¹ This definition is adapted from Riker, William H., The Art of Political Manipulation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), ix.Google Scholar

² Maoz, Zeev, National Choices and International Processes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 206–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, identifies five special characteristics of national decision groups: (1) permanence, (2) multi-issue responsibility, (3) hierarchical structure, (4) accountability to both internal and external constituencies, and (5) common history and common future. Representative studies of group decision making in foreign policy settings are Rivera, Joseph De, The Psychological Dimension of Foreign Policy (Columbus, OH: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968)Google Scholar; Janis, Irving, Groupthink, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982)Google Scholar; Semmel, Andrew K. and Minix, Dean G., “Small Group Dynamics and Foreign Policy Decision Making,” in Falkowski, Lawrence, ed., Psychological Models in International Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and Maoz, Zeev, “The Decision to Raid Entebbe: Decision Analysis Applied to Crisis Behavior,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 25 (December 1981), 677–707.Google Scholar

³ For reviews of the various approaches on the group-induced shift phenomenon, see Cartwright, Dorwin, “Risk Taking by Individuals and Groups: An Assessment of Research Involving Choice Dilemmas,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 20 (September 1971), 361–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pruitt, Dean G., “Choice Shifts in Group Discussion: An Introductory Review,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 20 (September 1971), 339–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Conclusions: Toward an Understanding of Choice Shifts in Group Discussion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 20 (September 1971), 495–510.

⁴ Eugene Burnstein et al., “Risky Shift is Eminently Rational,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 20 (September 1971), 426–71.Google Scholar See also Vinokur, Amikam and Burnstein, Eugene, “Effects of Partially-Shared Persuasive Arguments on Group-Induced Shifts,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 29 (September 1974), 305–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, Martin F., “Discussion Polarization Effects on Modified Jury Decision Paradigms: Informational Influences,” Sociometry 40 (September 1977), 262–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kaplan, Martin F. and Miller, Charles E., “Judgment and Group Discussion: Effects of Presentation and Memory Factors on Polarization,” Sociometry 40 (December 1977), 337–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ The most important source on this theory is Janis (fn. 2). See also Janis, Irving and Mann, Leon, Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1977).Google Scholar

⁶ The sophisticated voting explanation was originally formulated by Farquharson, Robin, Theory of Voting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969).Google Scholar Other models of sophisticated voting have been developed by Niemi, Richard and Frank, Arthur, “Sophisticated Voting under the Plurality Procedure,” in Ordeshook, Peter C. and Shepsle, Kenneth A., eds., Political Equilibrium (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff, 1982)Google Scholar; idem, “Sophisticated Voting under the Plurality Procedure: A Test of a New Definition,” Theory and Decision 19 (April 1985), 151–62; and Felsenthal, Dan S., Rapoport, Amnon, and Maoz, Zeev, “Tacit Cooperation in Three-Alternative Non-Cooperative Voting Games: A New Model of Sophisticated Behavior Under the Plurality Procedure,” Electoral Studies 7 (June 1988), 143–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ The coalition literature in the context of political behavior is summarized in Ordeshook, Peter C., Game Theory and Political Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar A note about bureaucratic politics theories is in order here. This theory is chiefly developed in Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971)Google Scholar; Allison, Graham T. and Halperin, Morton, “Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications,” in Tanter, Raymond and Ullman, Richard, eds., Theory and Policy in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 40–79Google Scholar; and Halperin, Morton A., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1974).Google Scholar Bureaucratic politics theory presents national choices as outcomes of intragovernmental bargaining processes in which individuals make and unmake coalitions that serve their goals more than they serve a common conception of a “national interest.” This theory is often taken as portraying the behavior of political leaders as nonrational; but cooperative game theory clearly suggests that such processes are eminently rational given that individuals differ in terms of their policy preferences. Irrational group behavior reflects cases wherein individuals pass up opportunities to maximize their payoffs in group settings because of group-induced pressure; this may include even those decisions that are made in the name of some notion of a “national interest.” This is the opposite of what the bureaucratic politics theory leads us to believe. See Maoz (fn. 2, 1990), chap. 5, for a more detailed discussion of this issue.

