MODELOS DE REDES

Michael Brecher

Source: Journal of Confl ict Resolution, 23(3) (1979): 446–480.

Defi nitions

W

hat distinguishes a crisis from a noncrisis in international politics?

Viewed from the perspective of a state, a crisis is a situation with three necessary and suffi cient conditions, deriving from a change in its external or internal environment. All three are perceptions held by the highest-level decision makers:

(a) a threat to basic values, with a simultaneous or subsequent

(b) high probability of involvement in military hostilities, and the awareness of (c) fi nite time for response to the external value threat.¹

This defi nition of crisis concentrates on the perceptions and behavior of a single state. At the same time, inputs from other states and the international system as a whole infl uence the behavior of the crisis actor by shaping its defi nition of the situation and its response. In other words, crisis decisions are made in light of expectations about the behavior of other international actors. Moreover, a situational change, the precondition of crisis, also may be a destabilizing event in the international system. As such, a microanalysis of crisis incorporates some of the dimensions which are considered in a system-level analysis of crisis.² Nevertheless, the state remains the central object of investigation – how its decision makers perceive environmental change and how they choose, in the context of escalating or deescalating perceptions of threat, time pressure, and probability of war.

This defi nition builds on but differs signifi cantly from the widely accepted Hermann view of international crisis for a state (1969a: 414):

A crisis is a situation that (1) threatens high-priority goals of the decision-making unit, (2) restricts the amount of time available for response before the decision is transformed, and (3) surprises the members of the decision-making unit by its occurrence. . . . Underlying the proposed defi nition is the hypothesis that if all three traits are present then the decision pro-cess will be substantially different than if only one or two of the char-acteristics appear.³

The defi nition of crisis offered here differs on fi ve essential points: (1) the omis-sion of “surprise” as a necessary condition; (2) the replacement of “short” time by

“fi nite” time for response; (3) the recognition that the situational change which induces a crisis may originate in the internal as well as the external environment

brecher „ state behavior in international crisis 83

of the crisis actor; (4) “basic values,” rather than “high priority goals,” as the object of perceived threat; and (5) the addition of perceived “high probability of involvement in military hostilities.” These changes will now be elaborated.

(1) High threat, probability of war, and fi nite time situations in the perceptions of decision makers are not unanticipated. Two illustrations will suffi ce. The situ-ational change created by the Soviet Union in Berlin in 1961 and that brought on by Egypt’s closing of the Straits of Tiran in May 1967 did not come as a surprise to American and Israeli decision makers, respectively. But the perceived threat catalyzed stress in both cases, leading to changes in their decision-making process and behavioral response.

Hermann and others were to become skeptical about the surprise compon-ent. His early simulation analysis led to a fi nding (1969a: 69) of “no signifi cant relationship between either the time and awareness [surprise] dimensions or the threat and awareness dimensions; however, a signifi cant correlation did occur between decision time and threat.” This he reaffi rmed in a later paper (1972: 208):

“Consistent with this . . . is a review of the crisis literature that found the prop-erty of surprise mentioned less frequently than the other two traits.” The lower frequency of surprise and doubt about the adequacy of the overall Hermann defi nition of crisis are also evident in the fi ndings of Brady (1974: 58): “In sum, . . . the absence of second-order interaction effects leads us to qualify our judg-ment concerning the typology’s utility.” And Hermann acknowledged (1977) that, after extensive research, he concurred with the view that surprise was not a necessary – or universally present – condition of crisis. However, when it occurs, it may increase the impact of time pressure.

(2) The lack of universality of the short time condition, too, is demonstrated by the 1961 Berlin and 1967 Middle East cases. The former lasted three months, the latter three weeks, with Israel’s decision makers willing to delay a military response for another week or two. It was not the perceived brevity of time that infl uenced decision-making behavior in those crises, but the awareness of the fi niteness of time for choice. A response could not be delayed indefi nitely; that is, whether a week, a month, or many months, there was a realization that decisions for or against war had to be made within some time frame, however imprecise the deadline.

