The Illusion of Decision

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The Illusion of DecisionEssence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham T. AllisonReview by: J. P. CornfordBritish Journal of Political Science, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 231-243Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/193517 .

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B.J.Pol.S. 4, 231-243

Printed in Great Britain

Review Article: The Illusion of DecisionJ. P. CORNFORD*

By Time,and Counsell,doe the best we canTh' Event s never n thepowerof man.

Robert Herrick

Fashions change andrecent issues of this Journalbear witnessto the concern of an

increasing number of political scientists with the processes of government. If a

fashion-leader were wanted then Professor Allison could not haveprovided

a

better.His book' is a raretreat, modest, literate, intelligentand about an event of

great intrinsic interestand importance. It prompts reflectionsof two kinds: first,on the Cuban Missile Crisis itself and what Allison's analysisof it suggestsabout

the closeness of nuclearwar in October 1962and by implication about the risk of

nuclear war now and in the foreseeablefuture; and, secondly, on his analysis of

governmentaldecision-makingin generaland the implicationsboth for the waysin which we go about studying governmentand for the expectationswe entertain

of governmental performance.

The impactof Allison's account will dependon what you made of the crisis before

you readit. I confess to havebeen an optimistat the time. I simplydid not or could

not believe that the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union would so

take leaveof theirsenses as to runa serious riskof nuclearwar,and I was confident

that they would back awayfrom confrontation. I believedessentiallyboth in their

sanity and in their control of their own governmentsand armedforces. The out-

come of the crisis tended to reinforce this view and even to reconcile me to the

putative benevolence of deterrence. I realised, of course, that miscalculationscould take place. Khrushchevseemed to have played a dangerousgame when he

triedto sneak missiles into Cuba in the firstplace. Itwas agambleto test Kennedy'sdetermination but there could be no real danger, once that determination was

made plain, that Khrushchev would risk a head-on collision.

Allison's account of the crisis, however partial and tentative, especially on the

Russian side, at the least makes clear that this interpretation,which I believe hasbeen widely accepted, is optimistic, and naive. It depends on an account of thecrisis which bears little resemblance to the detailed course of events and

demonstrates little grasp of the motives, intentions and understandingsof manyof the actors.

* Universityof Edinburgh.1 Graham T. Allison: Essence of Decision: Explaining the CubanMissile Crisis (Boston: Little,

Brown, 1971), pp. xii, 338.

B.J.Pol.S. 4, 231-243




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232 CORNFORD32 CORNFORD32 CORNFORD32 CORNFORD32 CORNFORD

To put the matter with dramatic brevity, the lesson of Allison's account (oraccounts since he gives three versions of the events based on different assump-

tions) is that nuclearwarwas avoided at the last moment by a precariousalliance

between Khrushchev and Kennedy; that their sense of impending catastropheallowedthemto helpeachother to maintaincontrolof theirrespectivegovernmentand military machines; that Kennedy at least was under strong pressureto take

action which would not have allowed this alliance to develop from a situation of

mutual distrust, and that at least one of the things that persuaded Kennedy to

delay direct action was a factual misstatementby the Air Force about the effects

of an airstrike on Cubawhich both Kennedyand the JCSactuallyfavoured at the

time. IndeedAllison makes a convincingcase for believingthat quite a numberof

incidents beyond the control of the leaders could have committed them willy-nilly

to successive acts which they themselves were not confident of controlling. Theaccidental timing of routine activities, for instance the U2 flights over Cuba bywhich the missile sites wereidentified,was crucial to the shapingand resolution of

the crisis.

But what grounds does this give for presentalarm?Times have changed, there

is much talk of detente,of strategicarmslimitation, of MBFRs and so forth. The

situation in Northern Europehas stabilized; the Germanquestion may be on the

way to a satisfactory compromise; the Soviet Union is no longerso anxious about

Eastern Europe. These may be hopeful signs but they are not grounds for

optimism. Arms limitation is still talk and even when achieved will not affectthenuclearcapacityof thegreat powers.The MiddleEast,the EasternMediterranean,

South East Asia provide ample possibilities for confrontation, between powerswhose ambitions have not substantially changed. Alarm or pessimism does not

arise from the assumptionthat they will deliberatelyrisk nuclearwar to get what

they want, but from the sense that the positions in which leaders find themselves

are only partiallythe result of a deliberatelyconceived line of action, that leaders

arethe victims of long chains of circumstancesbeyondtheircontrol and prisonersof the systems they are supposed to master. That is familiarenough: Tolstoy said

it all before and better. But the particularsignificanceof Allison's account is to

point to the implications for a policy of nuclear deterrence.The general signifi-

cance of his analysislies in his attemptto account for this situation in a systematic

way: and what he does in relation to an internationalcrisis could and should be

applied to routine domestic affairs as well.

