As a realist-oriented person (who now also identifies as a rationalist), I tend to view the world through the lens of sovereign states (along with non-state actors), working either with or against each other in order to advance their own interests. States will ruthlessly pursue whatever they must in order to arrive at their desired end, sometimes through cooperation and sometimes through conflict. If an actor behaves in this way—in putting their own interests first—I consider these actors to be rational.
Professor Jackson helped to confirm this
worldview of mine in describing interest-based explanations for international
behavior as “rational calculation”, viewed through a motivational lens where
actors have some belief or expectation of a result if they carry out a certain
action (Jackson, 2018).
What I had not considered, however, was how states determine what their
interests are.
Before this week’s readings, my answer
would have been Hobbesian in nature; asserting that states’ interests are
determined by an instinctual self-preservation mechanism and that their
interests will be determined by those decisions which attain them the most
power. Because power is our best defense
against a world that is determined to destroy us, it seems rational that states
must work incessantly to secure it. As
Hobbes says on p.44 of Leviathan: “So that in the first place, I put for a
general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power
after power, that ceaseth only in death” (Hobbes, 2000, p.44).
This week’s reading forced me to adopt a
slightly different approach, however. In
Goldstein and Keohane’s piece Ideas and
Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, I was forced
to pause and reflect upon my aforementioned assumptions about the world. How often do states intrinsically know what
is in their interests and what leads them to believe that certain benefits will
result from certain actions? Assuming
that all actors are rational and that rationality is determined by whether or
not they are acting based on some “market opportunity” (as described by Max
Weber in The Protestant Ethic and The
Spirit of Capitalism) they see
available to them, how do actors
arrive at the assumptions they do about the world (Weber, 2002, p. 156)?
Goldstein and Keohane make a strong case
for why these questions matter. If the
objective is to explain why states behave the way they do, it isn’t enough to
say that they are acting “in their own interests”. Rather, we must understand how states determine what these interests are. As they put it: “our argument is that ideas
influence policy when the principled or causal beliefs they embody provide road
maps that increase actors’ clarity about goals or end-means relationships”
(Goldstein and Keohane, 1993, p.3). They go
on, throughout the piece, describing how there are three different types of
beliefs (world views, principled and causal) and describe how each of these
work to influence actors’ actions. These
behaviors, they explain, influence action by serving as road maps toward their
aims, accounting for a lack of game theoretical equilibrium, and/or by being
deeply embedded in governing institutions.
While the authors make a strong argument
that definitely got me thinking about my own view of world affairs, my primary
critique is that if an actor is indeed taking action based on some form of
ideation (exhibiting the “intentional characteristics described by Professor
Jackson), can we not, therefore assume that the actor is behaving
“irrationally”?
Throughout this module’s lecture and
throughout the readings, a good amount of time has been invested in describing
rationality as being calculated and oriented toward a particular aim, but
virtually no time at all has been spent explaining the rational actors’
counterpart. What does irrationality look like? Is it simply the reverse: actors behaving in
ways that lack calculation and that are not oriented toward certain
expectations?
What role does the irrational actor play? Is it not so that the irrational actor’s behavior is often unpredictable (given that it is not “bound” by the concept of rationality) and will therefore defy expected behavior? With that in mind, couldn’t irrationality explain Goldstein and Keohane’s primary critique about the rationalist view of international affairs, which is the “existence of empirical anomalies that can be resolved only when ideas are taken into account” (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993, p.6)?
What role does the irrational actor play? Is it not so that the irrational actor’s behavior is often unpredictable (given that it is not “bound” by the concept of rationality) and will therefore defy expected behavior? With that in mind, couldn’t irrationality explain Goldstein and Keohane’s primary critique about the rationalist view of international affairs, which is the “existence of empirical anomalies that can be resolved only when ideas are taken into account” (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993, p.6)?
I have a great many topics and questions
that I hope to explore over the course of the next two weeks, but this is most
certainly at the top.
What are your thoughts?
What are your thoughts?
Goldstein, J., & Keohane, R. (1993).
Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework. Deas and Foreign Policy:
Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from
https://au-mir.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/Jackson International
Relations/Readings/Goldstein - Ideas and Foreign Policy.pdf.
Hobbes,
T. (2000). Leviathan. Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Jackson,
P. (n.d.). Interests or Ideas. Lecture. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from
https://2ir.ironline.american.edu/mod/page/view.php?id=41412
Weber, M. (2002). Prefatory Remarks to
Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from
https://au-mir.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/Jackson International
Relations/Readings/Weber - Prefatory Remarks.pdf
Thank you for the thoughtful response.
ReplyDeleteWhile I feel as if though I haven’t completely grasped the depth of which the materials and their arguments go, I don’t necessarily believe that interest and ideas can be charged against one another. At least, that’s what I sense is being done in Ideas and Foreign Policy. Ideas and interest shouldn't be treated as opposites, separate or parallel entities, as Goldstein and Keohane suggest. But, I also don't fully agree with Laffey and Weldes who purport that ideas influence interest. In fact, I think that the study of interests and the study of beliefs don't even fall in the same category or realm. I say this because sometimes people make decisions based on beliefs and sometimes they make decisions based on interest. And how the decisions are formed are mainly based on the situations people find themselves in, in my opinion. Sometimes people tend to make more decisions based on their interests and some on their principled beliefs and values. At this moment, I don't necessarily agree with any of the authors for the simple reason that I don't think ideas and interest can be compared for they both exists independently, or comprise different dimensions, if you will.
I also think this way about realism and liberalism. I don’t think the two can be charged against each other because in my mind they are from different categories. I know the terms are described in ways that can be seen as opposites but in reality I don't think that’s how it is. In my mind realism is a way of thinking/being that exists outside the world of someone who identifies as a liberal. They don't necessarily intersect because they are from different spheres. And although we like to think they are related I don't think they are necessarily. Perhaps we try to make correlations like this because it helps us better understand nature. I could be totally off and completely wrong here, but at this moment these are the thought I felt were worth expressing. I apologize if my thoughts don’t come across clearly as I too find difficulty in expressing what I am trying to say on this subject.
I believe your opinion is very much in line with Lafferty. When we look at ideas a symbolic technology we can see how an entire community uses and then builds upon them. It gives us a much more accurate picture of how ideas affect actions and their interaction amongst members of a represented population. I think this would be an excellent way to track how social movements affect policies and national identity.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe that an analysis in terms of Keohane and Goldstein is important to distill some basic motivations and does a better job of creating a way to separate ideas from interests and to distill an actor into a more manageable analysis. This approach makes it a little easier to digest so you can accurately plan how you will respond to an actor. This approach gives better empirical data because It is based upon easily observable metrics. You can view and actor and how they behave in certain scenarios and you can pretty quickly guess where their motivations generally lie. I’d say this model is probably more useful to a diplomat in trying to analyze other parties.
I know this sounds like it’s cheating the system but I think both models are extremely important. I believe when tracking long term trends behaviors and motivations Lafferty would be best. Short term I believe Keohane and Goldstein will provide the most replicable results.
Alexandra thanks for the reply. I agree with you in saying I don’t believe that the study of interests and beliefs necessarily matter in this context. Personally, I think the states’ interests (regardless of whatever forms of ideation brought about those interests) will always provide the best indicators of state behavior. I agree with the Hobbesian model that suggests all actors are focused primarily on the acquisition of power and as we all know, power comes in many forms. A state’s “interests” won’t always necessarily be “material” in every play of the hand. It seems “rational” to me that in some scenarios, states will make decisions based on a greater long-term strategy that will ultimately lead them to the power they seek…even when it comes to decisions that are considered “moral”.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of scholarship put out there about the role of morality in decision-making. Do people (or geopolitical actors) make “moral” decisions because it’s what they believe or do they make them because they are concerned about how they are perceived by others and how this might impact them in the long run? “Moral high ground” is most certainly a form of power that can be wielded to acquire the material interests states will inevitably seek.