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Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict. By Susan Peterson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. 208p. $42.50.
Paul Diesing, State University of New York, Buffalo
This well-researched book calls attention to a somewhat neglected factor in international crisis bargaining: domestic politics. Of course, studies of crisis bargaining usually have included domestic politics but not as the main focus of attention. Here we have an organized, systematic treatment of the domestic politics factor, rather than the casual, incidental treatment that often appears in case studies.
Peterson begins with the normal tactic of pushing existing theories-"conventional wisdom"-to the fringes to make room for her theory. She uses the standard tactic of oversimplifying each theory, sometimes to the point of caricature. Whether game theory, cognitive psychology, motivational psychology, or bureaucratic politics, all are reduced to one or two "variables," which are expected to predict the outcome of any crisis. Not surprisingly, the theories all fall short; they are "unable to make determinate predictions" and so must be replaced by Peterson's theory. For example, cognitive psychology consists of the teaching that decision makers tend to interpret new information in terms of their existing beliefs about international politics and about specific actors, more or less. But that cannot explain a specific bargaining process (pp. 17-18)!
Fortunately, Peterson's theory is broader and richer than these outdated theories. She distinguishes four types of domestic political structures, each producing a different kind of bargaining behavior. She also brings cognitive and bureaucratic theory in as enriching variables (p. 93); domestic politics provides...