Research Bets and Behavioral IR

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (S1) ◽  
pp. S265-S277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Powell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Behavioral Research ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes

AbstractBehavioral IR faces a fundamental challenge. The actors in most IR models and theories are not individuals—they are aggregates like states, ministries, interest groups, political parties, and rebel factions. There are two broad approaches to attempting to integrate behavioral research about individuals. The first, a quasi-behavioral approach, makes nonstandard assumptions about the preferences, beliefs, or decision-making processes of aggregate actors. The second tries to build theories in which the key actors are individuals. Pursuing the former means that the assumptions about actors will be only weakly linked to the empirical findings propelling behavioral research. The second approach faces formidable obstacles that international relations theory has confronted for a long time and for the most part has not overcome.

Corporatism

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-176
Author(s):  
Peter Munk Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Heart Blood ◽  
State Actors

Corporatism has played a core role in Danish policy-making for a long time. Based on positive feedback mechanisms, privileged interest groups increasingly came to be integrated in the preparation and implementation of most policy decisions during the twentieth century. After the 1970s, reform policies have sharpened the political exchange relation between state actors and interest groups. Interest groups must contribute to the realization of political preferences if they want to remain privileged insiders. If they cannot or will not contribute, they risk being left outside the decision-making arena. In such cases, state actors seek to control the policy process in order to avoid mobilization of reform resistance. Corporatism’s alternative is not pluralism but more closed decision-making processes. However, corporatism is not an either/or. Corporatism is weakened in some cases but still viable in others, even within the same sector. Danish unions have suffered many defeats on unemployment and early retirement schemes and have been kept out of decisions where heart-blood was at play. Simultaneously, the unions have entered a number of agreements using traditional corporatist means of policy-making. In the same sector and involving the same actors, corporatist structures coexist with strategic exclusion. The rumours of corporatism’s death are exaggerated.

Political Asylum in Germany: International Norms and Domestic Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-49
Author(s):  
John Bendix ◽  
Niklaus Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Political Asylum ◽  
German Politics

Although political asylum has been at the forefront of contemporaryGerman politics for over two decades, it has not been much discussedin political science. Studying asylum is important, however,because it challenges assertions in both comparative politics andinternational relations that national interest drives decision-making.Political parties use national interest arguments to justify claims thatonly their agenda is best for the country, and governments arguesimilarly when questions about corporatist bargaining practices arise.More theoretically, realists in international relations have positedthat because some values “are preferable to others … it is possible todiscover, cumulate, and objectify a single national interest.” Whileinitially associated with Hans Morgenthau’s equating of nationalinterest to power, particularly in foreign policy, this position hassince been extended to argue that states can be seen as unitary rationalactors who carefully calculate the costs of alternative courses ofaction in their efforts to maximize expected utility.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Time Horizons

The introduction establishes the puzzle motivating the book: what explains variation in the strategies that existing powers pursue toward rising great powers? The puzzle is central to international relations theory and also has important implications for contemporary policy questions. The introductory chapter presents a brief abstract of the book’s argument, which focuses on how time horizons and uncertainty affect leaders’ decision-making. The introduction concludes with a roadmap for the rest of the book.

Rationality and risk-taking in Russia’s first Chechen War: toward a theory of cognitive realism

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210
Author(s):  
Jason J. Morrissette
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
Russian President ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Cognitive Realism ◽  
Made In

This article seeks to establish a better scholarly understanding of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s decision to launch an ill-planned, risky, and ultimately disastrous invasion of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in 1994. Examining the decision-making environment that led up to the invasion, I conclude that while neorealism provides an adequate explanation for Yeltsin’s motives in this case, the decisions that he made in pursuit of these goals do not reflect the logic of rational utility maximization commonly associated with neorealist theory. Instead, I suggest that prospect theory – based on the idea that decision-makers tend to be risk averse when confronted with choices between gains while risk acceptant when confronted with losses – offers significantly more explanatory insight in this case. Thus, the article offers further support for an alternative theoretical approach to international relations that some scholars have termed ‘cognitive realism’, incorporating neorealist motives with a more empirically accurate perspective on the decision-making processes undertaken in pursuit of these motives.

