Introduction to Islam

Introduction to Islam27%

Introduction to Islam Author:
Translator: Sayyid Akhtar Husain S.H. Rizvi
Publisher: Ansariyan Publications – Qum
Category: General Books
ISBN: 978-964-219-213-7

Introduction to Islam
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Introduction to Islam

Introduction to Islam

Author:
Publisher: Ansariyan Publications – Qum
ISBN: 978-964-219-213-7
English

This book is corrected and edited by Al-Hassanain (p) Institue for Islamic Heritage and Thought

Some special qualities and responsibilities of The Ummah

The Holy Quran considers Islamic community to be so important that Almighty Allah has chosen it and entrusted heavy responsibilities upon it. Although Prophet Ibrahim (a) requested Almighty Allah to create an Islamic Ummah from his progeny:

رَبَّنَا وَاجْعَلْنَا مُسْلِمَيْنِ لَكَ وَمِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِنَآ أُمَّةً مُّسْلِمَةً لَّكَ وَأَرِنَا مَنَاسِكَنَا وَتُبْ عَلَيْنَآ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ‏

“Our Lord! and make us both submissive to Thee and (raise) from our offspring a nation submitting to Thee, and show us our ways of devotion and turn to us (mercifully), surely Thou art the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.” (2:128)

He also says:

وَ جَهِدُواْ فِى اللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ هُوَ اجْتَبَكُمْ وَ مَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُم فِى الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ مِلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ اءِبْرَاهِيمَ هُوَ سَمَّكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِن قَبْلُ وَ فِى هَذَا لِيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ شَهِيدًا عَلَيْكُمْ وَ تَكُونُوا شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ فَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَوةَ وَ ءَاتُواْ الزَّكَوةَ وَاعْتَصِمُوا باْللَّهِ هُوَ مَوْلَكُمْ فَنِعْمَ الْمَولَى‏ وَ نِعْمَ النَّصِيرُ

“And strive hard in (the way of) Allah, (such) a striving as is due to Him; He has chosen you and has not laid upon you any hardship in religion; the faith of your father Ibrahim; He named you Muslims before and in this, that the Apostle may be a bearer of witness to you, and you may be bearers of witness to the people; therefore keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate and hold fast by Allah; He is your Guardian; how excellent the Guardian and how excellent the Helper!” (22:78)

Some important points are hinted at in these verses:

1. The coming into existence of the Islamic Ummah was due to the prayers of Prophet Ibrahim (a) and he named them as Muslims.

2. Islamic Ummah is the chosen one of Almighty Allah.

3. Islam is an easy religion and it has no hardship and difficulty.

4. Ummah of Islam would be the witness on the other communities, just as the Messenger of Allah (s) is the witness on Islamic Ummah.

5. Muslims are duty bound to perform Jihad to defend and propagate Islam.

The Holy Quran has mentioned some qualities for the Islamic Ummah and we hint at some of them as follows:

A – Almighty Allah has deemed the Islamic Ummah to be a medium nation, so that it be a witness on other people.

The Holy Quran says:

وَكَذَ لِكَ جَعَلْنَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطاً لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَ يَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيداً

“And thus We have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people and (that) the Apostle may be a bearer of witness to you…” (2:143)

Most commentators have interpreted ‘wast’ in the meaning of medium and moderate and said: Muslim Ummah is described as ‘a medium nation’ as it has legislated rules and regulations within limits of moderation and is away from excess and shortage. Islam neither calls man to extremism in materialism and sensuality, like apostates and materialists and nor does it calls to monasticism, asceticism, aloofness from worldly affairs and physical penance, as monks and ascetics in Christianity and Buddhism are. Islam has merged together world and hereafter, materialism and spirituality, spiritual and physical success and perfection and work and worship and has created a moderate limit.

There is no doubt that the existence of such a moderate Ummah is the best evidence of its capability with regard to social organization and assuring the success of the world and hereafter of man and it serves as an exemplar to all communities.

On the basis of this, the meaning of the verse becomes as follows: Almighty Allah has deemed you as a medium and moderate community, so that through the means of your moderate deeds you may lay an example of religious moderation in the view of the world and be a witness for others, just as the Messenger of Allah (s) is also a witness over you.

Therefore, Muslims should make efforts that by following the illuminated laws and commandments of Islam they become exemplars to others so that they may also be attracted to Islam.

B – Among other specialties of the Ummah of Islam is inviting others to righteousness, enjoining good and forbidding evil.

Almighty Allah says:

وَلْتَكُنْ مِّنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى‏ الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَ يَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَأُوْلَِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ‏

“And from among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong, and these it is that shall be successful.” (3:104)

He also says:

كُنْتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ

“You are the best of the nations raised up for (the benefit of) men; you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah…” (3:110)

In the first verse, it is expected from Muslims that they should make themselves into a powerful nation and perform three important functions:

1. They should invite people to goodness.

2. They should enjoin good deeds.

3. They should forbid evil.

In the second verse also, three things are mentioned as the cause of this superiority:

1. Enjoining good,

2. Forbidding evil,

3. Faith in God.

On the basis of this, three great responsibilities are entrusted to the Islamic Ummah: Invite people to goodness, enjoin good and forbid evil extensively. That is why it is having precedence to all other communities.

Since the Islamic Ummah has accepted this important responsibility it should prepare itself for its fulfillment. It has the duty of calling people to goodness. It should be prepared to forbidding evil, extensively and in every situation. It should defend the rights of the deprived and poor, wherever they might be; it should confront the arrogant, oppressors and unjust. Although fulfillment of this extensive and important mission can be possible only in the instance that Islamic Ummah should be powerful and established in the fields of academics, economics, administration and technology.

C – Another distinctive quality of the Islamic Ummah is that it should be tough with the enemies and kind and flexible with Muslim.

The Holy Quran says:

مُحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ أَشِدَّآءُ عَلَى الْكُفَّارِ رُحَمَآءُ بَيْنَهُمْ تَرَاهُمْ رُكَّعاً سُجَّداً يَبْتَغُونَ فَضْلاً مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرِضْوَاناً سِيمَاهُمْ فِى وُجُوهِهِم مِّنْ أَثَرِ السُّجُودِ

“Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah, and those with him are firm of heart against the unbelievers, compassionate among themselves; you will see them bowing down, prostrating themselves, seeking grace from Allah and pleasure; their marks are in their faces because of the effect of prostration…” (48:29)

In the above verse, two distinctive qualities of the Prophet and his companions are hinted at:

1. They do not accept flexibility and lenience before disbelievers and polytheists and in front of their hegemonies and trespassing. They are so equipped and powerful that they do not need conspiracies in order to get an upper hand.

2. However, they are affectionate among themselves. They consider all Muslims of the world to be the components of a single Islamic Ummah. They are happy with prosperity of their Muslim brothers and are aggrieved at their problems and difficulties. They make efforts for progress of Islamic Ummah and to solve social, political and economic problems of the Muslim public.

On the basis of this, Islamic territories should become determined against enemies of Islam and should not accept their force and domination. But there should be good and friendly relations between Muslim countries. They should defend the independence and territorial integrity of each other. They should cooperate with each other in all their occupations, they should avoid factors that create dissension and disunity and they should make the bonds of brotherhood and unity strong.

Part IV: Man in viewpoint of Islam

Man in viewpoint of Islam

Man and Freedom of Choice

Man and duty

Duties of man

Man in viewpoint of Islam

Man, in the view of Islam, is a multi-dimensional being. His creation began with a matter, which lacked perception and understanding and after traversing the stages of perfection, he developed into a being that is superior to matter.

The Holy Quran says with regard to the creation of man:

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنْسَنَ مِن سُلَلَةٍ مِّن طِينٍ‏ * ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَهُ نُطْفَةً فِى قَرَارٍ مَّكِينٍ‏ * ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَماً فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَمَ لَحْماً ثُمَّ أَنشَأْنَهُ خَلْقاً ءَاخَرَ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَلِقِينَ‏

“And certainly We created man of an extract of clay. Then We made him a small seed in a firm resting-place. Then We made the seed a clot, then We made the clot a lump of flesh, then We made (in) the lump of flesh bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh, then We caused it to grow into another creation, so blessed be Allah, the best of the creators.” (23:12-14)

In the above verse, after explaining the stages of perfection of matter it is said: ‘then We caused it to grow into another creation’ In this stage, he has changed the words and instead of ‘we created’ the term of ‘we originated’ has been used. He has described this new creation in the words of ‘another creation’, that is the last stage of the creation of man is having absolute difference with the previous stages.

It is concluded from this verse that the last stage of the creation of man (form and soul) is superior to and more perfect than the previous stages.

In philosophy also, it is proved that the soul of man is an abstract being consisting of a matter, which is related to non-material effects. In the same way, it is proved that the material form, under the effect of the substantial motion (Harkat Jauhari), changes into a spiritual and non-material entity. Therefore, since this matter was extremely astonishing, Almighty Allah has praised this important matter in the Holy Quran and said:

فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَلِقِينَ‏

“Blessed be Allah, the best of the creators.” (23:14)

In another verse also, the story of the creation of man is narrated as follows:

ألَّذِى أَحْسَنَ كُلَّ شَىْ‏ءٍ خَلَقَهُ وَبَدَأَ خَلْقَ الْإِنْسَانِ مِن طِينٍ‏ * ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُ مِن سُلاَلَةٍ مِّن مَّآءٍ مَّهِينٍ * ثُمَّ سَوَّاهُ وَنَفَخَ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِهِ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمَعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَ الْأَفْئِدَةَ قَلِيلاً مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ

“Who made good everything that He has created, and He began the creation of man from dust. Then He made his progeny of an extract of water held in light estimation. Then He made him complete and breathed into him of His spirit, and made for you the ears and the eyes and the hearts; little is it that you give thanks.” (32:7-9)

In this verse, three important points are hinted at:

1. The soul is blown into the body of man when the body is perfected and becomes capable to accept it; which in Quran is described as ‘made him complete’.

2. Allah, the Mighty and the High has related the soul of man to Himself and said: ‘I blew My soul in it,’ so that it may indicate the lofty status of man.

3. Man is introduced as a being that is in possession of ears, eyes, heart and soul. Since the tools of obtaining knowledge, that is ears, eyes and heart are placed in his being, he can obtain knowledge and gain precedence over the other creatures. This earthly and ethereal being, since he is having the above precedence, he became eligible to be the prayer direction of angels.

