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- Title
Cyborg pantocrator: International relations theory from decisionism to rational choice.
- Authors
Guilhot, Nicolas
- Abstract
International relations theory took shape in the 1950s in reaction to the behavioral social science movement, emphasizing the limits of rationality in a context of high uncertainty, weak rules, and the possibility of lethal conflict. Yet the same discipline rapidly developed “rational choice” models applied to foreign policy decision making or nuclear strategy. This paper argues that this transformation took place almost seamlessly around the concept of “decision.” Initially associated with an antirationalist or “decisionist” approach to politics, the sovereign decision became the epitome of political rationality when it was redescribed as “rational choice,” thus easing the cultural acceptance of political realism in the postwar years.
- Subjects
UNITED States; INTERNATIONAL relations theory; RATIONAL choice theory; HISTORY of psychology -- 20th century; DECISION making; REASON; KAPLAN, Morton; WALTZ, Kenneth Neal, 1924-2013; TWENTIETH century; INTELLECTUAL life
- Publication
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2011, Vol 47, Issue 3, p279
- ISSN
0022-5061
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/jhbs.20511