⁸ Even with one key decision maker, advisory groups can still play crucial roles. See Destler, I. M., Presidents, Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, and George, Alexander L., Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980)Google Scholar, for reviews of the relationship between advisory systems and policy outcomes.

⁹ See Janis and Mann (fn. 5), 10–14; Stein, Janice Gross and Tanter, Raymond, Rational Decision Making: Israel's Security Choices, 1967 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Brecher, Michael, “State Behavior in International Crises,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 23 (September 1979), 446–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janis, Irving, Crucial Decisions (New York: Free Press, 1989)Google Scholar, Maoz (fn. 2, 1990), chaps. 5–6; and Maoz (fn. 2, 1981).

¹⁰ A key question in the literature on foreign policy decision making concerns the extent to which the procedural and outcome rationality perspectives correlate. See Holsti, Ole R. and George, Alexander L., “The Effects of Stress on Foreign Policy Makers,” in Cotter, Cornelius P., ed., Political Science Annual (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), 6:255–319Google Scholar; Janis (fn. 9); Herek, Gregory M., Janis, Irving L., and Huth, Paul, “Decision Making during International Crises: Is Quality of Process Related to Outcomes?” journal of Conflict Resolution 31 (June 1987), 203–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Maoz (fn. 2, 1990), chap. 8.

¹¹ On the evolution of this literature, see Black, Duncan, The Theory of Committees and Elections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Riker, William H., Liberalism against Populism (San Francisco: Freeman, 1982)Google Scholar; and Riker, William H. and Orde-shook, Peter, An Introduction to Positive Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973).Google Scholar The classical modern work in this tradition which provides the most fundamental result in this body of research is Arrow, Kenneth, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York: Wiley, 1951).Google Scholar Arrow's “paradox of voting” suggests that there exists no democratic aggregation scheme for the conversion of rational individual preferences into a rational group preference.

¹² Nevertheless, I will make occasional references to the other two perspectives in the following discussion.

¹³ Much of the following discussion is based on Riker (fn. 1) and Riker, William H., “The Heresthetic of Constitution-Making: The Presidency in 1787, with Comments on Determinism and Rational Choice,” American Political Science Review 78 (March 1984), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ The “Condorcet alternative” is named for 18th-century French mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, who defined the principle. From the perspective of social choice theory, if such an alternative exists (and as Arrow [fn. 11] showed, this need not necessarily be the case), its selection by a decision-making (or any other voting) body is taken to be a preferentially rational decision. It follows that the selection of any other alternative (for example, alternative d in Table 1) is nonrational from a preferential perspective.

¹⁵ The social preference function is the preference ordering of the alternatives by the group as a result of all the possible pairwise contests between them. For example, in Table 1 the social preference function is b> [a > c > d > a], which means that although there exists a Condorcet alternative, the society does not have a transitive ordering of the remaining alternatives. All alternatives but b are in a cycle, as is the case with respect to all three alternatives in Table 2.

¹⁶ See Nurmi, Hannu, “Voting Procedures: A Summary Analysis,” British Journal of Political Science 13 (June 1983), 181–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ One of the most significant results of social choice theory is that there exists no social choice rule that is manipulation-proof. See Gibbard, A., “Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result,” Econometrica 41 (December 1973), 587–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Experimental studies of sophisticated choice in agenda settings suggest that people behave sophisticatedly if the conditions regarding knowledge structures are met, although the proportion of such sophisticated choices is not very high (about 30%). See Herzberg, Roberta O. and Wilson, Richard K., “Results on Sophisticated Voting in Experimental Settings,” Journal of Politics 50 (May 1988), 471–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wilson, Richard K. and Pearson, Andrew, “Evidence of Sophisticated Voting in Committee Setting: Theory and Experiments,” Quality and Quantity 21 (September 1987), 255–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Riker (fn. 1), 1.

¹⁹ Read a is preferred to c and c is preferred to b. Transitivity implies that a is preferred to b.