The Holy Quran also says:

فَإِذَا سَوَّيْتُهُ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِى فَقَعُواْ لَهُ سَاجِدِينَ

“So when I have made him complete and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down making obeisance to him.” (15:29)

Man in Quran is described in two apparently contradictory ways: On one hand he is worthy of praise and laudation and is having superiority over all beings.

وَلَقَدْ كَرَّمْنَا بَنِى ءَادَمَ وَحَمَلْنَهُمْ فِى الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ وَرَزَقْنَهُم مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَتِ وَفَضَّلْنَهُمْ عَلَى‏ كَثِيرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقْنَا تَفْضِيلاً

“And surely We have honored the children of Adam, and We carry them in the land and the sea, and We have given them of the good things, and We have made them to excel by an appropriate excellence over most of those whom We have created.” (17:70)

As a result of his special creation, man is capable of gaining knowledge, which cannot even be understood by angels.

The Holy Quran says in this regard:

وَعَلَّمَ ءَادَمَ الْأَسْمَآءَ كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمْ عَلَى الْمَلَئِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنبِئُونِى بِأَسْمَآءِ هَؤُلَا ءِ إِن كُنْتُمْ صَدِقِينَ‏ * قَالُواْ سُبْحَنَكَ لَا عِلْمَ لَنَآ إِلَّا مَا عَلَّمْتَنَآ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ‏ * قَالَ يَادَمُ أَنْبِئْهُمْ بِأَسْمَآئِهِمْ فَلَمَّآ أَنبَأَهُمْ بِأَسْمَآئِهِمْ قَالَ أَلَمْ أَقُل لَّكُمْ إِنِّى أَعْلَمُ غَيْبَ السَّمَوَ تِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَأَعْلَمُ مَا تُبْدُونَ وَمَا كُنتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ‏

“And He taught Adam all the names, then presented them to the angels; then He said: Tell me the names of those, if you are right. They said: Glory be to Thee! we have no knowledge, but that which Thou hast taught us; surely Thou art the Knowing, the Wise. He said: O Adam! inform them of their names. Then when he had informed them of their names, He said: Did I not say to you that I surely know what is secret in the heavens and the earth and (that) I know what you manifest and what you hide?” (2:31-33)

On another occasion, He says:

وَ إِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلَئِكَةِ إِنّى جَاعِلٌ فِى الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً قَالُوا أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمآءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَ نُقَدِّسُ لَكَ قَالَ إِنِّى أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ‏

“And when your Lord said to the angels, I am going to place in the earth a vicegerent, they said: What! wilt Thou place in it such as shall make mischief in it and shed blood, and we celebrate Thy praise and extol Thy holiness? He said: Surely I know what you do not know.” (2:30)

In these verses, man is introduced as a valuable being and the vicegerent of God on the earth and also a being that has such scientific capability that he is even superior to the proximate angels of God so much so that angels prostrated before his lofty station.

On the other hand, man is at the same time denounced in Quran and his evil aspects are also mentioned:

إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ خُلِقَ هَلُوعاً * إِذَا مَسَّهُ الشَّرُّ جَزُوعاً * وَإِذَا مَسَّهُ الْخَيْرُ مَنُوعاً

“Surely man is created of a hasty temperament; being greatly grieved when evil afflicts him, and miserly when good befalls him.” (70:19-21)

And He says:

وَخُلِقَ الإِنْسَنُ ضَعِيفاً

“…and man is created weak.” (4:28)

And He says:

كَلَّا إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَيَطْغَى‏ أَن رَّآهُ اسْتَغْنَى‏

“Nay! man is most surely inordinate. Because he sees himself free from want.” (96:6-7)

وَيَدْعُ الْإِنْسَنُ بِالشَّرِّ دُعَآءَهُ بِالْخَيْرِ وَكَانَ الْإِنسَنُ عَجُولَاً

“And man prays for evil as he ought to pray for good, and man is ever hasty.” (17:11)

إِنَّ الْأِنْسَانَ لَظَلُومٌ كَفَّارٌ

“…most surely man is very unjust, very ungrateful.’ (14:34)

وَلَئِنْ أَذَقْنَا الْإِنْسَنَ مِنَّا رَحْمَةً ثُمَّ نَزَعْنَهَا مِنْهُ إِنَّهُ لَيَوُسٌ كَفُورٌ * وَلَئِنْ أَذَقْنَهُ نَعْمَآءَ بَعْدَ ضَرَّآءَ مَسَّتْهُ لَيَقُولَنَّ ذَهَبَ السَّيِّئَاتُ عَنِّى إِنَّهُ لَفَرِحٌ فَخُورٌ

“And if We make man taste mercy from Us, then take it off from him, most surely he is despairing, ungrateful. And if We make him taste a favor after distress has afflicted him, he will certainly say: The evils are gone away from me. Most surely he is exulting, boasting.” (11:9-10)

قُل لَّوْ أَنتُمْ تَمْلِكُونَ خَزَآئِنَ رَحْمَةِ رَبِّى إِذاً لَّأَمْسَكْتُمْ خَشْيَةَ الْإِنفَاقِ وَ كَانَ الْإِنسَنُ قَتُوراً

“Say: If you control the treasures of the mercy of my Lord, then you would withhold (them) from fear of spending, and man is miserly.” (17:100)

Also, the two contradictory aspects of man are as follows: On one hand he is having an abstract ethereal soul, having the capability of obtaining knowledge, which is not possible from the angels. He is the vicegerent of God and angels have prostrated before him. Almighty Allah has praised him and made him superior over other beings. His nature is based on monotheism and it is aware of perfection. And on the other hand he is introduced as an oppressor, infidel, despairing, ignorant, riotous, anxious, obstructer, weak, hasty, gleeful, arrogant, niggardly and rebellious.

In traditions also, man is introduced in these same two ways. Now the question arises that what should be said in order to reconcile the two types of verses?

The reply is that man is a being with two kinds of natures, which is having two existences: half of his nature is from light and half from darkness. Although man is not more than one reality, he is having two dimensions: The aspect of bestiality and the aspect of humanity. On one hand, animal desires have been placed in his being and he is made the target of condemnation.

On the other hand, he is in possession of an abstract ethereal soul. His soul is a divine breath, which is compatible with and connected to the holy sphere and all the good deeds, merits, good manners and good qualities are all sourced from this; that is why he has been accorded nobility and became eligible that angels should prostrate before him. Man, as a result of this creation and specialties, can be attracted to animal desires and strengthen his bestial aspect as a result of which his human dimension would weaken. In the same way, he can focus his attention on human excellences and merits and to moderate and control the animal desires. It is at the discretion of man to choose any option he likes.

Man and Freedom of Choice

Man is a being, who is independent and has freedom of choice, because be performs his functions from the aspect of reason and intention. Man is not like a piece of stone, which is thrown up without any choice and which falls to the earth without an intention. It is also not like a tree, which absorbs nourishment from the earth without any intention, grows up and gives fruits. Man is also not a beast that acts due to instinct and has no self control over internal inclinations and selfish motives and that submits to inclination without thinking about the consequences.

On the contrary, the actions of man arise from knowledge and intention. He does what he intends to do. At the outset itself, he is aware of the advantages and disadvantages very well; then he decides whether to act or not; he chooses one option and fulfills it.

On the basis of this, man is a being that is independent and has freedom of selection. He always sees himself at the crossroads and considers himself to be free in choosing one option; that is why he contemplates on it.

One of the evidences of the freedom of choice of man is praise and condemnation of intellectuals. They consider some actions as good and praise the doer of those acts and they regard some acts as evil and condemn those who commit them. If man had not been free in his choice of his acts, positive and negative moral values would have been meaningless.

Islam also considers man to be independent and having freedom of choice. We have numerous verses and traditions with regard to this matter and we present some of them as follows:

The Holy Quran says:

إِنَّا خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ أَمْشَاجٍ نَّبْتَلِيهِ فَجَعَلْنَاهُ سَمِيعاً بَصِيراً *إِنَّا هَدَيْنَاهُ السَّبِيلَ إِمَّا شَاكِراً وَإِمَّا كَفُوراً

“Surely We have created man from a small life-germ uniting (itself): We mean to try him, so We have made him hearing, seeing. Surely We have shown him the way: he may be thankful or unthankful.” (76:2-3)

وَمَن يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الْدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَمَن يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الْأَخِرَةِ نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَ سَنَجْزِى الْشَّكِرِينَ‏

“…and whoever desires the reward of the hereafter I shall give him of it, and I will reward the grateful.” (3:145)

وَقُلِ الْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكُمْ فَمَن شَآءَ فَلْيُؤْمِن وَمَن شَآءَ فَلْيَكْفُرْ

“And say: The truth is from your Lord, so let him who please believe, and let him who please disbelieve…” (18:29)

وَمَآ أَصَابَكُم مِّن مُّصِيبَةٍ فَبِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ وَيَعْفُواْ عَن كَثِيرٍ

“And whatever affliction befalls you, it is on account of what your hands have wrought, and (yet) He pardons most (of your faults).” (42:30)

ظَهَرَ الْفَسَادُ فِى الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِى النَّاسِ لِيُذِيقَهُم بَعْضَ الَّذِى عَمِلُواْ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ

“Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have wrought, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return.” (30:41)

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْساً إِلّا وُسْعَهَا لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ

“Allah does not impose upon any soul a duty but to the extent of its ability; for it is (the benefit of) what it has earned and upon it (the evil of) what it has wrought.” (2:286)

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُلْحِدُونَ فِى آيَاتِنَا لَا يَخْفَوْنَ عَلَيْنَآ أَفَمَن يُلْقَى‏ فِى النَّارِ خَيْرٌ أَم مَّن يَأْتِى آمِناً يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ اعْمَلُواْ مَا شِئْتُمْ إِنَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ

“Surely they who deviate from the right way concerning Our communications are not hidden from Us. What! is he then who is cast into the fire better, or he who comes safe on the day of resurrection? Do what you like; surely He sees what you do.” (41:40)

In these verses, the acts of man are related to his self and their consequences are also considered to be the results of his acts. On the basis of this, man in the view of Quran is a being that is free and having freedom of selection.

Traditions also clarify the independence and freedom of man.

