Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics PDF
Preview Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics
COUNTERFACTUAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN WORLD POLITICS Sponsored by the Committee on International Peace and Security of the Social Science Research Council COUNTERFACTUAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN WORLD POLITICS LOGICAL, METHODOLOGICAL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Edited by Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S P R I N C E T O N , N E W J E R S E Y Copyright © 1996 by the Social Science Research Council Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Counterfactual thought experiments in world politics : logical, methodological, and psychological perspectives / edited by Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-02792-7 (cl : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-691-02791-9 (pb : alk. paper) 1. World politics. 2. History—Philosophy. 3. Counterfactuals (Logic). I. Tetlock, Philip. II. Belkin, Aaron, 1966- D16.9.C645 1996 901—dc20 96-6396 CIP This book has been composed in Times Roman Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America by Princeton Academic Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (Pbk.) Contents List of Contributors vii Acknowledgments ix PART ONE: Counterfactual Inference: Form and Function 1 Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives 1 Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin 2 Causes and Counterfactuals in Social Science: Exploring an Analogy between Cellular Automata and Historical Processes 39 James D. Fearon PART TWO: Counterfactual Analysis of Particular Events 3 Counterfactual Reasoning in Western Studies of Soviet Politics and Foreign Relations 69 George W. Breslauer 4 Confronting Hitler and Its Consequences 95 Yuen Foong Khong 5 Back to the Past: Counterfactuals and the Cuban Missile Crisis 119 Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein 6 Counterfactual Reasoning in Motivational Analysis: U.S. Policy toward Iran 149 Richard K. Herrmann and Michael P. Fischerkeller PART THREE: Counterfactual Analysis of Classes of Events 7 Counterfactuals about War and Its Absence 171 Bruce Russett 8 Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution 187 Edgar Kiser and Margaret Levi VI CONTENTS PART FOUR: Counterfactuals and Game Theory 9 Counterfactuals and International Affairs: Some Insights from Game Theory 211 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita 10 Off-the-Path Behavior: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Counterfactuals and Its Implications for Political and Historical Analysis 230 Barry R. Weingast PART FIVE: Computer and Mental Simulations of Possible Worlds 11 Rerunning History: Counterfactual Simulation in World Politics 247 Lars-Erik Cederman 12 Counterfactuals, Past and Future 268 Steven Weber PART SIX: Commentaries 1 Conceptual Blending and Counterfactual Argument in the Social and Behavioral Sciences 291 Mark Turner 2 Psychological Biases in Counterfactual Thought Experiments 296 James M. Olson, Neal J. Roese, and Ronald J. Deibert 3 Counterfactual Inferences as Instances of Statistical Inferences 301 Robyn M. Dawes 4 Counterfactuals, Causation, and Complexity 309 Robert Jervis References 317 Index 337 Contributors AARON BELKIN Doctoral candidate, Department of Political Science University of California, Berkeley GEORGE W. BRESLAUER Professor, Department of Political Science University of California, Berkeley BRUCE BUENO DE MESQUITA Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution Stanford University LARS-ERIK CEDERMAN University Lecturer in International Relations, Somerville College Oxford University ROBYN M. DAWES University Professor Carnegie Mellon University RONALD J. DEIBERT Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science University of Toronto JAMES D. FEARON Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science University of Chicago MICHAEL P. FISCHERKELLER Doctoral candidate, Department of Political Science The Ohio State University RICHARD K. HERRMANN Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Director, Program in Foreign Policy Analysis, Mershon Center The Ohio State University ROBERT JERVIS Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science Columbia University YUEN FOONG KHONG Fellow, Nuffield College lohn G. Winant University Lecturer in American Foreign Policy Oxford University Vlll CONTRIBUTORS EDGAR KISER Associate Professor, Department of Sociology University of Washington RICHARD NED LEBOW Director, Mershon Center Professor, Department of Political Science The Ohio State University MARGARET LEVI Professor, Department of Political Science University of Washington JAMES M. OLSON Professor, Department of Psychology University of Western Ontario NEAL J. ROESE Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology Northwestern University BRUCE RUSSETT Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Political Science Yale University JANICE GROSS STEIN Harrowston Professor of Conflict Management, Department of Political Science University of Toronto PHILIP E. TETLOCK Harold E. Burtt Professor of Psychology and Political Science The Ohio State University MARK TURNER Professor, Department of English Member, Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences University of Maryland STEVEN WEBER Associate Professor, Department of Political Science University of California, Berkeley BARRY R. WEINGAST Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution Professor, Department of Political Science Stanford University Acknowledgments As THIS VOLUME ATTESTS, judging the plausibility of counterfactual argu- ments is a tricky business. Nonetheless, we place great confidence in the following counterfactual: if we had not received generous intellectual and financial support from a variety of colleagues and institutions, this volume would not exist. On the financial front, we owe a special debt of gratitude to the Commit- tee on International Peace and Security of the Social Science Research Council, the John D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Institute of Personality and Social Research, the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the National Science Foundation Training Grant to the Mershon Center at the Ohio State University. On the collegial front, our debts are even more numerous. Most impor- tant, we want to acknowledge the help given by contributors to this volume as well as the other participants in the conference on counterfactual thought experiments held at Berkeley in January 1995. Although many participants at that conference do not appear in this book, their ideas do at various junc- tures. We appreciate the intellectual guidance of Henry Brady, David Col- lier, Barry Eichengreen, Fred Greenstein, Robert Keohane, Nelson Polsby, Robert Powell, Eleanor Rosch, Brian Skyrms, and Peter Woodruff. We sin- gle out Daniel Kahneman for thanks. Although he does not appear in this volume, he had a major impact on how we now think about thought experi- ments. We also want to acknowledge the constructive comments that we have received on various aspects of this project (including our introductory chap- ter) from Christopher Achen, Robert Bates, Alexander George, Albert Fish- low, John Gaddis, Ernst Haas, Peter Katzenstein, Deborah Larson, Elisabeth Lloyd, Scott Sagan, Paul Sniderman, and Peter Suedfeld. And we owe a debt of considerable gratitude to the numerous anonymous reviewers who examined our manuscript for both Cambridge University Press and Princeton University Press. Shifting to the administrative dimensions of the project, we would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Science Research Council and the assistance of Steve Heydemann, Robert Latham, and the editorial staff of Princeton University Press, including Malcolm DeBevoise, Malcolm Litch- field, and Heidi Sheehan, and Cambridge University Press, in particular John Haslam. We would be terribly remiss if we did not remember the
The list of books you might like
