrote to Blair indicating that "There seems to

be a larger hole in this than anything...no one has satisfactorily answered how there can

be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better. Iraq has no history of

democracy so no one has this habit or experience". A separate Foreign Office assessment

sent to Blair indicated that he would find it difficult to justify a war on the basis of the

arguments currently being made: "Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will

not show much advance in recent years. Military operations need clear and compelling

military objectives. For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge

match between Bush and Saddam"66

.

In early April 2002, Blair traveled to visit Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch.

While no definitive records of proceedings are available, there is some evidence that

Blair committed himself to joining a US invasion of Iraq at this meeting. It seems as if

Blair determined at this meeting that Bush was set upon war, and made the decision that

he would support the president in this67

. Two aspects of this meeting are important.

Firstly, Blair traveled with his foreign affairs advisor Sir David Manning, a handpicked

confidant, rather than the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. This would be expected given

Blair's high need for power. Individuals high in this trait tend to concentrate decision

making within small groups close to them. Secondly, Blair spoke in very absolutist terms

regarding the British relationship with the US, arguing that there was no alternative to

being close to the US. "We're not going to be with the other Europeans. Our policy on

Iraq has always been different to them. We've always been with the Americans on this



28

one"68

. This black and white view of the alliance with American is consistent with his

low complexity.

With the prime minister having accepted the US definition of the situation no later

than March (as evidenced by his 'evil' rhetoric), and having apparently committed himself

to the invasion in early April, Blair's individual decision making process now appeared to

be complete. He was, however, left with the task of convincing a skeptical foreign

secretary, cabinet, parliamentary party, and wider public. This was no trivial matter, and

the manner in which this unfolded is crucial to understanding the British choice to make

this their foreign policy, rather than Blair's choice to make this his preferred policy.

Indeed, as Blair left for Crawford, 122 Labour MP's (over a quarter of the

parliamentary party) signed a motion expressing "deep unease at the prospect that Her

Majesty's Government might support United States military action against Iraq"69. Blair

faced a difficult summer. He had been attempting to rally public opinion and convince his

colleagues by releasing a dossier of intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, was asked to produce the

document. "You know what we want", Blair told Scarlett. It would be best, the Prime

Minister continued, if the dossier was accessible to the public and included "maps,

graphics, that sort of thing"70

. When he had been presented with the finished product just

before departing for Crawford, Blair had been disappointed. The six-page document was

withdrawn because it did not make a convincing case that Saddam was a growing

threat71

. When the dossier was finally released, it contained some eye-catching claims,

such as that Iraq had battlefield WMD capable of being launched within 45 minutes.

However, the impact of the dossier was blunted with allegations that the production of



29

the dossier had been overseen by Alastair Campbell, Blair’s director of communications,

who had allegedly ‘sexed up’ its contents.

By the end of July, with public opinion refusing to rally behind the military

option, Blair was forced to adopt the public position that no final decision had been

taken: “we are all getting ahead of ourselves on the issue of Iraq. Action is not imminent.

We are not at the point of decision yet”72

. By early September, opposition to the Iraq war

had crystallized around the need for UN support in the form of an explicit resolution

authorizing force. If Blair could convince Bush to follow the UN processes, and could

convince the Security Council to pass such a resolution, the misgivings of many doubters

would be eased. On 7th September Blair traveled to Camp David to impress this upon the

US president. Again, only David Manning was significantly involved in Blair’s meetings

with Bush73.

Internally, several other cabinet ministers had joined Clare Short on the list of

‘waverers’. Most seriously, Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, was said to have

deep reservations about war by August 200274. By September, reports were circulating

that other Cabinet members were, to varying degrees, uneasy with Iraq policy. Those who

expressed doubts were: Cook, Short, Margaret Beckett (Environment), Alastair Darling

(transport) and Andrew Smith (work and pensions)75

. This aside from the position of Jack

Straw, who was said to be furious at the release of the intelligence dossier76

, and “nearly

fell off his chair” at a hawkish speech Bush made in mid-August 77.

