Reading I NEED HELP ON MY HOMEWORK

4.2 IR theory not really differentiated in many parts If we put individual in the center? Need to change what we exam. Don't care about the outcome, only care about the process understood by individual Why biden is different than trump.

Reading : M. Hermann & C. Hermann, “Who Makes Foreign Policy Decisions & How

● Ultimate decision units: the actor or group of actors within a government with the authority to commit the nation's resources to foreign policy actions and to prevent others within the government from reversing those actions. This unit's structure significantly influences a government's foreign policy outcomes.

● Three types of decision units: predominant leaders, single groups, and multiple autonomous actors.

○ Those influenced by the pre-existing knowledge, beliefs, and style of its participants, or externally influenceable, meaning its decision-making is significantly affected by external factors.

● Predominant leader : A single individual has the power to make the choice and to stifle opposition

● Single group : A set of individuals, all of whom are members of a single body, collectively select a course of action in face-to-face interaction and obtain compliance.

● Multiple autonomous actors : The necessary actors are separate individuals, groups, or coalitions which, if some or all concur, can act for the government, but no one of which by itself has the ability to decide and force compliance on the others; moreover, no overarching authoritative body exists in which all the necessary parties are members.

Introduction to foreign policy analysis

Introduction to FPA We are what we choose

- “The root is man” - H. Eulau (father of behavior approach) Yet - How do we measure decision making? Three related issues:

● How do you identity the decision maker ? (reading) ○ C. Hermann and M. Hermann

● Who has the agency to make decisions? ● Type of decision?

○ One-shot decision making? ■ single decision isolation by looking at all information and make decision ■ after you made choice, it’s over ■ single moment, single issue

○ One-shot, strategic decision making ■ Depend on action and people around you ■ Perceive impact of other choice ■ Decision depends on decisions of others in one moment

○ Sequential decision making ■ Each choice will impact result later ■ Decision depends on a sequence of smaller decisions

○ Group decision ■ People around you make choice for you ■ Groups are powerful ■ Decision depends on how a group chooses ■ Not individual’s decisions, but result of a group

The dilemma? Each approach is correct. How do we decide which one? - Can’t decide which approach we should take.

How do you identify when a choice is made? - Most decision are not a. Mundane, b. Not conscious, and c. not a choice (ie: involves

coercion)

Job in this class: develop a theory of choice to describe: ● State decisions making. ● Interactions with other states.

Unfortunately, IR theory fails us. Most behaviors are not decisions just responding to the environment.

IR theory: - starts with state - Focus on structure

But in international relation, we care about behavior Structure to state to behavior then circle back to structure Example: realism - polarity conditions state behavior (war/peace) Constructivism - norms conditions state behavior (war/peace)

Problem? ● Sameness: are states like units, or do they differ?

○ IR theory assumes all state are the same cuz they’re single unit ● Change? Systemic change is exogenous (changes happened by unexplained events)

○ Hard to predict and can’t explain dynamics ● Politics? Domestic politics is not included

IR trades parsimony for descriptive accuracy - but why should we prefer parsimony? - We chose to simplify the question

What if we change to unit of analysis? What if we want to understand the process of decisionmaking?

R Snyder, H Bruck, B Sapin (1954) ● Why does the IR theory undercut the impact of individuals? ● Instead of states, place decisionmaking at the center of our analysis . ● Can we explain why Hitler did it?

James Rosenau (throughout the 60s and 70s) ● IR needs theories connecting domestic politics to systemic politics ● These are called mid-range theories - multilevel, multicausal theories that focus on the

internal politics Margaret and Harold Sprout (1950s)

● Not all humans see the same things ● The psycho-milieu - there is no objective reality, only objective experience;

disagreements in these experiences matter in international relations Combined: The central idea of foreign policy analysis is

- Process matter more than outcome!! - But that means we need a new way to model IR

FPA approach UDM 3 types: (H & H)

- Predominant leaders (leader matters) (LBJ) - Single groups (advisors surround leader matters) (acting consensus) - Multiple Autonomous Actors

- Kissenger - Are not necessarily give legal authority to make decisions, but they can impact

decisions.

UDM’s purpose is to create choice - Dependent variable is CHOICE

Use logic to figure out the choice, what is inputs Inputs:

1. Structure 2. Domestic politics

a. Coalitions (interest groups) b. Elections (all mass to communicate)

3. Organizations (state department giving advise) (suggest and implement) 4. Mass opinion

From choice, generate to behavior But choice might not match behavior Behavior to precedent

Advantages: 1. Descriptively robust: it explains more 2. Highlights the impact of small differences 3. Optimistics: things could have been different

By focusing on process, analysis create better answers for important behaviors

Problems: 1. Temporally bound theories (time matters) hard to generalize 2. Who is the UDM? 3. Agency: how much? (when can leader express their preferences?) 4. Poor predictive capacity

FDA is robust - but uncertain and theoretically confused

Going forward, how can we evaluate process? First, identify the decision/behavior

● What should be examined? ● Exam a moment that has a conscious choice

Second, identify the people in the room ● What preferences were included in the choice?

Third, identify the UDM and the process ● How much agency?

Fourth, identify the outcome ● What happened? Is the outcome consistent with expectations?

Example: The Pueblo crisis Background:

● 1.23, 1968: attack on Pueblo ● Most recent signal of instability on the peninsula

○ Increase border instability ○ Blue house raid (1.21, 1968)

● How should the US respond?

Step 1: specify goals ● The goal was simple: return the sailors ● The problem? PRC and USSR

○ The US needed to be careful not to increase the conflict ● Also needed to defend containment in europe

Step 2: specify the power available ● Military: the us has a large advantage ….

Step 3: specify the means

● Number of strategies were discussed ○ Direct attack on DPRK ○ Rescue mission ○ Unilateral diplomacy

■ Multilateral diplomacy ● No good policy option existed: LBJ was going to lose

The remainder of this course is trying to identify 4 different ways to do these things

Part 1: The Rational Actor Model

Reading : H. Simon, "Human Nature in Politics"

● Political behavior cannot be adequately explained or predicted by the rationality principle alone, and requires detailed empirical investigation of the goals, beliefs, and decision processes of political actors.

● Human rationality that have been applied in political science: procedural , bounded rationality from cognitive psychology, substantive , global rationality from economics.

○ Psychology (procedural rationality) : acknowledges the limitations of human cognition in decision-making.

○ Economics (substantive rationality): assumes individuals possess a utility function that guides them to make choices that maximize their utility based on complete and perfect information.

● The author argues that the principle of rationality contributes little to explaining and predicting political behavior. The key is the empirical assumptions made about the goals, beliefs, and decision-making processes of political actors, which are often independent of the rationality principle.

● Studies on Duverger's Law, economic voting, and public goods provision show that the model predictions rely more on the auxiliary assumptions about preferences, beliefs, and expectations rather than the rationality principle alone.

● The author suggests political science should embrace empirical research at both macro and micro levels to understand the mechanisms of attention, situation definition, and idea generation that shape political behavior, rather than relying solely on abstract rationality principles.

● Substantive rationality and procedural rationality

P. Schoemaker, “The Expected Utility Model” ● Limitation in descriptive accuracy: EU theory often does not accurately describe how

decisions are actually made, especially in non-structured, non-repetitive tasks where high stakes or significant training do not play a role. Problems are rarely structured as

holistically or comprehensively as EU theory suggests, and information, particularly probabilities, is not processed according to EU rules.

● Predictive challenge: EU theory can sometimes predict behaviors in economic and well-structured tasks due to learned heuristics that approximate optimal behavior. But in most daily decisions, the theory fails bc the complexity of decision environments and lack of proper feedback mechanisms.

