TGF 3: Foreign Policy and Decision-Making

Question 0

Polarity

Answer 0

The degree to which military and economic capabilities are concentrated among the major powers in the state system.

Question 1

Rational choice

Answer 1

Decision-making procedures guided by careful definition of problems, specification of goals, weighing the costs, risk, and benefits of all alternatives, and selection of the optimal alternative.

Question 2

Polarization

Answer 2

The degree to which states cluster in alliances around the most powerful members of the state system.

Question 3

Geopolitics

Answer 3

A school of thought claiming that a state’s foreign policies is determined by its location, natural resources, and physical environments.

Question 4

Constitutional democracy

Answer 4

A governmental system in which political leaders’ power is limited by a body of fundamental principles, and leaders are held accountable to citizens through regular, fair, and competitive elections.

Question 5

Autocratic rule

Answer 5

A governmental system where unlimited power is concentrated in the hands of a single person.

Question 6

Rational political ambition theory

Answer 6

An approach to the study of foreign policy that assumes that state leaders want to maintain power and make decisions with that goal in mind.

Question 7

Diversionary theory of war

Answer 7

The contention that leaders initiate conflict abroad as a way of steering public opinion at home away from controversial domestic issues.

Question 8

Democratic peace

Answer 8

The theory that although democratic states sometimes wage wars against other states, they do not fight each other.

Question 9

Standard operating procedures (SOPs)

Answer 9

Rules for reaching decisions about particular types of situations.

Question 10

Bureaucratic politics

Answer 10

A description of decision-making that sees foreign policy choices as based on bargaining and compromises among government agencies.

Question 11

Political efficacy

Answer 11

The extent to which a policy maker believes in his or her ability to control events politically.

Question 12

Procedural rationality

Answer 12

A method of decision making based on having perfect information with which all possible courses of action are carefully evaluated.

Question 13

Unitary actor

Answer 13

An agent in works politics (usually a sovereign state) assumed to be internally united, so that changes in its internal circumstances do not influence its foreign policy as much as do the decisions that actors’ leaders make to cope with changes in its global environment.

Question 14

Two-level games

Answer 14

A concept that refers to the interaction between international bargaining and domestic politics.

Question 15

Satisficing

Answer 15

The tendency for decision makers to choose the first available alternative that meets minimally acceptable standards.

Question 16

Prospect theory

Answer 16

A behavioral theory that contends decision makers assess policy options in comparison to a reference point and that they take greater risks to prevent losses than to achieve gains.

Question 17

Sunk costs

Answer 17

A concept that refers to costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.

Question 18

Groupthink

Answer 18

The propensity for members of small, cohesive groups to accept the group’s prevailing attitudes in the interest of group harmony, rather than speak out for what they believe.

Question 19

Newgroup syndrome

Answer 19

The propensity of members of newly formed group’s to conform with the opinions expressed by powerful, assertive peers or the group’s leader due to a lack of well-developed procedural norms.