This Cabinet unease was reflected in requests to the prime minister for a full

Cabinet debate on the issue. However, in line with Blair’s high score on the need for

power trait and consequent preference for restricting the size and autonomy of decision



30

making groups, these requests were refused. Ministers who approached the Prime

Minister were simply told that there was no need for debate because any decision to go to

war was a long way into the future. A senior minister explained “Tony says he does

discuss this with colleagues, but he does not like things to get out of control”. Instead, his

preference was for bilateral, informal meetings, often on the No. 10 sofa78. Indicating the

interplay of institutions and individuals, however, Blair was eventually forced to relent on

this by the middle of September. While his personal preference was not to involve

Cabinet directly in decision making, increasing alarm at the direction of British foreign

policy forced his hand. Following Bush’s speech to the UN, which appeared to many in

Britain to be more of an ultimatum to the organization rather than an appeal for the

support of its members, Blair “felt he needed the active support and endorsement, not just

the compliance, of his cabinet”79. The price for this would be an open discussion within

the Cabinet, set for 23rd September. Blair prepared the ground for this as thoroughly as

possible. He let it be known that he would be asking each member of the Cabinet to state

their position sequentially. As one senior minister explains: “Going around the table

asking everyone to say a few words is a shrewd move. Nobody will want to rock the boat

and No. 10 will be able to claim afterwards that everyone is united” 80. He attempted to

distance his rationale for war from the Bush administration’s “regime change” arguments,

which played badly in Britain. Instead, he suggested, “the central problem is the weapons

of mass destruction. It is very simple. Iraq must be denied the capacity to make them.

Saddam Hussein must meet this demand”81

. However, Blair’s careful groundwork did not

prevent fresh expressions of unease by senior Cabinet members. Robin Cook gave an

interview in which he expressed doubt about the wisdom of US-UK military action



31

against Iraq, Jack Straw said that if Saddam re-admitted UN weapons inspectors, “the

case for military action recedes almost to the point of invisibility”82, while Clare Short

simply stated that “we cannot have another Gulf War. We cannot have the people of Iraq

suffering again”83

. It was clear that the September 23rd Cabinet meeting would be a

crucial decision point in Blair’s efforts to translate his preference for war into British

foreign policy.

The tactic of having each Cabinet minister state their position sequentially

worked. Cook reports that "much of the two hours was taken up with a succession of

loyalty oaths for Tony's line"

84

. Ministers recognized that this was a situation where

collective Cabinet responsibility applied, the Home Secretary David Blunkett stating that

"This is something to do with all of us. We'll share our views, we'll share our worries and

we'll come out united"85. Blair framed the debate around securing agreement that Saddam

represented a threat rather than trying to secure agreement that military means should be

used to confront him. He presented information to be published in a new government

dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, to be released September 24th. This was

relatively easier for many members of the Cabinet to give their assent to. Only Cook and

Short pushed the implications of the argument to the logical conclusion, and argued

against the use of military force86

. Indicating the degree to which the norm of collective

cabinet responsibility helped Blair here, Clare Short left the Cabinet room to proclaim

that "We had a good discussion. We all agreed"87.

Blair had been forced into a full Cabinet discussion by the extent of unease among

his Cabinet colleagues, the parliamentary party, and the public as a whole. He had

surmounted this obstacle through a combination of his strong political position and record



32

on foreign affairs, through utilizing the norm of collective Cabinet responsibility to work

in his favor, and by parsing the issue of Iraq policy into two separate dimensions: 1) the

question of the threat posed by Saddam; 2) the means of dealing with that threat. By

framing Cabinet debate around the first of these questions, Blair had been able to secure

the support of the majority of the Cabinet while isolating dissenters such as Cook and

Short, whose real point of objection was the means of dealing with Saddam.

Blair's preference, and the route which he would find most easy to travel

politically, was to secure explicit United Nations authorization for any action against

Iraq. This was an effort to be spearheaded by Jack Straw. The Foreign Secretary would

work closely with Colin Powell, who was a somewhat lonelier voice in the Bush

administration calling for going down the UN route. Within a day of the Cabinet meeting

during which it was agreed that Saddam posed a threat, Jack Straw committed the

government to securing a UN resolution in a parliamentary speech. As Straw sat down

following his speech, Cook said to him: "You do realize now you are thoroughly impaled

on the UN route?". Straw responded 'with a twinkle': "Yes, I am glad you noticed that".

Cook adds that he saw signs that there was "some disagreement behind the scenes

between Downing Street and the Foreign Office about the extent to which the UN can be

the only route"88

. Indeed, when pushed by a colleague at the Labour Party's annual

conference late in September as to whether he was confident that Bush and Blair would

be committed to the UN process, he reportedly remarked "I'm working on it"89. Blair was

already aware of the political necessity of securing UN cover, commenting on October

1st that any action against Saddam involving the UK "must be done within the context of

international law and should only be considered after the exhaustion of all other political



33

and diplomatic means"90

. Further, Blair suffered a defeat at the Labour party conference

on a flagship issue of domestic policy, and was only saved a defeat on Iraq policy by a

softening of rhetoric and the recent commitments to UN process. Just to make sure Blair

realized the political importance of securing UN backing, conference passed a resolution

explicitly linking the use of force with explicit UN authorization91.