W. H. Riker, “Bargaining in a Three Person Game” ● It argues that while mathematical models provide a baseline for expected behaviors in

abstract settings, the actual outcomes in political or strategic interactions often deviate due to the dynamic nature of human decisions and temporal constraints.

● Deviations are important because they reveal strategic choices individuals make in realistic settings.

● Bargaining not only determines the distribution of benefits but also shapes the strategic landscape of the game, influencing future decisions and interactions among the players.

● The stability of any agreement is crucial, and bargaining helps define the "bargaining set," a concept where feasible agreements must satisfy the quota expectations of all involved parties. Players will continuously negotiate to adjust their shares to reflect their bargaining power and strategic positioning within the game.

Introduction to the rational actor model

First of the 4 model, the most use one

What is rational? ● Example 1: you are meeting somebody on campus. You have not been instructed where

to meet; you have no prior understanding with the person where to meet….. ● Example 2: you are to meet somebody in nyc. The same situation. Where would you

look fort them and when? ● Example 3:

Lecture plan: 1. Basic principles of the rational actor model 2. The reasoning process: dynamic of choice 3. Testing rationality 4. A first-cut at a paradigm

Basic principles of the rational actor model Lineage: Two streams of scholarship

- John von Neuman & Oskar Morgenstern - Philosopher of logic; computer science

- Anthony Downs - Economics (the choice of masses)

The idea for both - how can we found a better way to make a decision and improve society? ● RCT was/is a normative theory (rational choice theory)

Definition: RAM assumes decision makers (DM) accurately measure costs, benefits, and risks for all available options, and select with the option with highest expected utility (rational actor model)

A&Z: “rationality refers to consistent value maximizing choice within specific constraints” (p18)

assumption#1: - DMs have complete information about the probabilities and consequences for each

option. (assumes that based on all information, DM understand stuff)

assumption#2: - DMs understand this information, and can attach (in a very loose manner) risks to the

cost/benefit calculation (think and expect the outcome of future) (DMs can evaluate the potential outcomes and make the highest utility decision)

assumption#3: - DMs compare these calculations and choose the option with the highest utility - Minimizing cost and maximizing utility (reward)

Summary: Humans are competent, purposeful, hedonic Choices emerge from those process RAM is not a theory of choice, but how to create a menu of choices Rational choices are natural and intuitive

But it also means: rational decision are easy…

The reasoning process: dynamic of choice Reasoning process 推理流程: (the list of the bundle of choices - menu of choices) Example: comparing video game systems

1. Ordering of alternatives a. Ranked in each category (lower is better, price) b. The key: depends on:

i. Individual preferences

ii. Distance b/w (between) preferences (discreteness, not discrete, not rational choice)

2. Transitivity a. We expect consistency in the ranking of preferences b. a>b>c, then a>c. c. What cause violations of transitivity? Information.

i. Gap of information makes us the violation of transitivity. 3. Invariance

a. The presentation of the choice does not matter b. Ex: the advertisement of a product does not matter to make rational decisions. c. This is a version of framing, and advertising plays to it all the time. d. Invariance implies consistency of choice over time based upon utility only. e. All about the understanding of the choices, everything else does not matter.

4. Dominance a. After comparison and preference ranking, one option emerges as the dominant

option. b. The rule: if one option… c. All completely specified decisions have dominant choice. d. If there is a tie those choices are said to be weakly dominant (and the selection

will be random) Combined them together: rational choice

Testing rationality Riker & Zavoina

● Question: “what kind of theory about rationality is appropriate for political science?” ● Method: experiment in coalitions

○ Three subjects asked to create agreements ○ The payoffs (shared, and split in any way):

● Result: subjects maximized winning, not money, in their reasoning ○ 92% followed “probability maximization” ○ Without priming by experimenters

Axelrod ● Questions: why does individual rationality lead to collective irrationality? ● Method: computer simulation of PD

○ Asks individual to submit strategies ○ Dichotomous choice; cooperate or defect ○ The most successful strategy wins the most points

● Result: TIT for TAT wins ○ The key: increase the shadow of the future

● Make others believe the costs of defection are more than the potential benefits of cooperation.

● So then, why cheat? Bc there is no guarantee of a future

○ Its rational to cheat even when it leads to both sides losing

In sum: most of IR believes in some version of thin rationality How can we use this to understand IR? Example: Murders in the Rue Morgue

- C. Auguste Dupin & the power of ratiocination - Case: mother and daughter are killed

- Brutality of the crime scene - Evidence does not support a robbery - The locked door

- Process of ratiocination: - Collect all evidence - Recreate the context of the crime - Start with the outcome, and reason backwards, connecting the available

evidence - Solution: the murder was an orangutan (specifically, an orangutan with a razor)

The example: the capture of the Mayaguez - Facts: Cargo ship, boarded by the Khmer Rouge on 5.12.1975 - Gather all info: Decision context:

- After the fall of Saigon - Watergate - Disagreement between advisors

- Kissenger: need to use force - Lessinger: anti-force

- Ford’s preference: - Not a hawk - The curse of the “accidental president” - Retrieve the crew, buttress presidential power, signal the Soviets

- Decision: - Sea and air assaults - Land on the islands of Koh Tang - Bomb Cambodia in retaliation

- Connect the facts: why? Reason backwards - Force allowed Ford to accomplish all of his goals - No structural disincentive to attack

- The problem? - A bad foreign policy choice

- How can an irrational end come from a rational process?

Schoemaker would argue that rationality was applied incorrectly ● Each use of EUT has tradeoffs

○ Descriptive: does not capture reality ○ Positivist: external validity errors

○ Post-dictive: unfalsifiable ○ Normative: unaccounted errors

An initial paradigm 1. Source material 2. Description of the UDM 3. The decision making process

a. DMs choose the option which maximizes benefits and minimizes cost b. There is a reasoned choice

4. Evidence a. “The puzzle is solved by finding purpose that action serves” (25) b. Problems:

i. Unfalsifiable? ii. Thinking zebras

推导模式 ● Identify problem

○ Under what contexts ○ Part of rationality, the available info presents to them and their understanding of

present info ○ Include domestic and international

● Identify goals (reasoning process) ● List alternatives ● Evaluate alternatives ● Make choice

Introduction to the rational actor model Redux How do scholars of decision making account for these deviations?

- The answer: subjective expected utility (SEU)

lecture plan: 1. Deviation form rationality 2. Revisiting the concept of rationality 3. Amending the RAM 4. Application: cuban missile crisis

Deviation from rationality

Assumptions of RAM ● Complete information ● Comprehension ● Hedonic calculus: highest expected utility

DMs are aware, competent, and utilitarian

Deviations ● 1. DMs rarely have complete information

○ “Every leader steps out into the dark in every decision” - T. Sorensen ● Leaders have really less information ● How is that possible?

○ Probabilities are rarely explicit ■ Boettcher: verbal probability theory ■ Leaders misperceive and don't understand odds ratios ■ The type of info/probabilities are not exist for leaders

○ Biases ■ “The first advice i’m going to give the next president is to not trust the

military chiefs” - president Kennedy ■ Information is colored by personal experience ■ Advisors will edit info to make themselves looks better ■ Info it’s not data but opinions ■ Political process itself

○ Lack of resources ■ Information and intelligence is missed ■ We don't know what we need to know ■ What is “irrelevant” in a decision? ■ Analysts were assuming that there are enough info, info is going to be

missing

1. DMs rarely have complete information 2. DMs are limited - and biased - processors of information

- Even if they have complete, they cannot make correct decisions.

