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Deterrence and Coercive Diplomacy: The Contributions of Alexander George
Author(s) -
Levy Jack S.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
political psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.419
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-9221
pISSN - 0162-895X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2008.00648.x
Subject(s) - diplomacy , adversary , deterrence theory , context (archaeology) , process tracing , george (robot) , politics , political psychology , sociology , political science , law and economics , deterrence (psychology) , positive economics , epistemology , computer science , computer security , economics , law , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , biology
Alexander George was a towering figure who made path breaking and enduring contributions to political psychology, international relations, and social science methodology. I focus on George's closely related research programs on deterrence and coercive diplomacy, with special attention to the importance of the asymmetry of motivation, strategies for “designing around” a deterrent threat, the controllability of risks, images of the adversary, signaling, the sequential failure of deterrence, the role of positive inducements along with coercive threats, and the need for actor‐specific models of the adversary. In the process, I highlight other elements of George's theoretically and methodologically integrated research program: his conceptions of the proper role of theory; his emphasis on the infeasibility of a universal theory and the need for conditional generalizations that are historically grounded, sensitive to context, bounded by scope conditions, and useful for policy makers; and the indispensability of process tracing in theoretically driven case studies.