Ibrahim says in a traditional report: I asked Imam Ali Reza (a): Does Almighty Allah compel His servants to commit sins? He replied: On the contrary, He has given them freedom of choice and respite, so that they might repent. I asked: Has Almighty Allah imposed on His servants duties that are beyond their capacity? He replied: How can He do this when He Himself says: “Allah is not unjust to the servants”. Then Imam (a) said: My father, Musa Ibne Ja’far has narrated from his father, Ja’far bin Muhammad that he said: One who thinks that Allah compels men to commit sins, or that He makes them responsible to do that, which they are not capable of, do not eat the meat slaughtered by them, do not accept their testimony, do not pray behind them and don’t give Zakat money to them.[102]

On the basis of this, according to the confirmed religious laws and testimony of intellectuals, supported by verses and traditions, man is having complete freedom in choosing his good or bad deeds.

At this juncture, it is necessary to hint at two important points:

First point: It was previously stated that freedom of choice is in the meaning that his actions are performed with sanction of reason and intention, but we should know that it does not necessary imply that acts and deeds of man are beyond the absolute and universal laws of cause and effect and which are delegated by his own self. On the contrary, they also are having special causes that without their existence, actions and deeds of man cannot be performed. It is true that man is able to imagine the issue at the beginning itself, at that time he adopts it according to exigency, but the same attention and understanding of advantages and disadvantages and decision to do or not to do it, which are the prefaces of intention, will not be according to cause. On the contrary, perceptions, affections, internal inclinations, habits, views, family training, social circumstances and conditions and particular atmosphere of life and personality influence his style of thinking and selection. Each of them also in their own turn is the effect of its particular cause.

This chain of cause and effect also exists, so that divine will may continue in the same way; because the material world is created in this way and special laws have been made to control it. Allah desired that acts and deeds of man should be performed after contemplation and freedom of choice. On the basis of this, freedom of choice of man implies that his selection and intention is a part of the final cause of his action and the committing of act rests on him.

Second point: From that, which is mentioned, actions of man are connected to his own self and he has complete freedom in choosing them, it must not be concluded that actions are independently performed by man himself and that he is completely needless of God. On the contrary, since man is needful of the Glorified God in his existence and survival, in his acts and deeds also, he is needful of the favors of Almighty Allah. Thus if support of Allah is no more, there would be no actions or deeds as well.

That is why, in spite of the fact that actions of man are his own, sometimes they have also been related to God. The final activeness of God in this instance comes under the length of the activeness of man and not in its width.

Therefore, Almighty Allah says in the Holy Quran:

وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِ لَيُبَيِّنَ لَهُمْ فَيُضِلُّ اللَّهُ مَن يَشَآءُ وَيَهْدِى مَن يَشَآءُ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ‏

“And We did not send any apostle, but with the language of his people, so that he might explain to them clearly; then Allah makes whom He pleases err and He guides whom He pleases and He is the Mighty, the Wise.” (14:4)

In the same way, He says:

قُلِ اللَّهُمَّ مَلِكَ الْمُلْكِ تُؤْتِى الْمُلْكَ مَنْ تَشَآءُ وَتَنْزِعُ الْمُلْكَ مِمَّنْ تَشَآءُ وَتُعِزُّ مَنْ تَشَآءُ وَتُذِلُّ مَنْ تَشَآءُ بِيَدِكَ الْخَيْرُ إِنَّكَ عَلَى‏ كُلِّ شَى‏ءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“Say: O Allah, Master of the Kingdom! Thou givest the kingdom to whomsoever Thou pleasest and takest away the kingdom from whomsoever Thou pleasest, and Thou exaltest whom Thou pleasest and abasest whom Thou pleasest; in Thine hand is the good; surely, Thou hast power over all things.” (3:26)

He also says:

وَلَوْ شَآءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَحِدَةً وَلَكِن يُضِلٌّ مَن يَشَآءُ وَيَهْدِى مَن يَشَآءُ وَلَتُسْئَلُنَّ عَمَّا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ‏

“And if Allah pleases, He would certainly make you a single nation, but He causes to err whom He pleases and guides whom He pleases; and most certainly you will be questioned as to what you did.” (16:93)

On the basis of this, misguidance and guidance, giving the kingdom and taking it away, giving honor and being degraded, all of this is attributed to Almighty Allah. Contrary to the previous verses, faith and disbelief, intention of reward of the world or rewards of the hereafter, performing good or bad acts, mischief in land or sea and the calamities that befall man, are attributed to man.

Although sometimes an act is attributed to God as well as to man, when He says:

فَلَمْ تَقْتُلُوهُمْ وَلَكِنَّ اللَّهَ قَتَلَهُمْ وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَكِنَّ اللَّهَ رَمَى‏ وَلِيُبْلِىَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْهُ بَلَآءً حَسَناً إِنَّ اللَّهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ‏

“So you did not slay them, but it was Allah Who slew them, and you did not smite when you smote (the enemy), but it was Allah Who smote, and that He might confer upon the believers a good gift from Himself; surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing.” (8:17)

In the same way, He says:

وَمَا تَشَآءُونَ إِلَّا أَن يَشَآءَ اللَّهُ رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ‏

“And you do not please except that Allah please, the Lord of the worlds.” (81:29)

Therefore act and will are also attributed to man as well as to God.

On the basis of this, there is no compulsion in action, as the acts are performed at the discretion and intention of man. Delegation is also not there, because the doer is not needless of the bestowals of God; on the contrary, it is a matter between the two, which in the terminology of Masoomeen (a) is introduced as ‘Amrun baina amrain’ (A matter between two matters).

When in the presence of Imam Ali Reza (a) conversation turned towards free will and destiny, he said: Shall I not mention to you a basic rule in this regard, so that you may never differ about it among yourselves and with which you may defeat your enemies? They said: Yes, please do. He said: Allah, the Mighty and Sublime is not obeyed through compulsion and is not disobeyed through force. He has not left His servants helpless in His kingdom. Allah is the owner of that, which He has given to the servants and He is powerful over that for which He has empowered the servants. If servants obey the command, Allah does not obstruct them and if they want to commit sins and Allah wants to prevent it, He does so. And if He does not prevent and they commit the sin, Allah has not urged them to commit that sin.[103]

Muhammad bin Ijlan says: I asked Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a): Has Almighty Allah delegated actions to men? He replied: Almighty Allah is greater than that He should leave the actions of servants to Himself. I asked: Has he compelled people to their acts? He replied: Almighty Allah is more just than that He should compel His servants to commit an act and then punish them for it.[104]

Man and duty

Since non-living beings and vegetations are lacking perception and intention, they are not capable of bearing any kind of responsibilities. Animals are also not competent enough to bear duties and responsibilities, because they do not possess intellect, which may enable them to use contemplation and insight before their personal inclinations and to moderate and control their carnal desires.

Angels are also not needful of duties and legislation of commandments and laws, because their existence is superior to matter and materialism, they have no sensuality and anger that they should need to control them. Therefore, disobedience and sins can never be expected from them that they should be needful of commands and prohibitions. Angels, with regard to duties, which are naturally imposed on them, are absolutely submissive to them and do not oppose them in any way.

The Holy Quran says, with regard to angels:

لَّا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَآ أَمَرَهُمْ وَ يَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ‏

“…they do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, and do as they are commanded.” (66:6)

It quotes the statement of angels that they say:

وَمَا مِنَّآ إِلَّا لَهُ مَقَامٌ مَّعْلُومٌ * وَإِنَّا لَنَحْنُ الصَّآفُّونَ‏ * وَإِنَّا لَنَحْنُ الْمُسَبِّحُونَ‏

“And there is none of us but has an assigned place, and most surely we are they who draw themselves out in ranks, and we are most surely they who declare the glory (of Allah).” (37:164-166)

But man, as a result of his special creation, has accepted responsibilities and he can be entrusted with responsibilities, because firstly, he is not like the angels; on the contrary, his soul is related to the material body and through this it gains perfection and degradation; and obedience and disobedience can be expected from him.

Secondly: Man is a being that is created as intelligent and free and he is capable of reasoning and contemplation to discriminate what is good for him and what is against his interests. Man, as a result of these two special qualities, can be made duty bound and be subject to commands and prohibitions.

Abdullah bin Sinan says: I asked Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a): Who is superior, angels or human beings? He replied: Amirul Momineen Ali Ibne Abi Talib (a) said in this regard: Allah, the Mighty and Sublime gave intellect to angels without sensuality and gave the animals, sensuality without intellect; but He gave both to human beings. Thus, every person whose intellect dominates his sensuality, is better than angels and one, whose animal desires dominate his intellect, is inferior to the animals.[105]

The Holy Quran says:

إِنَّا عَرَضْنَا الْأَمَانَةَ عَلَى السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ فَأَبَيْنَ أَن يَحْمِلْنَهَا وَأَشْفَقْنَ مِنْهَا وَحَمَلَهَا الْإِنسَانُ إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُوماً جَهُولًا

“Surely We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to be unfaithful to it and feared from it, and man has turned unfaithful to it; surely he is unjust, ignorant.” (33:72)

Some commentators have interpreted ‘trust’ to be the responsibility of bearing commands and prohibitions. In justification of this statement, it can be said: Allah, the Mighty and the High presented the duties to the earth and the heavens, but since they were not having the capability to bear them, they expressed helplessness in accepting those responsibilities. Angels of the heavens, also since they are not material and since they do not possess sensuality and anger, they were also not prepared to accept the duties. In between this, man alone was such that he had the capability of accepting the responsibility, since he is in possession of contemplation, discretion and intention, and is able to impose the limitations of divine laws on himself. Since man was unjust and ignorant that is he was prone to injustice and ignorance, he was able to accept the heavy trust of divine responsibilities. Becoming duty bound for man is a value, because as opposed to other created beings, for which the chosen path of perfection is closed, man was having this divine gift and the way of perfection has been prepared for him.

These duties are imposed by the creator of the universe, who due to His creation, is aware of the specialties of the body and soul of man and his well being and disadvantages of the world and the hereafter; so He designed and framed these rules and sent them to human beings through infallible prophets. Since Almighty Allah was aware about factors of felicity and wickedness of man that is why He did not allow man to create this program for himself; He framed and designed the necessary laws and programs Himself and sent them to man through the prophets.

Although divine duties have to some extent, limited the absolute freedom of man, but this limitation is not against the interest of man. On the contrary, they are framed keeping his best interest in mind, because Almighty Allah can never do anything, which is harmful to His servants.