Limits of processing - “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” - H. Simon - If you have info, you’re not gonna understand it - The more you know about the world, the less you understand it. - The more options/info/probabilities you have, the less likely you are to make right

decisions. - The dilemma : greater amounts of information decreases comprehension:

- The uninformed DM - The over-burdened DM

- It also generates uncertainty - S. Iyengar - reducing the number of options increases confidence - Limit choice - Scary makes you more confidence - supreme限量版销售

3. DMs do not choose options with the highest utility Alternative decision rules

● Hedging strategy - I. Janis ○ Continues to not to make choice to avoid responsibility ○ Minimize regard

● Satisficing - H. Simon ○ Just find an option that just good enough that not maximize my utility, just

satisficing at that moment ○ Minimize recognition

● Accountability maximization - P. Tetlock ○ We don’t minimize both above, we maximize our connections with people around

us. ○ We’re accountable to our peers cuz they’ll judge us

Deviations: summary 1. DMs rarely have complete information 2. DMs are limited - and biased - processors of information 3. DMs do not choose options with the highest utility

Critiques of EUT ● Supposed to be a normative theory of choice (not descriptive) ● Yet, "persistent violations of the model may raise questions as it its validity” -

Schoemaker ● Each assumptions of EUT has problems when applying to political decisions ● Scholar continues to rely on EUT even thought its fallible

○ Green & Shapiro: scholar confuse complexity for validity; anomalies for “laws” ○ Logical robustness favored over descriptive accuracy

Revisiting the concept of rationality Two types of rationality:

● Substantive rationality ○ Homo economicus:

■ Every actor processes a utility function that provides a rank-ordering among all choices and the DM chooses …

○ When is a decision rational? ■ If a DM arrives at a rational (read: reasonable) outcome consistent with

DM goals

■ Example: Mayaguez ■ The problem: this does not provide an a priori hypothesis of behavior

● You have to see what happens first ○ To make predictions, RAM scholars have to supplement their models with more

information about the UDM ● Procedural rationality

○ Starts with the description of rational process ○ Homo psychologicus

■ Psychology are more fragile ■ The focus: the internal operation of the DM process

● You can come with the right outcome even if the process is wrong ○ DMs are similar to computers, except there are limits to their cognitive

capabilities ■ “It is necessary to specify what the problem solver wants, knows, and can

compute” H. Simon ■ “We must characterize the political situation, not as it appears

“objectively” to the analyst, but as it appears subjectively to the actors”

Subjective utility > expected utility When is a decision rational?

- If the process of the decision is rational within the constraints of the decision making environment and limits the DM

- Example: the Mayaguez - Redux

Focus is on what determine the quality of the decision process: 1. Attention 2. Uncertainty 3. Deliberation

For Simon, the reality of politics means there is no such thing as a substantively rational choice! Evaluate reality, and understand the process

Amending the RAM 1. Source material

a. Economics & cognitive psychology b. Maintain the assumption of rationality, but this time it is not bounded rationality.

2. Description of the UDM a. Still unitary & purposive b. But the DM is “fallible” (process itself depend upon decision makers) c. We do not assume the outcome is a product of a rational process.

3. Decision making process a. DMs use utilitarian logic, but recognize the pressures of the political arena b. Subjective experience/preferences

4. Evidence? a. Begin with a description of the DM, and their perception of the environment

b. Assume bounded rationality: DMs use incoming information to amend their internal models and make a choice

Application: Cuban missile crisis Three steps process:

1. Hypotheses: why did the USSR place missiles in Cuba (according to the Kenndy administration)

2. Discover options available to DMs in their deliberations: what could they do as a response?

3. Interpret decision according the the acting logic

4 hypothesis: why did the USSR place missiles in Cuba a. Defending Cuba (us trying to kill cuba) b. Cold war competition (project power, a defensive) c. Playing catch up: disparity in nuclear missile arsenals d. Solving the Berlin problem

6 options: what could US do? a. Do nothing b. Diplomatic pressure (difficult to do) c. Approach Castro secretly d. Invasion (troops on Cuba’s ground) e. Air strike f. Blockade (war)

Outcome: what happened? Decision: use a blockade to slowly escalate the crisis and simultaneously use diplomatic channels to demand the withdrawal of the missiles

Two answers: 1. Substantive rationality

a. “Simple value - maximizing escalation” b. Costs too heavy; risks too likely c. Explained by international structure

2. Procedural rationality a. Kenndy’s goals: maintain global position, improve security, do… b. But available information was limited c. DMs had poor intelligence d. Reasoning process: he used a hedging strategy that bought time fort escalation

to work What move the SU to back down?

- Blockage provide credibility - Robert Kenndy, and his “dire” message

- Jupiter missiles and Soviet domestic politics

Conclusion: ● RAM is very flexible - as long as you relax the vore assumptions derived from economic

theory ● A robust prediction/theory of state action can be built from either type of rationality

○ Be careful with the application

Case discussion:

Why secret bombing? Context:

- Vietnam - Hegemony - Pressure and date

- Press -

RAM model exam: ● In foreign policy, it assumes that nation state as single unit rational decision maker that

has complete information about the probabilities and consequences for options and able to understand the information to calculate risks for maximized utility.

RAM in bomb cambodia ● Nixon administration see the bomb of cambodia as a strategic extension of the Vietnam

War. The administration as single unit rational DM, thinks that expand the war to Cambodia is necessary.

● Under the domestic context, Nixon administration faced more pressures to stop the war, which require them to find a quick and effective solution to end the war and meet his promise of election. Internationally, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong used Cambodia as sanctuary to attack the US troops. And the Vietnam has involved SU and the PRC.

● The primary goal set by the Nixon administration was to disrupt the North Vietnamese supply lines and sanctuaries in Cambodia. It can weaken enemy's capabilities and reduce casualties.

● There are some menu of choices that have been created. First is the diplomatic

Difference of RAM and ODM: ● The difference between RAM and ODM mainly are the difference of logic and unitary or

non-unitary. ● In terms of difference of logic, the RAM is based upon the logic of consequences, which

assumes that DMs are motivated by the expected outcomes of their actions, aiming to

maximize utility. Therefore, because of the options of different outcomes, DMs evaluate and choose the option that could maximize their utility.

● The RAM is unitary because it assumes a single DM or a cohesive group acting with a single set of goals and perfect rationality. It means that decisions are made through a rational process that all information is known and best outcomes are chosen based on criteria of utility maximization.

● The ODM is based on the logic of appropriateness. It focuses on the patterns and routines matching process that have been established by past practices rather than the outcomes of decisions. Decision-making of ODM is based upon habit or standard operating procedures that are triggered by particular situations.

● The ODM is non-unitary due to it assumes a single decision-making entity don’t have clear set of goals. It recognizes multiple actors in an organization. Each of them might have different priorities and operate under various constraints imposed by organizational structures and cultures.

RAM in case 1 (bomb cambodia) ● Assume the bomb of cambodia is rational ● Under the context of domestic and international, what happened. ● The Nixon administration’s goal as single rational actor ● After the setting up of goal, list the bundle of choice (menu of choice) ● Cost benefit analysis to evaluate those choice, then make a decision.

Part 2: The Organizational Model

Introduction to organizational model of decision making Should we treat FP like a habit?