II

Allison examines the missile crisis three times over from differentperspectives.

First, he gives a conventional analysis of international power politics in which

each state is treated as an individual or person (the Rational Policy Model).Then he looks at the crisis from the point of view of the differentgovernment

organizations involved - the State Department, Pentagon and so forth - with

particularattentionto theirnormal or routineways of doing business(the Organ-

izational Process Model). Finally, he looks at the crisis in terms of the











the crisis.

















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personalities and political interests of the individual participants(the Bureau-

cratic Politics Model).In the Rational Policy Model, the analogy is between a government and a

reasonableman. It assumes that governmentalactions can be explained in termsof the means which a rational man would adopt to achieve his ends. Therefore if

you wantto understandwhat anothergovernment s doing you observe ts actions-

placingmissiles in Cuba - and infer the intention behind the action fromyourown

reflection on why a rationalman would do such a thing. At a commonsense level

this is how we interpretmuch of the behaviour of other people. At a theoretical

level the assumptionsare reflectedin the application of rationalchoice models to

strategy. This mode of analysis has produced plausible accounts of the missile

crisis which in turn have prompted a Panglossian literature on 'Crisis Manage-

ment'. Allison has little difficultyin showing that such accounts involve seriousomissions and distortions, which arise not from folly or ineptitude but from the

shortcomings of the analogy itself. In its unsophisticated versions it involves

unrealisticassumptions about how individuals make choices - perfect informa-

tion, unlimitedtime, clearpreferenceschedules and so forth. But the more serious

objection is that governments are not individuals but clusters of organizations,and organizationsare not like individualseither,certainlynot rationalmen.Theyact on imperfectinformation, underpressureof time, not for the bestconceivable

outcome but for one that is reasonably satisfactory;but above all they act accord-

ing to established routines(standard operating procedures).HenceAllison arguesthe need for Model ii, the OrganizationalProcessModel,

whichlooks at decisions as the productsof the routineactivities of thegovernment

departmentsinvolved. Organizationsare definedby the ways they have of doing

things. Not only will organizations come up with policies which fit within a

limited perspectivedefined by previous experience - military men will give the

sort of advice thatmilitarymen havegiven before- but theywill also act on orders

in ways which theyhave been accustomed to act before,whetherornot thesewaysfit in with the intentionsof those giving the orders.Allison by applyingthis notion

of organizational behaviourto the crisis shows how things puzzling or inexplic-

able in terms of the rational actor model can be seen to flow from the character-istics of the organizations involved. Soviet tactics in deploying the missiles in

Cuba, for instance,are incomprehensible f one assumes an intention to surprise,to change the strategicbalanceor to test Kennedy'snerve.They makemuch moresense if one assumes that the Soviet organizationconcernedjust went ahead anddid what it always did at home.

While this organizationalperspective(Model ii) reflectsthe ideas of Simon and

others, Model iii, the internalpolitics of governmentaldecision-making, is pureNeustadt. Government is recognizedas a congerieof organizationswiththeir own

traditions and routines which affect both policy and implementation. Decisionsemerge not from reflection but from argumentand conflict within and between

organizations,partlyover who shall do what (organizationalsurvival),and partlybecause of differentperceptionsof the problemsand the means to deal with them.

Any particulardecision will be taken not so much on the merits of the case but as
































































































































the result of the conflicting views and interests of a variety of organizations on

this and many other questions as well. Government is then a continuous processof decisions which areinterdependentbecause of their effectson the relative pos-itions and strengthsof individual politicians and the organizationsand constitu-

encies they represent.Again this is a well established and widely accepted view,

though one might be forgiven for expecting such considerations to be minimized

in a context as dangerous as the missile crisis. But in fact this approach makes

clear one crucial element in the crisis, namelyKennedy'sreaction to the firstnews

of the missiles: 'He can't do that to me!' The threat was not so much to the

security of the United States: as MacNamara said early in the crisis, it did not

matter muchfroma strategicpoint of view wherethe missileswere.But it mattered

a great deal to Kennedy's domestic position and Kennedy thought that Khrush-

chev must know this. Allison believes, admittedlyon scantevidence, that Khrush-chev did not understandthe threatto Kennedy'spersonalposition and would not

have acted as he did had he anticipated Kennedy'sreaction. But once Khrushchev

had committed the missiles he would not accept the political reverse to himself of

withdrawal until faced with a nuclear ultimatum. It is certainly plausiblethat the

perceptions of the main protagonists should have been coloured by concern for

their own positions; and not surprising,but sobering perhapsin the nuclear con-

text when the elements of misunderstanding,miscalculation and misadventure

are added.