UN resolution 1441, sponsored by the US and the UK, was passed unanimously

by the UN Security Council on 9th November. This resolution called for the return of UN

weapons inspectors, and gave Saddam a 'final opportunity' to surrender WMD. However,

just as Blair had secured the agreement of the Cabinet by parsing the question of Iraq

policy, this resolution secured the agreement of the UN through a similar device. While

the Security Council agreed on what Iraq should do, there was disagreement over what

actions to take if Iraq defaulted, and indeed, what would constitute failure to comply. The

United Kingdom and, especially, the United States, framed the resolution as allowing for

the 'automatic' use of force in the event of a lack of compliance. Other members of the

Security Council, in particular France and Germany, suggested that the resolution did not

imply a mandate for action, and that if the resolution was breached the Security Council

would have to reconvene to consider the next steps. Ominously for Blair, it was this latter

interpretation that gained more adherents within the parliamentary Labour Party and the

British public92

. On 14th November, Iraq agreed to readmit weapons inspectors,

depriving the US and the UK of the first obvious casus belli.

The inspections process continued into early January 2003, with Hans Blix

delivering periodic reports to the UN Security Council which did not 'prove' that Saddam

had no prohibited weapons, but also failed to provide a clear case for war. The Bush



34

administration was anxious to push the process along, and began talking of time limits for

the inspection process to be completed. In the United Kingdom, a consensus had emerged

that action should not be taken without a second UN resolution. This consensus was

reflected among senior members of the Cabinet. On January 8th, Jack Straw suggested

that there should be no deadline for weapons inspectors to complete their work, and

offered the view that, in his estimation, the chances of war had receded to 60-40

against93. In the middle of January, the press quoted a 'mainstream' Cabinet minister, who

responded to a question on Cabinet splits by saying "there is not a row because we are all

on the same wavelength. The government's policy can be summed up in two words -

United Nations. Stick to the United Nations and there will be infinitely less trouble, or

even no trouble at all. People will accept if there is an inspectors' report and the UN

decides we have to do something"94. Unfortunately there was no guarantee of securing a

further UN resolution, and with Blair's commitment to go to war his policy could perhaps

be better summed up by the words 'United States'. Some ministers sympathetic to Blair

were worried on his behalf: "It seemed to us that Tony was making the classic political

error", stated a senior Cabinet member. "He has got himself into a situation with no exit

strategy. He became subject to forces he could not control"95. Indeed Blair was in a

position whereby factors such as the actions of the Bush administration and of members

of the UN Security Council would determine whether he would go to war on a solid basis

or out on a limb. As the push for a second resolution extended into March, Robin Cook

noted that on several occasions when the prospects appeared dim, Blair displayed a

puzzling certainty as to the prospects of securing a favorable outcome. In Parliament on

5th March, Cook notes that "Prime Minister's Questions was notable for the bravado



35

Tony expressed about getting a second resolution. I don't know whether this is calculated

bravado to keep Saddam wary, or whether he is a state of denial about the mounting

evidence that they can't get a second resolution on the present terms"96

. In Cabinet on 6th

March, Cook notes that the Prime Minister "was surprisingly upbeat about the prospects

of getting the six swing votes on the Security Council...He even expressed a hope that

Russia might abstain and France might not veto. This was not just surprising but

manifestly unrealistic. One of the dimensions of the present crisis that worries me most is

that Tony believes so much in his case that he has difficulty recognizing that others do

not agree with him"

97

. Finally, when it became clear that the second resolution could not

be obtained, Cook reports that "I got the impression that this was a man who was

genuinely puzzled as to how he had got into his present dilemma. I suspect he had never

expected to find himself ordering British troops into war without UN backing. The root

problem of the last year has been that Tony was so convinced of the case against Saddam

that he never doubted the rest of the world would come to see it his way and had

therefore left himself no other way out"98. Blair's behavior in this regard - an

overestimation of his ability to influence events and a lack of recognition of other

perspectives on the issue - is consistent with what we would expect given his very high

score on the belief in ability to control events trait and his low score on conceptual

complexity.