- Many everyday decisions are unthinking responses to stimuli - What if we build a model around habits? - Based on the past experiences - We just act bc that’s what we always do

FP is an output of government and organizations following pre-ordinated routines - not conscious choice

- Making predictions, look at what it did last time

Still rational - but it it non-unitary Psych, Bureaucratic politics

Plan of lecture: 1. Introduction to the ODM model 2. Structures of Decision 3. Activating SOPs (standard operating procedures) 标准作业程序 4. Examples: and problems

Introduction to the ODM model The logic of organizations Two competing logics in decision making:

1. Logic of consequences: RAM 2. Logic of appropriateness: ODM

Logic of consequences: - DMs are motivated by the expected outcomes of their actions

- Example: the fear of a ticket/accident, we stop to avoid expected penalties (stop sign)

- DMs enact pre-determined actions or protocols in response to a stimulus - Example: we stop bc it is what you do at a stop sign

- We acting according to what is appropriate in that situation

Defining the ODM model The difference between ODM and RAM is the difference between the logics of action RAM: utility maximization ODM: pattern-matching (habit, just based on situation and past) (human brian prefer this not RAM) (repeat over and over again) (negative side of human)

- Organizations create specific tasks and develop routines that are activated during decision making

These standard operating procedures (or SOPs) constrain the menu of options

ODM is not a theory of choice but a theory of how the menu of options is created - Just care about how the menu of option is made

Past scholarship - Max Weber: the brutal efficiency of organizations

- The efficiency of organizations maximize profits - Functionalism: states develop organizations to satisfy needed tasks - Organization theory: how do organizations create “bundles of technology”

How do organizations operate? The “Garbage Can” theory

- “An effort to explain how organizations make choices and solve problems under conditions of ambiguity so troubling they would appear to render decision making extremely difficult or impossible” ⼀种解释组织如何在模棱两可的情况下做出选择和解决 问题的努⼒，这种情况令⼈不安，似乎使决策变得极其困难或不可能

- When you have hammer, you see everything like a nail - Decision moments are "garbage cans” that move independently through organizations - Think of DMs as a factory with conveyor belts

The “garbage can” theory 4 elements 1. “Problem, solutions, participants and choice opportunities” (under the environment of

organized anarchies, decisions do not follow a linear path from problem to solution. Instead, the decision-making process is seen as a confluence of these four independent streams)

a. information/communication “streams” are the stuff of decisions i. Detect the intelligence ii. Solutions: every organization based on their SOPs to provide their own

solutions iii. Participants: CIA, FBI, NSC iv. Choice opportunities: have to make decisions based on all input

intelligence. 2. “Move independently about the organizations"

a. Ideas move freely between actors within the organization 3. “Decision coming out depend on whatever mixtures the interesting streams happen to

generate” “做出的决定取决于有趣的流碰巧产⽣的混合物。” a. Random collections of SOPs are generated in the process

4. Organizations “structure channels and constrain this multifarious actions” 组织“构建渠道 并约束这种多样化的⾏为”

a. The control of foreign policy is a function of this hierarchy - a function of this structure

Summary: - The end result of this process is a collection of SOPs (sometimes randomly generated) - These populate the menu of choice presented to the UDM

Benefits of organizations 1. Efficiently use resources

a. Division of labor for a complex task 2. Filters the menu of choice

a. Highlights recommendations 3. Easy implementation

a. “Off the shelf” tools

Structures of Decision What should we study to understand ODM? These are the variables that direct organizations:

- What do they see? - When do they learn? - Who matters?

1. Organizational culture

Definition: the set of beliefs the members of an organization hold about their organization, beliefs they have inherited and pass on to their successors ⼀个组织的成员对他们的组织持有的 ⼀套信念，他们继承并传递给他们的继任者的信念

- When you in an organization, you start to think that how the organization what you to think about (get into UCSB)

~ Ripley: a socialization process Culture tells members of organizations:

- What is important - What can be ignored - What can be done

Culture directs perceptions, culture tells you what matters

2. Organizational adaption - Organizations develop tasks by evolving with political demands

- Generate new tasks that your organization can do - Ex: change in military organizations

In general - Change or learning is limited in favor of maintaining the organization

3. Political entrepreneurs - Individuals that manipulate decisions to advance their organization - Ex: NATO enlargement and the Cliton administration - To understand foreign policy, we have to find out who is manipulating the organization to

get their way - There is agency within organizations

Combined Culture, adaptions and entrepreneurs tell us how organizations collect, comprehend, and act on information (so that further impact the foreign policy decision making) In another way: this is the connection to RAM

Activating SOPs Cybernetic theory of decision : developed by John Steinbruner (1974) to describe the process of organizational decisions making Example: a tennis match

- Repeat the task of hit the ball back over and over again till its automatic response (cybernetic)

Example: the recipe principle Example: the stream regulator

- Schematic of a stream regulator

What is the connection? - Decision making follows similar automatic and cybernetic processes

- In particular: diffuse computation and automaticity - Diffuse computation: take everything for FP you need, divide them to different

pieces - Automaticity: as soon as it figures out, it becomes an automatic process

Problem #1: Complexity and “missed alarms”

- “A decision process which controls uncertainty and preserves internal simplicity is very likely to produce outcomes which are unfortunate in many respects, particularly the respects to which it is insensitive” 控制不确定性 并 保持内部简单性的决策过程 很可能在 许多⽅⾯产⽣不幸的结果，特别是在它不敏感的⽅⾯

- Complex situation creates miss alarms

Problem #2: Communication errors

- False alarms: automaticity combined with separate communication protocols creates false positives

- Activating wrong protocol

Examples – and problems? Command and control of nuclear forces American deterrence in cold war

- Automatic system of alarm and response - President is the final failsafe

Pearl harbor attack - Wohlstetter - Strategies knew… warning were missed

- Bc of misscommunication - “It was just a dramatic failure of a remarkably well-informed…

9/11 attack - US agencies failed to see the terror threat - And respond appropriately

Readings : M. Cohen et al., “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice”

● "Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice," emphasizing the complex, seemingly chaotic nature of decision-making in certain organizations , which the authors describe as "organized anarchies."

● The model suggests that decision-making in such environments can often seem random or nonsensical.

● Through a computer simulation model, illustrate how these anarchic settings operate under different conditions. They explore how the structure of the organization, the flow of problems, the availability of solutions, and participant involvement all influence how decisions are ultimately made.

● The model underscores the randomness and complexity of organizational decision-making, where decision environments often exhibit these anarchic traits.

● Decisions emerge based on the mixture of these components present at any given time, often in a seemingly random fashion, just like a garbage can.

● 3 properties of organized anarchies: ○ Problematic preferences : In the organization it is difficult to impute a set of

references to the decision situation that satisfies the standard consistency requirements for a theory of choice

○ Unclear technolog y: it operates on the simple trial-and-error procedures, the residue of learning from the accident past experiences and pragmatic inventions of necessity. (The processes and operations within the organization are not well understood by its members, leading to decisions made through trial and error rather than through structured and understood methods.)

○ Fluid participation : Participants vary in the amount of time and effort they devote to different domains.

C. Perrow, Selections from Normal Accidents ●

The inefficiencies of organizational decision making Organizations are meant to be efficient But it has problem, be trapped by its own culture

Lecture plan 1. Organizational inertia 2. Organizational complexity 3. The ODM paradigm 4. Application: cuban missile crisis

Organizational inertia 惰性

The problem of stasis: when do organizations change/evolve? 2 paths:

- Marginal adjustment - Fundamental surprise

Marginal adjustment: - Tweak the already used protocol (don't want to tier down the whole organization) - The examples of the saleclerk and the restaurant ( Cyert and March )

- Don't wanna get rid of product but wanna tweak it

Fundamental surprise: - Marginal changes to SOPs decrease organizational performance and create errors - These paradigmatic events cause members to re-examine and change their organization - What the most learning should occur

Problem? - Organizations fail to adjust correctly, anchored by past behavior - 3 errors prevent learning after dramatic failures

- 1) availability of multiple indicators - Difficult to locate the cause of a failure - Example: car crash (organization will just focus on one factor rather than

many factors) - 2) perception of uniqueness

- Motivated to perceive the failure as an improbable event - “There is little need for change, or at least only local fine tuning steps are

needed” - 3) fundamental surprise fallacy

- “Narrowing the attribution of cause to local factors with well bounded responses”

- Focus on one person response for the event (for organization to not learn) - Example: human error

Summary: - Inertia is a function of organizational culture and the drive for efficiency 惰性是组织⽂化

和效率驱动⼒的函数 - Organizations evolve in small steps - Failure is often “excused away”

Organizational complexity Definition: the amount of interconnectedness among the different subunits of an organization Two variables: interaction types and coupling

Type of interaction: complex vs. linear - The degree of specialization and redundancy 冗余

- Example: mission control (complex) vs. assembly lines (linear) - Linear cannot do complex stuff, complex is very specified

Coupling - The amount of control or connection between elements of an organization - Example: nuclear plant vs. post office

The problem: complexity breeds failure - C. Perrow: normal accidents

- “Given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable….