III

None of Allison's 'models'is new. Models Iand in are the stock in trade of students

of international relations and political history. Model ii, the organizational per-

spective, is probably less familiar and certainly prompts the most interesting

questions about the implementationof decisions and the capacityof the executive

to maintaineffective control of its subordinate members.This is a general problemwhich takes an especially acute form in Washingtonas others have recentlytesti-

fied.2 But while these models are not new, the ideas and assumptions have either

beenused intuitivelyor when self-consciouslyelaboratedhave been contributions

to 'theory' rather than applied to concrete historical situations. The virtue ofAllison's approachis that he makes the assumptions explicit, he applies them to a

particularset of events, and he applies them consistently. He does not slide in the

same account from one set of assumptions to anotherwhen the first set ceases to

pay off. As Allison says, the models determine the kind of questions to be asked

and the information gathered.It is not enough to revertto organizationalfactors

when a Model I explanation falters: they must be kept in mind continuously or

rather the whole process must be viewed from that perspectivein order to under-

stand the effect the means of implementation have on the policy or decisions

which emerge.Allison clearlyhopes to end up with a composite picture, a definitive account

which he promises at the end of this book. This hope seems to me illusory: there

2Notably Harold Seidman, Politics, Position and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organisa-

tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I970).


















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Reriew Article: The Illusion Df Decision 235eriew Article: The Illusion Df Decision 235eriew Article: The Illusion Df Decision 235eriew Article: The Illusion Df Decision 235eriew Article: The Illusion Df Decision 235

are too manydifficulties n the way of historicalreconstruction,even whereexcel-

lent records survive and one cnjoys, as Allison has done, access to the personalrecollectionsof many of the most

important participants.Recordsare

ambiguous,memories partial and selectivc. Thcre will always bc room for reasonabledoubt

and differences of interpretation, simply because so much of any reconstruction

depends on imagination. There is much to be said for the view that the conven-

tional historical account of 'what really happened' is fiction, an imposition of

order,coherence and purposeremote from the experienceof participants.3It may

be arguedthat with hindsight we can discern a pattern in events unperceivedbythe actors. But we mayalso falsify or distort the natureof the events by divorcingthem from the understandingof the actors. The elucidation of patternsafterthe

event may help the participantsto understand what they have experiencedin a

different and more coherent way, and enable them to grasp more readilywhat is

happeningwhen a similar set of events begins. What it is unlikely to do is to pre-

pare them for novelty or crisis, or alert them to those factors which make this

new set of events differentfrom the last. Case historyand experiencealike dependfor their practicalvalue on repetition: experiencethat is in the sense of a specialkind of knowledge learned by practiceand communicable to others only by ex-

ample, if at all. What we value in politicians is somethingratherdifferentfrom the

skills of the craftsman: we value the experience of success. Whateverthe uses of

adversity,failure in politics does not generallyinstil confidence in others nor that

confidencein oneself which is felt with some justice to be half the battle. Experi-ence in this sense is not relevantknowledgeof a situation, but the confidenceborn

of past success which enables one to face uncertaintywithout loss of nerve. The

experience of the missile crisis must have increased immensely the confidence

with which Kennedy and his close associates faced futureproblems of any kind.

It is much more difficultto derive any general lessons from the crisis: hindsightdoes not readily yield foresight.

People involved in policy-making are frequentlyunaware or unable to assess

the significanceof whattheyaredoing: this is not so muchbecauseof thedifficultyof

predictingthe future

consequencesof

actions,but because of the

difficultyof

understandingwhat is going on now.4All this is by way of commendingAllison's

Rashomon technique for preserving a sense of the complexity of the govern-mental process, of the confusions, uncertainties,and discontinuities experienced

by the participants.Since this sense largelyderives from Models ntand in, there

may be some temptation to ignore the considerations raised by Model i entirely.There is a fascination about the worldof Neustadt, and a belief that politiciansare

indifferentto the content of policy.5 But even if this were the case, even if every

3Those who like theirphilosophy homespunand hairy-chestedwill find a vivid expositionof thisview in Norman Mailer'sThe Armiesof theNight(New York: New AmericanLibrary,

1968).4Cf. Wildavsky's bservation: someofficialsdo notdeal withcomplexityat all; they arejust

overwhelmedand never quite recover'. A. Wildavsky,ThePolitics of the Bludgetaryrocess(Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), p. II.