Cook decided to resign from Cabinet after Blair made clear that Britain would

still be going to war even in the absence of a second UN resolution. The resignation of

such a senior figure placed Blair in difficulties, and his problems were compounded by

the doubts of his Foreign Secretary and the even stronger objections of Clare Short, the



36

International development secretary. As Blair returned from his Azores 'war summit' with

Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Straw composed for him a personal

minute suggesting that Blair consider not going forward with the commitment of British

troops to the attack but instead offer the US "full political and moral support". Blair, with

his black and white view of the US-UK alliance, was not prepared to consider this

compromise position, and asked Straw to clarify whether he would support the war,

which was definitely going ahead. Under the system of collective responsibility, this was

effectively a demand to get on board or resign. Straw stated that he would support war99

.

Clare Short made her unease public, and so presented a bigger threat to Blair. She

appeared on a BBC radio program and accused Blair of being "reckless" over Iraq - a

clear breach of collective responsibility that seemed to require that she either resign or

that Blair remove her. She had not resigned, and Blair could not politically afford to sack

her. As Robin Cook put it at the time: "If is a sign of Tony's weak political position not

that Clare said these things last night, but that this morning he has not dared remove her

from government"100. Indeed, Blair made an active effort to keep her in government.

Short's diary for 14th March indicates that the Prime Minister "said he wanted to

persuade me to stay. He then told me Robin (Cook) was going, but that my position was

different from Robin's"101

. The turnaround in Blair’s position from strength to weakness

indicates that he had spent the majority of his resources in pushing his Iraq preferences

through the core executive.

Matters came to a head with the Cabinet meeting of 17th March. In the days prior

to this meeting, controversy had arisen as to whether the war was legal absent a second

UN resolution. A recommendation from the Attorney General was hastily sought. He



37

certified that the war was indeed legal, although the specific advice he gave to the Prime

Minister was not revealed. While Blair was in the Azores at the war summit, the

Chancellor Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and Deputy Prime Minister

John Prescott, met to coordinate how the Cabinet meeting should be approached. Robin

Cook confirmed his decision to resign immediately prior to this meeting. Clare Short

arrived late, and announced she would consider her position overnight. However, Blair

was able to secure the assent of the Cabinet to go to war, with the mood apparently

"solemn, but quite determined"102

. The next day, Short reached the decision to stay in

government (albeit only temporarily), and the threat to Blair had passed.

Explaining the crucial decisions

British policy making toward Iraq shows the interplay of individuals and

institutions. Two fundamental issues are in play: 1) why did Tony Blair reach the

decision to go to war alongside George Bush? 2) How did this become the policy of the

British government? The necessity of combining an institutional with an individual

approach is indicated in the fact that these are separate questions: Blair’s decision did not

automatically translate into British foreign policy, as the Prime Ministership is not a

command position but is instead an office which conveys substantial resources within a

situation of irreducible mutual dependence with other core executive actors.

Blair’s policy preference

The impact of Blair’s individual characteristics seems to be manifested clearly in

his decision to go to war. Firstly, Blair’s low conceptual complexity disposes him



38

towards a fundamentally black and white view of the world. This can be seen in two

aspects of the Iraq decisions. The framing of the situation in ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ terms,

wherein Saddam Hussein both had to be removed and no solution short of force was

possible, is characteristic of low complexity individuals. Blair certainly subscribed to this

framing of the situation, as did Bush. Whether Blair arrived at this view on his own or

simply bought into Bush’s definition is in some sense irrelevant – the important point is

that this view of matters was central to Blair’s policy choice, and is consistent with his

conceptual complexity score. The second way in which Blair’s black and white view of

the world manifested itself in his decision was in regard to the alliance with the U.S. Blair

refused to accept the position, suggested by Straw, that Britain could find a way to be in

some way supportive of the U.S. without committing troops. He also refused to accept

the position that British commitment of military forces should be contingent upon UN

authorization. This ‘all or nothing’ attitude towards the alliance with the U.S. is

consistent with a low complexity worldview.

Secondly, Blair’s high belief in ability to control events was also important to his

policy choice. Blair was cognizant of the fact that there was opposition to an attack on

Iraq. Cabinet was uneasy, the parliamentary party was against the policy and public

opinion was unconvinced. The evidence, however, is that Blair believed each of these

groups were persuadable. Additionally, Blair appears to have believed that he could

secure a UN resolution authorizing the war, and that this would solve his domestic

political problems. In both of these areas, Blair appears to have overestimated his ability

to shape events, and to have been insensitive to the degree to which his freedom of action

was becoming curtailed. This is consistent with his unusually high score on belief in



39

ability to control events.

