Review: Peace & Security: Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks
| Date | 01 June 1996 |
| Author | David Welch |
| Published date | 01 June 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209605100218 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
378
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
actual
cease
fire
was
seen
as
impossible'
(p
127).
He
points
out
that
the
positions
and
interests
of
the
Nigerian
federal
government
and
the
would-be
independent
eastern
Nigerian
government
were
mutually
exclusive
and
that
each
side
concentrated
on
its
'perceived
positions
and
interests
rather
than
those
of
the
other
belligerent'
(p
127).
Smith
later concludes
that
'it
is
clear
that
the
existence
of
political
will
to
stop
fighting
simply
does
not
guarantee
ceasefire'
(p
141).
Would
it
not
be
simpler
to
say
that
there
was
no
political
will
to
agree
to
stop fighting?
As
St
Augustine
and
von Clausewitz,
among
others,
observed,
leaders
usually
do
wish
to
end
war,
but
to
end
it
on
their
terms.
This
is
a
good
book
-
limited
in
ambition
and
generally
careful
in
construction
-
of
practical
interest
in
our
time
of
drawn
out
bloody
conflicts.
William
B.
Moul/University
of
Waterloo
AVOIDING
LOSSES/TAKING
RISKS
Prospect
theory and
international
conflict
Edited
by
Barbara
Farnham
Ann
Arbor:
University
of
Michigan
Press,
1994,
165pp,
US$18.
95
Avoiding
Losses/Taking
Risks
is
one
of
the
few
serious attempts
to
apply
prospect
theory
to
the
analysis
of international
relations,
and
it
nicely
illustrates
both
the
potential
and
the
difficulty
of
that
project.
Prospect
theory
is
an
alternative
to
rational choice,
derived
induc-
tively
from
studies
of
the
actual
choices
of
subjects
in carefully
designed
questionnaires
rather
than
deductively
from some
ideal
conception
of
how
people
ought
to
make
decisions.
Among
the
most
important
find-
ings
of
these
studies
is
that
people
systematically
distort
estimates
of
like-
lihood
through
editing
(for
example,
by
treating
extremely
likely
outcomes
as
certain
and
by
ignoring
extremely
unlikely
outcomes);
that
people shun good
gambles
in
order
to
secure
gains,
but
accept
bad
gambles
to
avoid
sure
losses;
that
people
assess
gains
and
losses
with
respect
to
a
reference
point that
defines
an
acceptable
outcome
(usually,
although
not
always,
the
status
quo);
and
that
one
can
induce
changes
in
people's
preferences
simply
by
refraining
alternatives
(for
example,
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