Ch. 6 Outline Notes

Feminist writers

________ have sought to bring attention to the role of private individuals and especially women.

Perceptions

________ are often shaped in terms of mirror images: while considering one's own action good, moral, and just, the enemy is automatically found to be evil, immoral, and unjust.

Track two

________ diplomacy utilizes individuals outside of governments to carry out the task of conflict resolution, such as former president Jimmy Carters role in negotiating Eritreas independence from Ethiopia.

Liberals and constructivists recognize that leaders

do make a difference

Constructivists also argue that policy shifts in the Soviet Union were caused not only by Gorbachev but also by

the networks of reformists and international affairs specialists who promoted new ideas.

For realists, individuals are

of little importance

dictatorial regimes

Individuals affect the course of events when they have few institutional constraints, such as

Decision makers' personal characteristics have more influence on outcomes when the issue is

peripheral rather than central, when the issue is not routine, or is ambiguous.

The personality characteristics that affect foreign policy behaviors include:

nationalism, perception of control, need for power, need for affiliation, conceptual complexity, and distrust of others.

Leaders with high levels of nationalism, a strong need for power, low conceptual complexity, and a high level of distrust of others tend to

develop an independent orientation to foreign affairs.

Leaders with low levels of nationalism, a high need for evaluation, high conceptual complexity, and a low level of distrust of others tend to

develop a participatory orientation in foreign affairs.

Personality characteristics affect the leadership of dictators more than that of

democratic leaders

Why do personality characteristics affect the leadership of dictators more than that of democratic leaders?

because of the absence of effective institutional checks on dictators.

In perceiving and interpreting new and oftentimes contradictory information, individuals rely on

existing perceptions based on prior experience.

Individual elites utilize, usually unconsciously, a number of psychological mechanisms to process the

information that forms their general perceptions of the world

Cognitive Consistency

The tendency to accept information that is compatible with what has previously been accepted, often ignoring inconsistent information

Evoked Set

Details from a present situation that are similar to information gleaned from past situations

Perceptions are often formed in terms of

mirror images

Mirror Images

Seeing in one’s opponent the opposite of characteristics seen in oneself

Groupthink

A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action

The dynamics of the groupthink include:

1. The illusion of invulnerability and unanimity
2. Excessive optimism
3. Belief in the group’s own morality and the enemy's evil
4. Pressure placed on dissenters to change their views

Small groups have additional distorting tendencies, such as

the pressure for group conformity and “satisficing.”

Track-two diplomacy utilizes individuals

outside of governments to carry out the task of conflict resolution

A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist, confessed to

selling nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea

the Arab Spring.

Mohamed Bouazizi was the Tunisian vendor whose self-immolation was the impetus for

Aung San Suu Kyi was the face of the opposition movement to

the repressive military government of Myanmar.

Mass publics have the same psychological tendencies as

elite individuals and small groups.

Mass Publics

think in terms of perceptions and images, they see mirror images, and they use similar information-processing strategies.

Individuals and masses are said to have an innate drive to

gain, protect, and defend territory

Frustration-aggression syndrome:

when societies, or individuals, become frustrated, they become aggressive.

The problem with the territorial imperative and frustration-aggression syndrome is that

even if all individuals and societies share these innate predispositions, not all leaders and all peoples act on them.

Publics do have general foreign policy orientations and

specific attitudes that can be revealed by public-opinion polls.