Finally, Blair scores highly in terms of need for power. Individuals who score

highly on this trait attempt to maintain close control over policy processes and decisions,

and operate through small, ad hoc groupings rather than larger, regularized bureaucratic

structures. Blair did indeed formulate policy with small groups of advisors, at least until

Cabinet unease grew to the point where he was forced to hold a full debate. He also dealt

only infrequently through the foreign office, preferring to utilize a personalized foreign

policy structure organized by his adviser Sir David Manning. The impact of this upon

Blair’s decision was to reduce his exposure to the opposition and caution of some in the

cabinet and the foreign office as an institution.

How Blair’s Preferences Became Policy

As indicated by the model of institutions and individuals developed earlier, the

Prime Ministership is not a command position, but rather is an office which imbues the

holder with certain resources, but also constrains the holder within a wider core executive

structure characterized by an irreducible mutual dependence. The holder of the office

supplements the formal resources of bureaucratic capacity, and a privileged position in

relation to other core executive actors, with informal resources – prestige, personal

popularity, perceived expertise. They can then exercise agency in deploying these

resources in service of policy goals. As emphasized earlier, Blair brought a high informal

resource base into the Iraq decision making, as a prime minister with perceived expertise

in foreign policy, a large majority in parliament, and popularity in the country. Therefore,

he was in a strong position, and this was evident in the general reluctance to challenge the



40

policy directly among the Cabinet. As unease grew, however, Blair was forced to

acknowledge the resources of others, and allow debate in Cabinet. By the stage this was

allowed, Blair had already taken the fundamental decisions, and it was a case of

managing the process so that the Cabinet would at least acquiesce in Blair’s choice. The

two individuals with the greatest ability to derail this in terms of formal authority were

the Chancellor Gordon Brown, and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Brown, with

ambitions to be Prime Minister himself and a position with a domestic policy focus,

stayed quiet for much of the decision making process, before coming down on the Prime

Minister’s side when Blair appeared threatened. It may appear counter-intuitive that an

individual with an interest in succeeding Blair should support him when he is threatened,

and so it is worth noting that in the British system there is some stigma attached to the act

of political ‘regicide’. Senior colleagues who act to bring down a Prime Minister are

often considered unreliable and so are rarely permitted to occupy the office themselves.

The position of Jack Straw, who as Foreign Secretary had a substantial formal resource

base, is interesting. We should note that Straw did not bring a substantial personal

standing to supplement his formal resources. He was relatively new to the position, and

so did not have a record of established success in foreign affairs. Neither did he have a

great deal of independent political standing within the party – being identified as a

Blairite, whose government experience had come through Blair’s patronage. As indicated

in the analysis of decision making above, Straw appears to have been uneasy with the

choice for war. However, he also kept his reservations private, and did not push them to

the point of a public split with Blair.

Two individuals did push their disagreements to the point of no return, and both



41

Robin Cook and Clare Short resigned over the decision to go to war. The opposition of

these two figures posed a threat to Blair, and while he accepted the inevitability of

Cook’s resignation, he went to some lengths to ensure Short delayed hers until after the

war had begun. By the time she did resign, the policy had been set and the impact of her

resignation muted.

In terms of the rest of the Cabinet, it is difficult at this stage to be entirely accurate

in terms of accounting for supporters versus opponents of the policy. From those

accounts which are available, it appears that at least half of the Cabinet expressed some

doubt at some point. Blair skillfully deployed the institutional norm of collective Cabinet

responsibility to smooth over this opposition. This norm, which commits Cabinet

members to support the policy of the government, was used by Blair to bind individuals

to the collective choice. On one critical occasion, Blair began a meeting of the Cabinet by

asking each individual member to pledge support or state opposition to the proposition

that Saddam Hussein represented a threat. Cabinet members were therefore faced with

having to go against their colleagues openly, and resigning if they could not support the

policy of the government.

Overall, the institutional side of the Iraq decisions indicates a well-resourced

Prime Minister prevailing over two Cabinet ministers in open revolt, and several more

with private doubts which he managed to keep contained. If Blair had brought a more

impoverished resource base – i.e. a smaller parliamentary majority, less perceived

expertise in foreign policy, or a lower public standing – it must be doubted that he would

have succeeded in making his preference British foreign policy. Even with his strong

position, he still had to engage in active management of the process in order to prevail,



42

and was forced to submit to a more open Cabinet debate and more consultative process

than he would have ideally liked, ending the process of Iraq decision making in a much

weaker position that he had begun with.

