Biases, Expertise, and Assessments of Intentions in International Politics

• In Event: The Impact of Decision-Maker Attributes on International Security

Abstract

Whether and how a state’s past military actions and inactions affect perceptions of its resolve and intentions to use force has been disputed. I contend that “experts” in a government with extensive knowledge about their state’s adversaries (i.e., intelligence analysts and diplomats with area expertise such as “Sovietologists”) and “non-experts” without such knowledge (i.e., politically appointed policy officials such as top policymakers) consider and apply an adversary’s past actions and related information differently to infer the adversary’s resolve and intentions to use force. More specifically, I contend that non-experts, due to what psychologists call “negativity bias,” give greater weight to negative information (i.e., an adversary’s military capabilities and past resolute behavior to initiate war) over positive information (i.e., an adversary’s past irresolute behavior to avoid war and statements suggesting such behavior as strategically acceptable) when evaluating an adversary’s intent. On the other hand, I contend that experts weigh both positive and negative information in a more balanced manner because their expertise mitigates negativity bias. I probe my theory’s plausibility by conducting the following two historical case studies: namely, US assessments of Chinese resolve and intentions to use force (1) during the period between the outbreak of the Korean War and the Dien Bien Phu crisis (1950-1954) and (2) during the first half of the 1960s. Supported by extensive archival research, these two cases provide empirical evidence showing the theory’s plausibility.

Author

• Yu Aoki, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, The George Washington University