Political Psychology And Foreign Policy

Eric Singer, Valerie M Hudson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367298999
  9780367283537
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000307313
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Decision Making
• Index: Business

First published in 1992. One of the issues of particular interest to political psychologists centers around how foreign policy decisions are made. The psychological phenomena that political psychologists examine have to do with how individuals perceive, interpret, feel about, an d react to their environment. The political factors have to do with the activities involved in governing or the making of public policy— that is, with how the material and human resources of a collectivity are allocated. The research presented in this volume addresses 6 key questions that link psychological and political processes, and the chapters are organized a round three conceptual clusters: perception studies, personality studies, and studies of group dynamics.

PART ONE
PERCEPTION STUDIES

1
PERCEPTION AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: AN OVERVIEW

JAMES F. VOSS AND ELLEN DORSEY

Theorists working in the field of international relations were challenged by the events of 1989 in Europe, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the abrupt and dramatic collapse of the Eastern bloc, has profound consequences for the development of international relations theory. Indeed, the changes of 1989 call for the systems theorist to articulate the mechanisms by which a world dominated by a bipolar system can become multipolar and for the realist to analyze the nature of power and capability before and after those events. Moreover, individuals interested in foreign policy decision making will be challenged to account for the decisions of 1989, and those investigators who relate perception to the study of international relations will probably find considerable opportunity to determine how perceptions were related to the political changes that occurred and how such changes correspondingly modified perceptions. It is also possible that the events of 1989 will foster debate among the proponents of the various theoretical orientations regarding the nature of theory and explanation in international relations.

International relations theory is, of course, characterized by a multiplicity of approaches. One such approach is perceptual, an orientation which acknowledges that how an issue is perceived will influence what action is taken. In a broader context, the perceptual approach is a major component of the theoretical perspective called foreign policy decision making, an orientation that contrasts with the more traditional international relations theory.

THE PERCEPTUAL APPROACH AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY

Since World War II, the predominant model of international relations theory has been realism (see Morgenthau and Thompson, 1985). The basic assumption is that the state acts as a power-maximizing entity, with the state’s interest being defined as its power. The basic unit of analysis is the state, and the interactions of states are assumed to be a function of the distribution of capabilities among the states.

The realist position does not focus upon the decision-making processes of a state’s leaders or upon the question of the leaders’ motivations and perceptions. Morgenthau and Thompson (1985, 5–6) state, “To search for the clue to foreign policy exclusively in the motivation of statesmen is both futile and deceptive,” and add, “even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge would help us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well lead us astray.” The distribution of capabilities among states is especially emphasized in the systems-theory position of Waltz (1975), in which the international system is viewed as a structure that is based on the arrangement of the states and their relative capabilities. These two factors are regarded as not only critical but sufficient to study state interaction: “Everything else is omitted. Concern for tradition and welfare, analysis of the character and personality of political actors, consideration of the conflictive and accommodative processes of politics, description of the making and execution of policy—all such matters are left aside” (Waltz 1975, 82).

The critical question of the structural position with respect to perception is the extent to which structure really determines state actions. If structure and only structure is assumed to produce the actions of a state, then there can be no place for decision making, perception, personality, bureaucracy, or any other factor as a determiner. If on the other hand, structure is one of many determinants, then the issue becomes one of how each of the factors shaping a state’s action is weighted. In addressing this issue Waltz states: “Structure operates as a cause, but it is not the only cause in play. How can one know whether observed effects are caused by the structure of national politics rather than by a changing cast of political characters, by variations of non-political circumstances, and, by a host of other factors? How can one separate structural from other causes? One does it by extending the comparative method I have just used” (Waltz 1975, 87). Waltz’s example of the comparative method consists of pointing out the structural difference in the selection of British prime ministers and U.S. presidents, a difference that presumably leads to differences in the leadership. One could question whether this example supports the sufficiency of the structural view, as the example could be used to defend the importance of examining domestic political processes. In addition, Waltz’s example raises the question of whether domestic and international structures can be viewed as independent.

Kaplan (1957, 5), another systems theorist, states, “Systems are said to be coupled when the output of one system affects the input of another system.” Kaplan does go on, however, to note that if one were to make a detailed study of how all external and internal subsystems influence U.S. foreign policy, the complexity would be overwhelming. It is therefore easier, according to Kaplan, to consider what the United States might do in response to the action of another country than to attempt to analyze the systems that affect the decision process. Thus, while Waltz argues for the sufficiency of a systems analysis, Kaplan advocates the use of systems theory to avoid the complexities of perceptual and other approaches.

In contrast to the systemic perspective, the foreign policy decision-making orientation essentially assumes that a number of variables influence a state’s actions and that among the most important are the goals of the state’s decision makers and how a given situation is perceived by the decision makers to relate to those goals. Within this framework, interaction among states is regarded as a function of the policy decisions made by the leaders of the particular countries.

The origins of the decision-making approach may be found in the work of Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin (1954, 1962) and Sprout and Sprout (1956, 1957). Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin developed a model that drew upon communication theory and theoretical conceptions of anthropology, perception, and motivation and focused upon the components of governmental decision making, with perceptual factors being regarded as important, primarily because of their role in defining the situation. Sprout and Sprout were concerned with the international environment and used the term “psychomilieu” to refer to the decision-makers’ perception of that environment. Although not advancing the case for a decision-making approach, Sprout and Sprout did suggest that the perceptual emphasis represented a marked departure from previous conceptions such as realist thought, and thus they laid the foundation for recognizing the importance of perception in the context of international relations theory.