(3) For many Third World states the situational change which triggers an international crisis has often occurred within the domestic environment, usually through physical challenges to the régime by strikes, demonstrations, riots, as-sassination, sabotage, and/or attempted coups d’état. Most new states are deeply penetrated political systems; and domestic situational changes, some of which derive from foreign sources, may give rise to an image of external threat. The as-sault on Chile’s Allende régime in 1973 is a dramatic illustration of a widespread phenomenon in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

(4) “High-priority goals” as the focus of threat has been broadened to “basic values.” These include “core” values, which are near constant and few in number, such as survival of the society and its population, political sovereignty, and ter-ritorial independence. A second value dimension is context-specifi c “high-priority”

values; these derive from ideological and/or material interests as defi ned by decision makers at the time of a particular crisis. “Core” values, by contrast, are shared by changing régimes and decision making groups, as well as the attentive and mass publics, of the state under inquiry. A crisis may be said to exist when

the threatened values are not only “high priority” for the incumbent élite, but also include one or more “core” values.⁴

(5) The most important change is the addition of “perceived high probability of war” as a necessary condition of crisis. In both cases cited above, decision makers of the United States (1961) and Israel (1967) thought it very likely that they would be involved in “military hostilities” before the threat to values was resolved.⁵ Theoretically, perceived probability of war can range from .001 to .999.

Operationally, “high probability” may be designated as .50 to .99 – that is, at least a 50/50 possibility. However, a marked change in the probability of war (for example, from .1 to .3) may be just as salient to decision makers as a move into the high-probability range, especially in cases where protracted confl ict predisposes them to expect crisis. What is crucial to the existence of an international crisis is a high – or substantial change in – perceived war likelihood. Threat and time pressure may coexist without a situational change being defi ned or responded to as an external crisis. Moreover, probability of war necessarily implies a perceived threat to values – but the reverse does not obtain. Thus, probability of war is the indispensable condition of crisis, with threat and time closely related, as will be specifi ed below in the model of behavior in international crisis.⁶

The centrality of “perceived high probability of war” is also contained in the Snyder-Diesing defi ntion of crisis (1977: 6, 7):

An international crisis is a sequence of interactions between the govern-ments of two or more sovereign states in severe confl ict, short of actual war, but involving the perception of a dangerously high probability of war.

The centerpiece of [the] defi nition is “the perception of a dangerously high probability of war” by the governments involved. Just how high the per-ceived probability must be to qualify as a crisis is impossible to specify. But ordinary usage of the term crisis implies that whatever is occurring might result in the outbreak of war. The perceived probability must at least be high enough to evoke feelings of fear and tension to an uncomfortable degree.

While a perceived high probability of war is common to these two defi nitions of crisis, there are important differences. For Snyder-Diesing crisis is an interaction process; we focus on the perceptions and behavior of one state, an action process.

Second, they ignore the time component, both its duration and intensity, though we share the view that crises need not be short – some last many months, even a year or more. And third, for them “the term probability of war excludes war itself from the concept ‘crisis’” whereas the International Crisis Behaviour (ICB) Project develops the concept of intrawar crisis.⁷

Preliminary research has shown that there are developments during a war which logically fall into the category of triggers to an international crisis for a warring state. An intrawar crisis (IWC) manifests conditions (a) and (c) of the defi nition specifi ed earlier – a threat to basic values and an awareness of fi nite time for response, generated by an environmental change. By its very nature an IWC excludes the condition “perceived high probability of war.” The replacement indicator is a perceived deterioration in a state’s and/or ally’s military capability vis-à-vis the enemy – that is, an adverse change in the military balance. Six kinds of situational change have thus far been uncovered as triggers to actor-crises during a war: (1) the entry of a new major actor into an ongoing war; (2) the exit

brecher „ state behavior in international crisis 85

of a major actor from a war; (3) technological escalation during a war; (4) a major escalation, other than the introduction of qualitatively advanced technology;

(5) defeat in battle which decision makers perceive as signifi cant; and (6) a perceived high probability that a major actor will enter a war.⁸

Model

A model of state behavior in international crisis has been constructed within a general foreign policy framework specifi ed elsewhere (Brecher et al., 1969;

Brecher, 1972: ch. 1). The approach, designated as “structured empiricism,”

is based on three assumptions: (1) every international crisis for a state can be dissected systematically through time in terms of a foreign policy system; (2) there are universal categories to classify relevant data; and (3) comparable fi ndings can be used to assess the utility of a model, as well as to generate and test hypotheses about the crisis behavior of different types of states. The independent variable is perception of crisis as derived from decision markers’ images of stimuli from the environment. In operational terms, there are three independent – but closely related – perceptual variables: threat; time pressure; and high probability of war.

