Week 4: Psychological theories of IR

Question 1

Title: Rationality and Psychology in International Politics
a. Author(s)?

Answer 1

Jonathan Mercer
or
Mercer 2005

Question 2

Rationality and Psychology, Mercer 2005

This reading addresses what main issue?

Answer 2

Mercer has a general issue with rational choice theorists and political psychologists is that psychology expains mistakes. Mercer argues that if psychology only explains mistakes then 1) rationality must be free of psychology 2) psychological explanations require rational baselines and 3) psychology cannot explain accurate judgments

Question 3

Rationality and Psychology, Mercer 2005

What did the author(s) do to address this issue?

Answer 3

Mercer lays out the reasons why these three logics make sense, but are wrong.

To start, the idea that rationality does not depend on psychology suggest that rationalist think of rational behavior as independent of the mind. This is just an extenstion of the tradtion of basing things off of OEP and economics which tired to explain away human behaviors.

Mercer discusses the idea that psychology requires a rational baseline. The whole idea of rationalist theory is that it expalins how people should reason and if you dont reason like that you are irrational. The whole idea though suggests that there is a rational baseline before considering a psychological explanation. But this is not necessarily true in the eyes of Mercer

Lastly, mercer addresses the idea that psychulogy cannot explain accurate judements. To address this she focuses on emotion and how for ex. the emotion in trust can help solve collective action problems.

Question 4

Rationality and Psychology, Mercer 2005

What are the major findings of the paper?

Answer 4

Mercer aruges (and as such finds) that for the argument that rationality is free of pscyhology, that rationalist actually depends on psychology. The idea is that psychologists use a correspodence approach to rationality in that it is both postitive and nonnormative. It is positive becyase it focuses on actual decisions but it is nonnormative becuase it doesnt advance any rules or procedures in the same way that rationlist do. so correspondence theoriest are interested in understanding the way the mind work in relation to the world but rationlist (coherence theorieists) are interested in the way the mind works in relation to the way it ought to work.

Question 5

Title: Status Deficits and War
a. Author(s)?

Answer 5

Jonathan Renshon
or
Renshon, 2016

Question 6

This reading addresses what main issue?

Answer 6

Renshon is intersted in understanding when and how status matter in war. He theorizes that status dissatisfaction (SD) wchih clarifies who forms the basis of status comparisons in world politisc, when status concerns should be paramount, and how they are linked to international conflict.

Given most scholar believe status affects outcomes of interest acorss IR, renshon wants to elucidate when and how status matters. Qualitative work has been helpful, but doesnt establish patterns across time and space with concrete replicable findings.

Renshon asks who is status relative to in international conflict. he also links status dissatisfaction — which is a heightened concern for status triggered by status deficits within a given status community — with conflict. That is is you’re in your community and are feeling dissatisfied by your status youll become overly concerned with it and that is the idea of status dissatisfaction.