Basically, man cannot live in absolute freedom, since it is not in his real interests. Since man lives in a society and is in need of others, he has to accept social limitations as a result of which the limitations of religious laws also become applicable to him.

Quran says:

كَانَ الْنَّاسُ أُمَّةً وَ حِدَةً فَبَعَثَ اللَّهُ الْنَّبِيِّينَ مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنْذِرِينَ وَأَنْزَلَ مَعَهُمُ الْكِتَبَ بِالْحَقِّ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ الْنَّاسِ فِيمَا اخْتَلَفُوا فِيهِ وَمَا اخْتَلَفَ فِيهِ إِلّا الَّذِينَ أُوتُوهُ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَآءَتْهُمُ الْبَيِّنَتُ بَغْياً بَيْنَهُمْ فَهَدَى اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا لِمَا اخْتَلَفُوا فِيهِ مِنَ الْحَقِّ بِإِذْنِهِ وَاللَّهُ يَهْدِى مَنْ يَشَاءُ إِلى‏ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ‏

“(All) people are a single nation; so Allah raised prophets as bearers of good news and as warners, and He revealed with them the Book with truth, that it might judge between people in that in which they differed; and none but the very people who were given it differed about it after clear arguments had come to them, revolting among themselves; so Allah has guided by His will those who believe to the truth about which they differed and Allah guides whom He pleases to the right path.” (2:213)

Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a) was asked: Why has the Almighty Allah created man? He replied: Allah, the Mighty and the High, has not created man in vain and for no aim. He has not left them on their own wayward and without any control, on the contrary in order to show His power, He has created them in order to make them liable for duties, so that they may obtain His pleasure through obedience of divine commands. He has not created them to gain some advantage or to remove some harm from Himself, on the contrary, He created them in order to convey benefit to them and to make them inclined to the everlasting bounties of the hereafter.[106]

III. Psychological Challenges to Deterrence

A. Deterrence

The dominant paradigm. Whereas neorealism has been the most influential theory in the academic study of world politics, deterrence has been the most influential theory among the policy elites responsible for statecraft in the second half of the twentieth century (Achen & Snidal, 1989; Jervis, 1978). And, just as it is misleading to place neorealism in conceptual opposition to psychology, it is misleading to do so for deterrence as well. Like neorealism, deterrence theory is best viewed as a particular kind of psychological theory--one that places a premium on conceptual parsimony and that emphasizes the amoral rationality of foreign policy actors. Although deterrence theory comes in many forms (from thoughtful prose to game theoretic models), there are certain recurring themes that justify the common label:

1) the world is a dangerous place. One is confronted by a power-maximizing rational opponent who will capitalize on every opportunity to expand its influence at one's expense. Whenever the option to attack becomes sufficiently attractive (i.e., has greater expected utility than other available options), the likelihood of attack rises to an unacceptably high level;

2) to deter aggression, one should issue retaliatory threats that lead one's opponent to conclude that the expected utility of aggression is lower than the expected utility of the status quo and its projected value into the foreseeable future;

3) to succeed, deterrent threats must be sufficiently potent and credible to overcome an adversary's motivation to attack. Potential aggressors must believe that the defender possesses the resolve and capability to implement the threat. Deterrence will fail if either of these conditions is not met.

Although most deterrence theorists accepted these principles or variants of these principles in the abstract (Kaufman, 1956; Kissinger, 1957; Wohlstetter, 1958), they often disagreed vigorously over how to operationalize them in policy, especially in a nuclear-armed world in which, for the first time in history, the “loser” in war retained the capacity to destroy the “winner”. Consider a classic debate within the deterrence camp during the Cold War. Some theorists argued that, in a MAD world (of mutually assured destruction), nuclear weapons could only deter attacks on one's own territory (Type I or basic deterrence); others argued that nuclear threats could also deter attacks on allies (Type II or extended deterrence) (Kahn, 1965). For the former camp, nuclear threats were of limited utilitybecause , in McNamara’s words, “one cannot fashion a credible deterrent from an incredible action” (quoted in Freedman, 1981, p. 298). Why would a sane American leadership value the political independence of its allies over its own physical survival? This argument highlighted the need for a massive strengthening of conventional deterrence.

The NATO nations balked, however, at matching what they perceived to be massive Soviet spending on conventional forces (Thies, 1991). Deterrence theorists were then assigned the task of infusing credibility into the seemingly suicidal threat of nuclear retaliation. One strategy was the rationality of irrationality. Nuclear threats may gain credibility if one can convince one's opponent that one is crazy enough to follow through on them (Schelling, 1966; Mandel, 1987). Used judiciously, "irrational" threats are effective because "a bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat taken as a bluff" (Kissinger, quoted in Gaddis, 1982, p. 300). One danger is, of course, that if the threatener does not appear crazy enough, the bluff will be called. The strategy can also be dangerous by working too well. For example, during the border skirmishes of the late 1960s, Soviet leaders concluded that Mao was so irrational that he might use nuclear weapons. To preclude this possibility, the Soviets seriously considered a pre-emptive attack against Chinese nuclear facilities (Whiting, 1991).

A second strategy--the threat that leaves something to chance--emphasizes the uncertainties inherent in military confrontations (the fog of war). Even if both sides want to limit a conflict, once hostilities begin, the conflict can escalate far beyond the worst case expectations of the antagonists. Threats that appear incredible become plausible when the two sides find themselves on the slippery slope of military engagements in which neither side completely controls the escalation process (Schelling, 1966). From this perspective, American forces in Europe did not need to be sufficient to halt a Soviet invasion; they functioned as a tripwire that raised the likelihood of eventual American nuclear involvement to an unacceptable level. The essence of this strategy is that potential aggressors will be induced to behave cautiously by the non-zero probability that conflicts, once initiated, will lead to mutual assured destruction (MAD).

Other deterrence theorists denounced the MAD strategy as morally and intellectually bankrupt. They advocated a war-fighting or "countervailing" strategy. Even defensive states need to develop conventional and nuclear capabilities that will give them a wide array of options when confronted by a challenger. The stated goal was to "prevail" in war with any potential aggressor at any step in the ladder of escalation (Kahn, 1965). The reasoning was straightforward. If the aggressors know they have nothing to gain by initiating a conflict or moving up the ladder of escalation, they will refrain from doing so (see Jervis, 1984, for a critique of this strategy).

In brief, MAD theorists emphasized the existence of secure second-strike forces as the best guarantee of peace in a world with two or more nuclear powers. The goal was to prevent war by stressing the risk of mutual annihilation. By contrast, war-fighting theorists were more concerned with what happens should deterrence fail. When challenged, states need the capability to respond in a controlled manner to contain the damage and yet force opponents to back down (Gray and Payne, 1980).

Critics of deterrence theory and its diverse doctrinal offshoots have raised numerous objections. George and Smoke (1974) noted that deterrence theory lacks motivational diagnostics (cf. Herrmann, 1988; Jervis, 1979; Mercer, 1996). It assumes an expansionist adversary, takes conflict for granted, and underestimates the variety of interpretations that can be placed on supposedly unambiguous, reputation-building acts. It also says little about: (1) how risk-seeking oraverse one's opponent might be in sizing up options (joining deterrence theory to prospect theory can be helpful here--Huth and Russett, 1993); (2) how one might change an opponent's motives and transform a competitive into a cooperative relationship (cf. Lindskold 1978). Critics have also complained about the emphasis of deterrence theory on threats and its concomitant neglect of the role that rewards, concessions and integrative problem-solving can play in mitigating conflicts (Jervis, 1979). Threats are not only sometimes ineffective; they sometimes backfire (Lebow, 1981). Finally, critics have objected to the notion that decision-makers in highly stressful crises are as coolly rational as many deterrence theorists, especially the "war fighters", imply (Jervis, Lebow, & Stein, 1985; Holsti, 1989). From the critics’ perspective, it is necessary to replace a narrow focus on deterrence with a broader focus on international influence by building psychological and political moderators into our analysis of when, where, and how threats -- alone or in combination with other tactics -- work.

B. Testing, Clarifying and Qualifying Deterrence

Theory. Any serious evaluation of deterrence theory must grapple with the methodological problems of determining whether deterrence worked or failed from the historical record. To be sure, dramatic failures of deterrence as policy are easy to identify. Country x wanted to stop country y from attacking it or a third country, but failed to do so. The historical data are, however, sufficiently ambiguous to allow seemingly endless arguments on whether individual cases also represent failures of deterrence theory (see Orme, 1987; Lebow & Stein, 1987). An equally imposing obstacle is presented by cases of deterrence success; no one knows how to identify them (George and Smoke, 1974; Achen and Snidal, 1989). When crises do not occur, is it due to the credibility of threats (successes for deterrence theory) or to the fact that the other states never intended to attack? Causal inference requires assumptions about what would have happened in the missing counterfactual cells in the contingency table in which the defender issued no threats.

These issues are not just of academic interest. The events that transpired between 1945 and 1991 in American-Soviet relations underscore both the logical problems in determining who is right and the magnitude of the political stakes in such debates. Although very few predicted when, how, and why the Cold War would come to an end (Gaddis, 1993), neither conservative deterrence theorists nor their liberal conflict spiral opponents were at a loss for retrospective explanations. Conservative observers argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union vindicated the policies of containment and deterrence that the United States pursued, in one form or another, since World War II. Partisans of the Reagan administration argued, more specifically, that the new Soviet thinking was a direct response to the hard-line initiatives of the 1980s and to the technological threat posed by the Strategic Defense Initiative. By contrast, liberal critics of deterrence argued that the policies of the 1980s (and, for many, earlier policies as well) were a massive exercise in overkill, with much blood spilled in unnecessary Third World wars and much treasure wasted in defense expenditures. The Cold War ended as a result of the internal failures of communist societies. If anything, Gorbachev and his policies emerged despite, not because of, the Reagan administration (Lebow and Stein, 1994).

Perhaps historians will someday adjudicate this dispute--although the lack of success on the abundantly documented origins of World War I should constrain optimism here. What is most remarkable for current purposes is how easily the disputants could have explained the opposite outcome. If the Soviet Union had moved in a neo-Stalinist direction in the mid-1980s (massive internal repression and confrontational policies abroad), conservative deterrence theorists could have argued and were indeed prepared to argue that the adversary had merely revealed its true nature (Pipes, 1986), and liberal spiral theorists could have argued and were indeed prepared to argue that "hard-liners beget hard-liners" in the escalatory dynamic (White, 1984). In short, we find ourselves in an epistemological quagmire--an example of what Einhorn and Hogarth (1981) aptly termed an "outcome-irrelevant learning situation."

