Thread by @RadioFreeTom

I need to stop you all from using "rational actor" here. This is going to be a small political science lecture, and I don't care if you don't want to hear it. This will be on the test. /1

https://twitter.com/Adpilzer/status/1502042294605783055

"Rational actor" does not mean "an actor who is rational." It does not apply to *people* at all most of the time. It's a construct that means "treating the state as if it's a person, a unitary actor who maximizes benefit and minimizes cost."
That's all it means. /2

The reason there's a "rational actor" model in IR is because we sometimes think about large national interests rather than get bogged down in details about govts. "What would India do?" is a rational actor question: It presumes India is a single *thing*, and has interests. /3

Also, on a personal level, a "rational" leader is not one who "picks the same things I would." It means someone who is capable of having stable preferences and acting on them - even if they're not YOUR preferences. It means they're not crazy and random. /4

It means transitive preference ordering. If you prefer A>B, and B>C, you will also prefer A>C.
When people here say "rational" they mean "reasonable," a distinction Keith Payne has written very well about.
A B and C might be things you hate, but they are not "irrational."
/5

Nuclear strategy messed up the rational actor discussions, because we assume that ALL people will ALWAYS choose "not nuclear war" if it means "being alive." This is embedded in the basics of nuclear deterrence theorizing. /6

But while we use "rational actor" or "unitary actor" modeling as a cognitive shortcut, a lot of foreign policy analysis is about the LIMITS of that model. So, please stop saying "is he a rational actor" when you mean "is he a reasonable person." They're not the same thing. /7

One last thing: "Rationality" also implies "tethered to reality and capable of processing information." Many leaders who were "irrational" were irrational in this way: Hitler, Saddam. Is that Putin? I don't know. I suspect so, but that's a guess.
Lecture over.
/8