An examination of international crises: The effect of decision maker stress on crisis management, attributes, and outcomes in non-protracted conflict and protracted conflict crises.

Abstract

In the field of foreign policy analysis, there is a long history of research examining factors that impact decision making in conflicts, wars, and crises. The following research project is an attempt to add to this body of knowledge. This dissertation research examined factors affecting leaders' decision making during international crises. Specifically, a statistical analysis was conducted to examine information from the International Crisis Behavior Project, which contains data regarding international crises from 1918 to 2003. The key variable examined was decision maker stress. Statistical analyses were performed in order to determine the relationship between decision maker stress and various crises attributes and outcomes related to decision making. The crisis attributes and outcomes examined included: amount of time between crisis trigger and crisis response, the size of the decision making unit in a crisis, the type of crisis management response, the likelihood of definitive outcomes, and the tension level among crisis actors following a crisis. The statistical analysis was conducted separately on non-protracted conflict crises and protracted conflict crises. Results indicate that increases in decision maker stress do impact crises, and stress impacts crises differently in protracted conflict and non-protracted conflict crises. Following these analyses, there is a discussion of these results, including examples from various international crises, lessons to be learned, and areas of future study.