The Experts below are selected from a list of 117 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Karl Derouen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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understanding foreign policy decision making
2010Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:Part I. Introduction: 1. Why study foreign policy from a decision making perspective? Part II. The Decision Environment: 2. Types of decisions and levels of analysis in foreign policy decision making 3. Biases in decision making Part III. Models of Decision Making: 4. The Rational Actor Model 5. Alternatives to the Rational Actor Model Part IV. Determinants of Foreign Policy Decision Making: 6. Psychological fActors shaping foreign policy decisions 7. International, domestic and cultural fActors influencing foreign policy decision making Part V. Marketing Foreign Policy: 8. Marketing, framing and media effects in foreign policy decision making Part VI. Conclusion: 9. Conclusion: wrapping things up Appendix: an applied decision analysis exercise and simulation.
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Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Rational Actor Model
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making, 2024Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:In this chapter, we look at Models and approaches to FPDM that proceed from Rational Actor assumptions. We examine the expected utility Model of war and some game-theoretic Models such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken Game, and the Tit-for-Tat strategy. THE Rational Actor Model The Rational Actor Model is a linchpin of FPDM. Paul MacDonald (2003, 551) contends that many see it “as the most plausible candidate for a universal theory of political and social behavior, whose simple and intuitively plausible assumptions hold the promise of unifying the diverse subfields of political science.” Whereas many scholars criticize the Model, others strongly defend it. Before a Model can be proposed based on its tenets or its underlying assumptions criticized, we must first understand it. A Rational approach extensively used in foreign policy analysis today, expected utility theory (EUT) sprang from the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in the 1940s. The approach has its roots in microeconomics. The decision maker is assumed to be able to rank preferences “according to the degree of satisfaction of achieving these goals and objectives” (Sage 1990, 233). The Rational Actor is also expected to be able to identify alternatives and their consequences and to select from these alternatives in an effort to maximize satisfaction. In this setting, the Rational economic decision maker is expected to be able to access a set of objectives and goals.
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Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making: Alternatives to the Rational Actor Model
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making, 2024Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:In this chapter, we look at alternatives to the Rational Actor Models (see Table 5.1). We focus on bounded Rationality and the cybernetic Model, bureaucratic politics, organizational politics, and prospect theory. Next we take an in-depth look at a Model that combines elements of the Rational and cognitive schools – poliheuristic theory. We then analyze the case study of the 1991 U.S. decision not to invade Iraq through six Models of decision making. Finally, we discuss the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) procedure. BOUNDED RationalITY AND THE CYBERNETIC Model The cognitive and Rational schools offer different understandings of decision making. Herbert Simon (1985) came up with interesting anthropological-like terms to distinguish Rational and cognitive decision makers. He coined the terms Homo economicus to refer to the former, and Homo psychologicus to refer to the latter. Simon distinguished cognitive Models on the basis that they assume decision makers have limited information-processing capabilities. Instead of objectively searching all information for the best outcome, decision makers will select an alternative that is acceptable. This is the satisficing behavior described in Chapter 2. Whereas the Rational school focuses on the maximizing behavior and the comparison of costs and benefits, the cognitive school probes how humans make decisions and learn in a bounded Rational environment. Furthermore, the cognitive school takes into account that humans are selective in the information they use in decision making, use incomplete search processes, and are more likely to select a satisfActory rather than an optimal alternative (Simon 1985, 295).
Naomi Cahn - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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behavioral biology the Rational Actor Model and the new feminist agenda
2009Co-Authors: June Carbone, Naomi CahnAbstract:In this paper, we will incorporate gender consciousness into critiques of the Rational Actor Model by revisiting Carol Gilligan's account of moral development. Economics itself, led by the insights that have come from game theory, is reexamining trust, altruism, reciprocity and empathy. Behavioral economics, defined as "the combination of psychology and economics that investigates what happens in markets in which some of the agents display human limitations and complications," further explores the implications of a more robust conception of human motivation. We argue that the most likely source for a comprehensive theory will come from the integration of behavioral economics with behavioral biology, and that this project will in turn depend on the insights that come from evolutionary analysis, genetics and neuroscience. Considering the biological basis of human behavior, however, and, indeed, realistically considering the role of trust, altruism, reciprocity and empathy in market transactions, we argue, will require reexamination of the role of gender in the construction of human society. This paper begins by revisiting Gilligan, and arguing that her articulation of relational feminism faltered, in part, because she could not identify the source of the stereotypically feminine. Second, we will consider the ways in which the limitations of the Rational Actor Model mean that law and economics could also not resolve the relational concerns that Gilligan raised. Third, we will discuss the rediscovery of gender that is coming out of the gendered results of game theory trials, and the new research on the biological basis of gender differences. Finally, we conclude that incorporating the insights of this new research into law and the social sciences will require a new methodology. Instead of narrow minded focus on the incentive effects in the marginal transaction, we argue that reconsideration of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits requires an emphasis on balance.