Conclusion

I have argued here that to understand British foreign policy making, it is useful to

consider both the core executive as an institution and the characteristics of the individual

who occupies the office of the Prime Minister. The core executive approach, which posits

actors in a situation of structurally-determined mutual dependence, is a highly useful

macro-perspective for studying foreign policymaking in Britain. The approach allows for

the identification of resource distributions which actors can employ in service of their

policy goals, given the configuration of structurally-conditioned constraints and

opportunities within which they operate. However, I have also argued that the core

executive perspective, while allowing a space for individual agency, does not sufficiently

theorize differential agency. In other words, investigation of the individual characteristics

of the Prime Minister, and how they transmute into strategies and preferences, is

necessary to provide a convincing account of policy making. In the second part of the

paper, I have applied this framework to the case of British foreign policymaking towards

Iraq. Through a content analysis of the universe of his responses to questions in the

British House of Commons, Blair was found to be significantly higher than other British

Prime Ministers in his personal belief in his ability to control events and his need for

power, and significantly lower in conceptual complexity. This leads us to expect that he

would have firm confidence, and indeed perhaps overestimate, his abilities to ensure a



43

favorable outcome to events. In addition, he would be expected to restrict discussion and

decision to small, ad hoc groups of hand picked advisers, and show evidence of a black

and white view of events. I presented evidence that Blair’s behavior during the Iraq

decisions does indeed largely meet these expectations. In terms of the institutional side of

the equation, I have argued that Blair was an unusually well resourced Prime Minister in

foreign policy terms. With a large parliamentary majority, high personal approval ratings,

and perceived expertise in foreign policy, Blair had for some time taken the lead in

formulating British foreign policy. However, this had not altered the basic structure of the

core executive institution, and Blair could not ignore the misgivings of his colleagues. He

was obliged to quite carefully manage the process of policymaking in order to ensure that

his preference become policy, without his own position being threatened. This he was

able to do through a combination of his own strong position, the relative weakness of

those who chose to oppose his policy openly, and the decision of those in a stronger

position to challenge him to do so only in private and not to push these disagreements to

the breaking point.

1For Prime ministerial dominance, see Richard H. S. Crossman, The Myths of Cabinet Government ,

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972). Phillip Madgwick, British Government: The Central

Executive Territory, (London: Phillip Allen, 1991). For Cabinet government, see Norton, 1988; Brown,

1968a, 1968b; Harold Wilson, The Governance of Britain. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976).2

James P. March and Johan Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions. New York: Free Press, 1989. Terry M.

Moe, “Presidents, Institutions, and Theory”, in Researching the Presidency: Vital Questions, New

Approaches, eds G. Edwards, J. Kessel, and B. Rockman, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,

1993), 337-385; Stephen D. Krasner, “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective”. Comparative Political

Studies 21 (1988): 66-94.3

James P. March and Johan Olsen, “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life”.The American Political Science Review 78 (1984): 741.4

Anthony King, “Executives” in Handbook of Political Science, Vol.5, ed. F. Greenstein and N. Polsby.

(Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1975): 173-255; Pika, Joseph. “Moving Beyond the Oval Office:

Problems in Studying the Presidency” Congress and the Presidency 9 (1981-1982): 17-36; Edwards,

George C. and Wayne, Stephen J. Studying the Presidency. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,

1983); Rhodes, 1995 ref in Rhodes and Dunleavy).5

Paul 't Hart, Groupthink in Government. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1994), x.6

Michael J. Hill, The Sociology of Public Administration (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972).7

March and Olsen, “The New Institutionalism”, 740.



44

8Mark Burch and Ian Holliday, The British Cabinet System. (New York: Prentice Hall 1996), 150

9Patrick Dunleavy and R.A.W Rhodes, “Core Executive Studies in Britain”. Public Administration 68

(1990): 3-28. R.A. W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy, Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Core Executive.

(London: Macmillan, 1995); Martin J. Smith, The Core Executive in Britain, (London: Macmillan, 1999).10

Smith, xv11

Rhodes,1995: 1212Smith,1-6; Rhodes, 1997: 203 (ref in Smith???)

13see Burch and Holliday; Peter Hennessey, Cabinet. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).

14Smith, 169.

