前景理论与外交决策

前景理论是关于决策选择的重要理论,挑战了传统的理性选择理论。与主流的预期效用理论不同的是,前景理论主要是从价值的变化量,也就是获益和损失的角度来研究决策者的风险趋向。从20世纪90年代初开始,这一理论就开始在国际关系研究中产生了相当的影响力。本文首先介绍前景理论的发展由来,以及它的分析框架。随后讨论前景理论给外交决策研究提供的进步认识,以及存在的问题。最后,作者做出简短评论。

Prospect Theory and Foreign Policy Decision-making

Prospect theory is one of the choice theories as a framework for analyzing decision-making under uncertainty. It is considered to be an alternative to conventional expected-utility theory. It postulates that people generally tend to be risk-averse in the domain of gains and risk-acceptant in the domain of losses. Since early 1990s', prospect theory has gained increasing influence in international relations studies. The author will first introduce its development and framework, and then discuss its advantages and disadvantages for applying to studies of foreign policy decision-making. It concludes with the authors' brief comments.