²⁰ A detailed analysis of this example is given in Felsenthal, Dan S. and Maoz, Zeev, “A Comparative Analysis of Sincere and Sophisticated Voting under the Plurality and Approval Voting Procedures,” Behavioral Science 33 (April 1988), 116–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ George (fn. 8) and Janis (fn. 9) provide probably the best surveys of these problems in foreign policy settings.

²² Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47 (June 1979), 263–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tversky, Amos and Kahneman, Daniel, “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” Science 211 (1981), 453–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions,” Journal of Business 59, special supplement (December 1986), S225–50; and Quattrone, George A. and Tversky, Amos, “Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice,” American Political Science Review 82 (September 1988), 719–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Quattrone and Tversky (fn. 22), 727.

²⁴ A caveat is in order. The experimental evidence on the framing of choices is based on conditions that are fundamentally different from those that operate in foreign policy settings. First, subjects had been given “accurate” information in an experimental sense; no such accuracy can exist in foreign policy settings. Second, experimental subjects were either uniformly knowledgeable or uniformly ignorant about the subject of the decision problem. In real foreign policy settings, members can differ widely in terms of their knowledge about the issue area into which the decision problem falls. The strength of the framing result derives from the fact that choice switch takes place even when there are no cognitive or situational constraints on rationality. This suggests that under “normal” foreign policy conditions, and with the presence of constraints on rational choice, framing may be even more effective than in the laboratory.

²⁵ Hilsman, Roger, To Move a Nation (New York: Delta Books, 1964), 195Google Scholar; Allison (fn. 7), 195–97.

²⁶ Burnstein, Eugene and Berbaum, Michael, “Stages in Group Decision Making: The Decomposition of Historical Narratives,” Political Psychology 4 (September 1983), 531–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janis and Mann (fn. 5), 33–35; Janis (fn. 2), 271–72; Maoz (fn. 2, 1990), chap. 5; Dery, David, Problem Definition in Policy Analysis (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984).Google Scholar

²⁷ Dery (fn. 26).

²⁸ Studies that explore the inherent contradiction between myopic and nonmyopic decisions include Elster, Jon, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Schelling, Thomas C., Choice and Consequences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Brams, Steven J. and Wittman, Donald, “Non-myopic Equilibria in 2 × 2 Games,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 6 (September 1981), 39–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A useful analogy of the implications of myopic rationality is the well-known dollar auction game. Experimental evidence of the consequences of myopic choice in this game is given in Teger, A., Too Much Invested to Quit (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980)Google Scholar, and Brockner, Joel and Rubin, Jeffrey Z., Entrapment in Escalating Conflicts: A Social Psychological Analysis (New York: Springer Verlag, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Applications of this game to international politics include O'Neill, Barry, “International Escalation and the Dollar Auction,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 30 (March 1986), 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Maoz, Zeev, Paradoxes of War: On the Art of National Self-Entrapment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), chaps. 4, 10.Google Scholar

²⁹ On problems of attitude change in foreign policy settings, see Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 288–315.Google Scholar

³⁰ For example, the centralized structure of government that characterized the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy administration provided a convenient setting for framing by the national security adviser, who was the conduit for virtually all the information on policy problems channeled to the president. By contrast, decentralized systems of consultation and management allow more opportunities for competing definitions of the situation and hence fewer opportunities for framing. See George (fn. 8).

³¹ The questions of “for what purpose and with what effect” are also important, but they are extremely difficult—if not impossible—to answer with any degree of credibility. The answer to the first question requires information about the intentions of each of the group members, and the answer to the second question requires one to resort to the outcome-rationality notion.

³² This discussion is based on transcripts of the audiotaped meetings of the Executive Committee during the crisis. Hereafter they will be cited as Transcripts. Other sources include Allison (fn. 7); Janis (fn. 2), 132–58; Abel, Elie, The Missile Crisis (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1965)Google Scholar; Sorensen, Theodore, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)Google Scholar; Taylor, Maxwell D., Swords and Plowshares (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972)Google Scholar; and Detzer, David, The Brink Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1979).Google Scholar

³³ Detzer (fn. 32), 115–16; emphasis in original.

³⁴ Allison (fn. 7), 202. See also Schlesinger (fn. 32), 802–8.

³⁵ Allison (fn. 7), 202.

