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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:
The illusion of invulnerability and unanimity
Excessive optimism
Belief in the group’s own morality and the enemy's evil
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.
Note 
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