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FORMAL THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS *
Author(s) -
HERNES HELGA
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1975.tb01247.x
Subject(s) - dilemma , exposition (narrative) , archetype , epistemology , argument (complex analysis) , state (computer science) , order (exchange) , politics , prisoner's dilemma , international relations , leviathan (cipher) , sociology , state of nature , law and economics , philosophy , law , political science , economics , computer science , art , biochemistry , chemistry , literature , theology , computer security , algorithm , finance
This article is an attempt to extract pervasive modes of thinking about nations and their foreign policies from three classical political theories and to examine to what extent it is possible to speak of “cognitive archetypes”. The study consists of two cases. The first is a treatment of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, in particular an analysis of the debate at Sparta as a rational choice model. The conclusion is that the assumptions underlying rational actor models and the argument as presented by Thucydides closely coincide. The second case is a comparison of the logical structure of the prisoner's dilemma and the state of nature as presented by Hobbes and Rousseau. It concludes that Rousseau presents a clearer exposition of the dilemma than Hobbes who by differentiating between the security of the individual in the state of nature and that of states in the international system finds the establishment of the Leviathan an adequate solution to the problem of order.