Conflict of Interest: a Pragmatic Approach
| Author | Utz-Peter Reich |
| Published date | 01 June 1968 |
| Date | 01 June 1968 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002234336800500207 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Research
Communication:
CONFLICT
OF
INTEREST:
A
PRAGMATIC
APPROACH
By
UTZ-PETER
REICH
Forschungsstelle
der
Vereinigung
Deutscher
Wissenschaftler,
Hamburg
1.
General
ideal
Analyzing
a
certain
political
situation,
the
political
scientist
is
usually
confronted
with
an
annoying
dilemma:
he
knows
little
about
many
things,
while
he
would
rather
know
more
about
less.
In
this
paper,
we
describe
a
method
which
can
be
used
to
’condense’
such
knowledge.
The
example
chosen
is
the
pre-war
situation
in the
Near
East
recently,
which
could
be
considered
a
challenge
to
conflict
resolution
methods.
We
shall
set
up
a
fictitious
game-tree,
representing
all
courses
of
events
imagin-
able,
and
shall
order
the
different
out-
comes
on
the
preference
scale
of
each
player.
From
the
comparison
of
these
preference
scales
some
conclusions
can
be
drawn
concerning
the
underlying
situa-
tion.
2.
Description
of
the
method
The
best
way
to
show
the
method
is
to
work
out
an
example.
Take
the
critical
situation
as
it
had
grown
from
the
conflict
of
interests
in
the
Near
East
before
war
broke
out,
i.e.
before
June
5,
1967.
There
were
four
parties
involved:
Israel,
the
Arab
Countries,
the
United
States,
and
the
Soviet
Union.
A
fifth
’party’,
war,
is
introduced
which
gives
random
choices
according
to
estimated
probabilities.
A
formal
starting
hypothesis
is
made,
saying
that
Israel
has
the
first
move.2
She
has
two
choices:
either
to
attack
the
Arabs,
or
to
wait.
Then
it is
the
Arab
Countries’
turn;
they
will
react,
and
player
’war’
decides
the
outcome.
According
to
this
outcome
the
two
great
powers
involved
have
to
decide
on
actions.
Actually
this
game
goes
on
for
ever;
for
practical
purposes,
how-
ever,
we
must
cut
the
flow
of
events
at
some
situation,
which
for
its
momentary
stability
can
be
viewed
as
a
result
of
the
game.
The
game
tree
in
Figure
1
is
self-
explanatory
enough
so
that
the
story
be-
hind
it
need
to
be
explained
here.
Nor
is
it
worth-while
for
the
reader
to
work
through
the
details,
since
no
part
of
them
is
based
on
any
valuable
or
profound
insight
into
the
situation.
The
reader
is
rather
invited
to
work
out
such
a
game-tree
for
himself.
This
game-tree
displays
18
different
outcomes.
For
each
country,
these
are
arranged
on
a
preference
scale.
Naturally,
this
ordering
is
highly
disputable.
The
preference
scales
of
the
respective
countries
can
be
brought
into
a
relation-
ship
shown
in
Figure
2.
The
first
two
have
a
certain
pattern
that
can
be
interpreted
in
the
following
way:
The
interests
of
Israel
and
the
Arabs
are
very
opposed.
With
a
few
exceptions,
we
may
say
that
the
higher
an
outcome
is
estimated
by
one
side,
the
less
preference
it
is
given
by
the
other.
There
is
not
much
reason
for
co-
operation.
This
is
different
with
the
US-SU
rela-
tionship.
Three
regions
of
interests
can
be
distinguished.
In
each
region,
the
interests
of
the
two
powers
are
opposed,
but
they
agree
as
to
the
ordering
of
the
regions.
Going
back
to
the
verbal
meaning
of
the
numbers, ,
we
may
say
that
both
powers
would
prefer
to
have
the
conflict
settled
by
small
means,
without
direct
intervention.
If
this
is
not
possible
they
would
still
prefer
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