The question for this week seems to be "Is action driven by interests or ideas?" The difference being that interests are based upon preferences, calculating what is the best way to reach a goal and ideas are shared between people, part of the cultural environment. So interests are calculating, ideas are socialized.
I find this fascinating at both the individual and the international level. For instance, I could probably tell you with a high instance of success what my best friend's actions are driven by. If I tried to do the same thing with a random stranger, my success would be at best 50-50. A casual acquaintance may elicit a higher rate of success. What I'm saying is that individual actions can be determined to be driven by interests or ideas if you know the person really well. If you pay attention when they speak, if you know their history and values, you can generally figure out what drives their behavior. On the international level it's slightly different but given enough data, still plausible. Access to discussions in governing bodies, voting rates for passing bills and making policies would be a way to lay the groundwork for figuring out if a state was being driven by their interests or ideas. For example, if a state made a decision that potentially prevented them from making more money, but that protected their national identity or cultural values, one could say that action was being driven by ideas.
Another interesting question that was posed is "Could you determine what an actor believes?" Again, given enough data, one would be able to make an inference as to what beliefs an (international) actor holds. The issue I have with this is that it would be very difficult to say with 100% certainty that you've determined what a state believes, any more than you can be 100% certain what it is your best friend believes. However, using the media as an example, if you pay attention to what language is used in an article, what phrases are a bit incendiary as well as what the article states, you can generally figure out what the person writing the article wants you to believe - what side they want you to take. I see no reason why that would not also work in reviewing international policies. Therefore you can get a sense to what the state that approved the document believes.
I like the discussion on "Could you determine what an actor believes?" This is always an important question, and I think it requires a certain amount of cultural, historical, and linguistic knowledge when dealing with foreign actors.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think this is complicated by state propaganda? You alluded to this in your discussion of media articles, but what about when the state is providing the media?
Good question - when the state is providing the media, as in propaganda, then the state is furthering their intrests in their own country, right? And the ideas that the population have from the media (if they believe what they are told) then perpetuates the intrests of the leaders who are putting the media out there. In this case, it's a cylce of media (by the state) - person - ideas - state - media. At least, that's pretty much what I've come up with since reading your comment. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI like that way of looking at it. There is always the question of who actually holds the power in a state, but for these broad questions the self-licking icecream cone you brought up is a good way of looking at it. Falls right in line with the thought that ideas can be used as hooks.
ReplyDeleteExactly, hook the general population with the idea in order to further the interests of the state. I'm also going to have the image of a self-licking ice cream cone in my head all day... the curse of being a visual thinker! I did realize that I left interests out of that... so media - person - ideas - state - interests - media would be a more accurate representation of my model.
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