(Page 2 of 33) - Reagan and Gorbachev: Altercasting at the End of the Cold War authored by Malici, Akan.

REAFAN AND GORBACHEV:

ALTERCASTING AT THE END OF THE COLD WAR

The main goal in this paper is to advance the constructivist study of international strategic interactions. In
order to do so, I analyze the dynamics of Soviet-U.S. relations in the changing security environment at the
end of the cold war. I argue that Gorbachev rejected following the implications of strategic rationality.
Instead he engaged in a strategy of “altercasting” – a technique of interactor control in which ego uses
tactics of self-presentation and stage management in an attempt to frame alter’s definition of the situation
in ways that create the role that ego desires alter to play. In this paper I ask whether Reagan changed his
beliefs about the Soviet Union in response to Gorbachev’s strategy of altercasting. The study uses a
combination of automated content analysis and sequential game theory to determine the impact
Gorbachev’s moves had on Reagan’s perceptions and beliefs. Then I examine what impact these
perceptions and beliefs had on the strategic interactions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and I
conclude by summarizing the results and by discussing the utility of ideational approaches to peace and
conflict processes.

INTRODUCTION

Conventional international relations theories, such as neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism,
have a tendency to reject the impact of ideational variables on politics (Waltz, 1979; Keohane
and Milner, 2003). In this paper I argue that this rejection is not justified. To consider actors as
amorphous entities and to rob them of any consciousness is equivalent to denying the socio-
psychological character of politics (Ashley, 1986; Cox, 1986; Kratochwil, 1986, 2001)

Such an

understanding of international interactions is impoverished and can only be enriched by an effort
to develop a better understanding of the agents of political action (Dessler, 1989; Carlsnaes,
1992; Doty, 1997; Wendt, 1987).

This position was carried into the discipline of political science through the so-called
“constructivist turn” in the early 1990s (Checkel, 1998). Constructivists consider politics to be a
socio-psychological affair and argue that this is “a world of our making” and that in the world of
international relations “anarchy is what states make of it” (Onuf, 1989; Wendt, 1992).
Constructivists criticize traditional mainstream international relations theories for “ontological
reductionism” (Wendt, 1987: 342). Rejecting an exclusive consideration of material forces as the
driving force in international politics, they argue that the most important aspect of international
relations is how the actors represent themselves and others over time. These representations are
the starting point for interaction and the medium by which they determine who they are, what
they want, and how they should behave (Kowert, 1998/1999; Walker, 2003b; Wendt, 1999: 331-
332). Intending to deliver a social theory of international politics, these scholars argue that
relevant actors must be problematized because they exist within a psychological reality of
interactions and a socially constructed world (Berger, 1966: 111).

Despite such a call and despite the suggestion of a fruitful dialogue between cognitive theories of
foreign policy and constructivist theories of international relations, systematic efforts to
synthesize both remain largely absent (Wendt, 1999: 134, 394; Walker, 2004). The agent in the