“Pearl Harbor in Reverse” Moral Analogies in the Cuban Missile Crisis

Tierney, Dominic

doi:10.1162/jcws.2007.9.3.49

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Historical analogies are especially powerful in evoking morality when they involve black-and-white types of past events (e.g. the Holocaust or colonization; Tierney, 2007). Such morality appraisals are in turn related to specific emotions, such as (collective) shame and guilt, which can be effortlessly channeled through an analogy with the ingroup’s past wrongdoings.…”

Section: Four Categories Of Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking forward to the past: An interdisciplinary discussion on the use of historical analogies and their effects

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

"This is Munich all over again!": Such comparisons between a present situation and a past one (i.e. a historical analogy) are common in public and political discourses. Historical analogies were used for centuries but have received increased interest in the last 50 years from scholars in political science, history, and psychology. Despite existing interdisciplinary exchanges, it remains difficult to identify the variables involved in the

show abstract

Section: Four Categories Of Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking forward to the past: An interdisciplinary discussion on the use of historical analogies and their effects

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A rational branch of FPA perceives analogies as "cognitive tools" that may be "employed to make sense of a complex reality" (Houghton, 2001: 22). In major crises, such as the Cuban missile crisis (Tierney, 2007), the Vietnam War (Khong, 1992), the Iran hostage crisis (Houghton, 2001), and the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Mumford, 2015), key decision-makers such as US presidents have drawn on analogies with historical situations. In such unique foreign policy situations, decisionmakers suffer from bounded rationality, while "lessons from history" provide a cognitive shortcut to grasp a complex current crisis (Hemmer, 2000: 3-12).…”

Section: The Demand For Analogy-based Collective Decision-making In Iosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analogy-based collective decision-making and incremental change in international organizations

Dörfler

Gehring

2021

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine how analogy-based collective decision-making of member states contributes to the endogenous emergence of informal rules and the incremental change of international organizations (IOs). Decision-making by analogy is an important characteristic of day-to-day decision-making in IOs. Relating current decisions to previous ones through analogies drives incremental change and simultaneously reinforces organizational resilience. Whereas the foreign policy analysis literature shows that analogies can be used as cognitive shortcuts in fuzzy and complex foreign policy situations, we focus on their use to overcome social ambiguity (indeterminacy) of coordination situations in IOs. Drawing on psychological conceptions, we develop two micro-level mechanisms that elucidate the effects of analogy-based collective decision-making in member-driven IOs. Analogy-based collective decisions emphasizing similarity between a current situation and previous ones follow an established problem schema and produce expansive and increasingly well-established informal rules. Collective decisions that are analogy-based but emphasize a crucial difference follow different problem schemas and trigger the emergence of additional informal rules that apply to new classes of cases. The result is an increasingly fine-grained web of distinct organizational solutions for a growing number of problems. Accordingly, an IO can increasingly facilitate collective decision-making and gains resilience. Empirically, we probe these propositions with a documentary analysis of decision-making in the Yugoslavia sanctions committee, established by the United Nations Security Council to deal with a stream of requests for exempting certain goods or services from the comprehensive economic embargo imposed on Yugoslavia in response to the War in the Balkans.

show abstract

“…Jens Meierhenrich (2006, p. 3) has argued that analogical reasoning can be utilised to serve two functions, one based on reason that fulfils a decision-making purpose in the policy realm, and one based on rhetoric that fulfils a justificatory or explanatory purpose in the discursive realm. Dominic Tierney (2007) has differentiated between two other functions of analogical reasoning, namely strategic analogies that mould policy responses, and moral analogies that dwell upon the ethics of potential decisions. The selection of appropriate analogy is important for policymakers in all of the above respects.…”

Section: Today Is Yesterday Tomorrow: the Relationship Between Histormentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallels, prescience and the past: Analogical reasoning and contemporary international politics

Mumford

2014

Int Polit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Analogical reasoning has held a perpetual appeal to policymakers who have often drafted in historical metaphor as a mode of informing decision making. However, this article contends that since the beginning of the 'War on Terror', we have arguably seen the rise of a more potent form of analogy, namely ones that are selected because they fulfil an ideological function. Analogical reasoning as a tool of rational decision making has increasingly become replaced by analogical reasoning as a tool of trenchant ideologically informed policy justification. This article addresses three key areas that map out the importance of analogical reasoning to an understanding of developments in contemporary international politics: the relationship between history and politics, in intellectual and policy terms; a critical assessment of the appeal that analogical reasoning holds for policymakers; and the development of a rationale for a more effective use of history in international public policy making.

show abstract

“Pearl Harbor in Reverse” Moral Analogies in the Cuban Missile Crisis

Cited by 14 publications

References 9 publications

Looking forward to the past: An interdisciplinary discussion on the use of historical analogies and their effects

Looking forward to the past: An interdisciplinary discussion on the use of historical analogies and their effects

Analogy-based collective decision-making and incremental change in international organizations

Parallels, prescience and the past: Analogical reasoning and contemporary international politics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About