Since the 1950s, interest in the study of foreign policy decision making as well as in the role of perception in international affairs has grown considerably (see, for example, Chan and Sylvan 1984; M. G. Hermann 1984; Mandel 1986), and this interest may be attributed to at least two factors: the questioning of the explanatory power of traditional theory and the influence of advancements in other disciplines. More specifically, although the realist paradigm, with its emphasis upon the single causal factor of power, has a parsimony that is generally appealing, any unifactor approach encounters difficulty when a wide range of phenomena needs to be explained (Wolfers 1962). Furthermore, as noted by Wolfers, the realist position cannot account for situations in which a given country could assert its power but it does not. Wolfers (1962) argued that, in contrast, it is the development of policy goals and the shaping of conditions to achieve those goals that are critical. Other criticisms of traditional approaches have involved the inability of structural positions to deal with change (Ashley 1986); the definitional problems associated with concepts such as power, interest, and capability (Cook and Moos 1953; Haas 1953; Hoffmann 1960); the idea that power is situational (Baldwin 1979); and the inherently limiting state-centered nature of structuralism (Kindleberger 1970; Strange 1988).

A second factor contributing to the growth of interest in foreign policy decision making and to the related interest in perception is the advancements in other disciplines, especially in decision theory and cognitive psychology. Based upon utilitarian conceptions of individual motivation and choice and upon the assumption of rationality, behavioral decision theory and game-theoretic approaches have had a substantial impact upon the study of international relations (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita 1981). However, for our purposes, it is the cognitive movement in psychology that has been especially important because of its contributions to the development of the foreign policy decision-making approach (see de Rivera 1968; Falkowski 1979). In social cognition, the 1950s and 1960s marked a period in which concepts such as cognitive dissonance (e.g., Festinger 1957) and cognitive consistency (e.g., Heider 1958) were developed, both of which emphasize the need for stability in ones beliefs and perceptions. Moreover, such stability was shown to have the cost of misperception and biased interpretation, with individuals using denial, bolstering, or other mechanisms to maintain their beliefs (see Abelson 1963).

Also in cognitive psychology, the study of problem solving (e.g., Newell and Simon 1972) has shown the importance of the problem representation, what in international relations has been called the definition of the situation (Pruitt 1965). The information-processing model was employed in the international sphere via the analysis of expert and novice problem solving (Voss, Greene, Post, and Penner 1983; Voss, Tyler, and Yengo 1983). In addition, cognitive psychology has pointed to the limited capacity of a person’s working memory, an important conception because it underscores the problem of information overload in problem solving and decision making. In a general vein, the cognitive position implies that because humans build perceptions or representations of the world, and because such perceptions are influenced by one’s goals, knowledge, and factors such as bureaucratic position, the cognitive viewpoint places responsibility for international activity squarely upon the decision makers. Their judgments are the determiners of the actions of states, not the presumed, but generally undefined, laws involving an abstract international structure.

The importance of cognition in general and perception in particular is the focus of Jervis’s widely cited book, Perception and Misperception (1976). In this work, Jervis illustrated how expectations and beliefs produce interpretations and distortions, which in turn have profound effects on the actions of states. Perception is also the focus of Gamson and Modigliani’s (1971) analysis of the Cold War, in which they demonstrate the discrepancy between the actor’s self-perception and the adversary’s perception of the actor. This discrepancy, they argue, was a major contributor to the fundamental nature and evolution of the Cold War.

Implicit in the preceding discussion is the idea that traditional theoretical approaches and the foreign policy decision-making orientation operate at different levels of analysis. Although both positions are concerned with states and their interaction, the former operates at the state level and attributes causality largely to the actions of other states and the capability of the state to respond while the latter attributes causation to the factors influencing the policy-making behavior of the state’s elites, including how the actions of other states are interpreted.

Singer (1961) has related the level-of-analysis issue to the determinism and free will problem, a characterization that we regard as inappropriate. Singer argues that the international system approach is deterministic, with state action resulting from events within the international system. In contrast, Singer holds that when an actor or a set of actors at the state level brings to bear a set of particular goals designed to satisfy some perceived needs, free will is reflected. However, this distinction does not follow, for whether an action is deterministic or reflects free will depends upon one’s causal model. Although a structural-determined systems approach may be deterministic, a decision-making approach is also deterministic if one assumes that human behavior is determined by multiple causes, including a person’s knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions. Indeed, psychology assumes that a human’s behavior and even thought processes are determined. The challenge to the investigator is to isolate the causes thereof and to determine how the causes may interact. Focusing analysis upon more than one factor does not mean that free will operates; it only means that the factors that produce the choice are generally difficult to ascertain.

Even though the application of the determinism and free will problem to the level of analysis issue may be questioned, Singer (1961) does raise a number of other points that constitute a challenge to the perceptual approach. For example, within a state, whose perceptions are important and whom does one study? Singer also notes that theoretical developments at one level, such as the perceptual, do not aid theoretical development at the more global, international level and that if a decision-making approach is to be successful, this issue must be faced.

Perhaps a more appropriate way to address the problem is to consider the levels as constraints upon the behavior of international actors. One way in which this may be done is to view deci...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• PART ONE PERCEPTION STUDIES
• PART TWO PERSONALITY STUDIES
• PART THREE GROUP DYNAMICS
• About the Book and Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index