Foreign Policy Decision Making

The Influence Of Cognition

Martha Cottam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367011659
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429712302
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An analysis of decision making and negotiation in international relations, this book offers a political-psychological model of the images that compose policymakers' world views. Dr. Cottam explores the limits these images impose on diplomatic adaptation to changes in the foreign policies of other states. She evaluates established models of politica

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The Decision Making Literature in International Relations: A Review of the Literature and New Directions

The decision making literature in international relations is vast. It can be divided crudely into studies of personality factors in decision making and studies of non-idiosyncratic psychological factors such as beliefs, values and cognition. The non-idiosyncratic group can be subdivided into those seeking to construct models and those studying the relevance of a variety of psychological approaches to a variety of decision making problems. There are two major cognitive models in the field, the Operational Code and Cognitive Maps, This chapter will examine the two dominant cognitive approaches and will then turn to new directions in theory and research including an introduction to the framework to be used throughout this study. First, however, a discussion of the non-idiosyncratic body of literature as a whole is necessary.

Robert Jervis suggests that decision making studies often suffer from three problems: they do not build upon earlier works; they do not use much psychology; and they do not link psychology and behavior.1 One might add to this list a common assumption that models exist when they do not (a result of the failure to link psychology and behavior) and a failure to utilize appropriate psychological theories. The last two problems have been particularly pervasive in studies of cognition and political decision making.

In a recent review and summary of the state of the art Alexander George optimistically lauded a "cognitive revolution" in psychology in the areas of "cognitive balance and dissonance theories, attribution theory, attitude theory, social learning theory and personality theory" that have moved them into a "common information-processing framework."2 These studies are said to have produced a paradigmatic shift from which studies of political decision making can benefit.3 Sadly, there is a negative side to developments in psychology and the political works that have drawn upon its models as well. First, cognitive balance and dissonance theories are increasingly criticized by psychologists and political scientists as theoretically unsound, untestable, and too simple to be of use in understanding complex decision-making.4

A second problem is that the "common information-processing framework" is elusive. Psychology has no common information processing framework nor has it had a resultant paradigmatic shift. Attribution theory, for example, has little relationship to "attitude theory" and even less to "personality theory" (if one can properly speak of personality "theory" rather than "theories"). In fact, social psychology is rent by theoretical fads and, like political scientists, psychologists often fail to use earlier works. Because there is no common information processing framework in psychology there also has been no paradigmatic shift. Jerome Bruner, for example, recently wrote, "I don't think we've had Big Bangs in psychology in the last 15 years..." 5

Partly because of these developments a third problem tends to afflict political works that draw upon psychology; a failure to utilize adequately old and new studies of cognition as a distinct psychological phenomenon. Cognitive psychology is not social psychology (although there may be some overlap as in Attribution Theory) and cognition is not the same as an attitude. Strictly speaking, cognition is:

...a collective term for the psychological processes involved in the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge. Originally the work distinguished the rational from the emotional...and impulsive aspect of mental life. It passed out of currency, to be revived with the advent of COMPUTER SIMULATION of thought processes. The term is now used in COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY to refer to all the information processing activities of the brain, ranging from the analysis of immediate STIMULI to the organization of subjective experience. In contemporary terminology, cognition includes such processes and phenomena as PERCEPTION, memory, attention, PROBLEMSOLVING, language, thinking, and imagery.6

Cognitive psychology, in turn, is:

A branch of PSYCHOLOGY defined partly by its subject matter, i.e., partly by its point of view. With respect to point of view, its main PRESUPPOSITION is that any interaction between an organism, and its ENVIRONMENT changes not only its overt behavior or physiological condition but also its knowledge of or information about the environment, and that this latter change may affect not only present response but also future orientation to the environment.7

Attitudes include both cognition and affect. Attitudes are a result of cognition and include "knowledge". Many psychologists argue that affect, or emotion, results from the appraisal of information. The organization of knowledge, the "cognitive screen", processes information.

There is a reason, therefore, to use what cognitive psychology has to offer, particularly if one is constructing a cognitive model of decision-making. Studies of policy makers' cognitive structures, how they understand, order, and simplify the world, may lead to an understanding of how information is processed and political events judged. These evaluations influence and interact with policy makers' values concerning how the world should be and result in policy preferences.

In short, there is a tendency to mix social psychological studies together to the neglect of many important cognitive approaches. This is not to say that the diverse theories in psychology have nothing to offer or that they should not be mentioned in the same study. Robert Jervis, for example draws upon social and, cognitive psychology, studies of attitude change and other psychological works, in Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Jervis' purpose is to take a "broader and more eclectic" approach to the study of psychology and political decisionmaking in order to gain a "wider variety of insights and greater confidence in our explanations" by showing that psychological studies offer support.8 This is what he sets out to do and this is what he does. Jervis does not attempt to throw all of these theories into a psychological grab-bag and pronounce a psychological model. Jervis' study is one of the few exceptions, however, for too often political studies fail to utilize appropriate psychological literature and underestimate the importance of a careful examination of psychological concepts before attempting to transpose them onto the political decision-making arena. One can apply Jervis' comment that political decision making studies often fail to use psychology to the cognitive studies in particular.

