Abstract

Mearsheimer and Rosato’s How States Think argues rational foreign policy decision-making proceeds from deliberations whereby state actors link credible theories regarding policies’ effects to states’ strategic ends. Mearsheimer and Rosato’s emphasis on the importance of theories in the minds of state decision-makers, and their willingness to consider the state as an important “unit level” variable in international politics, establishes a unique position in international relations theory. However, their procedural definition of rationality is at odds with their recognition that irrational outcomes may result from actions that are based on credible, but inaccurate theories that fail to predict foreign policy decisions’ consequences. Rather than emphasizing deliberative rationality, key features of international politics are better understood as being caused by the limited forms of policy experimentation states can engage in, and the corresponding difficulties in identifying the accuracy of rival theories. Hardly due to poor incentives or various psychological biases, these limits are due to the monopolistic properties of state authority, and the corresponding limits to experimenting with the rival theories that foreign policy elites hold regarding the international environment.