[Updated to reflect that it's the first post of a series.] Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow published a second edition of Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisi s in 1997. Some have called the first and second editions "classics", but it's not in print.
Anyhow, just started reading the library's copy--they described three decision making models:
- Rational decision-maker: Model 1. What strikes me here is describing the nation as the decision-maker--i.e., why might the Soviet Union have decided to install missiles, etc.
- Organizational decision making. Model 2. Where the focus is on the organizations involved in the decision makers, their processes, etc.--for example, DOD's perspective versus the Combined Chiefs versus the National Security council.
- Political decision making. Model 3. Where the focus is more on the political maneuvering among the parties.
It's early days--looks as if I can renew the book a time or two. A couple things strike me already.
- We actually need a Model 0.5--the Black Box decision maker, also known as essentialism. The Soviet Union was aggressively taking over the world, etc.
- Not sure how the models relate to historians' descriptions of events--the narrative model.
We'll see.