5 E.g.'The esson to be drawn fromany study of high politicsis that the centralconcernofpractitioners s with theirposition relative o one another.'AndrewJones, 'LiberalHistory'


























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politician and official cared only for the advancement of his personal, party orbureaucratic interest, even if all policy represents a compromise among those

interests, politicians would still beobliged

toargue

in thelanguage

of Model I,of the national interest. There is moreover plenty of evidence that this is more

than a language of convenience. Nations may not be persons but they are legaland moral entities. When Robert Kennedy argued against an air strike on Cuba,his concern was for the reputation of the United States. Everyone understood

what he meant, even if they did not agree with him. The Rational Actor model

may not yield a satisfactoryaccount of the policy process, but it is nevertheless

partof it, since it underliesthe publiclanguagein whichpoliticiansmustargueand

provides the legitimation of their bargains from whatever motives and interests

these result. And some approximation of the model underliesmuch of their own

understandingandjudgementof politics. Few men arecapableof thorough-goingcynicism or sustained hypocrisy; most can persuade themselves to believe sin-

cerely whateverthey find convenient. This, of course, gives rise to complications.It would be helpful if at any particularmoment one could assume that the factors

considered in Model I(ends) and Model ii (means)were settledparameterswithin

which the bargainingand discussion of Model inltake place.Theremaybe periodsof fairly stable consensus on what constitutes the national interest, and concep-tions of the national interestmay change slowly. But it is in times of crisis that the

common definition comes under strain and that the Delphic quality of general

principlesas guides to action becomes apparent. Equally organizationalcapacityis not a given quantity: it is crucial to have an understandingof the normal world

of the bureaucrat,of the routines of politics, such as that provided by Wildavsky's

study of the budgetary process. But routines can be disrupted and abandoned,

organizationscan do 'the impossible': Lloyd George's enforcementof the convoy

system on the Navy in the First World Warspringsto mind. What people arepre-

paredto advocate on public grounds, what they think capable of beingdone, and

what they personallyfind desirable,are inextricablybound up. The interrelated-

ness of the models, or of the aspects of the situation with which they deal, is clear

if they are put as a series of questions:

Model I: Is there a generally accepted view of the national interest? What

view of the world is it based on? Are there serious divergencies within

government over these views?

Model II: How far do differencesin the conception of the national interest

reflect differencesin the experienceand interests of organizations and affect

their willingness to implementcertain lines of policy? What is the organiza-tional capacity willing or not?

ModelIII: What is the fit between the interestsand perceptionsof individuals

Parliamentary Affairs, xxv (1972), 351-4. Jones has given an excellent example of history from

this perspective in ThePolitics of Reform, 1884 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

This is a market theory of influence which has been given its most cogent exposition in E. C.

Banfield's Political Influence (Glencoe, ll1.:Free Press, 1961).



toargue

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Review Article: The Illusionof Decision 237eview Article: The Illusionof Decision 237eview Article: The Illusionof Decision 237eview Article: The Illusionof Decision 237eview Article: The Illusionof Decision 237

and their relationshipwith each other, their organizational affiliations and

their commitment to one view or another of the national interest and its

implications in particularsituations?

All these questions need to be asked, and none of the issues raised by the

models can be ignored. But this is not to say that the models themselves are ad-

equate,used either alone orinconjunction.Allison demonstratestheshortcomingsof the rational choice model as a description of governmental activity. I have

tried to indicate above why the considerations to which it gives riseare neverthe-

less part of that activity and why the amoral pluralism of Model iii is equally

inadequate. In each case the simplification necessary to understand complex

phenomenadistortsour conception of the reassembledwhole. In the one case col-

lective values, intentions and motives are exaggerated and in the other theirrealityis denied. Both overestimatethe consistency, the regularities,of the world

they describe. If one imagines the governmental process as lying somewhere

between a battle and a game of chess, these models begin and end too near to the

orderly (pace Fischer), rule bound, and reflective world of chess. And thoughbounded rationalityand disjointedincrementalismaresteps in the rightdirection,Model ii is also at the wrong end of the spectrum. Boundedrationality is still the

rationalityof individual calculation limited only by the force of moreor less per-manent and predictablecircumstances. Incrementalismoffersmore promise as a

