Decisions to ratify the Kyoto Protocol: a Latin American perspective on poliheuristic theory

UnrestrictedTheories of foreign policy analysis have been successfully applied to a seemingly wide array of case studies. They have been used to explain why individuals or collectives have decided to invade another country, rescue hostages or wage war, for example. In other words, they have largely been applied to high politics or crisis situations. This study takes one such theory and applies it to a different class of low politics, non-crisis cases in order to test its generalizability. The following study applies poliheuristic theory to three cases of environmental foreign policy decision-making. Specifically, the theory is tested against the cases of President Carlos Menem of Argentina, President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and President Hugo Chávez and their decisions to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and join the global climate change regime. This new application has implications not only for the generalizability and general strength of poliheuristic theory, but for foreign policy analysis more generally and environmental and Latin American foreign policy decision-making more specifically. The results of the study provide support for the foundations of the theory in that all three presidents utilized a combination of cognitive and rational decision strategies to reach their final decision. The results are less supportive of the specific prediction that the decision-makers eliminate policy options early in the process based on a primary criterion of domestic political concerns. The results instead reveal the presidents prioritized international or personal concerns. In the end, the study advocates for some re-theorizing of poliheuristic theory to better explain low politics and non-crisis situations in general and environmental and Latin American/developing nations foreign policy decisions in particular