The Peacock’s Tale: Lessons from Evolution for Effective Signaling in International Politics

Blumstein, Daniel T.; Atran, Scott; Field, Samuel; Hochberg, Michael; Johnson, Dominic; Sagarin, Raphael D.; Sosis, Richard; Thayer, Bradley A.; Fearon, James D.; Morin, Olivier; Sear, Rebecca; Geller, Armando

doi:10.21237/c7clio3112929

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…China does not have an open civil society nor does it comply with a rules-based international order. This resonates with Carl Thayer's observation that "China's internal politics remain opaque and unpredictable" in handling maritime disputes (Blumstein et al, 2012). Additionally, scholars such as Ely Ratner have critiqued China's selective adherence to international law (Ratner, 2013), others like Wang Jisi argue for a nuanced understanding of China's unique approach to international norms (Wang, 2014).…”

Section: Lessons For the Troubled Waters: Asean Countries And Chinamentioning

confidence: 91%

What ASEAN Must Learn from Timor-Leste: A Tripartite Analysis on Australian Foreign Policy Related to Timor Sea Treaty 2018

Kusumawardhana,

Saptarani Dewi

2024

J. ASEAN Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Timor Gap had been a hotspot of territorial dispute between Australia and Timor-Leste. In 2018, Australia finally agreed to settle a permanent maritime boundary in favour of Timor-Leste. Why was Australia willing to sacrifice the border and give a favourable outcome to Timor-Leste? The research examined the importance of the tripartite approach to Foreign Policy analysis to understand why a country may choose seemingly unfavourable options in territorial disputes. The analysis showed how Australian foreign policy was influenced by agency-structure interactions within the international system. The research demonstrated that structural constraints at the international level influenced Australia’s decision, including the South China Sea dispute between ASEAN members and China, previous agreements Australia-Timor-Leste on the management of the Timor Gap, and domestic political dynamics in Australia. The research reveals a relationship between actors’ structural and dispositional dimensions in foreign policy. In the case of Australia, there is a strong link between democratic values and respect for the international rules-based order. Altogether, this situation prompted Australia to continue negotiations with Timor-Leste over the Timor Gap and ultimately to accept an agreement for maritime delimitation in Timor-Leste’s favor.

show abstract

Section: Lessons For the Troubled Waters: Asean Countries And Chinamentioning

confidence: 91%

What ASEAN Must Learn from Timor-Leste: A Tripartite Analysis on Australian Foreign Policy Related to Timor Sea Treaty 2018

Kusumawardhana,

Saptarani Dewi

2024

J. ASEAN Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Evolutionary theory offers well-established theoretical and empirical tools for analyzing the process of adaptation, and these can be applied to any system of interacting entities, whether animals, humans, or organizations. I and colleagues have laid out the arguments for this overall approach in recent publications (see Johnson 2012 in the Appendix for a recent overview). 1 The second, more specific idea within this overall evolutionary framework is to use ecological population models to study how insurgencies and terrorist groups grow, change and decline over time.…”

Section: Background To the Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary Models of Irregular Warfare

Johnson¹

2013

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The objective of this research project was to conduct a preliminary study exploring the utility of evolutionary models of irregular warfare (e.g. in Iraq and Afghanistan). The approach was to apply analytical tools developed in evolutionary biology to understand how insurgent and terrorist populations change and adapt over time. These tools have not been used before for this purpose. However, evolutionary models offer promising insights for irregular warfare because they focus explicitly on key processes that are essential to understand and predict how interacting populations in competition with each other grow, survive, adapt, and ultimately die out. A key output of the study has been to help establish the Natural Security Project, a collaboration among marine biologist Rafe Sagarin, former UN weapons inspector Terry Taylor, and the PI Prof Dominic Johnson. The project seeks to explore if and how we can derive insights from nature to help tackle problems of international security in the 21st century. So far, we have focused on the pressing problems of operational adaptation. However, our current and future work extends evolutionary principles to the level of grand strategy and international politics. This has given rise to some unexpected results: for example, work from our group explored evolutionary lessons for when and how we should transmit signals to other actors, and the conditions under which actors that overestimate their capabilities may out-compete unbiased ones.

show abstract

“…One can therefore rethink international relations theory as an evolutionary arena in which state power, strategy and ideology are not just consequences of social, economic or political factors, but also the result of a process of evolutionary selection over long time periods. This may give rise to some unexpected results: for example, work from our group explored evolutionary lessons for when and how we should transmit signals to other actors (Blumstein et al, 2012), and the conditions under which actors that overestimate their capabilities may outcompete unbiased ones (Johnson & Fowler, 2011).…”

Section: From Insurgency To International Relations Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%