Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Prospect theory was developed by two Israeli researchers - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman - to explain decision making under risk. The theory, which refutes many of the axioms of expected utility theory, suggests that individuals operating in a loss domain, are more risk seeking, while those operating in a gains domain are risk averse. It has since been applied in international relations to explain decision making under risk in the political context (for example, Rose McDermott examined President Carterâ??s decision in the Iranian Hostage Rescue mission, Barbara Farnham examined Roosevelt decision making during the Munich crisis etc.). In fact, Political Psychology dedicated an entire issue to the application of prospect theory in international relations in 1992. The paper presents an application of prospect theory to explain the decision making processes of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat, then Chairman of the PLO which led to the failure of the negotiations. Much has been written about these negotiations, which took place over a course of 10 days in July of 2000. This paper, however, offers an innovative way to review the failed negotiations, offering to shed new light on the calculations made by the leaders mentioned herein in an attempt to establish that prospect theory provides the context through which the failure to reach an agreement (despite the positive expected utility for both nations) can be understood.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The link between state weakness or failure and terrorism is today a common theme in much of the western world. The theoretical discussion that exists about the actual relations between the weakness of states and their likelihood to serve as bases or “safe havens” for terror or guerilla organizations, however, is narrow and underdeveloped. The conventional wisdom holds that, in some vague way, the vacuum of power that exists when the state is failing draws in insurgent organizations. While this notion is partially true, this paper aims at advancing the discussion by arguing that state failure creates an environment that provides a breeding ground for insurgency in many other ways as well. In addition to the lack of state enforcement of law and order, failed states also provide a friendly environment to such organizations because of low levels of identification with the state; because weak states cannot resist external attempts to use such organizations as proxies; because the high level of internal violence that is associated with failed states creates a demand for armed allies; and because the lack of state services and institutions allows the organizations to operate as “substitute states,” thus gaining the needed legitimacy for their violent cross-border goals. More than any other factor, it is the weakness of the Lebanese state and its failure to function as a state that drags Lebanon, again and again, into involvement in external conflicts. And it is the incentives and conditions that such weakness offers transnational guerillas, terrorists and other sub-state armed groups, or insurgencies, that create the link between state failure and external conflict.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: ‘You can be a political party or you can be a terrorist group, you can’t be both.’Dr Condoleezza Rice Davos Switzerland 2008 In modern transitions from conflict to peace, protagonists fail to fit neatly into conventional types and categories. In protra

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The United States has a longstanding policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorist organizations. It does not, however, always adhere to this stated policy. During the Reagan Administration, for example, the U.S. not only met with members of the African National Congress (ANC), but it also removed the ban on negotiating with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). These actions outraged South Africa and Israel, respectively. Similarly, President Bill Clinton angered the British government by granting a visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. This presents an important puzzle: Why would the U.S. make concessions to a terrorist organization, especially one that is in conflict with its close ally? This project asks two specific research questions: First, what explains the shift between a strategy of isolating nationalist terrorist groups to a strategy of engaging them? Second, under what conditions will engagement succeed in integrating these groups into a political system? The significance of this study is that it will determine if NTOs will forgo violence and enter the political system and what role the U.S. can play in facilitating that transition.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Rationalist explanations of foreign policy change tend to ignore the individual level of analysis, focusing instead on system structures or domestic politics. Yet such explanations are underdetermining because they overlook the importance of the decision-makers themselves. Of particular importance in explaining the role of decision-makers in affecting foreign policy change is the relationship between their personality characteristics and their propensity to change beliefs on major policy issues. The literature on political psychology offers us important insight about how and why some leaders decide to revise their beliefs. Of the factors cognitive psychologists have used to explain schema change, two in particular hold great promise in explaining dramatic foreign policy shifts: cognitive openness and cognitive complexity. A cognitively open system is receptive to new information, which may, in turn, change one’s beliefs; a cognitively closed system fails to assimilate new information, leaving one’s beliefs intact. Similarly, a cognitively complex system, which recognizes that distinct situations possess multiple dimensions, is associated with more sophisticated and more adaptive behavior than a cognitively simple system that perceives situations in binary terms. This paper attempts to provide a more robust explanation of foreign policy change than what has been offered to date by exploring Israel’s dramatic policy change in 1993 – its decision to talk to the PLO. Examined are the systemic-structural and domestic political factors that led to this historic decision, as well as an assessment of the cognitive structure of the three Israeli leaders who dominated Israeli decision-making in the decade leading up to the PLO talks – Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. Their cognitive differences help to explain why certain leaders (in this case, Rabin and Peres) are more prone to alter their views on major foreign policy issues and, thus, more likely to change their state’s foreign policy than are others (Shamir), who prefer to stick with the status quo.