IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/jk2b6_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do States Act Rationally and How Do We Know What They Think?

Author

Listed:
  • Vuving, Alexander

Abstract

This essay discusses two interrelated questions that have emerged in recent international relations literature, ‘How do states think?’ and ‘How do we know what states think?’, with an empirical focus on the Indo-Pacific. Lurking behind these questions is often the assumption that states are rational actors. This essay will therefore examine the concept of rationality, the state of the art about the rationality of states, and the strategic thinking of several states in the Indo-Pacific. I argue that it is the observer’s approach to a state that determines the state’s rationality according to Mearsheimer and Rosato’s homo theoreticus benchmarks, which model states as machines and angels rather than humans. When seen as rich tapestries rather than black boxes, states in the Indo-Pacific often violate this rationality standard. Based on insights from cognitive science, I suggest some directions for rethinking the rationality of foreign policy and reconceptualising the rational actor assumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Vuving, Alexander, 2025. "Do States Act Rationally and How Do We Know What They Think?," SocArXiv jk2b6_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:jk2b6_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/jk2b6_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/67a3caea88938905feaf3e9f/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/jk2b6_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gigerenzer, Gerd, 2018. "The Bias Bias in Behavioral Economics," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 5(3-4), pages 303-336, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & M. D. Christodoulou & M. Zottoli, 2024. "Uniqueness Bias: Why It Matters, How to Curb It," Papers 2408.07710, arXiv.org.
    2. Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu & Nüfer Yasin Ateş, 2022. "Arguing to Defeat: Eristic Argumentation and Irrationality in Resolving Moral Concerns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 519-535, January.
    3. Brighton, Henry, 2020. "Statistical foundations of ecological rationality," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 14, pages 1-32.
    4. Pitterle, Claudia, 2022. "Consumer behavior and decision making from officed- based doctors A systematic literature review," MPRA Paper 117730, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Arkadiusz Sieron, 2020. "Some Problems of Behavioral Economics," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 336-362.
    6. Ole Peters & Alexander Adamou & Mark Kirstein & Yonatan Berman, 2020. "What are we weighting for? A mechanistic model for probability weighting," Papers 2005.00056, arXiv.org.
    7. Oliver, Adam, 2024. "On choice inconsistency: the ‘error’ error in behavioural paternalism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125845, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Stroh, Tim & Mention, Anne-Laure & Duff, Cameron, 2023. "The impact of evolved psychological mechanisms on innovation and adoption: A systematic literature review," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    9. Keppo, Jussi & Satopää, Ville A., 2024. "Bayesian herd detection for dynamic data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 285-301.
    10. Riedl, Anna & Vervaeke, John, 2022. "Rationality and Relevance Realization," OSF Preprints vymwu, Center for Open Science.
    11. Christian Schubert, 2021. "Opportunity meets self-constitution," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 68(1), pages 51-65, March.
    12. Forbes, William, 2024. "Unconscious thoughts as a spur and halt on good financial decisioning making," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    13. Ville A. Satopää & Marat Salikhov & Philip E. Tetlock & Barbara Mellers, 2021. "Bias, Information, Noise: The BIN Model of Forecasting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7599-7618, December.
    14. Pere Mir-Artigues, 2022. "Combining preferences and heuristics in analysing consumer behaviour," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 523-543, September.
    15. Mark Fabian, 2022. "Scale Norming Undermines the Use of Life Satisfaction Scale Data for Welfare Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1509-1541, April.
    16. Riedl, Anna & Vervaeke, John, 2022. "Rationality and Relevance Realization," OSF Preprints vymwu_v1, Center for Open Science.
    17. Sroka, Wojciech & Bojarszczuk, Jolanta & Satoła, Łukasz & Szczepańska, Barbara & Sulewski, Piotr & Lisek, Sławomir & Luty, Lidia & Zioło, Monika, 2021. "Understanding residents’ acceptance of professional urban and peri-urban farming: A socio-economic study in Polish metropolitan areas," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:jk2b6_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.