Jack S. Levy’s research while affiliated with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and other places

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Publications (79)


Foreign Policy Decision-Making The Psychological Dimension
  • Chapter

September 2023

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11 Reads

Jack S. Levy

This volume contains 30 chapters that provide an up-to-date account of key topics and areas of research in political psychology. In general, the chapters apply what is known about human psychology to the study of politics. Chapters draw on theory and research on biopsychology, neuroscience, personality, psychopathology, evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and intergroup relations. Some chapters address the political psychology of political elites—their personality, motives, beliefs, and leadership styles, and their judgments, decisions, and actions in domestic policy, foreign policy, international conflict, and conflict resolution. Other chapters deal with the dynamics of mass political behavior: voting, collective action, the influence of political communications, political socialization and civic education, group-based political behavior, social justice, and the political incorporation of immigrants. Research discussed in the volume is fueled by a mix of age-old questions and recent world events.


Foreign Policy Decision-Making The Psychological Dimension

September 2023

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36 Reads

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3 Citations

This chapter combines a general introduction to psychological approaches to international relations, with a particular focus on models of judgment and decision-making in foreign policy. It surveys the leading concepts, theories, findings, and methodologies associated with the major psychological approaches to foreign policy, and identifies questions that require further exploration. After an examination of the growing influence of political psychology in the IR field, the chapter turns to the beliefs and images of political leaders and the traits and prior experiences that shape them. It explores theories of information processing and belief change, including cognitive biases, motivated reasoning, and other impediments to rational Bayesian updating. The chapter then surveys a number of alternative models of decision-making. These include prospect theory – with its key concepts of reference dependence, loss aversion, and variable risk orientation – and models of intertemporal choice, temporal construal, groupthink, and crisis decision-making.


The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology

September 2023

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122 Reads

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22 Citations

This volume contains 30 chapters that provide an up-to-date account of key topics and areas of research in political psychology. In general, the chapters apply what is known about human psychology to the study of politics. Chapters draw on theory and research on biopsychology, neuroscience, personality, psychopathology, evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and intergroup relations. Some chapters address the political psychology of political elites—their personality, motives, beliefs, and leadership styles, and their judgments, decisions, and actions in domestic policy, foreign policy, international conflict, and conflict resolution. Other chapters deal with the dynamics of mass political behavior: voting, collective action, the influence of political communications, political socialization and civic education, group-based political behavior, social justice, and the political incorporation of immigrants. Research discussed in the volume is fueled by a mix of age-old questions and recent world events.


Introduction: Theoretical Foundations of Political PsychologyTheoretical Foundations of Political Psychology

September 2023

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45 Reads

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1 Citation

This chapter serves as an introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology . It provides an overview of the field, focusing on key theories, topics, and empirical approaches. The chapter begins by defining political psychology as the behavior of individuals within a specific political system. This is followed by a lengthy discussion on the major intellectual underpinnings of political psychology in biopolitics, personality, cognitive and affective psychology, and intergroup relations. These approaches are often contrasted with a rational approach to human behavior and help to explain why human political behavior often falls short of the democratic ideal. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the volume’s organization and an overview of its specific chapters.


Introduction: Theoretical Foundations of Political Psychology

September 2023

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131 Reads

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17 Citations

This volume contains 30 chapters that provide an up-to-date account of key topics and areas of research in political psychology. In general, the chapters apply what is known about human psychology to the study of politics. Chapters draw on theory and research on biopsychology, neuroscience, personality, psychopathology, evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and intergroup relations. Some chapters address the political psychology of political elites—their personality, motives, beliefs, and leadership styles, and their judgments, decisions, and actions in domestic policy, foreign policy, international conflict, and conflict resolution. Other chapters deal with the dynamics of mass political behavior: voting, collective action, the influence of political communications, political socialization and civic education, group-based political behavior, social justice, and the political incorporation of immigrants. Research discussed in the volume is fueled by a mix of age-old questions and recent world events.


The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology

September 2023

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332 Reads

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92 Citations

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Jack S. Levy

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[...]

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Eran Halperin

This volume contains 30 chapters that provide an up-to-date account of key topics and areas of research in political psychology. In general, the chapters apply what is known about human psychology to the study of politics. Chapters draw on theory and research on biopsychology, neuroscience, personality, psychopathology, evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and intergroup relations. Some chapters address the political psychology of political elites—their personality, motives, beliefs, and leadership styles, and their judgments, decisions, and actions in domestic policy, foreign policy, international conflict, and conflict resolution. Other chapters deal with the dynamics of mass political behavior: voting, collective action, the influence of political communications, political socialization and civic education, group-based political behavior, social justice, and the political incorporation of immigrants. Research discussed in the volume is fueled by a mix of age-old questions and recent world events.