The solution: redundancy - Diffuse responsibility - Organizations with multiple, independent, and parallel agents reduced the rate of normal

accidents The dark side of redundancy? It promotes 3 errors:

1. System-wide errors (aka common-mode errors) a. If you add new elements in the system, might have more mistakes

2. Social shrinking a. People know there is a redundancy, they don't do their jobs

3. Compensation a. People take more risks when they know they have assurance

Summary: complexity organizations promote failure - Tradeoff: efficiency vs. error - Solutions do not save us

- Ex: S. Sagan - near misses, “the problem of redundancy problem”

The ODM paradigm 1. Source material

a. Organizational theory and organizational psychology b. Foundational work: Cyert and March , a behavioral theory of the firm

i. Walmart, garbage can model 2. Description of the UDM

a. Driven by organizational outputs b. Efficient, but non-unitary

3. The decision making process a. Constrained agency; choose from a list b. DMs are triggers for organizational action

4. Evidence? a. Extrapolation from the past b. Patterns of routines (SOPs)

Application: cuban missile crisis CMC:

1. SOPs in the Soviet deployment 2. SOPs in the imposition of the blockade 3. SOPs in the missile withdrawal

Soviet deployment: why were the soviets insensitive to american reconnaissance? 1. They were not insensitive - upper echelons wanted to keep this a secret and use the

missiles to force a political solution for Berlin. 2. “Soldier logic”: SOPs signaled the presence of the missiles

Why did the US impose the blockade? 1. Organizational capacity and intelligence analysis

a. SOPs discovered the missiles, and recognized the threat 2. The discussion about Oplan 312

a. “Kennedy & his senior advisors were thus presented with organizational options, constructed with a methodology they dimly understood, that pushed toward a very large strike.. while not offering a guarantee of success”

3. Third: implementation a. SOPs complicated the decision; navy SOPs nearly caused a war

Soviet withdrawal? - Khrushchev realized the chances of accidental war - Credibility of kennedy’s threats heightened by automaticity of SOPs

Summary: - “American international relations in the critical week of the crisis constitute a catalogue of

friction & frustration as political leaders attempted to interfere with organizational routines & procedures in the name of flexibility and options” 在危机的关键⼀周，美国的 国际关系构成了⼀系列摩擦和挫败感，因为政治领导⼈试图以灵活性和选择的名义⼲扰组 织惯例和程序

Case study: american law causes the CIA and FBI act differently

ODM model exam: ● Government consists of organizations, those organizations loosely connect and

independently exist to handle information, making action plans and evaluate consequences. Through the regular operation of organizations, governments conducts

actions in foreign policy. Governments' response and actions are not carefully calculated choices, but the outputs based on standard operating procedures.

○ An organization is a collection of people that systematically arranged people together for the purpose of coordinating or unifying action.

○ Organizations create the ability to achieve certain purposes or accomplish certain tasks that would be impossible without the organization.

○ The existing organization and the routine and procedure of the organization determine the next organization

○ Organizational culture affects individuals within an organization with formal or informal norms. Under different cultures, organizations will have different identification and performance.

ODM Model on 9/11 inefficient: (44, 188) ● Several months before 9.11.2001, the intelligence has increased that about al Qaeda

attack the US, but the intelligence from agencies was not synthesized into a coherent action plan due to organizational adaption limited by existing ODM paradigms that focused primarily on state actors. The CIA’s counterterrorist center and analysts from the NSA and DIA think that the threat is really urgent and severe. Although with those warnings, the organizational response was constrained by existing SOPs, which did not include measures for the kind of threat that would use commercial airliners as weapons, which reflects that the SOPs in ODM constrain the menu of options.

● Political entrepreneurs like Richard Clarke was trying to manipulate decision-making processes to prioritize the growing terrorist threats. He tried to shift the policy focus toward terrorism and find decisive actions against al-Qaeda, but prevented by bureaucratic resistance and the absence of immediate historical precedents that aligned with his warnings.

● There were several alarms were missed. For example, the NSA had intercepted communications that potentially hinting for big event and the FBI had information about people related to radical Islamist groups attending flight schools in the US. However, the organizational barrier and the lack of a structured process made these alarms do not translate into preventive action.

● The communication errors reflects that how the organizational complexity among different organizations and their inertia that impede effective decision-making, which leads to coordination issue. For example, the CIA had the address information on two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar but failed to share and communicate with FBI. It results from lack of integrated communication protocols among the different intelligence agencies.

● According to the garbage can theory by M. Cohen, situation in months before the 911 attack can be seemed as organized anarchies that with all kinds of information and organizational complexity, it leads to chaos in decision making process. by the unclear technology of the intelligence that did not detect from the past SOPs.

● Meanwhile, the organizational culture within the US security and intelligence organizations emphasizes independent operations and lack of inter-agency cooperation,

which can be applied to the garbage can theory that “Ideas move freely between actors within the organization”.

● In conclusion, the responsibility and agencies are diluted because they all follow their own organizations SOPs.

ODM model on one hundred hour war case (success): ● The US military organization specifically Central Command (CENTCOM) shows a strong

adaptation ability in one hundred hour war. General Norman Schwarzkopf played an important role in adapting military strategies based on real-time battlefield information that when iraq was out of Kuwait, it switched from defensive to offensive plan. The quick organizational adaptation shows that the flexible of SOPs in dealing with the new threats.

● The rapid deployment and execution of military strategies based upon the clear and and pre-established SOPs allowed for a swift and decisive operation. CENTCOM effectively utilized these procedures to mobilize forces and coordinate logistics to maximize battlefield's success.

● The ODM model’s organizational interaction shows on coordination between different military branches and allied forces in one hundred hour war case.

Part 3:

Introduction to the BP model

Plan of lecture: 1. Introduction of the BP model 2. The operation of bureaucracies 3. The manipulation of information 4. The manipulation of structure

Introduction to BP THUS far: whose interests matter - leaders (RAM) or organizations (UDM)

- Leaders are just representation of organization

But are they free to make these choices? - The principal agent problem

The principal agent problem: 2 answers: - Simon: leaders are the principal

- His answer: the president is a leader: FP follows from leader prerogative and experience

- Example: Nixon and cambodia (wanna end vietnam, has irrational strategy, allow him to pressure the vietnam enemy

- Cohen et al: Organizations are the principal - He does not have preferences, but just force to chose those preferences - Their answer: leaders follow organizational prerogative; rubber stamps - Example: Bush and 9/11

But what if there are principals at every level of an organization? - Recall: political entrepreneurs

Individuals at all levels of an organization can change the decision

The principal; agent problem: third way Allusion: essence of decision

- ExComm and the CMC - Based upon the structure of the DM system - Answer: leaders are one of many different principals within any organization

Introducing to BP 4 defining features of the BP model

1. Many actors, divergent issues a. “The maker of government policy is not a single calculating decision maker, but

rather a conglomerate of large organizations and political actors who differ substantially about what their government should do” A&Z

2. Absence of omnipotence a. Leader as member of organization b. Leaders are just another player on the bureaucratic battlefield (don't have control

of process) 3. Decisions are a political resultant

a. It comes from bargain b. Pulling and hauling c. Foreign policy is a bargain between bureaucracies (there is no national interest,

only self-interest to generate bargain) something capture enough support in the room

4. Gap between decision and implementation a. Errors are common (known as “slippage”)

Summary:

- "numerous individuals and organizations, with varying interests, are involved for any single issue, without the predominance of any participant.. [AND] the decision is formulated through bargaining and compromise, and considerable slippage occurs during implementation" (Rosati, p. 238)

- Cambodia is a bargain - Individual trying to get their preferences included

The operation of Bureaucracies How do bureaucracies operate?