Assessing the efficacy of deterrence is obviously deeply problematic (indeed, the game theorist Barry Weingast (1996) has shown that if deterrence does indeed work, then there will be many contexts in which the correlation between implementing deterrence and war or peace will be zero). Suffice it to say here that, contrary to White (1984), there is no evidentiary warrant for concluding that deterrence theory is wrong in general or even most of the time. The literature does, however, highlight important gaps in deterrence theory. From a social psychological standpoint, deterrence is but one of many instruments of social influence and the analytic task is to clarify the conditions under which these diverse strategies elicit desired responses from other states (George and Smoke, 1974, 1989; Jervis, Lebow, & Stein, 1985). Excellent reviews of work on bargaining and negotiation exist elsewhere (Druckman and Hopman, 1990; Pruitt, Handbook Chapter). This chapter offers a condensed summary of research that bears most directly on international influence, with special attention to hypotheses that have passed multi-method tests.

C. Influence Strategies

(1) Pure threat strategies. Threats sometimes work (McClintock et al., 1987; Patchen, 1987). Laboratory studies of bargaining have shown, for example, that: (a) threats of defection can lead to beneficial joint outcomes when interests do not conflict (Stech et al., 1984); (b) the mere possession of threat capabilities can reduce defection and increase mutual outcomes in games that prevent communication between the parties (Smith and Anderson, 1975). The evidence is, however, mixed. Other studies have found that threats impede cooperation and lower joint outcomes (Deutsch and Krauss, 1960; Kelley, 1965). Threats have also interfered with cooperation when interests were in conflict (Friedland, 1976) and when communication between bargainers was possible (Smith and Anderson, 1975). Brehm's (1972) reactance theory suggests that threats may backfire by provoking counter-efforts to assert one's freedom to do what was forbidden.

Evidence on international conflict is equally mixed. Although threats may be essential against some opponents, this strategy is counterproductive when directed at nations with limited goals (Kaplowitz, 1984). Several studies of interstate disputes have discovered that even though threats occasionally yield diplomatic victories, they can also lead to unwanted escalation of severe crises (Leng, 1988; Leng and Wheeler, 1979; Leng and Gochman, 1982). Case studies of American foreign policy have drawn a similar conclusion. A strategy of coercive diplomacy emphasizing military threats is appropriate only when restrictive preconditions are met; for example, when the coercing power is perceived to be more motivated than the target of coercion to achieve its objectives, when adequate domestic support can be generated for the policy, when there are usable military options, and when the opponent fears escalation more than the consequences of appearing to back down (George et al., 1971).

(2) Positive inducements. Since Munich gave appeasement a bad name, international relations scholars have largely neglected the role of positive inducements in foreign affairs (for exceptions, see Baldwin, 1971; Milburn and Christie, 1989). The primary advocates of positive inducements have been conflict-spiral theorists who emphasize the debilitating consequences of action-reaction cycles in international conflict (Deutsch, 1983; White, 1984). Although these theorists stress conciliatory gestures, few advocate total unilateral disarmament. And, for good reason: experimental evidence indicates in mixed-motive games, such as Prisoner's Dilemma, unconditional cooperators are ruthlessly exploited (e.g., Stech et al., 1984). In their study of international disputes, Leng and Wheeler (1979) found that nations adopting an appeasement strategy manage to avoid war but almost always suffered a diplomatic defeat. Positive inducements such as financial rewards for compliance can also be very expensive if the other side complies (particularly if it quickly becomes satiated and ups its demands for compensation), and they can foster unwanted dependency and sense of entitlement (Leng, 1993). Finally, just as deterrence theorists face difficulties in operationalizing threats, so reward theorists encounter problems in operationalizing positive inducements, which may be perceived as overbearing, presumptuous, manipulative, or insultingly small or large (Milburn and Christie, 1989).

The picture is not, however, uniformly bleak. Komorita (1973), for example, showed that unilateral conciliatory acts by one party in experimental bargaining games resulted in increased communication, perceptions of cooperative intent, and mutually beneficial outcomes. In reviewing studies of America-Soviet arms control negotiations, Druckman and Hopmann (1989) found that concessions by one side were generally met by counter-concessions by the opponent, whereas retractions provoked counter-retractions.

For the most part, conflict-spiral theorists have advocated combining conciliatory policy initiatives with adequate military strength and nonprovocative threats. The next section turns to these "mixed" strategies.

(3) Mixed-influence strategies. Spurred by Robert Axelrod's (1984) "the evolution of cooperation," a great deal of attention has been directed to firm-but-fair approaches to resolving conflict. This chapter focuses on Axelrod's (1984) tit-for-tat strategy (TFT), Osgood's (1961) strategy of "graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction" (GRIT) and the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente (George, 1983).

(I) Tit-for-tat. TFT is straightforward. One begins by cooperating and thereafter simply repeats one's opponent's previous move. Considerable research demonstrates that TFT is as effective as it is simple. In Axelrod's (1984) round robin PD computer tournaments in which expert-nominated strategies were pitted against one another, TFT--the simplest entrant--earned the highest average number of points. Axelrod (1984) argued that TFT works because it is nice (never defects first), perceptive (quickly discerns the other's intent), clear (easy to recognize), provocable (quickly retaliates), forgiving (willing to abandon defection immediately after the other side's first cooperative act), and patient (willing to persevere).

Although numerous experiments (Pilisuk & Skolnick, 1968), case studies (Snyder & Diesing, 1977) and event-analytic studies (Leng, 1993) have shown TFT-like strategies to be more effective than either pure threat or appeasement strategies in averting both war and diplomatic defeat, an equally sizable body of work has highlighted serious drawbacks to TFT in the international arena:

(1) Two parties can easily get caught up in a never-ending series of mutual defections. One solution is to be less provocable and more forgiving: to respond to defection with a smaller defection or to refrain altogether from retaliating to the first defection and respond in kind only to the second defection. These kinder, gentler variants of TFT outperform simple TFT in computer simulations that permit even low levels of “noise” in which players occasionally misclassify cooperation as defection and defection as cooperation (Bendor, Kramer, & Stout, 1991; Downs, 1991; Molander, 1985; Signorini, 1996). But the price of preventing conflict spirals from escalating out of control may be steep in environments in which predatory powers stand ready to exploit signs of weakness or generosity. A possible corrective here is to couple a slow-to-retaliate rule with a slow-to-forgive rule, thereby perhaps simultaneously averting spirals and deterring opportunists (Pruitt, Handbook Chapter).

(2) TFT applies primarily to Prisoner's Dilemma games in which both sides prefer mutual cooperation to mutual defection. Many conflicts, however, may best be described as games of "Deadlock" in which at least one party prefers unilateral defection or mutual defection to cooperation (Oye, 1985). In such games, TFT will not induce an opponent to cooperate. In arms races, for example, one or both nations might prefer a mutual build-up to an arms control treaty, especially if trust is low or if there is an opportunity to benefit from the race (a charge often leveled at the "military-industrial complexes" within major powers that are an important part of two-level games).

(3) TFT implies perfect perception and control--the ability to identify cooperation and defection correctly and to respond to an opponent in ways that will not be misconstrued. In PD games, moves are unambiguous and this condition can be satisfied; in international politics, policy makers must interpret actions that are ambiguous and, therefore, often controversial. Ambiguity may arise, in part, because there are both temptations and opportunities for nations to disguise defection as cooperation (e.g., by secretly developing chemical weapons or by surreptitiously deploying new missiles or by turning a blind eye to patent pirates). Ambiguity may also arise because nations are complex stimuli that lend themselves to multiple conflicting interpretations. It is often difficult to say whether a given foreign policy act merits a direct dispositional attribution or should be written off as domestic political posturing in a two-level game or perhaps even as a “normal accident” of complex institutional functioning. Arguments of this sort are common place in foreign policy. In the mid 1980's, American observers were deeply divided over the significance of the unilateral suspension of nuclear testing by the Soviet Union. Some treated it as sincere, others dismissed it as a propaganda ploy, and still others took it as a sign of weakness. In October, 1962, Soviet leaders confronted some puzzling mixed signals from the United States, including back-channel diplomatic assurances that the U. S. Navy would avoid provocative confrontations with Soviet vessels in the course of implementing the blockade of Cuba and reports from the Soviet Navy that Soviet submarines were being compelled to surface by aggressive interdiction tactics of which the White House was not fully aware but that were part of standard operating procedure for the U. S. Navy. Whatever the diverse causes of misperception, mistakes can be consequential. Even low levels of “noise” (random misperception) can affect the relative performance of influence strategies in simulations. And misperception with a consistent bias toward encoding cooperative and ambiguous acts as defections can prove devastating to TFT. The literature on cognitive biases warns us to expect exactly this latter form of misperception whenever mutual suspicion has hardened into hostile stereotypes.

(ii) GRIT. Like TFT, GRIT is designed both to resist exploitation and to shift the interaction onto a mutually beneficial, cooperative plane. Unlike TFT, however, GRIT does not assume that the game has yet to begin. Rather, GRIT assumes that the parties are already trapped in a costly conflict spiral. To unwind the spiral, Osgood proposed that one side should announce its intention to reduce tensions and then back up its talk with unilateral conciliatory gestures such as troop reductions and dismantling missiles. These actions are designed to convince the opponent of the initiator's peaceful intentions, but not to weaken the military position of the initiator. The opponent is then invited to respond with conciliatory gestures, but warned that attempts to exploit the situation will force the initiator to return to a hard-line posture. In contrast to TFT, GRIT is nicer (it cooperates in the face of defection) and less provocable (it continues to cooperate even when the opponent ignores what one has done).

Several experiments suggest that GRIT stimulates cooperation. The most impressively cumulative evidence comes from Lindskold’s (1978) research program. The paradigm involves a PD game in which subjects face an opponent (actually a preprogrammed strategy) who is initially competitive (to produce a climate of hostility) but then practices GRIT. In the final phase, the simulated other returns to a neutral strategy to test the persistence of GRIT's effects. Key findings include: a) GRIT leads to more integrative agreements than do competitive and no-message strategies; b) GRIT elicits more cooperation when initiated from a position of strength than weakness (a finding that could be invoked as support for major defense build-ups as a necessary prelude to GRIT); c) GRIT's general statement of cooperative intent is more effective than both promises of conditional cooperation and no statements at all, and GRIT statements are particularly effective when repeated and rephrased; d) GRIT elicits more cooperation than TFT and 50% cooperative strategies; e) GRIT produces more cooperation than a 50%-cooperative strategy, regardless of whether the subject responds before, after, or during the simulated other's response.

