Suchergebnisse

This paper introduces the `noncompensatory principle' of coalition formation. This principle states that in a choice situation, a negative or low score on the political dimension cannot be compensated for with a positive score on other dimensions (see Mintz, 1993; Mintz and Geva, 1994a, b; Mintz et al., 1994). The link between the `noncompensatory principle' and the size of coalitions is then discussed. Based on the `noncompensatory' logic I propose that ceteris paribus, intra-party rivalry is likely to lead to the formation of coalitions larger than necessary to win, whereas inter-party conflict is more likely to lead to the formation of narrow coalitions. The Israeli examples of 1988 and 1990 demonstrate the applicability of this theme to real-world situations.

This article attempts to explain the decision to use force against Iraq using a noncompensatory theory of decision making. Rather than choosing an alternative that maximizes utility on the basis of a holistic comparison process as suggested by the expected utility model, or selecting an alternative that "satisfices" a certain criterion as predicted by the cybernetic model, the noncompensatory theory suggests that decisions on the use of force are often made based on the rejection of undesirable alternatives on the basis of one, or at most a few, criteria.

The poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making would benefit from being clearer in spelling out the conditions under which it holds more or less analytic promise. The article makes the case that the concept of issue salience can help the theory address its shortcomings in this respect. In particular, the explanatory power of poliheuristic theory's two-stage model largely depends on the noncompensatory principle of major domestic political loss avoidance on the first stage of the model to simplify the choice set to be considered on the second stage. This is more likely to happen, however, in the case of issues that are highly salient to a government's selectorate than in the case of issues that are of low salience in the domestic arena. The poliheuristic theory should thus be more powerful if it is applied to domestic high-salience rather than low-salience decisions. These theoretical contentions are illustrated in a case study on the decision making of the British Labour government under Tony Blair in the fields of European security and defense policy and the single European currency. Adapted from the source document.

Noncompensatory decision making forms a core part of poliheuristic theory. At the same time, decision making under constraints is a common view among expected utility theorists. It is argued that poliheuristic theory permits one to endogenize constraints. Views about the rules ofwar are used to contrast the exogenous versus endogenous perspectives, and the noncompensatory perspective is formalized in terms of a class of utility functions. Finally, these poliheuristic, noncompensatory utility functions are contrasted with those typically used in the literature on spatial modeling.