1. Information flows up through the hierarchy (collect info and send it up, which will be filtered)

a. Different from ODM: this is not an automatic process - requires direction from above (need specific instructions) generate information

2. Chiefs vs. Indians a. Upper of bureaucracies chiefs b. Most of bureaucracies as indians c. Chiefs: appointed, political positions (what do i think leaders want to hear) d. Indians: career bureaucrats e. Intro-bureaucratic conflict is expected (disagree emerges)

3. “Where you stand is where you sit” a. Bureaucrats are biased in favor of their own bureaucracies b. Which bureaucrats you in, you prefer whichever method. c. Example: drone fired missile debate d. The lesson: “individual are rational, but a group is not” (it’s rational for individual

to support their own bureaucracies) 4. Implementation orders flow down

a. Using SOPs b. Example: Mayagues and Schlesinger (US trying to save its sailors) c. As order flows down, people have the ability to change it.

Most important: we expect to see non-unitary, non-rational foreign policy - No national interest, but actors fighting for their own interests

All FP decisions are poorly constructed political bargains

The manipulation of information Bureaucratic bargaining

● How do bureaucrats use information to win the policy choice ○ Change the context ○ Change what is discussed ○ Change the menu of choice

Bureaucratic bargaining 1. Issue framing: changing the perception of information

a. Using analogies i. Ex: vietnam and Munich (胡志明是希特勒) ii. Not changing the info, but change the context of the information iii. Using metaphors (ex: falling dominos) (try to simplify the DM) (change the

context) 2. Agenda setting: setting the terms of debate

a. Primacy and the first mover advantage (the first option you suggest often the one gonna get accepted) (first intelligence comes in, the most gonna be used)

b. Salami tactics: “break down the radically novel course of action into a series of gradual policy option”

i. Example: operation peace galilee 3. Adding an alternative

a. Not anyone’s first preference, but good enough for getting everyone on board b. Shock and awe c. Example: Pueblo crisis and C. Clifford

How do bureaucrats use info to win the policy choice Problem:

- Errors! The final choice will have missing information, misperceptions, and incorrect intelligence

The manipulation of structure Bureaucratic bargaining

● How do bureaucrats use their Bureaucracies to win the policy choice ○ A. Manipulate Bureaucratic ○ B.

1. Access: structural chokepoints a. Example: kissinger, Iran hostage crisis (when the decision is being made)

2. Decision rules a. The ways in which decisions are made b. Consensus vs. majority rule (bureaucracies do not have consensus) c. Example: Lebanon; bay of pigs d. By changing the decision, change the content of the bureaucracy

Problem: errors, both tend to create slippage, as an organization is unable to implement policy

Bureaucratic politics: A convenient excuse Lecture plan

1. A critique of BP 2. The FP hierarchy reconsidered

3. The BP model of decisionmaking 4. Application: CMC

A critique of BP 1. Politics and the international environment? Limitation of BP 2. Inductive

a. Assume bad outcome from bureaucracies 3. A level of analysis problems?

BP mis-specifies the causal connection between intragovernment politics and behavior

S. Krasner: 3 problems 1. Implies non-responsibility

a. BP minimizes opportunities for agency b. False to believe errors “cannot be avoided even with the best intentions” c. Minimize responsibility

2. Sometimes chiefs do not sit anywhere a. Chiefs act contrary to bureaucratic interest (have other interest at play) b. Want to protect leaders, not their own bureaucracy c. Chiefs do not attach with the bureaucracy, but their own interests d. Example: ExComm and the DoD

3. Leaders are not just another player a. Leaders have power and compel to creat structure under their interest

Lax leader is the key to understanding BP as an explanatory model - In fighting “will not be the case when presidential interest or attention are absent” (p168) - BP is not a persistent facet of FP decisions

Summary: - BP is an excuse for poor leadership

- “The failure of the american government to take decisive action in a number of critical areas reflects not so much the inertia of a large bureaucratic machine as confusion over values”

If leader know it’s a bad FP, will let bureaucracy to take over, but if it’s a good one, they will take over it and get credits.

The FP hierarchy reconsidered Effective bureaucracies develop:

- Functionally differentiated role systems that produce a widely distributed (but not equally distributed) frequency of suggestions, reactions, and questions, and a certain amount of disagreement as well as agreement.

Three archetypes: (to limit bureaucratic policy)

● Formalistic model (order policy making structure) 直接 ○ Well defined procedures and information channels

■ Example: Eisenhower and Nixon ○ Eliminate bias and misperception ○ Problem?

■ Limit debate and bargaining moment ■ Incomplete information (hierarchy limited info) ■ Tend to be trapped by SOPs

● Competitive model 杂乱 ○ Creating a marketplace of ideas (encourage debate)

■ Example: FDR ○ Eliminate the power of chiefs ○ Problems?

■ Substantial energy and time commitments ■ Aggravates internal competition, and promotes high turnover within

bureaucracies ● Collegial model 环绕+杂乱

○ Combine of both ○ Leader is at the center, advisors form a collegial team

■ Ex: JFK ○ Problem?

■ Requires unusually good interpersonal skills (trying to force agreement) ■ Tendency to develop too much teamwork and maybe come up to worse

choice (they only protect their own team)

But structuring the hierarchy introduces new decision making problems Two in particular:

A. Groupthink: the power of identity B. Deadlock: the overwhelmed leader (too many recommendations)

Summary: ● Leaders can structure bureaucratic politics, limiting the consequences of competition ● National interest more important than wining the game

The BP model of decisionmaking 1. Source material

a. Organization theory b. Political science c. Example: allison, Halperin, George

2. Description of the UDM a. Non-unitary actor, many interests b. Leadership and the FP hierarchy limites the num er of participants, do not

eliminate all errors

3. The decisionmaking process a. Decisions as political resultants b. The impact of leaders on controlling debate

i. Structuring the hierarchy 4. Evidence?

a. Examine those involved b. Place these players in the hierarchy c. Trace bargaining process (bureaucratic policy has disagreement, find different

interests and bargain) i. Look for manipulation

Application: CMC Discovery of the missiles

- Bargain 1: Operation Mongoose - Bargain 2: who will fly the U2?

“A series of overlapping bargaining games determined bother the date of the discovery and the impact of the discovery

Choosing the blockade - Curtis LeMay vs. SoS Dean Rusk vs. SoD Robert McNamara - Kennedy wanted revenge (president said we need to do something)

Why blockade if Kennedy wanted blood? 1. JCS admits: air strikes if blockade failed 2. Analogy: Pearl Harbor and the moral Kennedy

The “perfect collage” of interests

Soviet Withdrawal - Kennedy, leadership, and the presidential directive

- Cease construction - Consider removal of Turkish missiles - Bobby, and his dire message

Soviet withdrawal Dobrynin was convinced by RFK’s performance

Summary: 1. Compromise and bargaining - explains choice of blockage 2. Presidential leadership - explains implementation

Reading: Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison Wonderland) by Stephen D. Krasner

● He emphasizes the importance of leadership and managerial skills in overcoming bureaucratic inertia and pursuing effective governance.