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behavioral biology the Rational Actor Model and the new feminist agenda
Social Science Research Network, 2009Co-Authors: June Carbone, Naomi CahnAbstract:This chapter incorporates gender consciousness into critiques of the Rational Actor Model by revisiting Carol Gilligan's account of moral development. Economics itself, led by the insights from game theory, is reexamining trust, altruism, reciprocity, and empathy. Behavioral economics further explores the implications of a more robust conception of human motivation. We argue that the most likely source for a comprehensive theory will come from the integration of behavioral economics with behavioral biology, and that this project depends on the insights from evolutionary analysis, genetics, and neuroscience. Considering the biological basis of human behavior, however, and, realistically considering the role of trust, altruism, reciprocity, and empathy in market transactions requires a reexamination of the role of gender in the construction of human society. First, we revisit Gilligan, and argue that her articulation of relational feminism faltered, in part, because she could not identify the source of the stereotypically feminine. Second, we consider the ways in which the limitations of the Rational Actor Model meant that law and economics could also not resolve the relational concerns that Gilligan raised. Third, we discuss the rediscovery of gender that is emerging from the gendered results of game theory trials and the new research on the biological basis of gender differences. Finally, we conclude that incorporating the insights of this new research into law and the social sciences will require a new methodology. Instead of narrow-minded focus on the incentive effects in the marginal transaction, we argue that reconsideration of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits requires an emphasis on balance.
Donald C Langevoort - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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behavioral theories of judgment and decision making in legal scholarship a literature review
Vanderbilt Law Review, 1998Co-Authors: Donald C LangevoortAbstract:I. INTRODUCTION Nearly all interesting legal issues require accurate predictions about human behavior to be resolved satisfActorily. Judges, policymakers, and academics invoke mental Models of individual and social behavior whenever they estimate the desirability of alternative rules, policies, or procedures. Contemporary legal scholarship has come to recognize that if these predictions are naive and intuitive, without any strong empirical grounding, they are susceptible to error and ideological bias. Something more rigorous is thus expected when normative claims are advanced, and the place of the social sciences has expanded in legal discourse to satisfy this expectation.l Three branches of the social sciences-economics, psychology, and sociology-offer the most obvious assistance in predicting everyday human behavior, and each has a well-recognized history of influence on legal scholarship. The legal realists-most notably, Jerome Frank-took psychology quite seriously half a century ago; "sociological jurisprudence" came to prominence shortly thereafter, and law and society studies are still highly visible. But as many have said so often, both psychology and sociology have suffered from the inability to generate a unified behavioral Model rivaling the simplicity, elegance, and testability of the economist's utilitymaximizing Rational Actor. For this reason (and probably a host of otherss), the Rational Actor Model came to dominate predictions about how "normal" persons and groups respond to legal incentives. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, law and economics was the one social science-based approach to have a truly pervasive effect on legal thinking. "Law and psychology" for some time was largely the study of either marginal segments of the population, such as the criminally insane, or specialized procedural subjects like jury behavior and eyewitness recall.4 At roughly the same time that economics was rapidly diffusing into law,5 work by cognitive and social psychologists challenging the orthodox presumption of Rational human behavior was becoming more prominent in the social sciences. To be sure, psychology has long claimed that human behavior is complex and contingent, and theories like cognitive dissonance (not to mention a broad range of psychoanalytic constructs) have for some time been available to question the decision making of otherwise normal members of society.e But the mid to late 1970s and early 1980s brought distinct focus and attention to the new subdiscipline of "behavioral decision theory" within cognitive and social psychology. Work by researchers such as Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, Hillel Einhorn, Robin Hogarth, Arie Kruglanski, Lee Ross, Richard Thaler, and many others suggested that there are heuristics, biases, and other departures from Rational decision-making processes that are systematic and predictable and can thus be Modeled and tested with a fair degree of rigor.7 The challenge to orthodox economic theory was plain, and a debate between the disciplines quickly began.8 This debate is still far from resolved.9 Conventional economics remains an extraordinarily powerful discipline, but within economics there is an increasing willingness (sometimes grudging, sometimes not) to take the psychologists' empirical claims seriously-even in market settings. Transaction cost economics accepts that the Rationality of economic Actors is "bounded," to use Herbert Simon's phraseology, and bounded Rationality can include cognitive imperfection as well as informational limits.lo "Behavioral economics" has become an accepted subdiscipline within economics, and papers in the best economics and finance journals are more and more apt to make unsarcastic reference to the psychological literature. A pointed illustration of this interdisciplinary accomodation is the venerable Quarterly Journal of Economics' dedication of its May 1997 issue to the work of the late Amos Tversky, who pioneered behavioral decision theory. …
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organized illusions a behavioral theory of why corporations mislead stock market investors and cause other social harms
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1997Co-Authors: Donald C LangevoortAbstract:The standard Rational Actor Model of organizational behavior leads one to question why corporations would mislead the investing public when neither the company nor its managers were trading in securities. After a brief investigation of answers to this problem in traditional economic terms, this article seeks to use modern institutionalist theory on organizational behavior to argue that corporate belief systems can become "unrealistic" (and hence the source of possible corporate misrepresentations about its risks and future prospects) because of predictable distortions in information flow and, more importantly, perceptual biases among managers. The potentially adaptive role of bias in corporate cultures is considered, along with possible implications for securities law. The article then extends the account based on these cognitive and informational forces to other forms of socially harmful corporate behavior.
