Janice Gross Stein

Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think, Therefore I Deter

Deterrence theories purport to supply the auxiliary assumptions rational choice theories need to predict rational strategic behavior. They generally assume that would-be initiators are (i) instrumentally rational; (2) risk-prone gain-maximizers; (3) free of domestic constraints; and (4) able to identify themselves correctly as defenders or challengers. These assumptions are contradicted by empirical studies that indicate that risk-prone, gain-maximizing initiators are relatively uncommon; that leaders at times calculate as deterrence theories expect, but behave contrary to their predictions; and that the calculus of initiators generally depends on factors other than those identified by deterrence theories. Deductive theories of deterrence are also inadequate because they do not define their scope conditions. Nor can they accommodate deviation by initiators from processes of rational calculation. Rational deterrence theories are poorly specified theories about nonexistent decision makers operating in nonexistent environments.

Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable

THE testing of theory in international relations requires clearly articulated assumptions, the specification of scope conditions, rigorously formulated propositions, appropriate tests, and a valid and reliable data set against which to test the propositions. This last requirement has generally been the most neglected dimension of research. In this article, we examine two prominent studies of immediate extended deterrence by Paul Huth and Bruce Russett that do not deal adequately with the problems intrinsic to constructing a valid data set for quantitative analysis.t The problems are particularly acute in the testing of theories of deterrence because of the difficulties inherent in identifying deterrence successes, which leave few if any behavioral traces, and of inferring the intentions of would-be challengers. Our analysis explores these problems and suggests ways of testing theories of deterrence that can reduce the threats to valid inference.2 * We would like to thank the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security and

Political learning by doing: Gorbachev as uncommitted thinker and motivated learner

The direction and scope of the change in Soviet foreign policy after 1985 cannot be explained without reference to the impact of Gorbachevs representation of the Soviet security problem. Changes in the international distribution of capabilities and generational change are indeterminate explanations of the changes in Soviet foreign policy. Building on propositions from social cognition and organizational psychology, I argue that through inductive “trial-and-error learning” from failure, Gorbachev developed a new representation of the “ill-structured” Soviet security problem. Gorbachev learned in part because he was a relatively uncommitted thinker on security issues and was open to the ideas of experts. He was also highly motivated to learn because of his commitment to domestic reform. The complex interactive relationship between learning and action that provided quick feedback is captured by the social cognition of “learning by doing.” The conditionality of political learning suggests a rich research agenda for the analysis of foreign policy change.

Building Politics into Psychology: The Misperception of Threat

The impact of cognitive and motivated errors on the misperception of threat is examined. These errors are then treated as mediating variables and the impact of political and strategic variables which make these errors more likely or compound their impact is assessed. The essay concludes that explanations of the misperception of threat are deficient in three important ways. Current theories do not consider the interaction among cognitive heuristics and biases and their cumulative impact on the misperception of threat in international relations. Nor do they integrate affective and cognitive processes in their explanations of distorted threat perception. Finally, they do not consider systematically the impact of political and strategic factors. Politics must be explicitly built into psychological explanations of threat perception in international relations.

Getting to the Table: The Triggers, Stages, Functions, and Consequences of Prenegotiation

Comparative examination of our cases of prenegotiation enables us to identify a number of important attributes of the process of getting to the table. We look first at the factors that trigger active consideration of negotiation as one among an array of options. We then explore the pattern of progress through the stages of prenegotiation as leaders approach and avoid the table. We turn next to the functions that a process of prenegotiation performs. By comparing the evidence from cases where the parties reached the table, we then attempt to identify the conditions of getting to the table. Finally, we explore the larger significance of prenegotiation as a process of learning and of conflict management.

Reassurance in International Conflict Management

Deterrence is not uniformly appropriate as a strategy of conflict management among adversaries. Evidence drawn from different kinds of studies now suggests important limiting conditions that constrain the utility of deterrence. This article looks at strategies of reassurance that might substitute for or supplement deterrence and compensate for some of its obvious risks in the management of a relationship among adversaries. Deterrence can fail at times regardless of how well it is executed. Strategies of reassurance are conceived broadly as a set of strategies that adversaries can use to reduce the likelihood of a threat or use of force. I assess the likely interaction between strategies of deterrence and reassurance under different conditions.

Getting to the Table: Processes of International Prenegotiation

A significant contribution toward a broader theory of negotiation... Prenegotiation triggers, shapes, and structures the negotiations that follow and contributes in important ways to the learning process.--Foreign Affairs.

