Analogy-based collective decision-making and incremental change in international organizations

Abstract

We examine how analogy-based collective decision-making of member states contributes to the endogenous emergence of informal rules and the incremental change of international organizations (IOs). Decision-making by analogy is an important characteristic of day-to-day decision-making in IOs. Relating current decisions to previous ones through analogies drives incremental change and simultaneously reinforces organizational resilience. Whereas the foreign policy analysis literature shows that analogies can be used as cognitive shortcuts in fuzzy and complex foreign policy situations, we focus on their use to overcome social ambiguity (indeterminacy) of coordination situations in IOs. Drawing on psychological conceptions, we develop two micro-level mechanisms that elucidate the effects of analogy-based collective decision-making in member-driven IOs. Analogy-based collective decisions emphasizing similarity between a current situation and previous ones follow an established problem schema and produce expansive and increasingly well-established informal rules. Collective decisions that are analogy-based but emphasize a crucial difference follow different problem schemas and trigger the emergence of additional informal rules that apply to new classes of cases. The result is an increasingly fine-grained web of distinct organizational solutions for a growing number of problems. Accordingly, an IO can increasingly facilitate collective decision-making and gains resilience. Empirically, we probe these propositions with a documentary analysis of decision-making in the Yugoslavia sanctions committee, established by the United Nations Security Council to deal with a stream of requests for exempting certain goods or services from the comprehensive economic embargo imposed on Yugoslavia in response to the War in the Balkans.

Disruptive technology and regulatory conundrums: The emerging governance of virtual currencies

“…As the features of the unknown are unclear, analogical reasoning might be especially relevant when uncertainty, triggered by technological change, exists. Governance literature has examined the role of “reasoning by analogy” (Dörfler & Gehring, 2021; Schwarz‐Plaschg, 2018, p. 139) in relation to problems of bounded rationality (Figueira & Martill, 2021), which points to the human limits on interpreting available information (Jones, 1999; Simon, 1995). More generally, analogical arguments appear as a valuable heuristic tool to make sense of complex realities (Schwarz‐Plaschg, 2018).…”

“…More generally, analogical arguments appear as a valuable heuristic tool to make sense of complex realities (Schwarz‐Plaschg, 2018). Such arguments have, for instance, been utilized to navigate fuzzy foreign policy situations (Houghton, 2001), and collective decision‐making problems where multiple equilibria coexist (Dörfler & Gehring, 2021). The outcomes of analogical reasoning can lead institutional bodies to acknowledge the similarity and dissimilarity with existing categories (Mertes & Pennings, 2011) justifying the choice of one method vis‐à‐vis another.…”

“…But because similarity does not equate sameness, it legitimizes the proliferation of “technical fixes” (Stokes, 2017, p. 76). However, the degree of analogy might lead to different policy responses (Dörfler & Gehring, 2021). It follows, we argue, that cases of a less pronounced similarity might bring agencies to suggest regulatory fixes triggering modification(s) of existing regulation.…”

Analogical reasoning: Historical parallels and metaphors in the 2022 war narratives in Ukraine and Russia

“…Analogical reasoning is a discursive strategy often used by decision-and policy-makers (Houghton 1996), think tankers, academics, and cultural producers to either justify actions or learn lessons from references to events in the past. As an analytical concept, it has been used in many disciplines, including foreign policy analysis (see Dörfler and Gehring 2021), to understand how new public and professional narratives pop up at the intersection of different parallels and comparisons, connecting the current developments with historical antecedents (Macagno, Walton, and Tindale 2017). This approach is particularly useful in the context of the Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which has initially intellectually immobilized a significant part of the scholarly community due to the much-discussed irrationality and brutality of the invasion, as well as a lack of clarity regarding its ultimate goals.…”