15Phillip Giddens, “Prime Minister and Cabinet” in Churchill to Major: The British Prime Ministership

since 1945, ed D. Shell and R. Hodder-Williams (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 43.16

Smith, 79; Burch and Holliday, 48-6417

see March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions.18

Burch and Holliday, 48-4919

Burch and Holliday, 135-14120

John F. McEldowney, Public Law, (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1994), 275; Clive Ponting, Whitehall:

Tragedy and Force, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986); Peter Hennessey, Whitehall, (London:

Fontana,1990).21

Cabinet Office, Questions of Procedure for Ministers, (London: HMSO, 1992).22 Smith, 83.23

Donald Shell, “The Office of the Prime Minister” in Churchill to Major: The British Prime Ministership

Since 1945, ed D. Shell and R. Hodder-Williams, (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 1624

Burch and Holliday, 4625

Shell, 16-1726

quoted in Richard Rose, “British Government: The Job at the Top” in Presidents and Prime Ministers,

ed. R. Rose and E. Suleiman, (Washington, D.C.” American Enterprise Institute, 1980): 33; see also Burch,

The Prime Minister and Whitehall, 106)27

Burch, The Prime Minister and Whitehall, 10828

see Hennessey, 1986; Patrick Gordon-Walker, The Cabinet, (London: Cape, 1972): 87-89.29

Paul D. Hoyt and Jean A. Garrison, “Political Manipulation Within the Small Group: Foreign Policy

Advisers in the Carter Administration” in Beyond Groupthink: Political Group Dynamics and Foreign

Policymaking, ed. P. t’Hart, E.K. Stern, and B. Sundelius, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,

1997).30

Smith, 8531

Smith, 8832

Anthony King, “Introduction: The Textbook Prime Ministership” in The British Prime Minister, ed A.

King, (London: Macmillan, 1985): 6.33

Lee, 24134

Smith, 80.35

Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information

and Advice, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980); Thomas Preston, The President and His Inner Circle, (New

York: Columbia University Press, 2001); see more generally Fred I.Greenstein, Personality and Politics:

Problems of evidence, Inference, and Conceptualization, (Chicago: Markham, 1969).36

Rhodes, 1995: 23.37

Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1976); Nathan Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo, (New York: McGraw-Hill,1951); Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruck and Burton Sapin, Foreign Policy Decision Making: An Approach

to the Study of International Politics. (New York: Free Press, 1962) Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout,

Man-Milieu Relationships Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1965)38

David G. Winter, “Personality and Political Behavior” in Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, eds

D.O. Sears, L. Huddy and R. Jervis, (New York: Oxford, 2003): 115-116.39

see Lloyd Etheridge, “Personality Effects on American Foreign Policy, 1898-1968: A Test of

Interpersonal Generalization Theory”, American Political Science Review 72 (1978): 434-451; Robert R.

McCrae and Phillip T. Costa, Jr. “Personality Trait Structure as a Human Universal”, American



45

Psychologist 52 (1997): 509-516. 1997; for elite assessment using trait-based concepts.40

see David G Winter, “What Makes the Candidates Run?”, Psychology Today: 46-49; Winter, “Leader

Appeal, Leader Performance, and the Motive Profiles of Leaders and Followers: A Study of American

Presidents and Elections”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987): 196-202; Winter,

“Presidential Psychology and Governing Styles: A Comparative Psychological Analysis of the 1992

Presidential Candidates” in The Clinton Presidency: Campaigning, Governing and the Psychology of Leadership ed. S.A. Renshon, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995): 113-134, for elite assessment using motive-

based concepts)41

see Robert Axelrod, The Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites. (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1976); Stephen Benedict Dyson, “Drawing Policy Implications from the

“Operational Code” of a ‘New’ Political Actor: Russian President Vladimir Putin”, Policy Sciences 34

(2001): 329-346; Stephen G. Walker, “The Interface Between Beliefs and Behavior: Henry Kissinger’s

Operational Code and the Vietnam War”, Journal of Conflict Resolution 21 (1977): 129-168, for elite

assessment using cognition-based concepts42

Margaret G. Hermann, “Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of

Political Leaders”, International Studies Quarterly 24 (1980): 7-46; Hermann, “Assessing Leadership

Style: Trait Analysis” in The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders, ed. J.M. Post (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press, 2003): 178-214.43

See Stephen Benedict Dyson and Libia Lorena Billordo, “Using Words as Data in the Study of the

French Political Elite”, French Politics 2 (2004): 111-123 for a review.44

Alexander L. George, “The Operational Code: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Leadership and

Decision-Making”, International Studies Quarterly 13 (1969): 190-222.45

Hermann, Assessing Leadership Style, 19546

Hermann, Assessing Leadership Style, 19047

see Preston, The President and His Inner Circle.48

Greenstein, 47.49 Hermann, 'Assessing Leadership Style: Trait Analysis', p. 190.50

Karen Rasler, William Thompson and Keith Chester, 'Foreign Policy Makers, Personality Attributes, and

Interviews: A Note on Reliability Problems', International Studies Quarterly 24 (1980), p. 47-66.51

Michael Young, 'Automating Assessment at a Distance', The Political Psychologist 5 (2000), p. 17-23.52

Stephen Benedict Dyson, ‘Prime Minister and Core Executive in British Foreign Policy: Process,

Outcome, and Quality of Decision’, Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University, December 2004.

