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Date and Location

October 24, 2024
12:15 PM - 1:45 PM ET
One Brattle Square, Room 350

Contact

617-496-1981
Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation

Why do states start conflicts they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Tyler Jost’s book, Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation (Cambridge Studies in International Relations series; Cambridge University Press, 2024) examines how national security institutions shape the quality of information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict—which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. 


Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political.

Admittance is on a first come–first served basis. Tea and Coffee Provided.

Speakers and Presenters

Tyler Jost, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Brown University

Organizer

Additional Organizers

International Security Program