Some historical evidence can also be interpreted as consistent with GRIT. In the previous Handbook chapter on international relations, Etzioni argued that a quasi-GRIT strategy adopted by President Kennedy in 1963 promoted a short-lived period of cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union. Larson (1987) credited GRIT with producing the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. And some Sovietologists believe that Western thinking about conflict management influenced the policy strategies of Gorbachev in the late 1980s (Legvold, 1991). Gorbachevian initiatives such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the nuclear test moratorium, and unilateral troop reductions were all in the spirit of GRIT. Indeed, Gorbachev responded to American claims that the Soviet initiatives were merely "propaganda" by demonstrating an intuitive awareness of the logic of GRIT:

If all that we are doing is indeed viewed as mere propaganda, why not respond to it according to the principle of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"? We have stopped nuclear explosions. Then you Americans could take revenge by doing likewise. You could deal us another propaganda blow, say, by suspending the development of one of your strategic missiles. And we would respond with the same kind of "propaganda." And so forth and so on. Would anyone be harmed by competition in such propaganda? (Time, September 9, 1985, p. 23).

GRIT can be criticized for being too soft ("surrender on the installment plan") or as too tough (insufficiently sensitive to the psychological obstacles to resolving protracted and bitter conflicts). In the spirit of toughening GRIT, some researchers have argued that a combination of TFT and GRIT is the best strategy of conflict management in many contexts (Downs, 1991). Initial use of a TFT strategy would demonstrate one's willingness to endure a painful stalemate. Conciliatory offers could then be extended with a diminished fear that they will be interpreted as a sign of weakness (Snyder and Diesing, 1977). Others, however, argue that early competitiveness can too easily escalate into all-out war or poison the atmosphere so that later conciliatory initiatives will be ignored or discounted (Kelman & Bloom, 1973; Kriesberg & Thorson, 1991). Indeed, the now extensive literature on conflict resolution workshops suggests that, in emotionally and politically polarized disputes with long histories of violence (northern Ireland, Cypus, Israelis-Palestinians,... ) even GRIT is too insensitive to the difficulties of breaking down psychological barriers to peace (Azar, 1990; Burton, 1987; Fisher, 1990; Kelman, 1993; Rouhana & Kelman, 1994). It may be necessary to bring high-ranking disputants together in nonofficial workshops in which they are encouraged to understand each other’s needs and to engage in joint problem-solving exercises that gradually build up trust as each side acquires the ability to state the other’s position to the other’s satisfaction and acquires the willingness to consider and even generate integrative proposals that concede some legitimacy to the other’s concerns (Kelman & Cohen, 1976). Third-party mediation can also prove helpful in encouraging disputants: (a) to see the conflict as a disinterested but thoughtful and fair observer might; (b) to consider compromise packages that they would have categorically rejected if simply proposed by the adversary (Rubin, 1981). But the moderators of mediational success appear to be numerous and subtle, including the "ripeness" of the conflict (the parties perceive a mutually debilitating stalemate to exist), the types of issues (the conflict does not focus on territory or rights that the parties endow with sacred or transcendental significance) and the perceived impartiality of the mediator and of the mediation process (Kleiboer, 1996; Vasquez, 1993; Zartman & Touval, 1985).

Evaluating the efficacy of both workshop and third-party interventions raises unsolved methodological issues (from selection biases to the counterfactual vagaries of inferring what would have happened absent any intervention). And all of these approaches assume that there is hidden integrative potential and that both sides can be induced to prefer "jawing" to "warring" -- assumptions that do not hold when one side has so completely dehumanized the other that a dialogue of equals is impossible (e.g., Nazi attitudes toward Jews; Khymer Rouge attitudes toward class enemies).

(iii) The Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente. Shifting from unofficial to official diplomacy, some scholars argue that the Nixon-Kissinger policies of detente in the early 1970s constituted a carefully crafted mixed-influence strategy, albeit with more emphasis on deterrence that in either GRIT or TFT (George, 1983). In this view, Nixon and Kissinger sought to shift the superpower relationship from “confrontational competition” to “collaborative competition” in which the United States and Soviet Union would both show restraint in the Third World and in weapons programs. The American strategy relied on both carrots (enhanced trade and credits, reduced military competition, and access to advanced technology) and sticks (a renewed arms race that would strain the Soviet economy and a suspension of trade that would deny access to American goods). For reasons still vigorously debated, the Nixon-Kissinger policy failed, competition in the Third World heated up, and arms control sputtered and eventually stalled with the SALT II treaty (Gaddis, 1982). Some suggest that the Nixon-Kissinger policy was ill-conceived, poorly implemented, or undermined by Congressional opponents who insisted on linking improved relations to human rights issues. Others blame the Soviet Union for exploiting détente by intervening in Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. As usual, we discover conflicting policy postmortems, each resting on distinctive counterfactual claims and each linked to different assessments of the adversary.

D. Reprise

Research on social influence points to a number of policy-relevant conclusions. At a minimum, the findings demonstrate that the simplistic remedies for complex conflicts are untenable. An exclusive emphasis on threats can provoke otherwise avoidable conflicts (Leng, 1993); so can calls for unilateral disarmament, albeit via a different mechanism -- by tempting aggressors. Encouraging, though, is the multi-method convergence suggesting that in many situations a firm-but-fair reciprocating bargaining strategy works reasonably well by both protecting vital interests and preventing conflicts from getting out of control. On a more pessimistic note, current findings are incomplete and poorly integrated. Although we know more than we once did about when alternative strategies are likely to be successful, our contingent generalizations are still crude (George, 1993). The more specific the policy question -- for example, will economic sanctions work against this adversary in this time frame? -- the more equivocal the answer we can justifiably derive from the literature. There remains a yawning gap between the idiographic and nomothetic -- the particular concerns of the policy community and the theoretical abstractions of academia.

III. Psychological Challenges to Deterrence

A. Deterrence

The dominant paradigm. Whereas neorealism has been the most influential theory in the academic study of world politics, deterrence has been the most influential theory among the policy elites responsible for statecraft in the second half of the twentieth century (Achen & Snidal, 1989; Jervis, 1978). And, just as it is misleading to place neorealism in conceptual opposition to psychology, it is misleading to do so for deterrence as well. Like neorealism, deterrence theory is best viewed as a particular kind of psychological theory--one that places a premium on conceptual parsimony and that emphasizes the amoral rationality of foreign policy actors. Although deterrence theory comes in many forms (from thoughtful prose to game theoretic models), there are certain recurring themes that justify the common label:

1) the world is a dangerous place. One is confronted by a power-maximizing rational opponent who will capitalize on every opportunity to expand its influence at one's expense. Whenever the option to attack becomes sufficiently attractive (i.e., has greater expected utility than other available options), the likelihood of attack rises to an unacceptably high level;

2) to deter aggression, one should issue retaliatory threats that lead one's opponent to conclude that the expected utility of aggression is lower than the expected utility of the status quo and its projected value into the foreseeable future;

3) to succeed, deterrent threats must be sufficiently potent and credible to overcome an adversary's motivation to attack. Potential aggressors must believe that the defender possesses the resolve and capability to implement the threat. Deterrence will fail if either of these conditions is not met.

Although most deterrence theorists accepted these principles or variants of these principles in the abstract (Kaufman, 1956; Kissinger, 1957; Wohlstetter, 1958), they often disagreed vigorously over how to operationalize them in policy, especially in a nuclear-armed world in which, for the first time in history, the “loser” in war retained the capacity to destroy the “winner”. Consider a classic debate within the deterrence camp during the Cold War. Some theorists argued that, in a MAD world (of mutually assured destruction), nuclear weapons could only deter attacks on one's own territory (Type I or basic deterrence); others argued that nuclear threats could also deter attacks on allies (Type II or extended deterrence) (Kahn, 1965). For the former camp, nuclear threats were of limited utilitybecause , in McNamara’s words, “one cannot fashion a credible deterrent from an incredible action” (quoted in Freedman, 1981, p. 298). Why would a sane American leadership value the political independence of its allies over its own physical survival? This argument highlighted the need for a massive strengthening of conventional deterrence.

The NATO nations balked, however, at matching what they perceived to be massive Soviet spending on conventional forces (Thies, 1991). Deterrence theorists were then assigned the task of infusing credibility into the seemingly suicidal threat of nuclear retaliation. One strategy was the rationality of irrationality. Nuclear threats may gain credibility if one can convince one's opponent that one is crazy enough to follow through on them (Schelling, 1966; Mandel, 1987). Used judiciously, "irrational" threats are effective because "a bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat taken as a bluff" (Kissinger, quoted in Gaddis, 1982, p. 300). One danger is, of course, that if the threatener does not appear crazy enough, the bluff will be called. The strategy can also be dangerous by working too well. For example, during the border skirmishes of the late 1960s, Soviet leaders concluded that Mao was so irrational that he might use nuclear weapons. To preclude this possibility, the Soviets seriously considered a pre-emptive attack against Chinese nuclear facilities (Whiting, 1991).

A second strategy--the threat that leaves something to chance--emphasizes the uncertainties inherent in military confrontations (the fog of war). Even if both sides want to limit a conflict, once hostilities begin, the conflict can escalate far beyond the worst case expectations of the antagonists. Threats that appear incredible become plausible when the two sides find themselves on the slippery slope of military engagements in which neither side completely controls the escalation process (Schelling, 1966). From this perspective, American forces in Europe did not need to be sufficient to halt a Soviet invasion; they functioned as a tripwire that raised the likelihood of eventual American nuclear involvement to an unacceptable level. The essence of this strategy is that potential aggressors will be induced to behave cautiously by the non-zero probability that conflicts, once initiated, will lead to mutual assured destruction (MAD).

Other deterrence theorists denounced the MAD strategy as morally and intellectually bankrupt. They advocated a war-fighting or "countervailing" strategy. Even defensive states need to develop conventional and nuclear capabilities that will give them a wide array of options when confronted by a challenger. The stated goal was to "prevail" in war with any potential aggressor at any step in the ladder of escalation (Kahn, 1965). The reasoning was straightforward. If the aggressors know they have nothing to gain by initiating a conflict or moving up the ladder of escalation, they will refrain from doing so (see Jervis, 1984, for a critique of this strategy).