The resistance to utilizing cognitive psychology leads to a fourth problem in the literature and, as will be seen, with Cognitive Maps and the Operational Code. Political scientists have accepted as interchangeable the notions of "beliefs" and "cognitive systems," The idea that beliefs form a (usually hierarchical) system is popular in social psychology. In political works it is often unclear if beliefs are cognition alone or attitudes. The unwillingness to address this question is in part a result of relying upon psychological literature that blurs the distinction between cognition and attitudes or beliefs. This leads to very serious theoretical problems. The object of cognitive studies of international politics, particularly Cognitive Maps, is to build models of policy makers' political world views and to use these models to explain decisions. The main purposes of models, according to Frohock, "are substantially the same as those of any theory: stating lawful relationships between events; building upon a body of knowledge; and so on. Further...a representational model must possess a logical interrelationship among its concepts and empirical propositions which are amenable to verification..."9 Blalock points out that:

Having selected a causal model, we then move in two directions. We attempt to think by means of the causal model and to make use of our causal assumptions to arrive at certain predictions that can be translated into testable hypotheses. At the same time, we at least imagine some operational procedures that can be used to test our conclusions. Our ideal in the first instance is some sort of deductive system of reasoning; in the second, it is the perfect experiment.10

Although the ambition of many political scientists (especially Cognitive Mappers) is to build models of the impact of cognition on political decision making, they often lack the necessary psychological information to do so. Because they do not separate beliefs and cognition they cannot describe the cognitive elements of the political world view, they cannot state the relationships between the elements of the world view and they cannot produce testable hypotheses about the effects of cognition on political decision making. They do not have the necessary information for a deductive system of reasoning. Having no hypotheses testable in a variety of decision making events, the focus shifts to the actors' situation-specific beliefs. This is a serious problem in the literature but it is also a needless one. This is not to say that beliefs and attitudes are unimportant or that all studies of cognition and political decision making are hopeless failures. The point is simply that the appropriate body of psychology i3 often ignored and the two major approaches in this area suffer as a result. These issues are considered in detail below.

The Operational Code

The Operational Code approach does attempt to formulate a general, non-situation-specific, framework of fundamental beliefs about politics and the political world. Beliefs are seen as organized in a hierarchical system and those specified in the Code are deemed central or essentially unchangeable.11 Two types of beliefs are important; philosophical and instrumental. Philosophical beliefs are "fundamental assumptions" about political life. Instrumental beliefs concern assumptions about how politics should be approached, what kinds of behavior are appropriate. 12 Several questions are asked about and delineate policy makers' philosophical and instrumental beliefs. They are:

Philosophical Beliefs

1. What is the "essential" nature of political life? Is the political universe essentially one of harmony or conflict? What is the fundamental character of one's political opponents?
2. What are the prospects for the eventual realization of one's fundamental political values and aspirations? Can one be optimistic or must one be pessimistic on this score; and in what respects the one and/or the other?
3. Is the political future predictable? In what sense and to what extent?
4. How much "control" or "mastery" can one have over historical development? What is one's role in "moving" and "shaping" history in the desired direction?
5. What is the role of "chance" in human affairs and historical development?

Instrumental Beliefs

1. What is the best approach for selecting goals or objectives for political action?
2. How are the goals of action pursued most effectively?
3. How are the risks of political action calculated, controlled, and accepted?
4. What is the best "timing" of action to advance one's interests?
5. What is the utility and role of different means for advancing one's interests? 13

The Code is said to be part of a cognitive prism through which the world is structured and simplified. The answers to these particular questions are supposed to give the analyst the range of possible policy options that will be acceptable to the individual policy maker.14

Operational Codes have been constructed for a wide variety of leaders from the Bolsheviks to Frank Church, Lyndon Johnson, and Henry Kissinger. 15 The same set of questions informs each framework with occasional additions. Lately, efforts have been made to improve the concept of the Operational Code. Johnson, for example, tried to add a more dynamic element that makes the "working model" compatible with policy makers whose beliefs change and with var...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and Author
• Title
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. THE DECISION MAKING LITERATURE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND NEW DIRECTIONS
• 2. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL CATEGORIES: THE POLITICAL WORLD VIEW
• 3. POLITICAL WORLD VIEW CATEGORIES: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
• 4. POLITICAL JUDGMENTS: USING POLITICAL CATEGORIES
• 5. IMAGES OF MEXICO: HISTORICAL AND PERCEPTUAL BACKGROUND
• 6. THE EFFECTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CATEGORIES ON POLITICAL DECISION MAKING: THE CASE OF US-MEXICAN NATURAL GAS NEGOTIATIONS
• Appendix
• Index