PSYCHOLOGICAL

APPROACHES TO
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
Prepare by :
Intan Nabila Putri Amelia
Vira Cornelia
 Table of Contents

Ontological Security
01. Introduction 03. in World Politics:
State Identity and the
Security Dilemma

The Behavioral
Revolution and
02. International 04. Conclusions
Relations
01
Introduction
 Introduction
Since 1919, the discipline of International Relations has been interested in global peace and
war processes. Its initial aim was to analyze the causes of World War I and to understand.
the factors that caused the event to occur, as well as to provide knowledge that can help
prevent similar events in the future. Since then, International Relations has advanced in his
studies of war and peace, international law and cooperation, broadening his perspective to
include other issues of global importance.
 Issues

1. International Crimes (crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide)

2. transnational crime (trafficking in people, weapons, drugs, and global terrorism)

3. environmental degradation and health problems

02
The Behavioral
Revolution and
International
Relations
 Rationalist Approach in International
Relations

There is no single canonical model of cooperation and conflict in international relations.

Nonetheless, all rationalist theories of international relations rest on important
assumptions about the environment and actors. Individuals are assumed to maximize
expected utility by determining the rewards attached to all possible outcomes, assessing
their probabilities, updating information about those probabilities, and selecting the
strategy with the highest expected return. The rationalist model, in turn, can be
decomposed into environments and actors, with two sets of variables in each category.
 Aggregation: The Behavioral Revolution and the
Study of Collective Decision Making

The behavioral approach has two analytical options. The first is to simply attribute
nonstandard preferences, beliefs, and decision-making directly to the state, as the
rationalist approach does. An alternative is to maintain a commitment to analysis at the
individual level, while discussing how findings at the individual level can be aggregated
to understand collective as well as individual decision making. No theoretical approach to
international relations is immune from the challenges of the aggregation process. If the
new behavioral revolution offers stronger insights into how individuals acquire and
process information, then similar tools can be applied to questions about groups.
 03
Ontological Security in
World Politics:
State Identity and the
Security Dilemma
 Ontological Security

The need for ontological security is not part of the conceptual repertoire we usually bring
to IR scholarship, and therefore some groundwork must be laid before exploring its
implications for international politics. In this section we conceptualize the individual need
for ontological security. Several theoretical and empirical traditions capture this aspect of
need, including psychoanalysis, object relation theory, anxiety/uncertainty management
theory, and terror management theory.
 State Security and Ontology
To make the concept of ontological security relevant to world politics, therefore, the
argument that states seek ontological security requires justification. we offer three
defenses.
1. 1. IR scholars routinely assume that states seek physical security, which upon close
inspection is no less problematic than ontological security.
2. Society must be cognitively stable in order to secure the identities of individuals, and
as such individuals will become attached to these stable group identities
3. That this micro-foundational assumption helps us explain certain macro-level
patterns, organizing anomalies in current theory into an overarching analytical
framework.
 The Dilemma of Ontological Security

As a fundamental need, ontological security operates in all social contexts, cooperative or

conflictual. Here I explore its implications in just one context: the security dilemma.
Security dilemma theory tells us that in an anarchic context, successfully communicating
intentions is difficult, since efforts at self-protection often threaten others.
 Conclusions
The role of psychology in the identification of conditions in international relations is very
useful in refining arguments in certain traditions. Prospect theory's identification of
conditions under which we expect more risk-averse or risk-taking behavior than in the
expected utility model can help explain when more defensive or offensive realist
arguments should prevail or when redistributive schemes are likely to have greater or less
appeal. Understanding the role of transparency or the pressure of domestic/organizational
accountability in correcting typical errors and biases helps us understand variations in
decision-making ability across different types of political systems and may explain such
as those related to democratic peace. in psychology suggests that there may be a small
number of basic normative templates from which international organizations can be
formed.
 Reference
1. “The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations.” International Organization 71 (S1): S1–S31

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge

core/content/view/C00E297DF5801C7A09F5334ABE40E54D/S0020818316000400a.pdf/div-class-title-the-

behavioral-revolution-and-international-relations-div.pdf

2. Jennifer Mitzen. 2006. “Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma.”

European Journal of International Relations 12 (3): 341–370

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1354066106067346

3. J. M. Goldgeier and P. E. Tetlock, Department of Political Science, George Washington University "Psychology

And International Relations Theory” https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.67

THANK YOU