Systemic effects of economic interdependence and the militarisation of diplomacy: 1914 and beyond

February 2022

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40 Reads

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3 Citations

Journal of Strategic Studies

Empirical research generally supports the dyadic-level trade-promotes-peace hypothesis, while demonstrating that the relationship is weaker, more complex, and more conditional than liberal theory suggests. We shift to the system level and examine a neglected path to conflict in economically interdependent systems. In the great power competition for support among smaller states, a great power at a competitive disadvantage in economic instruments of influence may be incentivised to adopt more militarised strategies. We illustrate our argument with case studies of Austro-Hungarian and Russian influence strategies before the First World War and of Prussian strategies among German states before the Franco-Prussian War.


Why 1914 but Not Before? A Comparative Study of the July Crisis and Its Precursors

June 2021

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59 Reads

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3 Citations

Security Studies

Why did the July 1914 crisis—but not crises in 1905, 1908–9, 1911, and 1912–13—escalate to great-power war despite occurring under similar international and domestic conditions? Explanations based on underlying and slowly changing structural, social, or cultural variables cannot answer this question. Examining three Balkan crises of 1912–13 and the July Crisis, we refine realist explanations based on power, alliances, and reputational interests by incorporating the impact of changing power distributions and alliances in the Balkans on the great-power security system. A more complete answer to the why-1914-but-not-before question, however, requires the incorporation of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, which went beyond a pretext for war. It eliminated the most powerful and effective proponent for peace in Vienna and fundamentally changed the nature of the decision-making process in Austria-Hungary. Counterfactually, we argue that a hypothetical crisis with Franz Ferdinand present would probably have ended differently.


Politics, audience costs, and signalling: Britain and the 1863–4 Schleswig-Holstein crisis
  • Article
  • Full-text available

April 2021

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78 Reads

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5 Citations

European Journal of International Security

Audience costs theory posits that domestic audiences punish political leaders who make foreign threats but fail to follow through, and that anticipation of audience costs gives more accountable leaders greater leverage in crisis bargaining. We argue, contrary to the theory, that leaders are often unaware of audience costs and their impact on crisis bargaining. We emphasise the role of domestic opposition in undermining a foreign threat, note that opposition can emerge from policy disagreements within the governing party as well as from partisan oppositions, and argue that the resulting costs differ from audience costs. We argue that a leader's experience of audience costs can trigger learning about audience costs dynamics and alter future behaviour. We demonstrate the plausibility of these arguments through a case study of the 1863–4 Schleswig-Holstein crisis. Prime Minister Palmerston's threat against German intervention in the Danish dispute triggered a major domestic debate, which undercut the credibility of the British threat and contributed to both the failure of deterrence and to subsequent British inaction. Parliament formally censured Palmerston, contributing to a learning-driven reorientation in British foreign policy.

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Citations (52)


... For instance, whether Vasquez (1997) is correct in arguing that the neorealist research program is degenerating (see also Legro and Moravcsik 1999) cannot be verified with certainty. Perhaps not surprisingly, adherents of neorealism also employing Lakatosian criteria draw opposing conclusions (DiCicco and Levy 2003;Schweller 2003). Although Lakatos relaxed Kuhn's rigid assumptions about full-fledged shifts from one to another research programme, he remained wedded to Kuhn's confrontational notions of defending and testing theories and determining criteria for their survival or decay, with the noted difficulties. ...

Reference:

Introduction: NATO as an object of research
The Power Transition Research Program: A Lakatosian Analysis
  • Citing Chapter
  • August 2003

... According to the researchers, this is manifested in the audience seeking to communicate mainly with like-minded people, which leads to certain political disputes. Yang et al. [28] proposed their vision of a natural language processing model that allows us to form an idea of political conflicts. The model can help analyse Spanish-language information in text form. ...

The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology
  • Citing Article
  • September 2023

... Third, psychological factors which highlight the emotional and ideological connections between voters and candidates (Shephard et al., 2023). This approach suggests that voters are often driven by party loyalty, ideological alignment, and emotional 331 resonance rather than detailed policy analysis (Cottam et al., 2021;Huddy et al., 2023). In this framework, the personal and ideological affinity voters feel towards candidates can outweigh considerations of programmatic outcomes (Coffé & von Schoultz, 2021;Evans & Neundorf, 2020). ...

Introduction: Theoretical Foundations of Political PsychologyTheoretical Foundations of Political Psychology
  • Citing Chapter
  • September 2023

... One mechanism that may promote support for other countries when the media report on harm to civilians is empathy. Empathy can facilitate a deeper understanding of others' perspectives (Gadarian and Brader, 2023) and is an important consideration in political contexts. For example, cues that encourage individuals to "step into" the perspective of other nations can significantly enhance support for international cooperation (Adida et al. 2018;Casler and Groves, 2023). ...