descriptionin two of its

possiblemeanings6as a

processof

decision-makingwhich

relies on precedent both in aim and execution; or as a process by which polic),

emergesfrom a series of discrete decisions which involved no conscious intention

to establish a policy. In a third meaning, incrementalismrefers to the output of

decisions, and here both as descriptionand prescription t rests on an assumption

that severelylimits its utility, and revealsits origins and drawbacks as a model of

political activity. That assumption is the ready divisibility of output.7Political economists have concernedthemselves with political decision-making

from an initial interest in budgetary policy and financial control, where it has

seemed reasonable to importtheir theoreticalstock-in-tradeand their faith in the

possibilities of quantification. Political scientists who are attractedby the rigourand precision of political economy, and perhaps also by the promise of certain

and cumulative knowledge, are liable to the same disappointment which Keynesrecords of the pioneersof Welfare Economics in his memoirof F. Y. Edgeworth.8

6 These distinctions are made by Adrian Webb, 'Planning Enquiries and Amenity Policy',

Policy and Politics, I (.972), 64-74, p. 7I, note 12.

7 This criticism has been made by Peter Self, Administrative Theories and Politics (London:Allen and Unwin, 1972), pp. 40-1, and Richard Rose, 'Comparing Policy', European Journal

of Political Research, I (I973), 67-93, p. 86, among others.

8 ' The atomic hypothesis which has worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.We are faced at every turn with the problems of Organic Unity, of Discreteness, of Discontinuity- the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, comparisons of quantity fail us, small changes

produce large effects, the assumptions of a uniform and homogeneous continuum are not

satisfied. Thus the results of Mathematical Psychics turn out to be derivative, not fundamental,indexes not measurements, first approximations at best; and fallible indexes, dubious


















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A disappointment which is both intellectual and practical: intellectual becausethe imported models (essentially equilibrium models) cannot cope with discon-

tinuity, uncertainty, novelty or crisis; practicalbecause the importedtechniques,cost-benefit analysis, PPBS, and so forth, lead to exaggerated expectations, the

evasion of political responsibility and even to outright deception.9

Though both are concerned with order, the models and the techniques should

not be lumped together. Allison's Model Ilderives from work which started from

the recognition that the dictates of formal rationality are Utopian; that no one

has the time, the energy,the knowledgeorthe mentalcapacityto follow them. It is

based on an analysisof the ways in which politicians, officials(and business-men)reducecomplexity, increasecertaintyand predictability,and make an impossible

job tolerableby a network of mutualunderstandingsabout what is acceptable.It is

concerned essentially with the stable, routine, repetitive world of bureaucracy-with fiduciary regularities and standard operating procedures. While these are

important and apply pretty well where divisibility of output makes for ease of

negotiation by barteror compromise, the samemethods do not explainbehaviour

or engenderconfidencein face of the unusual, the unexpectedor the critical: theycannot deal with indivisible, irreversibleor unique decisions. The missile crisis

makes this readilyapparent;but perhapswe can distinguishbetween routine and

critical decisions. Perhaps,but I do not think so. Some decisions may obviouslybe critical, and others not. But there will be some which appearroutine and turn

out to be critical, say in the field of macro-economic management (what turns arecession into a slump?).We need here the sort of topological model proposed by

ChristopherZeeman in which a small incrementalchange produces catastrophiceffects.10Even within the orderlyworld of budgeting, Wildavsky records the be-

wildermentof officialsfaced with a new item: theirdecisions appearto have been

arbitraryand hence perhaps indefensible and unpredictable.t1 Again Wildavskyis at a loss to explain, from a Model II perspective,the changing moods to which

all participants were responsive and with regard to which they modified their

routines.12Onecannot therefore reserve one's misgivingsabout the policy processto the big occasions and share the complacency of Lindblom, Wildavsky and

company towards its routine operation. Disjointed incrementalism fails on two

counts: there is muchin governmentwhich is not incremental and much that may

approximations at that, with much doubt added as to what if anything, they are indexes or

approximations of.' J. M. Keynes, Essays in Biography, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London:

Heinemann, I96I), pp. 232-3; cf. also Robert L. Heilbroner, 'Is Economic Theory Possible?' in

Between Capitalism and Socialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 165-92.9 Cf. Alan Williams, 'Cost-benefit Analysis: bastard science and/or insidious poison in the

body politick', Journal of Public Economics, I (1972), 199-225; A. Wildavsky, 'The Political Eco-

nomy of Efficiency: Cost-Benefit Analysis, Systems Analysis and Program Budgeting', Public

Administration Review, xxvi (I966), 292-310; and Norman Dennis, Public Participation andPlanner's Blight (London: Faber, 1972).

