Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Modes of context
- 3 Context as changing meaning
- 4 Contextual indicators
- 5 Rational actor and diffusion models
- 6 Barrier models of context
- 7 Oil nationalization, 1918–1980 (with Nathan Adams)
- 8 Eastern Europe, 1945–1989 (with Jon Solem)
- 9 Historical contexts
- 10 Enduring rivalries, or plus ça change …
- 11 The context of international norms
- 12 The norm of decolonization
- 13 Postface: interacting contexts and explaining contexts
- References
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
5 - Rational actor and diffusion models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Modes of context
- 3 Context as changing meaning
- 4 Contextual indicators
- 5 Rational actor and diffusion models
- 6 Barrier models of context
- 7 Oil nationalization, 1918–1980 (with Nathan Adams)
- 8 Eastern Europe, 1945–1989 (with Jon Solem)
- 9 Historical contexts
- 10 Enduring rivalries, or plus ça change …
- 11 The context of international norms
- 12 The norm of decolonization
- 13 Postface: interacting contexts and explaining contexts
- References
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Summary
A new [disease] has spread itself over Europe; it has infected our princes and induces them to keep an exorbitant number of troops. It … of necessity becomes contagious. For as soon as one prince augments what he calls his troops, the rest of course do the same; so that nothing is gained thereby but the public ruin.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, 1748 (p. 237)History teaches perhaps very few lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression unopposed is a contagious disease.
Jimmy Carter, 4 January 1980 (cited in Nossal 1989, p. 318)Introduction
Explanations which underline the relevance of context often stress the spatial and temporal connections of a phenomenon. But alternative explanations usually coexist that downplay such factors. In this chapter I introduce two such contrasting theoretical frameworks. Diffusion models focus on environmental factors; as the name diffusion implies, this theory suggests that outside factors determine behavior. Rational actor models, on the other hand, focus on the individual, her beliefs and preferences, in order to explain actions and downplay environmental factors. These two major theoretical approaches serve to orient the discussion of different aspects of contextual analysis, and as such they will be constant companions in the chapters to come.
Rather than just discuss these theories in general I shall focus on their application to the study of war – war expansion in particular – in order to motivate and illustrate the differences between the two theories.
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- Contexts of International Politics , pp. 74 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994