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Part A

1. What is the ‘hypothetico-deductive method’?

The hypothetico-deductive method is a scientific method which proposes a hypothesis and then
makes it falsifiable. First, one considers what one would expect if the theory were correct, and
any observable inferences that may be derived from it. Second, one looks at making the theory
falsifiable and considers any evidence that could disprove the theory. Third, any opposing
theories are to be considered. Finally, discriminating tests are conducted and potential evidence
that may be seen with the original or alternate hypothesis is considered. It is a way to test
theories against each other, to find the most likely one. For example, if there exists a theory that
ISIS has nuclear weapons then the process mentioned would be followed. The observable
inferences that ISIS does have nuclear weapons would be, for example, having bases or
warehouses that house them. The theory could be made falsifiable by claiming that the people
who saw the bases mistook them for what they are. Then, any alternative theories are considered,
for example, the base/warehouses are used to store non-nuclear ammunition. Finally, the two
theories are weighed up against each other, all evidence is considered and the theory which is
most consistent with the evidence is taken to be the most likely truth.

2. In terms of forecasting, what does it mean to take ‘the outside view then the inside view’?
The ‘outside view-inside view’ is an element of superforecasting which looks at the general
probability of something happening, then changing the probability either up or down by looking
at the specific facts of the case. For example, if one was to forecast whether the US and China
were to go to war, they would first look at the chances of two states going to war in the first
place. Then, they would look at the chances of the US and China in particular going to war, and
any factors which would make them change their probability. This could be done by looking at
their leaders, past interactions, current disputes etc. Once these are considered, the
forecast/probability is tailored to that specific occurrence. In this way, forecasters can get a
baseline of the probability of something happening in general as a starting point, and then
consider individual circumstances.

3. What is the ‘casualty cringe’?

Casualty cringe is the idea that the public in general are unwilling to support policies which
involve casualties from people of their nation. They may support a policy at first, but then after
casualties start building, may turn against it. This is similar to Mueller’s idea of casualty
sensitivity, whereby the public can influence public policy in this way. For example, the
Australian public quickly turned against the Vietnam and Iraq Wars once casualties started
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mounting, putting pressure on the government to withdraw and/or change their foreign policy.
However, this is not always the case, research by Miller found that even though Australian
casualties increased during the Afghan War, public support did not due to the belief that there
was a high chance of success by staying. The ‘casualty cringe’ is a general pattern that the public
follows and is a factor in impacting foreign policy.