10 E. C. Zeeman, unpublished paper on catastrophe theory given at a seminar on 'The Use of

Models in the Social Sciences', University of Edinburgh, 1972.

l Wildavsky, Politics of the Budgetary Process, p. 44.12 Wildavsky, Politics of the Budgetary Process, p. 72.







































































































































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be incremental in appearance though not in its consequences. And, secondly,

disjointedness implies a dispersion of influence within governmentwhich offends

againstcanons of accountability and of responsible government. In 'normal'

times such dispersion may be acceptable but in critical moments it is difficultto

justify; and the problem is compounded since crises are neither predictablenor

immediately recognized. Even in the missile crisis, where a new command struc-

ture evolved quicklywithin the US government,the initial independentactions of

separate government agencies placed critical constraints on subsequent co-

ordinated planning.

IV

Disjointed incrementalismtherefore both exaggeratesthe degree of stability and

regularityin government, and offends against our implicit assumption (or ideal)that governmentmeans the conscious control of events. In the nuclearcontext it

is not difficult to shed amiable delusions about the benevolence of the Hidden

Hand; the question is how to reconcile our recognition of the complexities of

governmentwith our desire not to be inadvertentlydestroyed; and less dramatic-

ally not to have public powers exercisedin confused, contradictory,wasteful and

unaccountableways.We may have to accept that any modern governmentis an incoherent system.

A systembecause,while thereis muddle,thepatternof its activities is not random;

most of the conditions and constraints within which it operateshave some stabi-lity over time; and there is also a degree of stability in the behaviour of its com-

ponent parts. Incoherent both becausethere is muddle and because the patternof

events is in fact and in principleunpredictableby participants.The complexity of

events is too great for them to graspwhat is going on and they do not know how

they themselves are going to act. If moreover we mean anything by decision-

making other than the illusion of choice, it must involve some element of chance.Manoeuvres in the corridors of power may often be without significance, but

occasionally a decision will be taken when the factors which are beyond the con-trol of politicians and in general control them, when these factors are

evenlybalanced. Hence the continuing possibility that political decisions will themselvesmake a difference,and the incentiveboth to observethe way politicians work andto attempt to improve their capacities.

There are two ways in which we might consider the problem of improvement:one concerns the character of the politicians themselves; and the other the

organizations and techniques at their disposal. Political scientists and politicianstoo are more inclined to concentrateon the machineryof governmentas capableof reform and to ignore the morality of princes; to concentrate on the newerandmore puzzling functions of government at the expense of those older functions

which are not concerned with the solution of 'problems' or the allocation of re-sources but with Order, Liberty and Justice, which demand propriety in thebalance betweeneternallyirreconcilable values. We may be obliged to rely on the

long winnowing of the political career, on the exposure of the media, on the in-stincts of the electorate, on thejudgement of theirpeers,to choose our Solomons.









ordinated planning.

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But as humble participants or helpless onlookers, we must acknowledge that it

matters a great deal that our leaders should be humane, tolerant, sagacious and

sane. And we ought to address ourselves also to the substantiverationalityof the

policies our leaders pursue and, for instance, inquire how it is that even decent

men, fond of dogs and children, can support a doctrine as crazyas nucleardeter-

rence. Or, to put it mildly, conceptions of the national interest which entail the

willingness to risk nuclear war are worthy of investigation.13Even in regard to the modern functions, where the application of economic

models and techniqueshas more relevance,thereis a dangerof ignoringthe essen-

tial quality of government. It has proved difficult to adapt the administrative

traditions of the nightwatchman state to the exercise of economic and social

responsibilities. It is not surprisingthat reformersshould have been influencedby

the example of the most vigorous and innovative institution of our time, the busi-ness corporation.No doubt there is much to be learnt fromthe practicesof private

bureaucracy,but that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the purposesof public and private bureaucracyare different. Business corporations enjoy a

licence to ignore many of the consequences of their actions and generally com-

mand an audience when they denounce their critics as irrational or subversive.

