A neoclassical realist explanation of over-commitment:The case of American Foreign Policy toward Iraq after 9/11

The last few decades had shown the explanatory power of neoclassical realism on foreign policy analysis. The neoclassical realist theory of over-commitments suggests that domestic political factors can divert the FPEs from deciding with the sole consideration of systemic pressures. It is observed that states do not always act in line with the impositions of external factors and sometimes make more commitment than the dictation of the systemic stimuli. This thesis proposes three sub-hypotheses to explain the anomaly of over-commitment. This thesis argues that prestige seeking, interest group penetration (state capture) and coalition logrolling behaviors have the potential of diverting foreign policy decisions by intervening to the foreign policy making processes. The thesis applies the case study method to test the theory mentioned above. American foreign policy toward Iraq after 9/11 appears as the most likely scenario. This is due to the visibility of all the above mentioned domestic political factors during the period of 9/11 and the Iraq war of 2003.