Analogical reasoning and policymaking: Where and when is it used?

A steadily growing literature has emerged in recent years on the role of analogical reasoning in policymaking contexts. However, there has so far been little attempt to anwer the question of where and when analogical reasoning tends to be used. Using Yaacov Vertzberger's situational-motivational nexus framework as starting point, the article examines the decision of the Kennedy administration to wait it out during the substantial stock market crash of 1962. Little evidence is uncovered that the Kennedy and his advisers relied on analogical reasoning to reach this decision, a finding which is surprising given the number of situational and motivational inducements present in the case. The article concludes that a high degree of perceived risk and uncertainty – noticeably absent from the stock market case – is the key situational inducement to analogizing, but suggests that the case tells us something important about the prevalence of rule- as opposed to case-based reasoning.     

Book reviews

Caspian Gas. Ottar Skagen. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997, xii, 95 pp, £12.50

Ethnic Conflict in the Post‐Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis. Leokadia Drobizheva, Rose Gottemoeller, Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Lee Walker (editors). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xv, 366 pp, $59.95 hardback, $24.95 paperback

Contested Borders in the Caucasus. Bruno Coppieters (editor). Brussels: VUB University Press, 1996, 204 pp

The Republic of Armenia, From London to Sevres to London, February‐August 1920, Vol. III. Richard G. Hovannisian. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1996, xx + 534, preface, illus, notes, maps, glossary, biblio, index, hardcover, £35

The Republic of Armenia, Between Crescent and Sickle: Partition and Sovietization, Vol. IV. Richard G. Hovannisian Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1996, xii + 496, illus, notes, maps, glossary, biblio, index, hardcover, £35

Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, Second edition. Ludwig W. Adamec. Lanham, MD, USA and London, UK: The Scarecrow Press, 1997, 499 pp, chronology, bibliography, $58 hardcover

State and Tribe in Nineteenth‐Century Afghanistan. The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863), Christine Noelle, Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey, 1997, 439 pp

The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study, Sayed Askar Mousavi, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995, 270 pp. ISBN 0–7007–630–5

A History of Ottoman Architecture. Geoffrey Goodwin. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997, 511 pp, illus, plans, biblio, glossary, index, £27.50

Tribal Rugs. Treasures of the Black Tent. Brian W. MacDonald. >Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 302 pp, illus, index, £35

Jewish Carpets. A History and Guide. Anton Felton. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors Club, 1997, 199 pp, illus, biblio, index, £35

Cobalt and Lustre. The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, Emst Grube, London and Oxford: The Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1996, 348 pp, illus, biblio, index, £135

China. The Silk Routes. Peter Neville‐Hadley. London and Connecticut: Cadogan Books, UK, and The Globe Pequot Press, USA, 1997, 544 pp, maps, index, £15.99/$21.95, paperback     

Social indicators for health planning and policy analysis

The concept of health involves two dimensions: The level of function at a point in time and the probability of transition to other levels at future times. By applying measured social values to the distribution of the population among a set of levels, a Function Status Index aptly summarizes the Level-of-Well-Being of a population at a point in time. By incorporating empirically determined transition probabilities into a simple stochastic model, a Quality-Adjusted Life Expectancy can be computed that approximates a comprehensive social indicator for health. The indicators possess the statistical properties required for time series and interpopulation comparisons, for studying outcomes and quality of medical care, and for health system optimization in planning and policy analysis.     

Constraining war: Human security and the Human right to peace

Conclusion The explicit articulation of a cosmopolitan conception of human security and a corresponding right to peace is a positive development in global politics, inasmuch as it decenters the state in our understanding of the human community and delegitimizes organized violence as the generally accepted means for the “continuation” of realist politics. I have argued that just war theory, when defined in suitably narrow fashion, helps to contribute to our thinking on issues of human security in several ways. First, it provides a stringent normative framework for a reasonable humanitarian justification of the resort to force. Second, it enables us to conceptualize significant moral and legal constraints on war and thus on the powers of states to wage war, thereby displacing the use of force from the statist paradigm of security. Third, it contributes to the delegitimation of unjust wars, that is, military actions undertaken for any purposes other than human security. Fourth, insofar as it provides a justificatory basis for the increasing demilitarization of society, it may influence the progressive and just pacification of global politics. As long as the types of human wrongs that present the gravest threats to human security continue to haunt the global community, there remains a need to be able to respond effectively so as to protect the rights and well-being of individuals. This need poses a genuine dilemma for humanitarian morality and politics, insofar as many of the military capabilities required to defend and to aid vulnerable persons can also be the source of threats to human life and welfare. Yet the existence of this dilemma need not lead us either to apathy or to cynicism. The nexus of human security, the right to peace, and just war theory offers a resolution to the traditional security dilemma by challenging the realist rationale for aggressive militarism, and by supporting the emergence of global security structures and processes guided by the humanitarian norms of just peace. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A28BB021 00002     

Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signaling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic Capitalism

This paper develops a signaling model of corporate lobbying in democratic capitalist societies to analyze the conditions that lead to a powerful political position of business. Proceeding from the traditional dichotomy of structural economic determinants versus business' political action, our model predicts the conditions under which elected political decisionmakers modify their policy pledges to accommodate business' political preferences, or override business' lobbying messages and honor their pledges. Our results show that the structural power of business over public policy is contingent on two variables: the size of reputation costs of business in relation to its material costs of lobbying; and the ratio of the policymaker's reputation constraints from policy commitments and campaign pledges to the electoral costs arising from adverse effects of policy. We evaluate our model using case studies of business lobbying on environmental and financial services regulation in Britain and Germany.