● The critical role of presidential leadership in navigating and directing the bureaucratic landscape to achieve desired policy outcomes.

● Do not agree and critique the popular argument of “foreign policy is heavily influenced by bureaucratic procedures and politics”.

○ This argument obscures rational calculations of national interest or the political goals of national leaders. 这种观点模糊了对国家利益或国家领导⼈政治⽬标的理 性计算.

● FP is affected by SOPs argument is misleading . It obscures the real power of the President and high-ranking officials, suggesting that significant decisions result from the scattered actions of various bureaucratic levels with diverging aims, rather than reflecting the intentions of top leaders.

● Dangerous : It undermines democratic principles by implying that top officials are merely ensnared in the bureaucratic web, thus absolving them of responsibility and accountability for governmental actions.

● It provides an easy excuse for leaders to deflect blame for failures onto the bureaucracy. ● He argues that although bureaucratic politics influence policy, the ultimate responsibility

and decision-making power rest with elected officials, particularly the President. ● He argues that elections and democratic accountability are meaningful only if top officials

can effectively control and direct the bureaucratic machinery.

“Developing a Systematic Decision-Making Framework: Bureaucratic Politics in Perspective” by Jerel A. Rosati

● The essay argues that how decisions are shaped by multiple actors within the government, each with their own interests, which often leads to a complex bargaining process.

● The bureaucratic politics model refers to the decision-making in the executive branch, emphasizing negotiation among diverse actors with conflicting interests.

● Bureaucratic Model key propositions: ○ Multiple Actors and Interests: The executive branch consists of numerous

individuals and organizations , each with distinct goals and interests. This diversity is a defining characteristic of the bureaucratic politics model.

○ Decision-Making as Bargaining: Decision-making is seen as a product of bargaining and negotiation among these various actors. Each participant has different priorities, which they attempt to push in the policymaking process.

○ Influence of Organizational Structure: The structure of the organizations involved plays a significant role in shaping the decisions. This includes both the hierarchical structure within an organization and the inter-organizational relations.

Proposition#1: For any single issue, the executive branch of the government is composed of numerous individuals and organizations, with various differences in goals and objectives.

Proposition#2: No preponderant individual or organization exists; the President, if involved, is merely one participant, although his influence may be the most powerful.

Proposition#3: The final decision is a "political resultant" —the outcome of bargaining and compromise among the various participants.

Proposition#4: A considerable gap usually exists between the formulated decision and its implementation.

Part 4:

Introduction to the psychology of decision making What happened to politics? 1970s matters to change the politics and IR.

Eulau: “the root is man” - The focus should be on individuals as “socio-political animals” - Individual animal trap in political zoo

- How they act, and why they act

Rational actor model shares a number of assumptions with psychology ● Unitary actors (people have set of preferences) ● Limits to strict rationality

Difference: psychology provides a descriptive model of choice - How decisions are made

Driving factor of psychology: floss? Pathology

Problem: complexity DMs have been described as:

- Believers - Info processors - Politicians - Perceivers - Strategists - Learners

Our focus: 1. Risk propensities and the framing of choice 2. Perceptions 3. Information process 4. Abnormal psychology 5. Decisionmaking in groups

Lecture plan: ● The root is man

Individual model of choice ● Risks and decisionmaking ● Perceptions ● Information processing ● Abnormal psychology

Risks and decisionmaking Photo scan”

This is known as the “asian flu” experiment The question: why is there a significant difference in how subjects respond these choices?

- Equivalent adds - Other differences: ……

Prospect theory - Contra RCT, there is not a linear maximization rule - Risk propensities attach to a “reference point” (not an absolute of gain or loss)

- Gain of loss, willing to take all risk to win it back. (trying to take a risk to get out of trap)

- 1. Risk-averse in domain of gain (above reference point, avoid anything to loss) - 2. Risk-seeking in domain of loss (below reference point, take bigger than bigger

risks)

Prospect theory: what do we expect for political decision making A. Loss aversion

a. Human feel equivalent and gains and loses differently b. In general, humans are loss averse

B. Endowment effect a. The lottery ticket experiment b. Humans overvalue “things” they posses (people assume that they’re winner,

people hate losing anything) C. Certainty effect

a. Prefer certain outcome than uncertain outcome

b. The russian roulette experiment c. Pseudocertainty: we treat potential gains/losses as certain gains/losses (we just

assume it’s gonna happen) (buy lottery, assume they’re the winner) 假确定性效应

Prospect theory: applications to IR 1. Wars of the periphery (J. Taliaferro)

a. Senior officials aversion to perceived losses … drives great power intervention in the periphery (putin looking for a win, not stop attacking, make things worse, more and more dangerous)

2. Iranian Hostage crisis (R. McDermott)

Perceptions What if it’s not about risks? About how we see the world around us

The Biased perceiver - The internal representation of the external, political environment is biased - DMs use biased perceptions to make sense of the world around them - All info is skewed, not equally understood

Selective perception: - Humans only perceive information that confirms their suspicions and beliefs

- Example: 1. The football experiment (refs are biased, seem the refs based on your biased)

- Example: 2. The drinking game - Perception is affected by what people expect to see, it is also affected by what they want

to see

Cognitive dissonance (aka balance theory) - Humans strive to maintain balance in their belief systems - Explain away inconsistencies

- EX: when prophecies fail (L. Festinger) - Processors of perception are tied to our core beliefs and their continual verification from

the environment

Application: (mis) perception and war - J, Levy Three misperceptions:

a. Misperceptions of capability b. Misperceptions of hostility (security dilemma) c. Misperceptions of friends

Each can trigger war a. Short-war illusions (EX: WWI) b. Conflict spirals (EX: Gulf war)

c. Alliance strength (EX: WWII) (Japan thinks they have a strong alliance like germany) Summary:

- Motivated misperceptions are a common feature of politics - Misperception is the reality

Processing information Cognition How are our brians set up

The cognitive miser model - Humans naturally conserve brain power when processing information and making

decisions - We use mental shortcuts

trick#1: the representativeness heuristic - Using scenarios in our heads to guide decisions - Ex: “Linda the bank-teller”

- People trying to turn all information into scenarios - But scenarios tends to make wrong decisions

Representativeness - As the amount of detail in a scenario increases, its probability can only decrease

steadily, but its representativeness and hence its apparent likelihood may increase (could be applied to conspiracy theories)

- Application: fiascoes and rescue missions

trick#2: the availability heuristic - What’s the chances of something happening - Humans base probability estimates by the ease at which a case comes to mind

- The faster the retrieval, the higher the estimate - Example: vietnam analogy (quagmire in vietnam) (make americans think that

whenever the US send troops, it will fail)

trick#3: biased learning - Anchoring and adjustment 锚定调节

- Incorrect anchor: random starting point (break up that night, think everything negative)

- “People adjust insufficiently” - Learning is a cognitive and tensive process

trick#4: attribution of causality - People are trying to connect x to y, and people will do a shortcut - Human attribute cause to only one of three dimensions

- The person (bad driver) - The situation (it’s raining) - The timing (bad luck, wrong place wrong time)

- Never a combination of factors - Draw form social cues:

- Fundamental attribution error: attribute causality according to identity of those involved (if my frined car accident, blame bad driver) (not about explanation of evidence but based upon your situation)

- Ex: test scores

trick#5: Emotion as shortcut - Draw from our emotions or moods to understand the world around us - Add emotion change how we think of world - Ex: shark attacks

