Allison and Halperin examine the
decision making process in the executive branch in their work “Bureaucratic
Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications”. A series of studies that
were conducted to examine this process claim that government decisions were a
product of bargaining and negotiation among interested political actors. These
studies were discursive rather than explicitly theoretical, but the parallels between
them and the contemporary work on game theory—a highly formalized and
mathematical approach to explaining behaviour—are unmistakable. An earlier work
by Kenneth Waltz talks on “Idealist Internationalism and Security Dilemma” has
a similar theme where he refers to the latter as a trap for the nation-states.
Nation A’s decision to increase its security leads to nation B’s haste to
accumulate more power, which in turn
causes nation A to build up some more…and the ‘vicious cycle’ continues. Asking
both to either keep or leave their arms has its costs and benefits. Convincing
one to let go makes it feel vulnerable to the other. The Bureaucratic Politics
Model basically proposes the same idea. However, it lays its focus on the behaviour
of the individuals in the nation-state and how they juggle with the behaviour
of other nations to formulate a foreign policy suited to its interest and meeting
its goals.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is an
important issue that highlights how nations behave depending upon the actions
of the others, and how that might help formulate the foreign policy of either.
In the (Cold) war between US and Soviet, the latter decided to place nuclear
weapons in Cuba for security purposes. This was in response to the placement of
US missiles in Italy and Turkey. Had the USSR succeeded in placing these
missiles in Cuba, the world would have seen its first and a very serious
nuclear war between the two power hungry nations. However, the leaders of both
the states, Kennedy and Khrushchev realised that it was sensible to step back
and avoid such destruction. Negotiations that followed resulted in lesser
tensions between the two and up until now, there has been no nuclear threat
from either.
You had me at your title. Its an interesting comparison to draw, though I wish you had elaborated more on it so in your piece. How it is like a Hunger Games, where individuals within a nation have distinctive interests and are in a "cut throat" competition to make sure their interests prevail rather than that of others'.
ReplyDeleteRemember the work "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma" is a work by John Herz, not Kenneth Waltz.
ReplyDeleteAlso, please try to tie your various threads together in a systematic whole. I see how you're getting from the bureaucratic politics model to the security dilemma issue, but how is that related to the Cuban Missile Crisis? And how does this all tie back into you concept of the "Hunger Games"?