EVEN IF YOU PRETEND IT IS RATIONAL FOR VLAD TO DESTROY HIS OWN REGIME...:

Mearsheimer and Rosato detect an increasingly strong acceptance among both academics and laymen that 'states' often behave nonrationally. In their view, the growing acceptance of this position is a serious problem both for the modern field of international relations theory, which has generally been premised on the notion that states and their leaders are rational actors, and also for political leaders, who faced with a world of madmen would be unable to make good decisions. As neither the study nor practice of international politics 'can be coherent in a world where nonrationality prevails', the authors intend to demonstrate that 'states are rational most of the time'. They will do so by offering 'a meaningful definition of rationality in international politics where none existed', then comparing it to a series of cases where nonrational state behaviour has been claimed by others. The historical record will then show that most of these cases have been examples of rational behaviour after all.

What is this new, meaningful definition of state rationality? At the individual level, 'Rationality is all about making sense of the world for the purpose of navigating it in the pursuit of desired goals.' That is to say, rational people form theories of the world and make decisions in light of those theories. In the words of the authors, man is 'homo theoreticus'. But not every theory is rational - it must be a credible theory. One gets no points for acting in accordance with the view that the moon is made of cheese. Furthermore, a 'state is rational if the views of its key decision makers are aggregated through a deliberative process and the final policy is based on a credible theory'.

Clearly, a lot hangs on the word 'credible' here. The authors provide us with a three-part test of credibility: the theory must be based on realistic assumptions, must involve logical causation, and must be verified by empirical support in the historical record. Even more helpfully, they then list the theories that are credible in the context of international politics, and condemn the ones that are not.

Which theories make the cut? As it happens, they are the academic theories promoted by the major modern schools of international relations. Defensive, offensive, and hegemonic realism and their major subvariants are on the approved list, as are (ecumenically, it must be said, given the authors' realism) democratic peace theory, economic interdependence theory, liberal institutionalism, and finally a set of theories falling within social constructivism.

How can a state hope to navigate rationally in the face of such generous pluralism? Well, as 'no credible theory applies to all problems', it's anticipated that policymakers will mix and match among credible academic theories, which 'find their way into the minds of aspiring decision makers before those individuals begin to make policy'. Moreover, the authors also helpfully provide a list of noncredible theories, ranging from the universally condemned (racial theories prevalent in scholarship a century ago) to upstart academic theories today that, in the authors' view, fail some element of their three-part test (for example: neoclassical realism, audience costs theory, nuclear coercion theory, and several more).

In other words, Mearsheimer and Rosato's book is an attempt by pre-eminent international relations scholars to seize the mantle of who gets to define rationality in the context of international politics from scholars dealing with rational choice theory and from the political psychologists who had been enjoying that privilege. In the view of the authors, both of these schools are failing to live up to their responsibilities, in the first case by failing to describe a mental process in which rational decisions actually happen, and in the latter case by simply surrendering to the argument that irrational choices are prevalent - that people rely on analogies or heuristics rather than full-blown theories. The historical record simply shows, in the authors' view, that this is not the case - state level decision-making seems to attract a clearer-headed sort of person who avoids these kinds of errors - and even, for the most part, avoids being overcome by his or her passions, as 'instances of emotions driving the train [in international politics] are rare'.

So much for the liberal pundits, the economists, and the psychologists. If the approach described here seems solipsistic, or perhaps a bit circular - the approach of international relations theorists, which depends upon rational decision making by policymakers, is vindicated because in fact policymakers make rational decisions using international relations theories that are definitionally rational, say international relations theorists - well, the historical record will have to be the judge.

Tweet   @brothersjudd