In brief, MAD theorists emphasized the existence of secure second-strike forces as the best guarantee of peace in a world with two or more nuclear powers. The goal was to prevent war by stressing the risk of mutual annihilation. By contrast, war-fighting theorists were more concerned with what happens should deterrence fail. When challenged, states need the capability to respond in a controlled manner to contain the damage and yet force opponents to back down (Gray and Payne, 1980).

Critics of deterrence theory and its diverse doctrinal offshoots have raised numerous objections. George and Smoke (1974) noted that deterrence theory lacks motivational diagnostics (cf. Herrmann, 1988; Jervis, 1979; Mercer, 1996). It assumes an expansionist adversary, takes conflict for granted, and underestimates the variety of interpretations that can be placed on supposedly unambiguous, reputation-building acts. It also says little about: (1) how risk-seeking oraverse one's opponent might be in sizing up options (joining deterrence theory to prospect theory can be helpful here--Huth and Russett, 1993); (2) how one might change an opponent's motives and transform a competitive into a cooperative relationship (cf. Lindskold 1978). Critics have also complained about the emphasis of deterrence theory on threats and its concomitant neglect of the role that rewards, concessions and integrative problem-solving can play in mitigating conflicts (Jervis, 1979). Threats are not only sometimes ineffective; they sometimes backfire (Lebow, 1981). Finally, critics have objected to the notion that decision-makers in highly stressful crises are as coolly rational as many deterrence theorists, especially the "war fighters", imply (Jervis, Lebow, & Stein, 1985; Holsti, 1989). From the critics’ perspective, it is necessary to replace a narrow focus on deterrence with a broader focus on international influence by building psychological and political moderators into our analysis of when, where, and how threats -- alone or in combination with other tactics -- work.

B. Testing, Clarifying and Qualifying Deterrence

Theory. Any serious evaluation of deterrence theory must grapple with the methodological problems of determining whether deterrence worked or failed from the historical record. To be sure, dramatic failures of deterrence as policy are easy to identify. Country x wanted to stop country y from attacking it or a third country, but failed to do so. The historical data are, however, sufficiently ambiguous to allow seemingly endless arguments on whether individual cases also represent failures of deterrence theory (see Orme, 1987; Lebow & Stein, 1987). An equally imposing obstacle is presented by cases of deterrence success; no one knows how to identify them (George and Smoke, 1974; Achen and Snidal, 1989). When crises do not occur, is it due to the credibility of threats (successes for deterrence theory) or to the fact that the other states never intended to attack? Causal inference requires assumptions about what would have happened in the missing counterfactual cells in the contingency table in which the defender issued no threats.

These issues are not just of academic interest. The events that transpired between 1945 and 1991 in American-Soviet relations underscore both the logical problems in determining who is right and the magnitude of the political stakes in such debates. Although very few predicted when, how, and why the Cold War would come to an end (Gaddis, 1993), neither conservative deterrence theorists nor their liberal conflict spiral opponents were at a loss for retrospective explanations. Conservative observers argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union vindicated the policies of containment and deterrence that the United States pursued, in one form or another, since World War II. Partisans of the Reagan administration argued, more specifically, that the new Soviet thinking was a direct response to the hard-line initiatives of the 1980s and to the technological threat posed by the Strategic Defense Initiative. By contrast, liberal critics of deterrence argued that the policies of the 1980s (and, for many, earlier policies as well) were a massive exercise in overkill, with much blood spilled in unnecessary Third World wars and much treasure wasted in defense expenditures. The Cold War ended as a result of the internal failures of communist societies. If anything, Gorbachev and his policies emerged despite, not because of, the Reagan administration (Lebow and Stein, 1994).

Perhaps historians will someday adjudicate this dispute--although the lack of success on the abundantly documented origins of World War I should constrain optimism here. What is most remarkable for current purposes is how easily the disputants could have explained the opposite outcome. If the Soviet Union had moved in a neo-Stalinist direction in the mid-1980s (massive internal repression and confrontational policies abroad), conservative deterrence theorists could have argued and were indeed prepared to argue that the adversary had merely revealed its true nature (Pipes, 1986), and liberal spiral theorists could have argued and were indeed prepared to argue that "hard-liners beget hard-liners" in the escalatory dynamic (White, 1984). In short, we find ourselves in an epistemological quagmire--an example of what Einhorn and Hogarth (1981) aptly termed an "outcome-irrelevant learning situation."

Assessing the efficacy of deterrence is obviously deeply problematic (indeed, the game theorist Barry Weingast (1996) has shown that if deterrence does indeed work, then there will be many contexts in which the correlation between implementing deterrence and war or peace will be zero). Suffice it to say here that, contrary to White (1984), there is no evidentiary warrant for concluding that deterrence theory is wrong in general or even most of the time. The literature does, however, highlight important gaps in deterrence theory. From a social psychological standpoint, deterrence is but one of many instruments of social influence and the analytic task is to clarify the conditions under which these diverse strategies elicit desired responses from other states (George and Smoke, 1974, 1989; Jervis, Lebow, & Stein, 1985). Excellent reviews of work on bargaining and negotiation exist elsewhere (Druckman and Hopman, 1990; Pruitt, Handbook Chapter). This chapter offers a condensed summary of research that bears most directly on international influence, with special attention to hypotheses that have passed multi-method tests.

C. Influence Strategies

(1) Pure threat strategies. Threats sometimes work (McClintock et al., 1987; Patchen, 1987). Laboratory studies of bargaining have shown, for example, that: (a) threats of defection can lead to beneficial joint outcomes when interests do not conflict (Stech et al., 1984); (b) the mere possession of threat capabilities can reduce defection and increase mutual outcomes in games that prevent communication between the parties (Smith and Anderson, 1975). The evidence is, however, mixed. Other studies have found that threats impede cooperation and lower joint outcomes (Deutsch and Krauss, 1960; Kelley, 1965). Threats have also interfered with cooperation when interests were in conflict (Friedland, 1976) and when communication between bargainers was possible (Smith and Anderson, 1975). Brehm's (1972) reactance theory suggests that threats may backfire by provoking counter-efforts to assert one's freedom to do what was forbidden.

Evidence on international conflict is equally mixed. Although threats may be essential against some opponents, this strategy is counterproductive when directed at nations with limited goals (Kaplowitz, 1984). Several studies of interstate disputes have discovered that even though threats occasionally yield diplomatic victories, they can also lead to unwanted escalation of severe crises (Leng, 1988; Leng and Wheeler, 1979; Leng and Gochman, 1982). Case studies of American foreign policy have drawn a similar conclusion. A strategy of coercive diplomacy emphasizing military threats is appropriate only when restrictive preconditions are met; for example, when the coercing power is perceived to be more motivated than the target of coercion to achieve its objectives, when adequate domestic support can be generated for the policy, when there are usable military options, and when the opponent fears escalation more than the consequences of appearing to back down (George et al., 1971).

(2) Positive inducements. Since Munich gave appeasement a bad name, international relations scholars have largely neglected the role of positive inducements in foreign affairs (for exceptions, see Baldwin, 1971; Milburn and Christie, 1989). The primary advocates of positive inducements have been conflict-spiral theorists who emphasize the debilitating consequences of action-reaction cycles in international conflict (Deutsch, 1983; White, 1984). Although these theorists stress conciliatory gestures, few advocate total unilateral disarmament. And, for good reason: experimental evidence indicates in mixed-motive games, such as Prisoner's Dilemma, unconditional cooperators are ruthlessly exploited (e.g., Stech et al., 1984). In their study of international disputes, Leng and Wheeler (1979) found that nations adopting an appeasement strategy manage to avoid war but almost always suffered a diplomatic defeat. Positive inducements such as financial rewards for compliance can also be very expensive if the other side complies (particularly if it quickly becomes satiated and ups its demands for compensation), and they can foster unwanted dependency and sense of entitlement (Leng, 1993). Finally, just as deterrence theorists face difficulties in operationalizing threats, so reward theorists encounter problems in operationalizing positive inducements, which may be perceived as overbearing, presumptuous, manipulative, or insultingly small or large (Milburn and Christie, 1989).

The picture is not, however, uniformly bleak. Komorita (1973), for example, showed that unilateral conciliatory acts by one party in experimental bargaining games resulted in increased communication, perceptions of cooperative intent, and mutually beneficial outcomes. In reviewing studies of America-Soviet arms control negotiations, Druckman and Hopmann (1989) found that concessions by one side were generally met by counter-concessions by the opponent, whereas retractions provoked counter-retractions.

For the most part, conflict-spiral theorists have advocated combining conciliatory policy initiatives with adequate military strength and nonprovocative threats. The next section turns to these "mixed" strategies.

(3) Mixed-influence strategies. Spurred by Robert Axelrod's (1984) "the evolution of cooperation," a great deal of attention has been directed to firm-but-fair approaches to resolving conflict. This chapter focuses on Axelrod's (1984) tit-for-tat strategy (TFT), Osgood's (1961) strategy of "graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction" (GRIT) and the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente (George, 1983).

(I) Tit-for-tat. TFT is straightforward. One begins by cooperating and thereafter simply repeats one's opponent's previous move. Considerable research demonstrates that TFT is as effective as it is simple. In Axelrod's (1984) round robin PD computer tournaments in which expert-nominated strategies were pitted against one another, TFT--the simplest entrant--earned the highest average number of points. Axelrod (1984) argued that TFT works because it is nice (never defects first), perceptive (quickly discerns the other's intent), clear (easy to recognize), provocable (quickly retaliates), forgiving (willing to abandon defection immediately after the other side's first cooperative act), and patient (willing to persevere).

Although numerous experiments (Pilisuk & Skolnick, 1968), case studies (Snyder & Diesing, 1977) and event-analytic studies (Leng, 1993) have shown TFT-like strategies to be more effective than either pure threat or appeasement strategies in averting both war and diplomatic defeat, an equally sizable body of work has highlighted serious drawbacks to TFT in the international arena:

(1) Two parties can easily get caught up in a never-ending series of mutual defections. One solution is to be less provocable and more forgiving: to respond to defection with a smaller defection or to refrain altogether from retaliating to the first defection and respond in kind only to the second defection. These kinder, gentler variants of TFT outperform simple TFT in computer simulations that permit even low levels of “noise” in which players occasionally misclassify cooperation as defection and defection as cooperation (Bendor, Kramer, & Stout, 1991; Downs, 1991; Molander, 1985; Signorini, 1996). But the price of preventing conflict spirals from escalating out of control may be steep in environments in which predatory powers stand ready to exploit signs of weakness or generosity. A possible corrective here is to couple a slow-to-retaliate rule with a slow-to-forgive rule, thereby perhaps simultaneously averting spirals and deterring opportunists (Pruitt, Handbook Chapter).

