On Bounded Rationality and the Framing of Decisions in International Relations: Towards a Dynamic Network Model of World Politics

This article reflects the feedback of empirical research on theorizing about international relations. The empirical results obtained by both Faber (1987a) and Houweling & Siccama (1988) can be explained by the theory of risky prospects developed by Tversky & Kahneman (1981). As this theory is easily integrated into Simon's concept of bounded rationality in human decision-taking, a theoretical framework for the explanation of international relations based on the resulting theoretical notions concerning human decision-taking is developed. Accordingly, decision-taking by governments concerning international relations is conceived to be steered by their bounded rationality with respect to their behavioural options and interaction opportunities and the goal of minimizing losses in their relative power positions with respect to foreign as well as domestic contenders. Because military power capabilities are not equally distributed across the member-states of the international system, the relative power positions of nations result in group-formation among them due to either actual domination or fear of domination. The dynamics of group-interactions is argued to give rise to global stability in international relations. When the power position of a nation deteriorates and the dynamics of group-interactions is absent the probability of an outbreak of war rises sharply.