53 Stephen G. Walker, 'Assessing Psychological Characteristics at a Distance: Symposium Lessons andFuture Research Directions', Political Psychology 21 (2000), p. 59-60.54

Sarkis A. Mahdasian, 'State, Trait, or Design? A Critical Examination of Assumptions Underlying

Remote Assessment', Doctoral Dissertation, Washington State University.55

Richard Beeston and Philip Webster, 'Straw Denies Rift over Blair's Role', The Times, Tuesday

November 6th 2001.56

Robin Cook, Point of Departure, p. 145.57

Kampfner, p. 157.58

Cook, p. 112.59

Brian Groom, 'Caught in the Middle', The Financial Times, February 6th 2002.60

Andrew Parker, 'Straw Warns that Early Attack on Iraq could harm Alliance', The Financial Times,

February 16th 2002, pg. 3.61

Philip Webster, ''Evil' Iraq must face action, Says Blair", The Times, March 1st 2002.62

Andrew Parker, 'Blair warns concerted effort needed to deal with weapons of mass destruction', TheFinancial Times, March 4th 2002.63

Cook, p. 120.64

Brian Groom, 'Minister argues against mass attacks on Iraq', Financial Times, Monday March 11th.65

Lina Saigol and Robert Shrimsley, 'Ministers Add Opposition Over Joining Attack on Iraq', The

Financial Times, March 18th 2002.66

Michael Smith, 'Secret papers show Blair was warned of Iraq chaos', Daily Telegraph, Thursday 23rd

September 2004.67

Kampfner, p. 168.68

Kampfner, p. 168.



69David Charter, 'Straw plays down Iraq attack', The Times, April 3rd 2002.

70Kampfner, p. 165.

71Nicholas Rufford, 'Blair refuses to release dossier on Iraq threat', Sunday Times, March 31st 2002.

72Philip Webster, ‘Invasion of Iraq not imminent, says Blair’, The Times, July 26th 2002.

73Kampfner, p. 200.

74

Philip Webster, ‘Labour hit by cabinet rift over attack on Saddam’, The Times, August 16th 2002.75Cathy Newman, ‘Most of Cabinet may oppose war on Iraq’, Financial Times, September 2nd 2002, p. 2.

76Krishna Guha, ‘Testing times for prime minister’s inner circle’, Financial Times, March 12th 2003, p. 6.

77Kampfner, p. 199.

78Michael White, ‘Blair refuses ministers Cabinet debate on Iraq’, The Guardian, August 16th 2002, p. 1.

79Kampfner, p. 200.

80David Cracknell, Nicholad Rufford and Tony Allen-Mills, ‘Blair plan to “out” doves in Cabinet’, Sunday

Times, September 15th 2002, p.2.81

Philip Webster and Allan Hall, ‘Blair focus is weapons, not regime’, The Times, September 20th 2002, p.

14.82

James Blitz, ‘Appeal to Cabinet will reveal doubt and division’ Financial Times, September 23rd 2002,

p. 6.83

Tom Baldwin, ‘Blair seeks to smooth over cracks as Short opposes war’, The Times, September 23rd

2002, p. 13.84 Cook, p. 21285

Philip Webster and James Bone, 'Saddam must be stopped, Cabinet agrees', The Times, September 24th

2002, p. 1.86

Cook, p. 212-213.87

Philip Webster and James Bone, 'Saddam must be stopped, Cabinet agrees', The Times, September 24th

2002, p. 1.88

Cook, p. 214.89 Kampfner, p. 301.90

Philip Webster, 'Black Day for Blair as Party Revolts', The Times, October 1st 2002.91

Philip Webster, 'Black Day for Blair as Party Revolts', The Times, October 1st 2002.92

James Blitz, 'Labour MPs Demand Return to UN Over any Attack on Iraq', The Financial Times, 9th

November 2002.93

Tom Baldwin and David Charter, 'Cabinet United over Iraq War, Blair insists', The Times, January 9th

2003, p. 1.94

January 15th 2003.95

Kampfner, p. 255.96

Cook, p. 308-309.97

Cook, p. 314.98

Cook, p. 324.99

Kampfner, p. 303100

Cook, p. 315101

Short, p. 184.102

Cathy Newman, 'Blair's darkest day as preparations for war are finalised', Financial Times, 18th March

2003, p. 5.

Blair's War - Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British Choice in Iraq

Documents

Transcript of Blair's War - Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British Choice in Iraq