Tyler Jost
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Bureaucracies at War

The Institutional origins of miscalculation

BOOK SUMMARY

Why do states start international conflicts in which they ultimately fail to achieve their goals? Why do leaders often possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War examines how bureaucratic institutions shape the 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. It 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.

​The book's empirical analysis offers the first systematic and global account of how these institutions affect interstate conflict, breaking with past studies by broadening the analytical focus beyond Western countries. It draws on a first-of-its-kind dataset on institutions for national security decision-making in over a hundred countries across the world since 1945, as well as in-depth case studies on China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Relying on systematic archival and interview evidence collected from each country, the cases show just how important these institutions are to explaining the miscalculations that led states into defeat in war, including the Sino-Indian War in 1962, the US escalation in Vietnam in 1965, the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict in 1969, the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, and the Kargil War in 1999.

​The theory and findings challenge the conventional wisdom regarding foreign policy bureaucracy: why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political.

CHAPTER LIST

  • Chapter 1 - Introduction
  • Chapter 2 - An Institutional Theory of Miscalculation
  • Chapter 3 - The World of National Security Institutions
  • Chapter 4 - China under Mao
  • Chapter 5 - China after Mao
  • Chapter 6 - India
  • Chapter 7 - Pakistan
  • Chapter 8 - United States during the Early Cold War
  • Chapter 9 - Conclusion

DATA

  • National Security Institutions Data Set​
  • PRC Elite Decision-Making Data Set

ARCHIVAL AND INTERVIEW RESEARCH

China
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives - 外交部档案馆, Beijing | Spring 2017
  • National Library - 中国国家图书馆, Beijing | Spring 2017
  • Peking University Library - 北京大学图书馆, Beijing | Spring 2017

India
  • Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, New Delhi | Winter 2017
  • ​National Archives of India, New Delhi | Winter 2017
  • Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses Library, New Delhi | Winter 2017

Pakistan
  • National Library of Pakistan, Islamabad | Fall 2017
  • Institute of Strategic Studies Library, Islamabad | Fall 2017

United States
  • Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda | Fall 2019
  • LBJ Presidential Library, Austin | Spring 2019
  • John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston | Spring 2019
  • National Archives and Records Administration, College Park | Fall 2016
  • ​Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence | Fall 2016
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene | Fall 2016
  • H.C. Fung Library, Harvard University, Cambridge | 2016-2022

​United Kingdom
  • The National Archives, London | Winter 2018
  • Templar Study Center, National Army Museum, London | Winter 2018

Taiwan
  • Academia Historica - 國史館, Taipei | Summer 2017
  • National Archives Administration - 國家發展委員會檔案管理局, Taipei | Summer 2016​



Image:  Photo of Watercolor by Tanconville, 1911
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