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Quantitative Methods in Foreign Policy Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Gilbert R. Winham
Gilbert R. Winham
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 187 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1969

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References

1 This point has been made by numerous writers. For example, see Almond, Gabriel, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York, 1950), esp. 80–4Google Scholar; and Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., “Constituency Influence in Congress,” American Political Science Review, 57 (1963), 45–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, papers by McClosky, Herbert, Galtung, Johan, and others in Rosenau, James N., ed., Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

3 Deutsch, Karl W., Edinger, Lewis J., Macridis, Roy C., and Merritt, Richard L., France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

4 Packenham, Robert A., “Foreign Aid and the National Interest,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 10 (1966), 214–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Howard H. Lentner, “The Concept of Crisis as Viewed by the United States Department of State” in Charles Hermann, Contemporary Research in International Crises (forthcoming).

6 Brams, Steven J., “Transactions Flows in the International System,” American Political Science Review, 60 (1966), 880–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Haas, Michael, “International Subsystems: Stability and Polarity,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, Sept. 1968.Google Scholar

7 For example, Singer, J. David and Small, Melvin, “Formal Alliances, 1815–1939: A Quantitative Description,” Journal of Peace Research, 3 (1966), 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Richardson, Lewis F., Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Chicago, 1960); andGoogle ScholarWright, Quincy, A Study of War, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1942).Google Scholar

9 See Rummel, Rudolph, “The Relationship between National Attributes and Foreign Conflict Behavior” in Singer, J. David, ed., Quantitative International Politics (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

10 For a discussion of this point see Mitchell, William C., “Data Requirements for Testing Systems Theories: Problems in the Measurement of Output and Allocations,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, Sept. 1966.Google Scholar

11 Sharkansky, Ira, “Governmental Expenditure and Public Services in the American States,” American Political Science Review, 61 (1967), 1066–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Robert L. Lineberry and Edmund P. Fowler, “Reformism and Public Policies in American Cities,” Ibid., 701–16.

13 For example, see Russett, Bruce M., with Alker, Hayward R., Deutsch, Karl W., and Lasswell, Harold, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven, 1964).Google Scholar

14 Brody, Richard A., “Some Systematic Effects of the Spread of Nuclear Weapons Technology: A Study through Simulation of a Multi-Nuclear Future,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 7 (1963), 663–753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Scott, Andrew M., with Lucas, William A. and Lucas, Trudi M., Simulation and National Development (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

16 For example see Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York, 1957)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 5; and Guetzkow, Harold, “Isolation and Collaboration: A Partial Theory of Inter-Nation Relations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (1957), 48–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Riker, William H., “Bargaining in a Three-Person Game,” American Political Science Review, 61 (1967), 642–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Zinnes, Dina A., North, Robert A., and Koch, Howard E. Jr., “Capability, Threat, and the Outbreak of War” in Rosenau, James N., ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York, 1961), 469–82Google Scholar; and Holsti, Ole R., Brody, Richard A., and North, Robert A., “Measuring Affect and Action in International Reaction Models,” Journal of Peace Research (1964), 170–90.Google Scholar

19 See respectively Boulding, Kenneth E., “National Images and International Systems,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3 (1959), 120–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harold and Margaret Sprout, “Environmental Factors in the Study of International Politics,” ibid., 1 (1957), 309–28; and Snyder, Richard C., Brack, H. W., and Sapin, Burton, Decision-Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (Princeton, 1954).Google Scholar

20 For a similar assessment, and an excellent discussion of content analysis and simulation in international relations research, see Singer, J. David, “Data-Making in International Relations,” Behavioral Science, 10 (1965), 68–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

21 Some of this work was collected and published in Lasswell, Harold D., Leites, Nathan, et al., eds. Language of Politics (New York, 1949).Google Scholar

22 For a general introduction to Series C (Symbols) of the Hoover Institute Studies, see Lasswell, Harold D., Lerner, Daniel, and de Sola Pool, Ithiel, The Comparative Study of Symbols: An Introduction (Stanford, 1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Prothro, James W., “Verbal Shifts in the American Presidency: A Content Analysis,” American Political Science Review, 50 (1956), 726–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 The main statements presented at this conference have been published in de Sola Pool, Ithiel, ed., Trends in Content Analysis (Urbana, 1959).Google Scholar

25 A concise description of contingency analysis, including two empirical examples of its use, is contained in Charles E. Osgood, “The Representational Model and Relevant, Research Methods,” in Ibid., 33–88, esp. 54–78.

