Applied English for International Politics
Review of Professor Chamber's Class on Thursday, September 24, 2002: Chapter 5 Individual-level Analysis

What is individual-level analysis and why is it important?

A. ______________________-______________________ analysis studies the process of human decision making and its impact on international politics.

B. It is important because ultimately it is individuals who make the big decisions which affect the world

"______________________ ______________________" = characteristics common to all humans; what are people like; what is their natural behavior; what characteristics do most people have

A. Cognitive factors - making decisions based on what you know; no decision maker knows everything - there are cognitive limits: (cognition = k______________________; cognitive = the adjective for cognition)

• 1. Emotions
• 2. Lack of consistency (consistency = doing things the same way; thinking the same way or in a way that doesn't surprise others)
• 3. "Wishful ______________________" = wishing for something that probably will not happen or be true
• 4. Limiting the scope of decisions = making decisions by only looking at one small piece of a big problem or by looking at only one country or one problem
• 5. "Mental devices" = ways of thinking
  • a. National belief systems = for example, people in the U.S. believe in freedom meaning individual rights, but in China "freedom" means something else
  • b. Stereotypes = judgments an individual by group characteristics that may or may not be true
  • c. Analogies =

B. Psychological factors ­ “frustration- aggression theory” ­ frustrated societies sometimes become ______________________ (for example, Nazi Germany)

C. Biological factors

• 1. Ethology - comparing animal and human behavior
• 2. Gender - are women naturally less aggressive?

Organization behavior - people in groups

A. ______________________ behavior - based on the position we hold; for example, what does a prime minister do? -- he does things defined by his role. For example, a general does what he must do based on his role.

B. Group decision-making behavior - "______________________" = there is pressure from others in the group to achieve consensus or group agreement ("peer pressure")

• 1. Causes of Groupthink
  • a. ignoring or suppressing those who disagree, information which doesn't fit preconceived ideas, and policy options which are not mainstream
  • b. reluctance of subordinates to offer opinions which don’t fit with the main view
• 2. Effects of Groupthink
  • a. limited policy choices
  • b. “lowest common denominator” policy
  • c. poor policy

I______________________c Behavior = unique behavior = individual behavior -- not odd/strange behavior (What personal characteristics encourage a leader to choose a particular policy or direction to follow?) -- what makes Koizumi or Bush or any leader different than other past leaders in those same roles

A. Personality

B. Physical and m______________________ health

C. Ego and ambition

D. Political history (analogies of what has happened before) = for example, George Bush's father and Iraq

E. Personal experience

F. P______________________s - that is, what we see as real (something may be real/objective-- or may be what we want to be real/subjective) Characteristics of perception:

• 1. We often assume that others see the world the same way that we do.
• 2. We often see other countries as more hostile than our own.
• 3. We tend to see the behavior of others as more planned and coordinated than our own.
• 4. We find it hard to understand why others dislike, mistrust, and fear us.
• 5. We and others tend to have similar images of one another.

G. The impact of perceptions