Foreign Policy Chapter 4

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Foreign PolicyChapter 4

• PSC 124
• Spring 2007
• Northrup

2
Topics

• NOTES Extra credit, skip to ch.7 for Weds.
• Decision making
• Individuals as decision makers
• Group dynamics in decision making
• Crisis management (Cuban Missile Crisis)
• Substate actors
• Democracy and foreign policy

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Foreign Policy

• Strategies used by national governments
• To guide their actions in international arena
• Policies specify objectives
• Describe means for achieving objectives

4
Mapping a Decision Rational Model

• Clarify goals
• Order goals (by importance)
• List the alternative actions
• Investigate consequences
• Choose based on best outcome (re self interest of
  state)

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Decision Making Feedback Loop
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Always Rational?
Whats wrong with this picture?
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Other Models

• Organizational process model SOPs
• Government bargaining model bargaining among
  gov agencies
• Realism?

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Individual Decision Makers

• Always ultimate decision makers
• Understanding of individual psychology
• Systematic divergences from rationality
• Filtering and perceptions
• Affective bias
• Cognitive bias

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Filtering and Perception

• Information screens
• Misperception
• Selective perception

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Affective Bias

• Emotions (positive or negative) impact decisions
• Bush and Sadaam
• Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam

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Cognitive Bias

• Cognitive dissonance
• Justification of effort Dollar Auction
• Enemy images
• Mirror image
• Projection
• Satisficing

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Group Dynamics

• Can promote rationality
• Can promote irrationality
• Psychological dynamics occurring in groups (e.g.
  groupthink)
• Group decision making processes

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Solomon Asch Experiments
A
C
B

• Conformity in groups (1950s)

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Crisis Management

• Crises have particular characteristics
• Time pressure
• Importance of issue
• Inability to go through usual processes
• Communications shorter, more stereotyped
  (heuristics)
• Responses to crises
• Information discarded
• Stereotypes applied, often incorrectly
• Tendency to overlook creative solutions

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Tversky and Kahneman

• Judgement under Uncertainty in Science 1974
• Representativeness heuristic

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Steve

• Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably
  helpful, but with little interest in people or in
  the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he
  has a need for order and structure, and a passion
  for detail.

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What is the probability that Steve is a

• Farmer
• Salesman
• Airline pilot
• Librarian
• Physician

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Groupthink Antecedent Conditions

• Insulation
• High group cohesiveness
• Directive leadership
• Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures
• Member homogeneity
• High stress from external threats
• Low hope of a better solution

Above taken from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro
upthink
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Symptoms of Groupthink

• Illusion of invulnerability
• Belief in inherent morality of group
• Collective rationalization
• Shared stereotypes of outgroup
• Self-censorship
• Illusion of unanimity
• Pressure on dissenters
• Self-appointed "mindguards"

Text from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
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Characteristics of Decisions

• Incomplete survey of alternatives
• Incomplete survey of objectives
• Failure to examine risks
• Failure to re-appraise rejected alternatives
• Poor information search
• Selective bias
• No contingency plans

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The Bay of Pigs

• 1961 Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba
• Castro moved to align with USSR
• Eisenhower then Kennedy moved to overthrow
  Castro
• Worked with Cuban exiles to invade
• Kennedy thought could deny US involvement
• Used as example of groupthink
• Advisors met with Kennedy
• Wanted to continue to have access
• No devils advocate

Cuban poster warning of invasion
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Cuban Missile Crisis
http//www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/monarchs_leader
s/kennedy_cuban_missile_01.shtml

• October 1962 evidence of Soviets setting up
  nuclear armed missiles in Cuba
• Khrushchev promised repeatedly - no missiles
• Set up ExComm (Executive Committee of the
  National Security Council) to help make decision
• Over 14 days many believe world came closest to
  nuclear war
• Have tapes of all ExComm meetings, so available
  for study open process

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Group Process
The tip of a Soviet R-12 (SS-4) medium-range
missile

• Learned from Bay of Pigs
• Different decision making model
• Wide variety of people
• President not in advisors meetings
• President came in intermittently
• Asked challenging questions, got honesty
• Process included challenging popular ideas
• Able to generate creative ideas

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Avoiding Groupthink

• Authority placed in hands of single person who
  goes to various others for advice
• Pre-assign roles of dissent
• Randomly assign dissent for discussion
• Have outside inspector general assigned to
  review

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Current War in Iraq

• Senate Intelligence Committee report, July 2004
• Report on the US Intelligence Communitys Prewar
  Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
• Blamed groupthink for failure to interpret
  intelligence correctly re WMDs

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Substate Actors

• Bureaucracies (e.g. diplomatic corps)
• Interest Groups
• Public opinion
• Military industrial complex
• Legislatures

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Democracy and Foreign Policy

• Differences in foreign policies of states most
  influenced by form of government
• Democratic peace
• Capitalism as basis?
• Exception to democratic peace transitional
  democracies
• Used by leaders as part of foreign policy
  rhetoric George W.