26 This work was later published in an article form. See Osgood, Charles E., Saporta, S., and Nunnally, J. C., “Evaluative Assertion Analysis,” Litera, 3 (1956), 47–102.Google Scholar

27 North, Robert C.et al.. Content Analysis: A Handbook with Applications for the Study of International Politics (Evanston, 1963), esp. chap. 4 and 5.Google Scholar

28 See Stone, Philip J.et al., The General Inquirer: A Computer Approach to Content Analysis (Cambridge, Mass., 1966).Google Scholar See also Holsti, Ole R., “A Computer Content Analysis Program for Analyzing Attitudes: The Measurement of Qualities and Performance,” paper delivered at the National Conference on Content Analysis, Philadelphia, Nov. 1967.Google Scholar

29 See Schubert, Glendon, “Jackson's Judicial Philosophy: An Exploration in Value Analysis,” American Political Science Review, 59 (1965), 940–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 For examples of research produced by this group see n. 18.

31 For example, the Stanford group introduced comparisons between content analysis data and other data, which served to validate conclusions drawn from the content analyses. See Holsti, Ole R. and North, Robert C., “Comparative Data from Content Analysis: Perceptions of Hostility and Economic Variables in the 1914 Crisis” in Merritt, Richard L. and Rokkan, Stein, eds., Comparing Nations: The Use of Quantitative Data in Cross-National Research (New Haven, 1966)Google Scholar; and Zinnes, Dina A., “A Comparison of Hostile Behavior of Decision-Makers in Simulate and Historical Data,” World Politics, 18 (1966), 474–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Holsti, Ole R., “The 1914 Case,” American Political Science Review, 59 (1965), 365–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Winham, Giibert R., “An Analysis of Foreign Aid Decision-Making: The Case of the Marshall Plan,” PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1967.Google Scholar

34 As an example of theme construction, the following definition was given for coding the “self-help” theme: Any statement by a US decision-maker which perceives that the European people, or any nations in Europe, are able and/or willing to help themselves achieve economic prosperity; or are, or have been, economically industrious; or will use aid wisely.

35 The amount of communications data that can be analysed imposes a practical restriction on the researcher. This problem can be treated as part of the process of selecting decision-makers, or can be handled separately through sampling procedures.

36 Some knowledge exists about the relative importance of formal positions; e.g., the greater importance of Administrative versus Congressional decision-makers in US foreign policy. See Robinson, James A., Congress and Foreign Policy-Making: A Study in Legislative Influence and Initiative (Homewood, 1962).Google Scholar

37 Likely the problem of equal and unequal weightings is of little importance when decision-makers are communicating generally the same thing, which is true most of the time in communications about foreign policy. Equal weightings are less defensible when there is strong disagreement among policy-makers, but in this case communications are usually limited which in itself restricts the usefulness of a quantitative content analysis.

38 See Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

39 For an example of a content analysis on Soviet documents, see Yakobsen, Sergius and Lasswell, Harold D., “Trend: May Day Slogans in Soviet Russia, 1918–1943” in Lasswell, Leites et ah, Language of Politics, 233–97.Google Scholar See also Lodge, Milton, “Soviet Elite Participatory Attitudes in the Post-Stalin Period,” paper delivered at the 1967 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference of Political Scientists, Lafayette, April 1967.Google Scholar

40 The “Q-Sort,” evaluative assertion analysis and other procedures for measuring intensity do not require the assumption that frequency connotes importance, but are concerned rather with the affective content of words in communication.

41 The extent to which this assumption is realistic depends on the type of study, objectives, and hypotheses dealt with. As an example of data that would support the frequency assumption, one notes in the case of the Marshall Plan the number of times factual statements about the desperate situation in postwar Europe were repeated before audiences that, had full knowledge of the situation. A case in point is Secretary of State George C. Marshall's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in November 1947, in which he repeatedly mentioned Europe's economic plight to a group which included several members who had just returned from a fact-finding tour of Europe. That the economic plight of Europeans was objectively an important question cannot be doubted; and that repeated statements of economic plight connote degree of importance in the mind of the communicator appears to be a reasonable assumption.

42 This criticism has been made of the First World War studies in Mueller, John E., “The Use of Content Analysis in International Relations,” paper delivered at the National Conference on Content Analysis, Philadelphia, Nov. 1967.Google Scholar