Decision units are the individuals or group of individuals, (for example an executive committee such as a National Security Council) who are able, authorized and responsible for making foreign policy decisions while also preventing any other government agency from unequivocally altering, suspending or blocking that decision

Implementation is a different way of naming decision-making. However, the concepts implementation and decision-making should not be used interchangeably since not every decision needs to be implemented. In other words, implementation is described as “a set of discrete acts or as a process” (Evans and Newnham, 1998, p. 245).

Rational decision makers on foreign policy are “those who are open to arguments and evidence, free of serious blinkers as they weigh the evidence and think about the likely consequences of options” (Stein, 2008, 131)

Cognitive Miser is a concept that refers to the tendency of human beings to avoid spending computational effort and resorting to facile ways in solving problems. This phenomena is accepted as a natural tendency that is had regardless of the level of intelligence of the person.

“Conspiracy” is derived from the Latin word conspirare. It means ‘to breath together’ and signifies the coming together of a number of individuals in order to act in complicity to reach a desired outcome.

A term coined by Walter Lippmann (1889–1974). Lippman felt that in order for democracy to thrive, public opinion should have been managed. This was because of the nature of public opinion as a blunt force that could stir policy in irrational directions.

It is tasked with producing the classified National Security Policy Document, widely known as the “Red Book”, probably the most important document on national security in Turkey.

As Morin and Paquin (2018, p.102), states, “the decisionmaking process in foreign policy varies as a function of the leaders’ management style”. What creates different foreign
policy styles in today’s globalized world is related to how leaders approach their country’s foreign policy priorities. In other words, different ideas, worldviews, logics of action, management styles lead to different foreign policy decision making processes and, hence, different foreign policy decisions.

Decision-making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics by Richard C. Snyder, H.W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin (1954: also see Snyder et al., 1963; reprinted in 2002): Contributed a focus on the decision-making process itself as part of the explanation, rather than just foreign policy outputs.

‘Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’ by James N. Rosenau (a book chapter written in 1964 and published in Farrell, 1966):  Development of actor-specific theory that would lead to the development of generalizable proposition at the level of middle range theory.

Man-Milieu Relationship Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics by Harold and Margaret Sprout (1956: expanded and revised in article form in 1957 and their 1965 book The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs with Special Reference to International Politics): Foreign policy can only be explained with reference to the psycho-milieu (the psychological, situational, political, and social contexts) of the individuals involved in the decision-making” (Hudson, 2008, p. 14).

The concepts of bounded rationality and “satisficing” were first developed by Herbert Simon (1965). Simon’s argument was that the decision-making problems were so complex that the decision-makers were only able to tackle a certain number of aspects at a given time.

A famous quote generally attributed to American politician Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill states that “All politics is local”. Undoubtedly the domestic political landscape does have a profound effect in shaping foreign policy. The strength of the government, the domestic political climate, the relations amongst political parties and between them and civil society have an important bearing on the decision making environment on foreign policy

Apart from the impact of intertwined networks of relations between disparate groups with differing priorities, what complicates foreign policy decision making environment more is the impact of transnational actors on different elements of the society. Rosenau called this phenomenon “linkage politics”.

Rosenau identified three kinds of linkages.

Reactive linkages are observed when an event in one society leads to an impromptu reaction in another. Here governments play no role. This might be exemplified by the reactions that Turkish society shows to the events between the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, and Israel

Emulative linkages happen when a development in one society is imitated by another. The events of the so-called Arab Spring that started in Tunis in 2010 quickly spreading to Libya, Egypt, and Syria are a case in point.

The Arab Spring was a series of prodemocracy uprisings that was ignited in December 2010, in Tunis when street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the arbitrary seizing of his vegetable stand by the police. Starting from the Spring of 2011, the protests spread to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa including Morocco,Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain.

There are some internal factors that influence foreign policy decisions, such as bureaucracy, interest groups, pressure groups, media and public opinion. In that vein, some of these sources are used interchangeably, but a slightly dissimilar characteristic might be occurred when it comes to its usage in context

With respect to its meaning, one can state that “a think tank is an independently financed research institute concerned with the study of international relations and foreign policy issue areas” (Evans and Newnham, 1998, p.531-2)

Bureaucracy is any wide-reaching group of assigned officials in order to execute foreign policy decisions of the decision makers. The first usage of bureaucracy was when Max Weber (1864-1920) described the term as the most affective way to establish an organization and administration. Besides, its complex structure of offices, tasks, and rules shape bureaucracy as a large scale institution in order to coordinate the work of employees.

Pluralism is a term used to describe a political system which includes several different cultures, belief systems and lifestyles while working together by sharing common political aims within the framework of politics and tolerating each other in order to live together peacefully.