Governments are not blessed with these advantages: they are held responsiblenot only for what they do themselves, but for much else besides; they pursue no

readily defined ends and must adjudicate among a myriad of conflicting and

insatiable demands. Political institutions exist to balance the irreconcilable, toweigh the imponderable,and to come to decisions in the absenceof agreedcriteria

or adequate information. Government is the art of the impossible: the wonder is

not that it is done badly, but that it is done at all. One of the worst faults of politi-

cians is to make promises they have no confidence of fulfilling; it is equally mis-

chievous to pretend that organizational reform and so forth will more than

marginally diminish the uncertainty in which they labour.14

v

Having aireda prejudiceor two I ought in conscience to returnto Allison and the

general questions he himself raises: namely what sort of models are most helpful

13 This would involve both the double standard and the double audience problem. First, how

do men accept in public life acts and arguments they would scorn in their private affairs ('the

necessary murder'). And second, the nuclear deterrent can only be justified to oneself on the

grounds that one will never use it, but it only makes sense at all if one's opponent believes that

one might. If he comes to believe one's moral justification - that one will never use it - one must

either abandon the deterrent or the justification.14 Desmond Keeling, Management in Government(London: Allen & Unwin for the RIPA,

1972) is particularly good on the contrasts between public and private bureaucracies. For a good

account of the second order effects of new budgetary techniques in British government see David

Greenwood, Budgetingfor Defence (London: RUSI, 1972). First hand accounts of the operationsof PESC suggest that it has much more significance as a means of maintaining Treasury control

over levels of spending than as a means of resolving problems of priority within the public ex-

penditure programme. The complexity of rational improvement is beautifully illustrated in

J. K. Friend and W. N. Jessop's excellent Local Government and Strategic Choice (London:

Tavistock Publications, I969).
























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ReviewArticle: TheIllusion of Decision 241eviewArticle: TheIllusion of Decision 241eviewArticle: TheIllusion of Decision 241eviewArticle: TheIllusion of Decision 241eviewArticle: TheIllusion of Decision 241

in understandingthe governmentalprocess; and, secondly, how can the different

interpretationsof events derived from different models be reconciled with oneanother? I have suggested some shortcomings in the atomistic, static, linear,

incremental and equilibrium assumptions underlying his own models. They donot makeallowance for or help to explainthe novel or the catastrophic. They havelittle to say about collective manifestations - morale, panic, terror, fashion -which seem to me important phenomena in political life. They do not raise

questions about the substantiverationality of the behaviour they examine andso forth.

Thereare moreoverinternaldifficultiesabout the models and the uses to whichAllison would put them. A RationalActor orchoice modelworkswellenough as ameans of inferring ntentions or predictingthe behaviour of an opponent as long

as one can be confident that one is playing the same game, that the rules of thegame are fixed, and that they define the purpose of the play. Even in poker, of

course, the game will not define all the utilities of the actors (sociability, distrac-

tion, and so forth) but it is possible to say whether someone is playing well or

badly, seriouslyor not. But the analogyis difficultto applyto activitieswhereonecannot be sure that one's opponent is playingthe samegame, or that his rulebookis the same. One certainlycannot criticize the rationalityof his actions, nor inferhis intentions, norpredicthis futurebehaviour,where there is any seriouselementof doubt. Hence in the later stages of the missile crisis the enormous importanceattached by Khrushchev and Kennedy to spelling out clearly to each other the

meaningof theirmoves. Thus the model only makes sense if one can be surewhatit is one's opponentis tryingto achieve. Inpoker,orthemarket, t maybea reason-able assumptionthat the ends or utilities of the actorsare dictatedby the natureofthe activity. Therecan be no such confidence in a political processwhere the rulesarepart of the game and the playersmay adjusttheirutilities in mid-passage.Thereal usefulness of a rational choice model in politics is not for predictingthe be-haviour or inferringthe intentions of an opponent, but for examining one's own

problemsof collective decision for both moral and practicalconsistency, and for

assessing their likely effect upon others.

A second problemwith Allison's models is whetherthere is any realdistinctionto be made betweenModels IIandII. The difficulty s that the organizationalpro-cess is not limited to formal routines but includes also the informalconventional

understandingswhich can be, and are, modified more or less continually in the

process of bureaucraticpolitics. Thus the two models tend to merge with each

other, unless Model II is confined much more strictly to the formal aspects of

organization than Allison himself confines it. The distinction between them isless amatterof logic thanof origins; Model ii derives fromsociological approachesto organizationand Model in from psychological studies of decision-makers andtheir milieux.