(2) TFT applies primarily to Prisoner's Dilemma games in which both sides prefer mutual cooperation to mutual defection. Many conflicts, however, may best be described as games of "Deadlock" in which at least one party prefers unilateral defection or mutual defection to cooperation (Oye, 1985). In such games, TFT will not induce an opponent to cooperate. In arms races, for example, one or both nations might prefer a mutual build-up to an arms control treaty, especially if trust is low or if there is an opportunity to benefit from the race (a charge often leveled at the "military-industrial complexes" within major powers that are an important part of two-level games).

(3) TFT implies perfect perception and control--the ability to identify cooperation and defection correctly and to respond to an opponent in ways that will not be misconstrued. In PD games, moves are unambiguous and this condition can be satisfied; in international politics, policy makers must interpret actions that are ambiguous and, therefore, often controversial. Ambiguity may arise, in part, because there are both temptations and opportunities for nations to disguise defection as cooperation (e.g., by secretly developing chemical weapons or by surreptitiously deploying new missiles or by turning a blind eye to patent pirates). Ambiguity may also arise because nations are complex stimuli that lend themselves to multiple conflicting interpretations. It is often difficult to say whether a given foreign policy act merits a direct dispositional attribution or should be written off as domestic political posturing in a two-level game or perhaps even as a “normal accident” of complex institutional functioning. Arguments of this sort are common place in foreign policy. In the mid 1980's, American observers were deeply divided over the significance of the unilateral suspension of nuclear testing by the Soviet Union. Some treated it as sincere, others dismissed it as a propaganda ploy, and still others took it as a sign of weakness. In October, 1962, Soviet leaders confronted some puzzling mixed signals from the United States, including back-channel diplomatic assurances that the U. S. Navy would avoid provocative confrontations with Soviet vessels in the course of implementing the blockade of Cuba and reports from the Soviet Navy that Soviet submarines were being compelled to surface by aggressive interdiction tactics of which the White House was not fully aware but that were part of standard operating procedure for the U. S. Navy. Whatever the diverse causes of misperception, mistakes can be consequential. Even low levels of “noise” (random misperception) can affect the relative performance of influence strategies in simulations. And misperception with a consistent bias toward encoding cooperative and ambiguous acts as defections can prove devastating to TFT. The literature on cognitive biases warns us to expect exactly this latter form of misperception whenever mutual suspicion has hardened into hostile stereotypes.

(ii) GRIT. Like TFT, GRIT is designed both to resist exploitation and to shift the interaction onto a mutually beneficial, cooperative plane. Unlike TFT, however, GRIT does not assume that the game has yet to begin. Rather, GRIT assumes that the parties are already trapped in a costly conflict spiral. To unwind the spiral, Osgood proposed that one side should announce its intention to reduce tensions and then back up its talk with unilateral conciliatory gestures such as troop reductions and dismantling missiles. These actions are designed to convince the opponent of the initiator's peaceful intentions, but not to weaken the military position of the initiator. The opponent is then invited to respond with conciliatory gestures, but warned that attempts to exploit the situation will force the initiator to return to a hard-line posture. In contrast to TFT, GRIT is nicer (it cooperates in the face of defection) and less provocable (it continues to cooperate even when the opponent ignores what one has done).

Several experiments suggest that GRIT stimulates cooperation. The most impressively cumulative evidence comes from Lindskold’s (1978) research program. The paradigm involves a PD game in which subjects face an opponent (actually a preprogrammed strategy) who is initially competitive (to produce a climate of hostility) but then practices GRIT. In the final phase, the simulated other returns to a neutral strategy to test the persistence of GRIT's effects. Key findings include: a) GRIT leads to more integrative agreements than do competitive and no-message strategies; b) GRIT elicits more cooperation when initiated from a position of strength than weakness (a finding that could be invoked as support for major defense build-ups as a necessary prelude to GRIT); c) GRIT's general statement of cooperative intent is more effective than both promises of conditional cooperation and no statements at all, and GRIT statements are particularly effective when repeated and rephrased; d) GRIT elicits more cooperation than TFT and 50% cooperative strategies; e) GRIT produces more cooperation than a 50%-cooperative strategy, regardless of whether the subject responds before, after, or during the simulated other's response.

Some historical evidence can also be interpreted as consistent with GRIT. In the previous Handbook chapter on international relations, Etzioni argued that a quasi-GRIT strategy adopted by President Kennedy in 1963 promoted a short-lived period of cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union. Larson (1987) credited GRIT with producing the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. And some Sovietologists believe that Western thinking about conflict management influenced the policy strategies of Gorbachev in the late 1980s (Legvold, 1991). Gorbachevian initiatives such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the nuclear test moratorium, and unilateral troop reductions were all in the spirit of GRIT. Indeed, Gorbachev responded to American claims that the Soviet initiatives were merely "propaganda" by demonstrating an intuitive awareness of the logic of GRIT:

If all that we are doing is indeed viewed as mere propaganda, why not respond to it according to the principle of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"? We have stopped nuclear explosions. Then you Americans could take revenge by doing likewise. You could deal us another propaganda blow, say, by suspending the development of one of your strategic missiles. And we would respond with the same kind of "propaganda." And so forth and so on. Would anyone be harmed by competition in such propaganda? (Time, September 9, 1985, p. 23).

GRIT can be criticized for being too soft ("surrender on the installment plan") or as too tough (insufficiently sensitive to the psychological obstacles to resolving protracted and bitter conflicts). In the spirit of toughening GRIT, some researchers have argued that a combination of TFT and GRIT is the best strategy of conflict management in many contexts (Downs, 1991). Initial use of a TFT strategy would demonstrate one's willingness to endure a painful stalemate. Conciliatory offers could then be extended with a diminished fear that they will be interpreted as a sign of weakness (Snyder and Diesing, 1977). Others, however, argue that early competitiveness can too easily escalate into all-out war or poison the atmosphere so that later conciliatory initiatives will be ignored or discounted (Kelman & Bloom, 1973; Kriesberg & Thorson, 1991). Indeed, the now extensive literature on conflict resolution workshops suggests that, in emotionally and politically polarized disputes with long histories of violence (northern Ireland, Cypus, Israelis-Palestinians,... ) even GRIT is too insensitive to the difficulties of breaking down psychological barriers to peace (Azar, 1990; Burton, 1987; Fisher, 1990; Kelman, 1993; Rouhana & Kelman, 1994). It may be necessary to bring high-ranking disputants together in nonofficial workshops in which they are encouraged to understand each other’s needs and to engage in joint problem-solving exercises that gradually build up trust as each side acquires the ability to state the other’s position to the other’s satisfaction and acquires the willingness to consider and even generate integrative proposals that concede some legitimacy to the other’s concerns (Kelman & Cohen, 1976). Third-party mediation can also prove helpful in encouraging disputants: (a) to see the conflict as a disinterested but thoughtful and fair observer might; (b) to consider compromise packages that they would have categorically rejected if simply proposed by the adversary (Rubin, 1981). But the moderators of mediational success appear to be numerous and subtle, including the "ripeness" of the conflict (the parties perceive a mutually debilitating stalemate to exist), the types of issues (the conflict does not focus on territory or rights that the parties endow with sacred or transcendental significance) and the perceived impartiality of the mediator and of the mediation process (Kleiboer, 1996; Vasquez, 1993; Zartman & Touval, 1985).

Evaluating the efficacy of both workshop and third-party interventions raises unsolved methodological issues (from selection biases to the counterfactual vagaries of inferring what would have happened absent any intervention). And all of these approaches assume that there is hidden integrative potential and that both sides can be induced to prefer "jawing" to "warring" -- assumptions that do not hold when one side has so completely dehumanized the other that a dialogue of equals is impossible (e.g., Nazi attitudes toward Jews; Khymer Rouge attitudes toward class enemies).

(iii) The Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente. Shifting from unofficial to official diplomacy, some scholars argue that the Nixon-Kissinger policies of detente in the early 1970s constituted a carefully crafted mixed-influence strategy, albeit with more emphasis on deterrence that in either GRIT or TFT (George, 1983). In this view, Nixon and Kissinger sought to shift the superpower relationship from “confrontational competition” to “collaborative competition” in which the United States and Soviet Union would both show restraint in the Third World and in weapons programs. The American strategy relied on both carrots (enhanced trade and credits, reduced military competition, and access to advanced technology) and sticks (a renewed arms race that would strain the Soviet economy and a suspension of trade that would deny access to American goods). For reasons still vigorously debated, the Nixon-Kissinger policy failed, competition in the Third World heated up, and arms control sputtered and eventually stalled with the SALT II treaty (Gaddis, 1982). Some suggest that the Nixon-Kissinger policy was ill-conceived, poorly implemented, or undermined by Congressional opponents who insisted on linking improved relations to human rights issues. Others blame the Soviet Union for exploiting détente by intervening in Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. As usual, we discover conflicting policy postmortems, each resting on distinctive counterfactual claims and each linked to different assessments of the adversary.

D. Reprise

Research on social influence points to a number of policy-relevant conclusions. At a minimum, the findings demonstrate that the simplistic remedies for complex conflicts are untenable. An exclusive emphasis on threats can provoke otherwise avoidable conflicts (Leng, 1993); so can calls for unilateral disarmament, albeit via a different mechanism -- by tempting aggressors. Encouraging, though, is the multi-method convergence suggesting that in many situations a firm-but-fair reciprocating bargaining strategy works reasonably well by both protecting vital interests and preventing conflicts from getting out of control. On a more pessimistic note, current findings are incomplete and poorly integrated. Although we know more than we once did about when alternative strategies are likely to be successful, our contingent generalizations are still crude (George, 1993). The more specific the policy question -- for example, will economic sanctions work against this adversary in this time frame? -- the more equivocal the answer we can justifiably derive from the literature. There remains a yawning gap between the idiographic and nomothetic -- the particular concerns of the policy community and the theoretical abstractions of academia.


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