The intervening variable is coping, as manifested in four processes and mechanisms:

information search and absorption; consultation; decisional forums; and the consideration of alternatives. The dependent variable is choice (decision).

The model (Figure 1) postulates a time sequence and causal links among its variables.⁹ The trigger event, act, or environmental change occur at time t₁. These are the sine qua non for an international crisis viewed from the perspective of a state; that is, they necessarily precede and stimulate changes in decision makers’ perceptions of threat (and, later, of time pressure and high war likelihood as well). Perceptions of crisis, the composite independent variable, are generated and are often expressed at time t₂. They are the cognitive reaction to the en-vironmental stimulus and they induce a feeling of stress. Decision makers respond to threatening developments by adopting one or more coping strategies.¹⁰ Whichever is selected, coping occurs within the broad time frame, t₃. Changes in perceptions of crisis affect not only coping mechanisms and processes; they also in-fl uence the content of decisions. In terms of the model, perceptions of crisis-induced stress (the independent variable) at t₂ are mediated through coping (the intervening variable) at t₃ and shape decisions (the dependent variable) at t₄. The direct link to choice is from the decisional forum, which selects one option after an evaluation of alternatives in accordance with a set of decision rules.

The variables of the crisis behavior model and their interrelations may now be elaborated. According to Lazarus (1968: 340), “threat refers to the anticipation of harm of some kind, an anticipation that is created by the presence of certain stimulus cues signifying to the individual [or group] that there is to be an experi-ence of harm.” Threat perception incorporates the dimensions of activity (active-passive), potency (strong-weak), and affect (central-peripheral).

The notion of time pressure is closely related to uncertainty. Decision makers may be uncertain, for example, about their adversaries or the scope of information to be absorbed. Time pressure refers to the gap between available time and the deadline for choice. “Crisis time” cannot be equated with “clock time”: it depends on available time in relation to time pressure for decision. Thus, if a problem can

be resolved in 24 hours, and 48 hours are available, time will be less salient for behavior. Conversely, time will be more salient if a decision cannot be reached for 96 hours in a 48-hour-clock time situation (Robinson, 1972: 24–25). When decision makers are uncertain, the pressure of time is likely to be greater.

The probability of war (or military hostilities), too, is related to uncertainty.

If war is perceived to be certain or as certain not to occur, the situational change which generates that image is the source of something other than a crisis: there must be some uncertainty about war involvement. A sharp change in perceived probability of war may, as noted, be just as salient as high probability. Moreover, the saliency of changes in probability may also be a function of whether decision makers are confronted with nuclear as opposed to conventional war. It is un-certainty about war, value threat, and time pressure that makes a situation a crisis and leads to “crisis-type” decision-making.

The three independent variables are logically separate: threat refers to value, time to temporal constraint, and war to means of goal attainment. One would expect, however, to fi nd interrelations among the three components of crisis. It may be argued that the more active and stronger the threat and the more central the value(s), threatened, the higher will be the perceived probability that military hostilities will ensue. That, in turn, would lead to a more intense perception of crisis. Similarly, the more active, the stronger, and the more central (basic) the Figure 1:

t₁

t₂

t₃

t₄

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

THREAT TIME

WAR PROBABILITY

C O P I N G

CHOICE

FEEDBACK

INFORMATION

ALTERNATIVES

DECISIONAL FORUMS CONSULTATION

S TR E S S

brecher „ state behavior in international crisis 87

threatened value(s), the more limited will be the perceived time for response.

