Soviet security

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
J. T. G. Jukes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Historical Methods

Most early attempts to assess Soviet behaviour in the defence and foreign policy fields perforce used historical methods, perhaps better known to political scientists under the title of the 'rational actor model', or assumed implicitly or explicitly a 'balance of power' framework, or imposed a 'world domination' totalitarian scenario for Soviet decision-making and setting of national goals.

scholarly journals Decision-making in Russia’s Foreign Policy Modelling Russia’s Decision-Making with reference to Ukraine and Moldova (2004-2018)

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Kristine Zaidi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Policy Decision Making

There is a substantial body of literature on Russian foreign policy; however, the decision-making aspect remains comparatively less explored. The ambition of this research developed in two directions; on a practical level, it contributes to knowledge on Russia’s foreign policy decision-making and, on a conceptual plane, to scholarship by way of theory development, underpinning academic research on decision-making in foreign policy. Russia’s decision-making was first viewed through the prism of the Rational Actor Model and Incrementalism; however, their utility was found to be limited. Blended models also did not figure strongly. Through the prism of author’s proposed model of Strategic Incrementalism and its principles, this research demonstrates that Russia’s foreign-policy decision-making is far from a case of ‘muddling through,’ it retains a long-term purposefulness, and that its incremental decisions are guided by farsightedness. The simplicity and general applicability of the model potentially suggest its broader utility.

Decision Making Theories in Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mintz ◽  
Amnon Sofrin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Unique Decision

Key theories of foreign policymaking include: the rational actor model, prospect theory, poliheuristic theory, cybernetic theory, bureaucratic politics, and organizational politics; and, at the group level, groupthink, polythink, and con-div. These theories are based on unique decision rules, including maximizing, satisficing, elimination by aspect, lexicographic, etc. A new, two-group model of foreign policy decision-making includes a decision design group and a decision approval group.

scholarly journals Critiques of the Rational Actor Model and Foreign Policy Decision Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Alden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Many

Foreign policy decision making has been and remains at the core of foreign policy analysis and its enduring contribution to international relations. The adoption of rationalist approaches to foreign policy decision making, predicated on an actor-specific analysis, paved the way for scholarship that sought to unpack the sources of foreign policy through a graduated assessment of differing levels of analysis. The diversity of inputs into the foreign policy process and, as depicted through a rationalist decision-making lens, the centrality of a search for utility and the impulse toward compensation in “trade-offs” between predisposed preferences, plays a critical role in enriching our understanding of how that process operates. FPA scholars have devoted much of their work to pointing out the many flaws in rationalist depictions of the decision-making process, built on a set of unsustainable assumptions and with limited recognition of distortions underlined in studies drawn from literature on psychology, cognition, and the study of organizations. At the same time, proponents of rational choice have sought to recalibrate the rational approach to decision making to account for these critiques and, in so doing, build a more robust explanatory model of foreign policy.

The Unification of the Behavioral Sciences

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Gintis
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Graduate Curriculum ◽  
Rational Actor

The behavioral sciences include economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and political science, as well as biology insofar as it deals with animal and human behavior. These disciplines have distinct research foci, but they include four conflicting models of decision making and strategic interaction, as determined by what is taught in the graduate curriculum and what is accepted in journal articles without reviewer objection. The four are the psychological, the sociological, the biological, and the economic. These four models are not only different, but are also incompatible. That is, each makes assertions concerning choice behavior that are denied by the others. This means, of course, that at least three of the four are certainly incorrect. This chapter argues that in fact all four are flawed but can be modified to produce a unified framework for modeling choice and strategic interaction for all of the behavioral sciences. The framework for unification includes five conceptual units: (a) gene-culture coevolution; (b) the sociopsychological theory of norms; (c) game theory, (d) the rational actor model; and (e) complexity theory.