4. What does Haidt’s Elephant and Rider metaphor mean?

The Elephant and Rider metaphor is the idea of how humans are composed of two distinct sides.
The elephant is our emotional/irrational side and represents our values and deep seated beliefs
that we acquire from our environment and upbringing. The ‘elephant’ may not always be rational
or logical. The ‘rider’ represents our rational/analytical side and our ability to use logic and
reason. However, these reasoning abilities are made to guard, not question our beliefs. In this
sense, trying to reason with even a highly intelligent person that one of their deep-seated beliefs
is wrong is likely to be unsuccessful, they will most likely think up a complex way to justify
their belief is right. The elephant is bigger than the rider, so this means that even though reason
may guide our moral values, they can also overpower it. This metaphor highlights just how big a
role our deeply rooted views play in the way we make decisions and interact with others.
5. What is a ‘frame of reference’?
A frame of reference is a way in which policymakers use similarities from their own country’s
history first and find other ways to think about things harder. This in turn may influence how
they interpret and predict states’ actions and how to best react to them. For example, the US will
most likely analogize current wars with either the Vietnam War or Revolutionary War, meaning
that they make decisions based on what was historically done in those wars. Contrarily, a state
like Iraq would not analogize current wars with those, and instead draw on wars from their own
history.
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Part B
To what extent do you believe that psychological concepts can help us to understand
foreign policy decision making?
Psychological concepts are an important way to understand the way humans make decisions and
for the purposes of this essay they will be defined as heuristics or fallacies which humans may
suffer from in decision making. This essay will argue that these concepts do help us to
understand foreign policy decision making to a large extent. The inherent irrationality of
humans, and a variety of heuristics and examples will be used to support the argument. Although
type of government and economic sectors within a state can also influence foreign policy
decision making and potentially undermine psychological concepts, it will be shown that they
arguably do not have as great an effect as psychological concepts on foreign policy decision
making.
A debate exists in foreign policy and that is whether states/state leaders are rational or irrational
actors. The idea of a state being a ‘rational actor’ means that they will always make decisions
based on maximizing their utility and do so in a logical way. However, this can arguably be
refuted by psychological concepts such as the sunk costs fallacy, small sample bias, and
availability heuristic. This can then help us to understand the irrationality underpinning foreign
policy decision making and understand why they made those decisions.
The availability heuristic is the idea that a person will continually overestimate the chances of
something happening if they can personally remember it from happening. However, just because
one can recall an event happening, does not increase the chances of it occurring. For example,
after 9/11, many foreign policy makers in the US believed that the threat of a terrorist attack was
quite high, even though it wasn’t. As such, they implemented strict security policies, and waged
a ‘war on terrorism’ in the belief that if they didn’t, then terrorist attacks would likely occur.
Even though the chance of a terrorist attack was not as high as they believed, because they could
easily recall 9/11, they thought it was. In this way it can be shown how this psychological
concept can help to understand foreign policy decision making.
The sunk costs fallacy is the psychological concept that a person is likely to preference a
decision which they have already spent money or incurred some costs from more than the
alternative. This is due to the fact that humans should feel like they should go along with
something that they have already sustained costs from. For example, the reason why the US did
not withdraw from Iraq was arguably because foreign policy decision makers knew that they had
spent a lot of time and money on it, so preferenced the idea of staying. In this way, it can again
be seen that a psychological concept can help to understand foreign policy decision making.
Furthermore, confirmation bias is another psychological which can help us understand foreign
policy. This bias reflects the habit of seeking evidence that supports a theory, and not evidence
that goes against it. Instead, one should be looking for alternate evidence against the theory so as
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to test the validity and chances of it being true. For example, foreign policy makers did not look
at the evidence that bin Laden wasn’t in the compound and instead relied more on the evidence
that he was there. If they had, they would likely have realized that the chances of him not being
there were higher than they thought and potentially changed their foreign policy. This again
shows how psychological concepts help us to understand decision making.
There are many more psychological concepts which affect foreign policy decision makers such
as small sample bias, sacred values protection and probability neglect and are just as important in
supporting this argument. However, this essay will now go on to address counterarguments that
may be proposed.
The first counterargument is that the type of government of a particular state influences foreign
policy decision making arguably more than psychological concepts. For example, whether a state
is a democracy or autocracy can greatly vary the foreign policies that they pursue. Democracies
are less likely to go to war with other democracies (Democratic Peace Theory), and autocracies
can be quite fickle in their foreign policies if they are under a personalist regime. Although these
assertions may be true, Rosenthau’s research suggests otherwise. He tried to put different states
into different categories based on their economy/government type and try to find a pattern with
their foreign policies. However, he found limited trends within each category. Although his use
of categories has been criticized, this nevertheless points to the idea that categorizing states and
finding a trend in foreign policy making can be quite limiting. This therefore arguably supports
the idea that other things, such as psychological concepts, are better at helping us understand
foreign policy decision making.
Another counterargument is that economic sectors influence foreign policy the most and
arguably help us to understand foreign policy more than psychological concepts. The idea is that
large economic industries can put pressure on the government to adopt certain policies (e.g.
protectionism etc.). Because these economic industries affect a large section of the population,
foreign policy decision makers are theoretically inclined to follow what these industries lobby
for. However, there is an issue with this argument in that oftentimes different economic sectors
clash and oftentimes don’t get what they lobby for. This means that foreign policy makers do not
actually always make decisions which follow the interests of such economic sectors. This
arguably shows how economic sectors are not an entirely useful way to help us understand
foreign policy decision making.
To conclude, there is a lot of evidence and real life examples which points to the fact that foreign
policy makers are largely irrational and commit fallacies and suffer from heuristics. In this way,
the decisions they make reflect such irrationality and can therefore help us understand why they
do so. Although other factors such as the type of government and economic sectors in a nation
could be argued to better help us understand such decision making, they arguably have their own
flaws. As such, psychological concepts are to a large extent arguably the best way to help us
understand foreign policy decision making.