Moreover, the greater the time pressure, the higher will be the perceived probability of war and the more intense the perception of threat. The reverse rela-tionship also obtains: the higher the perceived probability of war, the more central, active, and strong will be the perceived value threat, and the more limited will be the time perceived to be available for response to that threat. In short, it is postulated that the three crisis components operate in mutually inter-acting relationships.

Two of these linkages, between threat and environmental stimulus, and threat and time, were lucidly summarized as follows (Lazarus, 1968: 340, 343):

The immediate stimulus confi guration resulting in threat merely heralds the coming of harm. Threat is thus a purely psychological concept, an inter-pretation of the situation by the individual. . . . Another, less emphasized factor in the stimulus confi guration is the imminence of the confrontation with harm. Threat is more intense when harm is more imminent.

The composite independent variable, as noted, creates stress among decision makers.¹¹ According to Janis and Mann (1977: 50):

Psychological stress is used as a generic term to designate unpleasant emo-tional states evoked by threatening environmental events or stimuli. A

“stressful” event is any change in the environment that typically induces a high degree of unpleasant emotion (such as anxiety, guilt, or shame) and affects normal patterns of information-processing.¹²

Holsti and George remarked (1975: 257):

Psychological stress requires an interpretation by the subject of the sig-nifi cance of the stimulus situation. Psychological stress occurs either when the subject experiences damage to his values or anticipates that the stimu-lus situation may lead to it. “Threat,” therefore, is not simply an attribute of the stimulus; it depends on the subject’s appraisal of the implications of the situation.¹³

The fi rst reactive (coping) step by decision makers is to seek information about the threatening event(s) or act(s): threat-induced stress generates a felt need for information and a consequent quest. The probe may be through ordinary or special channels. It will be marginal, modest, or thorough depending on the level of stress. The information may be received with an open mind or through a lens biased by ideology, memories of past experience or other such factors; and it will be processed by n persons in small, medium, or large groups. The kind of receptivity and size of the absorbing group, too, will vary with the level of stress.

As indicated in Figure 1, changes in crisis-induced stress at t₂ cause changes in information processing at t₃; the precise effects on the extent of the probe, the type of receptivity, and the size of the absorbing group will vary among states, depending on diverse attributes.

The initial acquisition of information leads to a process of consultation.

This involves peer members of the high-policy elite, bureaucratic and military

subordinates, and, possibly, others such as persons from competing elites and interest groups. Consultation may be frequent or infrequent, ad hoc or insti-tutional in form, within a large or small circle, comprising one or more groups and n persons. Coping involves, too, the activation of a decisional forum which varies in size and structure. As with the several aspects of information-processing, changes in the intensity of crisis-induced stress will have effects on the pattern of consultation and the size, type, and authority pattern of the decisional unit.

Case studies will illuminate the variation by international crisis actor. Moreover, as specifi ed in the model, consultation will occur before and/or simultaneous with the creation of the decisional unit to consider alternatives and make a choice.

Search and evaluation have been defi ned as follows (Holsti and George, 1975:

271, n. 10):

Search refers to the process of obtaining and sharing relevant information, and of identifying and inventing alternative options; [and] analysis (or evaluation) refers to the processes of examining and evaluating the relative appropriateness of alternative options with reference to stated or alternative objectives and values.¹⁴

The search for and evaluation of options will depend on the intensity of crisis-induced stress, especially the amount of time perceived by decision makers as available before a response must be made. Once again, the model specifi es a causal link between perceptions of crisis at t₂ and the processing of alternatives at t₃. Just as changes in crisis-induced stress will affect one or all aspects of coping in various ways, so too, the model posits, different patterns of choice will be associated with different levels of stress and will vary among states.

Figure 1 specifi es a model of state behavior in the crisis as a whole. However, several (perhaps many) choices will be made during a crisis. Moreover, stress

Figure 1 specifi es a model of state behavior in the crisis as a whole. However, several (perhaps many) choices will be made during a crisis. Moreover, stress

In document Modelo para optimizar la recolección de tarimas en una empresa arrendadora: caso de estudio (página 41-44)