The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology
  • Citing Article
  • September 2023

... Political psychology is an applied research field that focuses on understanding how individuals participate in the political process through psychological theories and methods. It encompasses topics such as racism, mass psychology, political socialization, social justice, societal polarization, migration phenomena, ethnic identity, terrorism, group dynamics, wars, genocides, immigrants, voting motivations, and leader analyses [8,14,32,33]. Political psychology, which has close relations with psychohistory [34], dissoanalysis theory [1] and especially dissoanalytic psychohistory [14], has come to the forefront due to the influence of the successive wars, terrorist attacks, genocides, dramatic migrations, dominant leaders and autocratic politicians that prevail today. The insights of Foucault [35], Janet [36], Miller [37], deMause [38] and Öztürk [39] regarding society or societal dissociation, when applied to the field of political psychology, force us to question the legitimacy and effectiveness of this field. ...

Introduction: Theoretical Foundations of Political Psychology
  • Citing Chapter
  • September 2023

... However, there are reasons to predict that some citizens support the government decisions and policies from which they do not directly benefit. Whenever people are involved in interactions with others (e.g., situations that involve authorities and rules), they care about the decision-making and implementation process preceding the outcome (Lind and Tyler, 1988) and the procedures being used to make decisions (Tyler and Van Der Toorn, 2013). Procedural justice, which refers to the fairness of the procedures through which decisions about resource allocation, conflict resolution, and leadership or policy formation are made, is well established in the political psychology literature as a key determinant of fairness judgments. ...

Discrimination: Causes, consequences and ‘cures’

... In short, the literature on the interrelation of interdependence and conflict has not yet produced a definitive answer, and scholars tend to agree that the net impact of economic interdependence on peace within a dyad is theoretically indeterminate (cf. Levy and Mulligan 2022). Depending on case-specific factors, situations of dependence can cut both ways (Copeland 2014;Mattlin and Wigell 2016). ...

Systemic effects of economic interdependence and the militarisation of diplomacy: 1914 and beyond
  • Citing Article
  • February 2022

Journal of Strategic Studies

... Accordingly, it meshes two strands of international relations research: one which casts world politics as a complex system where nonlinear feedback between system components can cause disproportional and dramatic responses to small changes (Saperstein, 1999;Jervis, 1997;Thompson, 2003;Ferguson, 2010;Stauffer, 2021) and the other which studies international relations with the concepts and methods of network analysis (Maoz, 2011;Dorussen et al., 2016). The system of alliances and rivalries among states has received much attention as a cause of systemic war (Snyder, 1984;Rasler & Thompson, 2010;Levy & Mulligan, 2021) and our model can shed light on which patterns are particularly prone to instability, as we will illustrate by our investigation of how the peace-to-war bifurcation is affected by polarized community structure and in our application to World War I. The analytical expressions for the bifurcation conditions we derive below will greatly facilitate more generalized study of the effects of different types of community structure, both abstract and empirical, by eliminating the need to identify bifurcation points through computationally intensive parameter sweeps of model simulations. ...

Why 1914 but Not Before? A Comparative Study of the July Crisis and Its Precursors
  • Citing Article
  • June 2021

Security Studies

... 370 Scholars have amassed much evidence for this explanation, 371 and this article's examination of the Balkan crisis of 1912-13 supports the broader judgement that by 1914 the Concert of Europe had grown anaemic and Europe's leaders, riven by rivalry, no longer seemed capable of focusing their diplomacyabove allon Great Power peace. 372 Russia, in particular, had defined its increasingly dominant position in the Balkans vis-à-vis Austria and Turkey from 1912-13 as the new status quo, 373 placing any revision of this arrangement in the category of loss, 374 something it was unwilling to tolerate given its determination to 'speak' the language of firmness rather than restraint. 375 What was for Russia, however, the ordinary 'stealing of horses', was for Austria-Hungary a challenge to its existence. ...

Shifting power, preventive logic, and the response of the target: Germany, Russia, and the First World War
  • Citing Article
  • November 2016

Journal of Strategic Studies

... 2 Drawing on revisionist historiography, recent political science research challenged this deeply rooted conventional wisdom, arguing that sound strategic logic underpinned British decisionmaking in the 1930s. 3 In a series of studies, Ripsman and Levy (2007;2008;2012) make a powerful case that British appeasement followed a buying-time logic. Rather than reflecting unwarranted optimism about the limited nature of Hitler's ambitions, concessions were driven by a keen appreciation of British weakness. ...

British Grand Strategy and the Rise of Germany, 1933–1936
  • Citing Article
  • August 2012