³⁶ Transcripts, October 16, 1962, pp. 1–52.

³⁷ Ibid., 202–3. This, indeed was McNamara's main argument for the blockade.

³⁸ Sources for this analysis include Brecher, Michael, Decisions in Israel's Foreign Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), 454–517Google Scholar; Margalit, Dan, Sheder mehabayit halavan [Dispatch from the White House] (Tel Aviv: Otpaz, 1971)Google Scholar; Shlaim, Avi and Tanter, Raymond, “Decision Process, Choice, and Consequences: Israel's Deep Penetration Bombing in Egypt, 1970,” World Politics 30 (July 1978), 483–516CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weizman, Ezer, On Eagles' Wings (New York: Berkeley Books, 1976).Google Scholar

³⁹ The full text of the proposal is cited in Brecher (fn. 38), 490–91.

⁴⁰ Ezer Weizman, then the minister of transportation, recalled that “the Alignment members were very concerned about the possibility that, if Dayan would be left in the minority he wouldn't hesitate to leave the Government. A situation in which both Gahal and Dayan would be out of the Government scared them. Therefore they did almost everything to appease Dayan.” An anonymous civil servant observed: “Dayan announced that he would only agree to insert into the body of the text of the American initiative Israel's reservations. During the Cabinet session he was very excited and didn't abstain from shouting. It seemed that this issue was very important to him. Finally, his view prevailed.” Quoted by Brecher (fn. 38), 498.

⁴¹ On the party politics aspects of this episode, see Haber, Eitan, Begin: The hegend and the Man (New York: Delacorte Press, 1978), 280–85Google Scholar; Sofer, Sasson, Begin: An Anatomy of Leadership (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 90–92Google Scholar; Margalit (fn. 38); and Weizman (fn. 38), 269–75.

⁴² Sources for this analysis include George, Alexander L. and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 140–83Google Scholar; Truman, Harry S., Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965)Google Scholar; Acheson, Dean, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965)Google Scholar; Paige, Glenn D., The Korean Decision (New York: Free Press, 1968)Google Scholar; idem, 1950: Truman's Decision, the United States Enters the Korean War (New York: Chelsea House, 1970); idem, “On Values and Science: The Korean Decision Reconsidered,” American Political Science Review 71 (December 1977), 1,063–69; and De Rivera (fn. 2).

⁴³ The statements by Acheson, Dean, Senator Tom Connally, and John Foster Dulles are given in Paige (fn. 42, 1970), 7–31Google Scholar, 42–45.

⁴⁴ New York Times, June 28, 1950, p. 4. Quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 179. Janis (fn. 2), 49–50, takes this as a symptom of groupthink.

⁴⁵ Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 126.

⁴⁶ Acheson (fn. 42), 406.

⁴⁷ Truman (fn. 42), 334.

⁴⁸ Truman points out that there “was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it. This was the test of all the talk of the last five years of collective security.” Ibid. Secretary of Defense Johnson stated that during the second Blair House conference, “if we wanted to oppose [direct military intervention], then was our time to oppose it. Not a single one of us did. There were some pointing out of the difficulties … and then the President made his decision … which I thought was the right decision.” Quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 179.

⁴⁹ Quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 141.

⁵⁰ Secretary Johnson's testimony before the Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations. Quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 164.

⁵¹ Ibid., 132; Acheson (fn. 42), 408. See also George, Alexander L., “American Policy-Making and the North Korean Aggression,” World Politics 7 (January 1955), 209–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for additional interpretations of Soviet intentions and their implications for U.S. policy.

⁵² Secretary Johnson's testimony, quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1968), 173.

⁵³ General Bradley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote several months later: “If the defense of South Korea was risking an all-out war the choice was not ours for the Communists had thrown down the gauntlet.” Phillip Jessup, the UN ambassador, argued: “The invasion had to be met even if it meant the beginning of World War III.” Ibid.

⁵⁴ For example, Secretary of Defense Johnson claimed that he had first heard of the recommendation for direct military intervention from the president prior to the second Blair House conference. Ibid., 164.