Though the distinction is hard to sustain in a formal sense, the dif-ference of approach is valuable. If Allison had combined Models II and II, orrathercollapsed Model II into Model II, I doubt that the influence of organiza-tional constraints would have played as interesting and important a part in his

analysis.17



















analysis.17



















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analysis.17




These criticisms suggest that Allison has misconceived the possibilities ofModel I and that the distinction between Models ii and IIIcannot be sustained

theoretically, but is useful because of the limitations of the analyst himself. Andthis in turn suggestsa less elevated expectation of these models, and of models in

generalthan Allison entertains.I amtemptedto say,nevermind: theyhaveyieldeda vivid and plausibleaccount of thecrisis; we understandthingswe did not under-stand before; we shallbe betterequippedto look for the bodies next time. If thesemodels leave obvious gaps, why not trya couple morewhich drawattentionto the

neglectedfactors?This is to advocate aneclecticstrategy,to regardsuchmodels asheuristicconveniences. Allison wants us to take them more seriously: 'These con-

ceptual models are much more than simpleangles of vision or approaches. Each

conceptual model consists of a cluster of assumptions and categories that in-

fluencewhat the analystfindspuzzling, how he formulates his question, wherehelooks for evidence, and what he produces for an answer' (p. 245).

This suggests that the models are incompatible, and Allison goes so far as to

apply the term paradigmto them. Without launching into the semantics of that

elastic word, I must saythat it seemstoo strong for Allison's case. I do not believe

that these models amountto 'incommensurableways of seeingthe world'. It is not

as though the three accounts had been written by St Augustine, Bentham and

Mao Tse Tung. They bear a strong family likeness and I certainlyexperienceno

discomfort in comparing them and deciding which offers the more plausible

explanation for any particularincident. Thorough, self-conscious and sophisti-cated though they are, Allison's different accounts fall easily within a familiar

commonsensical intuitive framework of social explanation, one indeed that

requires pretty crude psychological assumptions and little reference to the greatmovements of history.15Indeedit is the similarityof the models, the fact that theyare all within the rational choice paradigm, that makes their elaboration and

comparison fruitful,whateverthe shortcomingsof the paradigmitself. It is much

more difficult to see how models drawn from differentparadigmscould usefullybe compared, since comparison would continually involve reference back to

fundamentaldisagreementsabout the nature of historical and social knowledge;and these disagreementsthemselvespreclude sharedcanons of proof or verifica-

tion. Thus while Allison's work suggests that there is a greatdeal to be gained by

elaborating and applying with precision numerous models within a common

general framework,it has nothing to add to the debate over the nature of social

explanation.Allison also believes that his models and methods should be judged by their

results not defined as the production of satisfyinghistorical reconstructionsbut of

predictions. His ambition here seems fairly modest: one expects sophisticatedand well-informed participantsor observersto be able to make a good guess at

what will happen next or what so and so will do; it is just that one's confidence15 The similarities and limitations of Allison's models are readily apparent if one compares

them to what may more reasonably be called an alternative paradigm, say Chinese theory and

practice as described by Franz Schurmann in Ideology and Organization in Communist China

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, I966).



























































































































Review Article. The Illusion of Decision 243eview Article. The Illusion of Decision 243eview Article. The Illusion of Decision 243eview Article. The Illusion of Decision 243eview Article. The Illusion of Decision 243

diminishes as the time scale gets longer and the issues more complex. It is rather

like the difference between betting on a single horse race and filling in a football

coupon:a moderate increase n

complexity enormouslylengthensthe odds. It

maybe that internationalrelations are more like horse races thanare domesticpolitics,but Allison with this study will himself have done much to discourage light-heartedpunting.

Allison's interest in international relations and his choice of subjecthave natur-

ally pushedto the forefront the question of the Stateas an actor,and thedegreeto

which those who must in fact make the decisions are in command of a unified,effective and obedient instrument.In a domestic context this problemwould take

on a ratherdifferentaspect. Few people now talk about the State as a monolith,and though problems of accountability and control are critical, the need for

centralization is arguable.The problem is not to replace the Hidden Hand witha command structure but to engineer a dispersion of responsibilityas well as of

influence.16This is only one of the many trains of thought this book provokesand which I cannot pursuefurther.I cannot refrain, however, from revealing to

those in executive positions three practical maxims extractedfrom it:

If you want to know what the Russians areup to, keep tabs on the Russians.

Don't believe what the experts tell you or expect them to do what you tell

them.

Don't bother about the advice itself, look to see who is giving it.















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16 Cf. for instance M. G. Clarke's review of 'The Dilemma of Accountability in Modern

Government' in Political Studies, xix (I971), 469-72.









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The Illusion of Decision