National Security Council in US foreign policy within the framework of president-bureaucracy relationship

This thesis examines the role of the National Security Council in US foreign policy decision-making process within the framework of the President-Bureaucracy relations. The main argument of the thesis is that foreign and security policy decisions are taken as a result of the identity struggle between epistemic groups in conflict within the American bureaucracy. Hence American Presidents uses this identity struggle to legitimize their policies by taking the side of the dominant bureaucratic group at the National Security Council. In this context, as a theoretical framework, the first chapter of the thesis analyzes the identity struggle of the epistemic groups within the security bureaucracy and the foreign policy decisions resulted from the relations of these groups through the Bureaucratic Politics Model and the 'epistemic communities' concept of Peter M. Haas. The second chapter explains the historical background, organizational structure and the functioning of the NSC by referring to important turning points since its foundation in 1947. The last chapter compares the NSC practices and foreign policy decision-making process of the 43rd President George W. Bush and 44th President Barack H. Obama through the Iraq War as a case study. As a conclusion, on its 75th anniversary the National Security Council still serves as an indispensable tool for the American Presidents in the foreign policy decision-making process, and the NSC has become the scene of the struggle of these epistemic groups within the security bureaucracy.