Inequality, Decisions, and Altruism

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dietz ◽  
Cameron T. Whitley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Adaptive Landscape ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Class Model ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
Rational Actor

We argue that sociological analyses of inequality could benefit from engaging the literatures on decision-making. In turn, a sociological focus on how contexts and structural constraints influence the outcomes of decisions and the strategies social groups can use in pursuit of their goals could inform our understanding of decision-making. We consider a simple two-class model of income and the need of capitalists and workers to mobilize resources to influence the adaptive landscape that shapes responses to decisions. We then examine the implications of the rational actor model and the heuristics and biases literature for class-based decision-making. We consider the importance of altruism in mobilizing collective action, and we offer some evidence that altruism is most common in the middle ranges of income and that altruism is a major influence on support for redistributive policies. These results, while tentative, suggest the value of having scholars of development and inequality engage with the literatures on decision-making.

scholarly journals A Defence on the Prominence of Rational Actor Model within Foreign Policy Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-29
Author(s):  
Sadra Shahryarifar
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Explanatory Theory ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Real World Problems ◽  
Human Rationality

Rational Actor Model (RAM) has continued to be a powerful explanatory theory of foreign policy analysis. Even though, limitations on the human rationality in decision-making place restrictions on its validity as a predictive model of analysis. These limitations mainly arise from false expectations from RAM as an analytical tool. Reinterpreting the mission of theories in social science would address the drawbacks associated with such false expectations from theories. A conceptual breakthrough is discussed that allows RAM to overcome the limitations upon its validity. This discussion argues on the appropriate application of RAM onto real world problems which would open space for the integration of RAM into other IR-FPA theories.

“Bureaucratic Bargaining”: An American Foreign Policy Simulation

1988 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi H. Hobbs ◽  
Dario V. Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Beginning Students

The complexities of the governmental machinery and personal perceptions involved in the formulation of American foreign policy are difficult for students to comprehend from the confines of the classroom. Beginning students often enter the study of international relations/political science with a simplistic view of policy making. They tend to accept a priori what Graham Allison (1971) calls the “rational actor model” in which students “package the activities of various officials of a national government as action chosen by a unified actor, strongly analogous to an individual human being.” Students often believe that foreign policy is set by a cohesive group of individuals who share common goals and preferences. The additional tendency to anthropomorphize the state leads undergraduates to write papers in which nation-states are portrayed with such diverse human qualities as sympathy, cruelty, greed, and aggression.Modern scholarship on decision making has expanded beyond this traditional view to encompass differing variables. There is an ongoing debate in the discipline as to what is the most potent variable in American foreign policy. One group of scholars contends that the bureaucratic or role variable is more important. While agreeing that role is a powerful restriction, particularly at the lower levels of the bureaucracy, other scholars argue that the individual perceptions and beliefs of policy makers are more important in the decision-making process.Given the complicated nature of this debate, a creative way to expose beginning students to American foreign policy decision making is through a simulation. Simulations are useful for the study of the decision-making process because the standard lecture-discussion format, which provides a linear overview of the subject, does not adequately communicate the complex structure and multiplicity of factors in operation.

Virtue Ethics and Contractarianism: Towards a Reconciliation

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McCracken ◽  
Bill Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Business People ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Aristotelian Ethics ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Abstract:The notion of rationality underlying contemporary business and business ethics, or the “rational actor” model of moral decision-making in business, links a roughly utilitarian notion of the good to a contractarian notion of human agency. The “C-U model” provides inadequate means for explaining how business people do or ought to behave or think about their behavior, because the notion of rationality upon which it relies is far too narrow a picture of business people’s character. An alternative to these assumptions and to the Contractarian-Utilitarian model, is offered in an ethics of virtue. Despite the traditional apparent conflict between these divergent models, the C-U model, if founded in a notion of rationality consistent with Aristotelian ethics, is recognized as a useful instrument in business ethics and business decision-making. Hence, a reconciliation is effected between the C-U model and virtue ethics.

Behavioral Democratic Theory

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Terence Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Theoretical Considerations ◽  
Epistemic Competence

This chapter lays out the advantages of a behavioral approach to democratic theory. In particular, it contrasts this approach with three more common ways of treating the decision making of citizens in a democracy. In order to bring out the contrast, it uses the notion of epistemic competence to stand in for the various cognitive skills and abilities that are required for democracy to function properly. It shows that rejecting the rational actor model of human decision making allows us to focus on three important theoretical considerations. The chapter proceeds in three stages. First, it proposes the notion of epistemic competence as a way to simplify discussion of the empirical data relevant to the author's account. Next, it considers and reject three familiar approaches to democratic theory. Finally, it explains the benefits of a behavioral approach to normative theories of democracy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document