POLI 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Graham T. Allison, Future Us, Cognitive Disorder

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 360
• Professor: T.V.Paul

Document Summary

Graham allison why did the cuban missile crisis occur: rational actor bureaucratic and observational. Assumes consistency in behavior, choice of most efficient alternative. Consumers always make rational choice that maximizes their utility. War a decision that states make based on national security, and examine consequences of following each course of action. Psychological theory questions basic assumption of rational choice decisions are very complex. Multiple personal/institutional/psychological/internal/cultural things must be taken into account. Shows that basic model of rational choice is not always accurate. Personality correlates of leaders (cia conducts those on hussein, putin, etc. ) to find how far they will go. This is accurate up to a point, but does not produce exact outcome. Robert jerry: looks at different types of misperceptions of war. Miscalculation of consequences, misjudgments of how others will react to one"s policies, Involves discrepancy between decision maker"s psychological environment vs. operational environment of real world.