IAFF 1005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Democracy Promotion, Prospect Theory, Cognitive Psychology
13 Jun 2018
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Tuesday Lecture (#3)
How can we analyze and explain the issues of international affairs?
● Approaches and factors
○ Levels of analysis
○ Actors and interests
○ Power and polarity
Levels of analysis
● The individual (three categories)
○ Human nature
■ Instincts (self-preservation, territoriality, aggression)
■ Emotions (fear and anger)
■ Flaws (vanity, greed)
■ Genders (testosterone, different natures of men and women)
○ Decision making
■ Information processing problems: persistence of belief systems, misuse of analogies
(cognitive psychology)
● People tend to reject information that doesn’t go along with existing beliefs
■ Risk-taking tendencies: taking risks to avoid losses (prospect theory)
○ Idiosyncrasies of leaders
■ Thoughtful/impulsive, strategic/tactical, analytical/random, empathetic/callous,
selfless/self-absorbed, stable/unstable, humble/arrogant, secure/insecure, calm/hot-
headed, coherent/inconsistent
■ People who have served in the military are generally more cautious of using military
power
○ Solutions?
■ Education: values, socialization, analytic reason
■ Systems: checks and balances, dual-key decisions (make sure two people have stakes in
the decision), multiple advocacy, devil’s advocacy (in a decision making setting, have
many points of view to think of everything)
■ Change: install new leaders, female leaders
● The state
○ Kant: democracies are peaceful because the people have input in war and peace decisions
○ Cobden: trading, capitalist countries are peaceful because war is bad for business
○ Lenin: capitalist systems are inherently aggressive because they always are expansionist and need
new markets and resources, communist systems are inherently peaceful
○ Kennan: Soviet/communist system is aggressive because of the ideology and structure
○ Recent social science
■ Democracies are less likely to go to war with each other
■ Democratizing systems are volatile → people don’t like change
■ Greedy/aggressive/hegemony-seeking states (want to dominate their region) vs.
needy/defensive/security-seeking states
○ Solutions?
■ Regime change
■ Democracy promotion (although it is messy and long-term)
● The international system
○ Anarchy: no security guarantor
○ Self-help: internal/external options when there’s no world policeman
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Genders (testosterone, different natures of men and women) Information processing problems: persistence of belief systems, misuse of analogies (cognitive psychology) People tend to reject information that doesn"t go along with existing beliefs. Risk-taking tendencies: taking risks to avoid losses (prospect theory) Thoughtful/impulsive, strategic/tactical, analytical/random, empathetic/callous, selfless/self-absorbed, stable/unstable, humble/arrogant, secure/insecure, calm/hot- headed, coherent/inconsistent. People who have served in the military are generally more cautious of using military power. Systems: checks and balances, dual-key decisions (make sure two people have stakes in the decision), multiple advocacy, devil"s advocacy (in a decision making setting, have many points of view to think of everything) Kant: democracies are peaceful because the people have input in war and peace decisions. Cobden: trading, capitalist countries are peaceful because war is bad for business. Lenin: capitalist systems are inherently aggressive because they always are expansionist and need new markets and resources, communist systems are inherently peaceful. Kennan: soviet/communist system is aggressive because of the ideology and structure.