- Try to avoid possibility of being attack be driven by emotion of scared - Johnson and Tversky: media coverage of tragedy

- We use implicit emotional cues to direct our processing - Bad mood – inc. estimates of tragedies

- Another way: our emotions change our interpretations of the world around us - If we feel bad, we use cognition to find the source of the bad mood

- Emotion directs our cognitions

Summary: the mind plays tricks on us - We commit errors, regularly - But there are normal, predictable tendencies

Abnormal psychology How politics leads to

Definition: the psychology of abnormal environments - How normal environment being changed by abnormal

Three elements: ● Socialization (how leaders come to be) ● Stress & paranoia (common on politics, paranoia as response) ● Psychopathy illness

How politics manifest deviation

1. Socialization a. Do only abnormal people choose to be leaders? b. W. Wilson and his father (Freud & Bullitt)

i. Why all his behavior leads to self-defeating behavior

ii. Black and white values based upon his childhood experiences (can’t speak until 7)

1. Morality 2. Stubbornness 3. Love of discipline and rules

iii. Leads to the presidency - and also failure iv. Strict childhood experience leads to the best way to rule is to create rule

and constitution c. Politicians are abnormal bc of their socialization d. Leaders are socialized at the very young age

2. Stress & Paranoia a. Political success – more stress b. More stress – paranoia c. Successful start to loss a bit, generate psychopathy d. The moment that start successful, start being unsuccessful e. Situational paranoia (Roger Kramer)

i. Starts with feelings of uniqueness ii. Creates dysphoric self-consciousness (belief that everyone is watching) iii. Hypervigilance & rumination iv. Exaggerated perception of conspiracy

f. Example: LBJ and Vietnam i. Starts to doubt his advisors ii. Believes the NVA is out to get him

g. In general: stress leads to delusional thinking and avoidance of others 3. Psychopathy & illness

a. The abnormal quality of politics makes leaders unhealthy and self-medicated i. Illness & health

1. Sick leaders create war ii. Drugs and alcohol

b. Illness and health: c. Ex: shah of Iran (suffer from cancer) d. Ex: Wilson & stroke (crisis of confidence created to the US) (now, two old

presidents) e. Also: treating illness creates sickness

i. Ex: Hitler & sinusitis (Dr. feelgood) ii. Ex: JFK & addison’s disease (steroid, leads to bipolar)

f. Drugs and alcohol: i. More common: self-medication ii. Needs a way to escape from high pressure politics iii. Alcohol: over time alcohol abuse damages the central nervous system &

creates paranoia the iv. But alcohol and politics go together

1. J. Post: "political lubricant” (alcohol) v. The stress and environment of politics often leads to alcohol abuse

The psychology of decisionmaking (groups) Lecture plan:

1. Psychology of groups 2. Critiques of the psychology perspective

Psychology of groups The group is most common forum of decision making

- Groups dilute individual errors and get getter sense of information - Ex: tuesday cabinet and LBJ

Cost: group errors 3 errors:

a. Outgroup homogeneity bias i. Stereotypes and the enemy image ii. Believe own group is more democratic and legitimate than large population and

other groups iii. Ex: cold war competition (we are more democratic)

b. Group polarization i. Group amplify initial position to extreme position, individual are more likely to act

to extreme after engaging a group ii. Phenomenon of “risky shift” iii. Amplify initial positions iv. Example: escalation and Vietnam (small contangence to large troop on the

ground) c. Groupthink

i. Irving Janis, victims of groupthink 1. Why do groups of smart people makes dumb decision? 2. Answer: all the well-known errors stemming from limitations of an

individual and of a large organization can be greatly augmented by group processes that produce shared miscalculations

3. Or Because in-group pressures for conformity create a "deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, & morai judgment" (group loyalty > search of info)

ii. Symptom of groupthink: 1. Illusion of invulnerability (everyone in the group agree)

a. Euphoria and unlimited confidence 2. Illusion of unanimity

a. Prevent latent disagreements from surfacing 3. Suppression of personal doubt

a. Internal mechanism of censorship 4. Self-appointed mindguards

a. Bodyguards to leaders, maintain confidence and consensus 5. Docile leadership (leader manipulate the group) (LBJ in vietnam tuesday

lunch) a. Manipulating consensus, instead of debate

6. New member taboo (bring more people in the group and circle the groupthink again)

a. Fail to question new members

Symptom of groupthink - summary: ● A diagnosis of group errors:

○ "The more amiability & esprit de corps among the members of a policy making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink.. [resulting in] irrational & dehumanizing actions" - I. Janis

● Groupthink application: ○ Bay of pigs: the failure of the best and the brightest ○ Challenger disaster: in-group empathy and out-group antipathy

Critiques of the psychological perspective Critiques:

1. Problems of aggregation a. How do individual errors aggregate?

2. Which biases and when? a. Problem of level of analysis and multicausality b. Other aspect of psyche

3. Psychology or environment? a. How do we know is individual? Or organization? Or the system? Or the politics? b. Individuals always matter, the problem is we can’t tell the extent.

4. Methodology problems a. Artificiality of experiments

i. Intrusion upon nature b. Sampling problems

i. Undergraduate subjects c. The lack of external validity

Summary: - Psychology is too complex, and ill-suited for the exceptional environment of FPDM.

Counter: - Human psychology is human psychology

The psychology of decision making application Lecture plan:

1. The psychological model of choice 2. Application: CMC

The psychological model of choice 1. Source material

a. Cognitive and social psychology b. Emblematic works:

i. R. Jervis, Perception & Misperception in International Politics ii. I. Janis, Decisionmaking iii. Y. Vertzberger, The World in Their Minds

2. Description of UDM a. Unitary actor and limited information processor b. The social context (create more errors, non rational)

3. Decision making process a. “The inner dialogue of choice” b. Search for certainty and confidence

i. Leaders persuade themselves (not about info evaluation, but about persuade themselves to accept the option)

4. Evidence? 4 steps: a. Identify environment factors

i. How political environment constraints psychology (do leaders matter in this context?)

b. Individual psychology i. Identify the baseline (the anchor) ii. Help with lotta predictions

c. Aggregate to group i. Change in opinion?

d. Choice i. If correct: choice is a product of individual psychology or group processes

Application: CMC Focus: individual and group level psychology Evidence: compare behavior to incoming evidence; look at “how they think” How do intelligence turn into behavior?

1. JFK: perceiving the problem a. Acquiesce was impossible b. Why reject diplomacy?

i. Egocentric bias (personalize the crisis) ii. Selective perception (how jfk thinks)

1. Personal attack 2. Weaken JFK

2. Group processes a. How did the group avoid groupthink? b. Kenndy’s 4 changes:

i. Changed roles: 1. Skeptical generalists 2. Intellectual watchdogs

ii. Suspended rules of protocol (provides a marketplace for decisionmaking) 1. Promote free exchange 2. Prevent tunnel vision of agenda

iii. Creating subgroups 1. Encourage disagreement and competition 2. Direct access to JFK

iv. Absence of president 1. “I felt there’s less true give and take with president in the room”

c. Outcome: division and disagreement d. But also the creation of contingencies and fuller information search

3. Soviet decision to withdraw a. The problem of two letters:

i. Oct. 26th: conciliation ii. Oct. 27th: provocation

b. Solution: respond to the conciliatory note (RFK) c. But also sent RFK with a dire message to meet with Dobrynin

Summary: explanatory factors 1. The bay of pigs fiasco

a. Fixing the group 2. Group decision making worked well

a. But require good leadership McNamara: we are lucky

Conclusion: - Psychological models are more descriptive, more accurate, and richer - But we needs a theory of how psychology fits with political structures

Part 5: conclusion Information is crucial for decision-making