When do individuals matter more?
Byman/Pollack:
1) power is concentrated
2) greater influence of leaders’ personalities
3) when domestic/bureaucratic constrains weak
4) fluid circumstances
Why do individuals matter?
Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack:
“We contend that the goals, abilities, and foibles of individuals are crucial to the intentions, capabilities, and strategies of a state.”
-human nature not a constant, a variable. Not all are Hobbesian. But Waltz says states would always be at war if just up to one leader
What are the four strands of FP views in American tradition? Why is this relevant?
Walter Russell Mead wrote in his article “the Carter Syndrome”that:
- Hamiltonians want strong FP, strong military, and US biz first
- Wilsonians agree on global FP, but want democracy and HR first
- Jeffersonians are isolationists and want to dismantle the nat’l security state
- Jacksonians are populists, suspicious of Hamiltonian business, Wilsonian do-gooding, and Jefferson’s weakeness
Why is WR Mead’s argument relevant?
If leaders are inconsequential, then what is the use of analyzing their foreign policy preferences?
How do misperceptions factor into war and peace?
Robert Jervis, “War and misperception”: areas of misp. are intentions/capabilities/consequences of states
- bandwagoning/balancing dynamics lead to misperceptions
- overest/underest of hostility lead to war (WWI & WWII)
- states view their actions as benign, others’ as hostile (a policy choice could be the result of internal bargaining)
Explain faulty analogical reasoning
Yuen Foo Khong wrote that historical analogies often fail us
- similarities are surface deep
- give prescriptions/instant assessments, policy makers like them. But wrong
- certain historical “cues” evoke a “set” of memories
- Anthony Eden saw Nasser as Hitler, critiques of negotiating with Iran evoke Chamberlain
What are some of the weaknesses/limitations of sub-state, individual, levels of analyses?
- Cannot by themselves explain causes of major interstate war, takes two or more to go to war
- hard to make into a theory, good explanatory value bad predictive value
Explain prospect theory
Jack Levy: ppl value what they have, frame world in terms of what they might loose.
- status-quo bias
- -> leaders take risks to keep what they have
- risk losing a little now to keep a lot
