The Rational Choice Model of Foreign Policy

1. The Rational Choice Model of Foreign Policy PO 326: American Foreign Policy

2. What is Theory? Why is it Necessary? • A theory is an interrelated set of parsimonious, fact-like statements assembled for the purpose of explaining a set of phenomena and predicting its future occurrence • Theory helps us to simplify and connect complex and seemingly disparate real-world phenomena

3. Theory and Foreign Policy • We use theories as a means of simplifying the complexity of foreign policy processes, with the main goal of explaining how and why foreign policy decisions were arrived at • While theories are extremely useful, not all situations (or even facets of particular situations) can be satisfactorily explained with a single theoretical approach. Nevertheless, it is often worthwhile to determine which theories provide the “best” explanations for phenomena • Theoretical approaches can, when relied upon by practitioners of foreign policy in their approaches to situations, shape their actions and eventual outcomes

4. Theory and Foreign Policy • Four major theoretical approaches to foreign policy studied in this course • Rational Choice Approach • Organizational Approach • Governmental (or Bureaucratic Politics) Approach • Individual/Group Psychological Approaches Each approach can propose different explanatory answers to the same questions, and each can usefully augment the answers provided by others.

5. Rational Choice Theory • Most commonly employed explanation of human behavior, both in and out of the social sciences • Underlies logic of all major IR theories • Parsimonious, with great potential explanatory power • A theory of “purposive,” goal-oriented action: actors make the choices that they do to maximize their chances of attaining a particular goal or set of goals

6. Basic Rational Choice Assumptions • Interests: Individual actors can clearly identify their interests and goals • Alternatives: Individual actors recognize several courses of action that might allow them to attain their goals • Determining Expected Utility: Individual actors consider the likelihood that each course of action will result in goal achievement, and consider the costs associated with each • Ranking: Individual actors rank the expected utility of each course of action • Choice: Individual actors choose the course of action with the highest expected utility

7. The Determination of Expected Utility: The Ice Cream Example • Consumer’s Goal: Satisfaction - Purchase most desirable ice cream cone • Satisfaction Scale: 1 (least favorable) -> 5 (most favorable) • Chocolate=5; Vanilla=3; Strawberry=1 • If the costs of purchasing each are similar, and the probability that chocolate will satisfy is higher than the others, then chocolate will be purchased • If chocolate is prohibitively expensive, but the costs of vanilla and strawberry are acceptable and identical, vanilla is chosen, etc. • Powerful, seemingly accurate concept by which to predict and explain choice

8. Key Impediments and Caveats to Rationality • “Bounded Rationality” (Simon) • Incomplete Information • Actors are inherently uncertain about likelihood that a particular course of action will automatically lead to furtherance of interests • Actors may be unable to identify alternative courses of action that could give them a better chance of achieving goals • Strategic Interaction • Actors do not operate in a vacuum; their options and actions are contingent upon the (sometimes opposed) goal-oriented activity of others occupying their decision spaces • In interactions, actors are often unsure of the interests and may misperceive the intentions of others, leading to suboptimal outcomes

9. The Determination of Expected Utility: The Ice Cream Example Revisited • Consumer is uncertain of the quality of all types of ice cream, and of quality of chocolate in relation to others (e.g., probability of satisfaction from chocolate and other flavors is variable); certain knowledge of poor quality would likely change decision • Consumer may be unaware of the quality and prices at nearby ice cream establishments (lack of knowledge of available alternatives) • Consumer is uncertain of vendor’s price flexibility, whether or not he is being “gouged” (strategic interaction) • Decision making seems much more complex than originally modeled by rational choice theory

10. Rational Choice Theory in the Context of Foreign Policy • Assumes that states are UNITARY ACTORS (normally, leadership decision reflects national interest) • Evidence that state actions can be explained and predicted by rational choice, and that states expect others to act rationally (McNamara and impossibility of nuclear war, 1962) • General proposition: “If I know an actors objective, I have a major clue to his likely action”