The emotive causes of recurrent international conflicts

2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Long ◽  
Peter Brecke
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Constructivist Approaches

Many international conflicts are recurrent, and many of these are characterized by periods of violence, including wars, that are hard to describe as planned products of rational decision-making. Analysis of these conflicts according to rational-choice international-relations theory or constructivist approaches has been less revealing than might have been hoped. We consider the possibility that emotive causes could better explain, or at least improve the explanation of, observed patterns. We offer three emotive models of recurrent conflict and we outline a method by which the reliability of emotive explanations derived from these models could be tested prospectively.

Interest Groups and the (Non-)Enforcement Powers of EU Agencies: The Case of Energy Regulation

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-484
Author(s):  
Martino MAGGETTI
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Regulatory Networks ◽  
Energy Regulation ◽  
European Network ◽  
Systematic Examination ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Eu Energy Policy ◽  
The Eu

Some EU agencies have been recently entrusted with enforcement powers, which imply a crucial extension of their regulatory reach. However, other comparable agencies did not receive such powers. This paper explores the case of energy regulation as an instance of these “negative” cases, and suggests that the lack of enforcement powers may have been partially determined by business interest groups. To illustrate this argument, this article firstly relies on official documentation to show that key interest groups were consistently opposed to the option of granting enforcement powers to the EU agency in charge (ACER). Secondly, it is suggested that these interest groups, which have been largely incorporated in regulatory networks during the prehistory of the agency, had access to, and exerted influence in, the governance of EU energy policy, and could plausibly have been able to concretise their preferences. A systematic examination of the representation of interest groups in the European network of energy regulators (CEER/ERGEG) during the period 2004–2011 is undertaken to corroborate this point. The conclusion draws attention to the fact that, although interest groups are less visible than other actors and their presence is less formalised, they could be very influential on decision-making processes within European networks and agencies.

A Neuroaesthetic Approach to the Search of Beauty From the Consumer's Perspective

2018 ◽  
pp. 5767-5774
Author(s):  
Gemma García Ferrer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cellular Phone ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
Sensory Marketing ◽  
Advertising Strategies ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
The Aesthetic

Consumers pursue hedonism and beauty throughout the decision-making processes regarding purchases and consumption. The five senses (sensory marketing) will be essential in the aesthetic perception that consumers have in these processes. Therefore, consumers will go to points of purchase which they consider attractive. Consumers want the packaging of the products to satisfy their needs of making a gift to other people or to themselves. The product needs to be visually appealing –we can even think of something as simple as a piece of fruit, or something much more sophisticated, such as a cellular phone. Advertising strategies (billboards, commercials…) need to stimulate this quest for beauty. Marketing strategists have been aware of this reality for a long time. However, the new neuromarketing and neuroaesthetic techniques can be useful complements to understand the consumers quest for beauty.

The Origins, Dynamics, and Termination of the Cold War, 1942–91

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale C. Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Interdependence ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War History

This chapter considers the relative causal importance of economic interdependence and changes in commercial expectations which led to the ups and downs of Cold War history. It seeks to rectify the lacuna in the international relations field by showing the truly powerful impact of commercial factors on the dynamics of US–Soviet relations after 1941. The problems with realist and liberal thinking about economic interdependence are starkly revealed by the Cold War case. The theoretical logics for both camps are based on the actual present trade between great power spheres. But in situations where current trade is low or nonexistent, leaders' expectations of future trade and commerce can be still critical to their decision-making processes.

Decision Making Process on Women Migrant Workers in West Java: Between Religion, Culture and Social Reality

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Yeni Huriani ◽  
Nablur Rahman Annibras
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
West Java ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Work Abroad

The decision to work abroad is a unique dynamic for women migrant workers because they have to leave their homes for a long time. The decision is not an easy thing to do. For women in West Java, who are predominantly Muslim, leaving their homes is still a theological and cultural debate as to whether women may work outside the home. Culturally, women are "Dulang Tinande," in which they are "not as a determinant" in family life. This research uses a feminist approach to uncover the experiences of and to give women migrant workers from West Java. Research shows that these workers have three motives for choosing to work abroad: economic, Human Capital, and social. Besides, they go through four decision-making processes to become migrant workers: self-stabilization, consultation with relatives, seeking information related to employment agencies (PJTKI), and consulting with Muslim clerics to ask for prayer and safety amulets.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document