Using Process Tracing to Investigate Elite Experience Accrual: Explaining Margaret Thatcher’s Support for US Air Strikes Against Libya

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231182404
• Author: Samuel T. Morgan
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 226–238

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10659129231182404

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Using Process Tracing to Investigate Elite

Experience Accrual: Explaining Margaret

Thatcher’s Support for US Air Strikes

Against Libya

Samuel T. Morgan

1



Abstract

The United States’invasion of Grenada in 1983 represented the lowest point in Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan’s

relationship, with Thatcher incensed at what she perceived to be her ally’s misuse of military force. However, in April

1986, Thatcher gave permission for the United States to use British-based aircraft for air strikes against the Gaddaf‌i

regime in Libya, a mission as tenuously grounded in international law as Grenada. How do we explain Thatcher’s apparent

change in approach to foreign policy, now placing strategic interests above her previous deference to international law,

and what does this tell us about the role experience plays in a leader’s foreign policy decisions? Drawing on insights from

the ongoing behavioural revolution in International Relations, this paper argues that the experience Thatcher gained

during the Grenada episode led to her support for US strikes against Libya. A process tracing approach using documents

from the UK National Archives, as well as biographies and memoirs, tests this individual-level hypothesis against a rival

structuralist explanation. This research shows how experience gained in off‌ice can inf‌luence a leader’s future foreign

policy decision-making and demonstrates the utility of process tracing methods for investigations into the role of

experience in international politics.

Keywords

process tracing, elites, experience, behavioural IR, foreign policy, British politics

Introduction

The United States’invasion of Grenada in 1983 repre-

sented the lowest point in Margaret Thatcher and Ronald

Reagan’s relationship. Incensed that her closest ally had

launched an invasion of a Commonwealth country

without fully consulting her government, Thatcher pub-

licly criticised the President’s use of military force.

Thatcher’s instinctive response to the US invasion was to

defer to international law and norms of sovereignty, which

she had relied on in her own response to Argentina’s

invasion of the Falklands the previous year. However, in

April 1986, Thatcher gave permission for the United

States to use British-based aircraft for air strikes against

the Gaddaf‌iregime in Libya, a mission as tenuously

grounded in international law as the invasion of Grenada

3 years earlier (Malawer 1988, 89). How do we explain

Thatcher’s apparent change in approach to foreign policy,

now placing strategic interests above her previous def-

erence to international law, and what does this tell us about

the role experience accrual plays in a leader’s foreign

policy decisions?

This paper will argue that the experience Thatcher

gained during the Grenada episode informed her decision

to allow the US to use UK-based aircraft in the 1986 Libya

strikes. Prior to and during the invasion of Grenada, it is

argued that Thatcher relied on a heuristic that placed

international law at the forefront of her foreign policy.

However, the diplomatic fallout caused by adherence to

this approach in Grenada saw this heuristic side-lined in

favour of the maintenance of strong Anglo-American

relations. A process tracing approach, drawing on ma-

terials from The National Archives of the UK and

1

Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Samuel T. Morgan, Department of Political Science, University of

California, 5229 Social Science Plaza B, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA.

Email: samueltm@uci.edu