Willis W.j. - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The chimera of choice in UK food policy 1976-2018
'Emerald', 2021Co-Authors: Burges Watson D.l., Draper A., Willis W.j.Abstract:Purpose This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of “choice” as it appears in UK policy documents relating to food and public health. A dominant policy approach to improving public health has been health promotion and health education with the intention to change behaviour and encourage healthier eating. Given the emphasis on evidence-based policy making within the UK, the continued abstraction of choice without definition or explanation provoked us to conduct this analysis, which focuses on 1976 to the present. Design/methodology/approach The technique of discourse analysis was used to analyse selected food policy documents and to trace any shifts in the discourses of choice across policy periods and their implications in terms of governance and the individualisation of responsibility. Findings We identified five dominant repertoires of choice in UK food policy over this period: as personal responsibility, as an instrument of change, as an editing tool, as a problem and freedom of choice. Underpinning these is a continued reliance on the Rational Actor Model, which is consonant with neoliberal governance and its constructions of populations as body of self-governing individuals. The self-regulating, self-governing individual is obliged to choose as a condition of citizenship. Research limitations/implications This analysis highlights the need for a more sophisticated approach to understanding “choice” in the context of public health and food policy in order to improve diet outcomes in the UK and perhaps elsewhere
Alex Mintz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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understanding foreign policy decision making
2010Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:Part I. Introduction: 1. Why study foreign policy from a decision making perspective? Part II. The Decision Environment: 2. Types of decisions and levels of analysis in foreign policy decision making 3. Biases in decision making Part III. Models of Decision Making: 4. The Rational Actor Model 5. Alternatives to the Rational Actor Model Part IV. Determinants of Foreign Policy Decision Making: 6. Psychological fActors shaping foreign policy decisions 7. International, domestic and cultural fActors influencing foreign policy decision making Part V. Marketing Foreign Policy: 8. Marketing, framing and media effects in foreign policy decision making Part VI. Conclusion: 9. Conclusion: wrapping things up Appendix: an applied decision analysis exercise and simulation.
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Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Rational Actor Model
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making, 2024Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:In this chapter, we look at Models and approaches to FPDM that proceed from Rational Actor assumptions. We examine the expected utility Model of war and some game-theoretic Models such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken Game, and the Tit-for-Tat strategy. THE Rational Actor Model The Rational Actor Model is a linchpin of FPDM. Paul MacDonald (2003, 551) contends that many see it “as the most plausible candidate for a universal theory of political and social behavior, whose simple and intuitively plausible assumptions hold the promise of unifying the diverse subfields of political science.” Whereas many scholars criticize the Model, others strongly defend it. Before a Model can be proposed based on its tenets or its underlying assumptions criticized, we must first understand it. A Rational approach extensively used in foreign policy analysis today, expected utility theory (EUT) sprang from the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in the 1940s. The approach has its roots in microeconomics. The decision maker is assumed to be able to rank preferences “according to the degree of satisfaction of achieving these goals and objectives” (Sage 1990, 233). The Rational Actor is also expected to be able to identify alternatives and their consequences and to select from these alternatives in an effort to maximize satisfaction. In this setting, the Rational economic decision maker is expected to be able to access a set of objectives and goals.
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Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making: Alternatives to the Rational Actor Model
Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making, 2024Co-Authors: Alex Mintz, Karl DerouenAbstract:In this chapter, we look at alternatives to the Rational Actor Models (see Table 5.1). We focus on bounded Rationality and the cybernetic Model, bureaucratic politics, organizational politics, and prospect theory. Next we take an in-depth look at a Model that combines elements of the Rational and cognitive schools – poliheuristic theory. We then analyze the case study of the 1991 U.S. decision not to invade Iraq through six Models of decision making. Finally, we discuss the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) procedure. BOUNDED RationalITY AND THE CYBERNETIC Model The cognitive and Rational schools offer different understandings of decision making. Herbert Simon (1985) came up with interesting anthropological-like terms to distinguish Rational and cognitive decision makers. He coined the terms Homo economicus to refer to the former, and Homo psychologicus to refer to the latter. Simon distinguished cognitive Models on the basis that they assume decision makers have limited information-processing capabilities. Instead of objectively searching all information for the best outcome, decision makers will select an alternative that is acceptable. This is the satisficing behavior described in Chapter 2. Whereas the Rational school focuses on the maximizing behavior and the comparison of costs and benefits, the cognitive school probes how humans make decisions and learn in a bounded Rational environment. Furthermore, the cognitive school takes into account that humans are selective in the information they use in decision making, use incomplete search processes, and are more likely to select a satisfActory rather than an optimal alternative (Simon 1985, 295).