Resolve, Accept, or Avoid: Effects of Group Conflict on Foreign Policy Decisions

Groups are pervasive decision units in governments. Legislative committees, cabinets, military juntas, politburos of ruling parties, and executive councils are all candidates. The operation of many government ministries and agencies suggests that groups are also frequently at the core of the bureaucratic process. Coordination between bureaucracies creates both ad hoc and standing interdepartmental committees and boards that serve as decision units. In governments, groups usually convene to cope with problems. Such policy problems typically involve complex, cognitive tasks with no single correct answer. If no one individual alone has the authority to act on behalf of a government, then we must turn to alternative decision units. As we have just observed, another possible, and frequently encountered, configuration is the single group. By a single group we mean an entity of two or more people all of whom interact

Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism

The global humanitarian movement, which originated within Western religious organizations in the early nineteenth century, has been of most important forces in world politics in advancing both human rights and human welfare. While the religious groups that founded the movement originally focused on conversion, in time more secular concerns came to dominate. By the end of the nineteenth century, increasingly professionalized yet nominally religious organization shifted from reliance on the good book to the public health manual. Over the course of the twentieth century, the secularization of humanitarianism only increased, and by the 1970s the movements religious inspiration, generally speaking, was marginal to its agenda. However, beginning in the 1980s, religiously inspired humanitarian movements experienced a major revival, and today they are virtual equals of their secular brethren. From church-sponsored AIDS prevention campaigns in Africa to Muslim charity efforts in flood-stricken Pakistan to Hindu charities in India, religious groups have altered the character of the global humanitarian movement. Moreover, even secular groups now gesture toward religious inspiration in their work. Clearly, the broad, inexorable march toward secularism predicted by so many Westerners has halted, which is especially intriguing with regard to humanitarianism. Not only was it a highly secularized movement just forty years ago, but its principles were based on those we associate with rational modernity: cosmopolitan one-worldism and material (as opposed to spiritual) progress. How and why did this happen, and what does it mean for humanitarianism writ large? That is the question that the eminent scholars Michael Barnett and Janice Stein pose in Sacred Aid, and for answers they have gathered chapters from leading scholars that focus on the relationship between secularism and religion in contemporary humanitarianism throughout the developing world. Collectively, the chapters in this volume comprise an original and authoritative account of religion has reshaped the global humanitarian movement in recent times. Contributors to this volume - Michael Barnett is University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University. His most recent book is Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (Cornell University Press). Jonathan Benthall is Professor of Anthropology at the University College London. He has published widely in the fields of the sociology of religion and humanitarianism. His most recent books are The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World (with J. Bellion-Jourdan) and Returning to Religion: Why a Secular Age is Haunted by Faith. Erica Bornstein is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her books include Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi (Stanford University Press, in press) and The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe (Stanford University Press 2005). She is co-editor (with Peter Redfield) of Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism between Ethics and Politics (School for Advanced Research Press 2011) and has published articles in American Ethnologist, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnos, Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR), and the Journal of Religion in Africa. Stephen Hopgood is Reader in International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and co-Director of the Centre for the International Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice (CCRJ) at SOAS. His publications include Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International (Cornell University Press, 2006). He is currently the holder of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship under the title Empire of the International. Henry Louis, a former researcher at the Feinstein International Center, works in the areas of international development and humanitarianism. Dyan Mazurana is Associate Research Professor at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Andrea Paras recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now on faculty at the Womens University of Bangladesh. George Scarlett is a Senior Lecturer at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the Director of the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is the co-author, with Eugene Lang, of the prize-winning The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, and co-editor, with Peter Gourevitch and David Lake, of Credibility and Non-Governmental Organizations in a Globalizing World (2012). Her most recent book is Diplomacy in the Digital Age. Betrand Taithe is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Manchester, where he also is a director of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (hcri.ac.uk) and edits the European Review of History- Revue europeennedhistoireand book series for Manchester University Press. He has published widely on war and medicine, humanitarianism and missionaries including: Defeated Flesh (1999), Citizenship and Wars (2001), The Killer Trail (2009), Evil Barbarism and Empire (2011, eds T. Crook, R. Gill, B.Taithe). Leslie Vinjamuri teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies where she co-directs the Center for Conflict and of the Center for the International Politics of Conflict, Rights. Her articles have appeared in leading journals, including International Security, Ethics and International Affairs, Survival, and the Annual Review of Political Science. Amy Warren is Research Associate at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Peter Walker is Director of the Feinstein International Center, an institute of Tufts Universitys Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. In addition to his ongoing consultation work, he previously worked for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Oxfam International. He has published widely on humanitarianism, including, with David Maxwell, The Shape of the Humanitarian System.

Detection and Defection: Security ‘régimes’ and the Management of International Conflict

Since the concept of international regime was first introduced just a decade ago, a great deal has been written about the contribution of regimes to the management of international conflict. Yet the two critical concepts conflict management and international regime remain woolly, elusive, and controversial. What is clear is that in the nuclear age, most analysts speak cautiously of the management of international conflict, a prospect that is seemingly modest in ambition and perspective. It falls far short of the resolution of underlying incompatibilities, accepts the permanence of discord, and indeed treats the liberal vision of harmony as an aberration rather than as the norm. Scholars acknowledge that other than conflict among nuclear powers, some international disputes may not only be unresolvable, they may even be unmanageable. Where interests are wholly incompatible, where conflict is zero-sum, where leaders compete to maximize relative differences with their opponent rather than to increase their own gains, even the limited objective of the management of conflict may be impossible. The arena of conflict management is circumspectly defined by those who seek to avoid an unwanted use of force and to