November 1978

I -SID3 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY AND THE HOARE-LAVAL PLAN: A CRITIQUE OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CRISIS DECISICIT-MAKING by MICHAEL ANTHONYTALALAY University College London Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London November 1978 /"F , ABSTRACT British Foreign Policy and the Hoare-Laval Plan: A Critique of the Theory and Practice of Crisis Decision-Makin by Michael Anthony Talalay Thio thesis investigates the relationship between international crises and the process of foreign policy decision-making. It synthesizes from the existing literature a theory of crisis decision-making and then tests that theory against the detailed evidence of a case study. The thesis is divided into three major parts. The first establishes the theory and then uses it deductively to derive a number of empirically testable propositions relating crisis as the independent variable to various aspects of the decision-making process as'dependent ones. The propositions add the crucial'operational element to the theory: they provide the sole means of testing it against the evidence. The second part of the thesis consists of the case study: -. an account of British decision-making during the Italo-Ethiopian conflict of 1935, including its climax that December during the twelve days of the Hoare-Laval 0.risis. This case study meets the two essential requirements for testing propositions and theory. First, it includes bothcrisis and non-crisis situationsp thereby enabling one to compare crisis and non-crisis decision-making processes. Second, it provides an example in which very great similarities existed between the crisis and non-crisis situations. donsequently, one can. isolate and take into account those factors, other than the distinction between crisis and non-crisisl which might have influenced the decision-making process and produced differences in behaviour. Finallyp in the third part of the thesis, the propositions - These are tested against the evidence provided by the case study. raw findings are then analyzed in order to ascertain whether it is the crisis/non-crisis distinction or some other factor which best explains differences between crisis and non-crisis decision-making processes. Because of the deductive connection between propositions and theory, the results of this analysis can be used to evaluate the validity of the theory itself. The ultimate cc nclusion reached is that it is very . doubtful whether any theory of crisis decision-making is, even in principler possible. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 7 PART I- THEORY Chapter One - Crisis Decision-Making: Theory, Propositions, and Framework 19 PART II - THE CASE STUDY Two An Overview 69 . Chapter - Chapter Three - The British Dilemma: I* The International Background 77 Chapter Four - The British Dilemma: II. The Domestic Background 97 Chapter Five - The First Decision Situation: From the Wal Wal Incident to the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia 114 the , Chapter Six The Second Decision Situation: From , Invasion to the Hoare-Laval Plan 161 Chapter Scven - The Hoare-Laval Plan Igo Chapter Eight - The Third Decision Situation: The Hoare-Laval Crisis 204 PART III - ANALYSIS 280 Chapter Nine - Testing the Propositions Chapter Ten - Evaluating the Empirical Results 315 EPILOGUE 325 APPENDICES Appendix I- Mographical Sketches 332 II The Appendix - Hoare-Laval Plan 351 III Appendix -A Corridor for Camels 365 IV Appendix - The White Paper on Ethiopia 372 MAP OF ETHIOPIA AND ITS ENVIRONS 351 BIBLIOGRAPHY 396 i The real death of the League was in December 1935, not in 1939 or 1945. One day it was a powerful'body imposing sanctions, seemingly more effective than ever before; the next day it was an empty sham, everyone scuttling from it as quickly as possible. What killed the League was the publication of the Hoare-Laval Plan. A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. Karl Marx The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon I NTR0DUCT10N International crisis. The very expression evokes drama and excitement. It conjures up images of gunboats showing the flag by : distant shores, of armies marching off to war, - of foreign offices beset by tension and turmoil, and of momentous decisions taken in 'hiGh places. Certainly, those problems commonly referred to as international crises appear to produce important consequences for the conduct of foreign policy. In the wake of the assassination at Sarajevo of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the crisis of July of 1914 led the great powers of Europe to begin a war which resulted in millionq of deaths and irrevocably altered the shape of the modem world. In the Cuban missile crisis pushed the government of the United States into taking foreign policy-actions which, though courageous land ultimately successful, produced a confrontation with the Soviet ý Union that brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. As a result of the international monetary crisis of 1971, the majority of ýthe rich trading nations of the-West revised their foreign economic -policies and reversed their attitudes towards the hallowed principle of fixed exchange rates enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. Finally, the oil crisis followinig the Yom Kippur war of 1973, when the Arab oil-producing states raised both the price of petroleum 8.. products and the spectre of an embargot caused Japan and most of the countries of Western Europe. to quickly adopt foreign Policies much more pro-Arab than those previously espoused. Despite the apparent significance of this relationship between international'crises and foreign policy behaviour, the causal link connecting the. two is not direct. It is mediated by the decision-making process. -Nominallyl the 'state' is the actor in foreign policy. That term, however, is an abstractiong useful for intermational law and extremely convenient as a short-hand reference. But the real actors in foreign policy are the individuals within the government of the state. When with a crisisl it is they who gather and interpret , confronted information about itt identify the goals relevant for dealing with it, and combine the two to produce those decisions which actually lead to action. It is this decision-making processl conducted by individual decision-makers# which provides the connecting link between the emergence of a crisis and subsequent foreign policy behaviour. The general subject matter of this thesis consists of the relationship between intermational crises and this process of decision-making. An international crisis can, for the time beingg be simply defined as a (a specific type of problem affecting the external relations of a state more precise definition will follow in the ne?ct chapter). The decision- making process is the consequent means by which the decis*on-makers, severally and together, formulate that policy or policies intended to deal with the crisis. A considerable amount of work has been devoted to the formulation of valid generalizations on the link between the two. As inust be obviousl however, no two crises are identical. Each involves uniqu'e characteristics, different individuals, and a variety Of issueso Ifencey any attempt at generalization must rest not upon the substance of 9. crisesp which will vary greatlyg but upon the identification of certain generic properties common to all crises. These we can call the structural, as opposed to the substantive, characteristics of a crisis. They are independent of its specific subject matter. It is these structural identities which provide the basis for making systematic comparisons influence among crises and a1low the investigation of their as a class of phenomena. The. existence of such common characteristics permits the construc- tion of a general theory of crisis decision-making. Any such theory must it consist of three basic elements. First, must provide an account of how the decision-making process. works. Second, it must define international crises in terms of their common generic - or structural - characteristics. Third, it must establish the theoretical connection between crisesl so defined, and the decision-making process in order to demon- influence the strate that the characteristics of the former will indeed conduct of the latter. From a theory of this type, it becomes possible to deduce empirical independent to propositions relating crisis as the variable various dependent Such aspects of the decision-making process as ones, proposi- do they tions add the operational element to any theory: not only provide the sole means of testing a theory. of crisis decision-making against ý-i - historical evidence, but also they indicate what will likely happen in future crises and consequently serve both as a predictive. tool and as a improying the decision-making. ? both set of guidelines for quality of or indispensable: of these reasons, empirical propositions are absolutely w3efdly if valid, to analysts and statesmen alike. Previous studies of crisis decision-making have identified a large Both the the number of such propositions. subject matters and methods of these investigations have varied considerably. They have ranged from 10. detailed reconstructions of historical examples, to simulations of real and imaginary crises, to interviews with decision-makersp to content analyses of diplomatic communications,

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