⁵⁵ Quoted in Paige (fn. 42, 1970), 30–31.

⁵⁶ Maoz (fn. 2, 1990), chap. 9.

⁵⁷ The most explicit delineation of the political goals of the invasion is given in the Sharon-Gemayel agreement of January 1982. The scope and form of the invasion had been set forth in the operational plan prepared by the Israeli army and was given the name Big Pines by the army computer. The plan was presented to the Israeli cabinet in an informal session on December 20, 1981. It was flatly rejected by a majority of the ministers. See Schiff, Zeev and Yaari, Ehud, Israel's Lebanon War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 47–48Google Scholar, and Yaniv, Avner, Dilemmas of Security: Politics, Strategy, and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 107.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Schiff and Yaari (fn. 57), 45–54; Yaniv (fn. 57), 100–104.

⁵⁹ Yaniv (fn. 57), 107–9, reports at least five such abortive attempts to mobilize governmental support for any sort of invasion: on January 28, twice in March, and on April 11, 1982. At the last of these meetings, the government authorized a large-scale aerial strike on PLO bases. Sharon and Begin hoped that such a strike would provoke the PLO into significant shelling of Israeli villages in the north, which would cause the dissidents in the cabinet to switch choices. This, however, did not happen. Hence they had to wait patiently another two months. Another such meeting took place on May 10. At this point, while there was a majority support for the limited plan, seven out of eighteen ministers, including the two deputies of the prime minister, Simcha Ehrlich and David Levy, voted against it. The plan was again shelved and modified.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 113.

⁶¹ Ibid., 115.

⁶² Sharon had consistently authorized the army to advance and perform operations that had no cabinet approval and that would almost certainly have been turned down by the cabinet. Yet precisely these moves forced the cabinet to approve other measures that violated the members' better judgment. For example, on June 21–22, 1982, Sharon ordered the army to improve its positions along the Beirut-Damascus highway and in the outskirts of West Beirut, despite a previous cease-fire agreement. This was done without cabinet approval and resulted in numerous Israeli casualties. Once the cabinet learned of these incursions, Sharon was promptly ordered to cease fire. He refused. A special cabinet meeting was called on June 24, but “since by then the operation was nearly completed and much blood had already been spilt, Sharon once again succeeded in prevailing upon his weak and bewildered colleagues. The cabinet at last approved continuation of the attack on Alei-Behamdoun, and it was completed two days later.” Ibid.; Schiff and Yaari (fn. 57), 203–7.

⁶³ On the implications of these manipulations for the outcome of the Lebanon War, see Maoz, Zeev, “Power, Capabilities, and Paradoxical Conflict Outcomes,” World Politics 41 (January 1989), 239–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Maoz (fn. 28), chap. 10. It must be noted that manipulation of the government was suspected all along and opposed by key people both in the army, for example, the chief of military intelligence, General Saguy, and in the Labor Party, whose leaders were informed of the imminent invasion and repeatedly expressed reservations regarding its proposed scope and general wisdom. See Schiff and Yaari (fn. 57), and Naor, Aryeh, Memshalah bemilhama [Cabinet at war] (Tel Aviv: Lahav, 1986).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ On this decision, see Maoz, Zeev, “Multiple Paths to Choice: An Approach to the Analysis of Foreign Policy Decision,” in Gallhofer, Irmtraud N., Saris, Willem E., and Melman, Marianne, eds., Text Analysis Procedures for the Study of Decision Making (Amsterdam: Sociometrie Research Foundation, 1986), 69–96.Google Scholar In the Cuban missile crisis, though time pressure was definitely a factor, the participants in the EXCOM had, relatively speaking, more time to explore multiple courses of action.

⁶⁵ Transcripts, October 16, 1962, pp. 45–46.

⁶⁶ See in particular George (fn. 8), 139–216; Janis (fn. 2), 260–76; Janis and Mann (fn. 5), 367–404; Wheeler, Daniel D. and Janis, Irving L., A Practical Guide for Making Decisions (New York: Free Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Ben-Meir, Yehuda, National Security Decisionmaking: The Israeli Case (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 129–44Google Scholar; and Janis (fn. 9).