models of decision making
developed by Graham Allison largely in response to the cuban missile crisis (1971 book models of decision making)
- (mis)perceptions and biases have huge influences on international diplomacy and anticipating others’ actions
RAM: rational actor model — realism
- states are unitary actors ⇒ state to state
- states conduct cost/benefit analyses before making decisions
- states have perfect information on what’s going on
OPM: organizational process model
- multiple organizations involved in decision making ⇒ multiple actors on roughly the same level
- SOPs — standard operating procedures
- resistant to change
- not universal, can cause confusion
BPM: bureaucratic politics model/pluralism
- aka pluralist model
- lots of interest groups that effect decision making ⇒ multiple actors on different levels
- backchannel diplomacy: third-party actors coordinating/delivering messages
group dynamics and negotiation
- groupthink: the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility
- spiral of silence: the theory that people’s willingness to express their opinions on controversial public issues is affected by their largely unconscious perception of those opinions as being either popular or unpopular
- satisficing: reaching suboptimal outcomes that are agreed upon by the majority of decision makers
case study: US and Taiwan
- the US has utilized strategic ambiguity relating to Taiwan
- kigali agreement: montreal protocol on CFCs
- one of the most successful international environmental agreements of all time
- china now classified as a developed country, doesn’t get as much leeway
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