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The question of the presence and role of morality in warfare have traditionally been addressed by theologians, philosophers and ethicists within the just war tradition. These traditional arguments about morality in warfare generally focused only on the views of political leaders and decision-makers. More recently, we have seen the application of just war theory to the empirical study of conflict and international affairs, focusing primarily on legal and procedural questions. Much of this work, however, starts from the implicit assumption that individuals expect there to be a moral component to a state’s decision to use of force. In this paper we address a more fundamental question: does public support and perception of foreign policy actions mirror the expectations of the just war doctrine? Using an experimental design we examine the impact of the in bello constraint of collateral damage and the ad bellum “justness” of military interventions on levels of public support for a foreign policy action and perceptions of the morality of the action itself. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together research from decision sciences and policy research to examine how individuals access and incorporate scientific information in the context of climate change policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreements among foreign policy makers over the preferred course of action occur frequently. Differing values, experiences, administrative responsibilities and personalities all contribute to the likelihood that members of a policy group will disagree. Those disagreements and the way in which they are addressed influences the group decision. Their decisions often become foreign policy. This experimental study seeks to identify the elements that differentiate when a small group outcome is (a) deadlock, (b) the dominating preference of one person , (c) the preferences of a subset or coalition, or (d) the consensus preference of all. Drawing on theoretical insights from the literature on groupthink, bureaucratic politics and jury decisions, the research hypothesizes the importance of leadership style and group identity as key explanatory variables. The research involves colleges students in a computer-mediated simulation configured in a formal laboratory experiment. The utility of such experimental findings for understanding actual foreign policy making is discussed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the primacy of psycho-social explanations for ethnic conflict has been challenged by scholars who contend that the resort to violence can be explained by economic factors. In this paper, we contribute to the “greed versus grievance debate”; testi ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most fundamental premises that underlies the study of international relations and comparative politics is that of the choice. Yet the current literature fragments this research into small, unrelated islands, missing linkages and similarities between the choice processes that underlie cooperation and conflict and the decision processes dealing with intrastate and interstate conflicts. While all these islands address or try to define the main ingredients considered when making a choice, and many contain similar assumptions about the processes by which decisions are made, researchers avoid the lonely, and at times daring, swim between islands to enrich their endeavor by learning from others. There are a plethora variables and approaches proposed within the literature to help us understand how states, groups and individuals make such significant choices. We propose that embedding a decision making approach within an experimental paradigm (which we argue is more than a method) can serve as the bridge to enable better communication between islands of research, providing the researcher with an agnostic empirical platform on which to combine and test such elements deductively and rigorously. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the major source of policy information for the general public, the media has the potential to influence public opinion on a policy issue through its portrayal of the facts. Media bias acts, in effect, as an intervening variable between the source of policy and the general public. While some theories establish a role for the media in public opinion formation, few have been directly tested. Using an experimental design we have constructed a direct test of the influence of media coverage on public perceptions of policy decisions, in this case Supreme Court rulings. We find that, in certain contexts the media coverage does act as an intervening variable in public opinion. These effects, however are themselves influenced by contextual factors, in particular issue salience. The more salient the issue to an individual, the less likely they are to be influenced by biased media coverage. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ability of the Supreme Court to bring about attitude change. Previous research on attitude change and U.S. Supreme Court decisions has been hampered by a lack of data and serious flaws, inconsistencies, and assumptions in the move from theory to model specification and analysis. Using an experimental design, the authors focus on two fundamental questions raised by previous research in this field. First, how does issue salience moderate the Court's influence on public opinion; and second, to what extent can differential change in public opinion be attributed to media coverage. The findings indicate that these basic issues need to be reexamined and the link between theory and operationalization significantly strengthened and clarified. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of why some crises between states are resolved through negotiation while others result in continued conflict. The theoretical model is tested using both experimental and empirical analysis. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policy decisions often emerge from small groups whose members frequently must resolve conflicting preferences. Factors that affect the group's management of substantive disagreement among its members can, therefore, influence the collective decision. We propose that both group structural properties (members' identification with the group or with an outside entity) and the elements of process (decision rules) influence a group's decision. As an initial means to search systematically for the hypothesized relationships, we use a group laboratory setting. An experimental methodology (employing a recently developed, computer-based Decision Advisory Forum) enabels us to examine how these factors influence group outputs (deadlock, compromise or an integrative solution) in a controlled environment. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]