The Maxwell School
Matt's Web Page
Links to Resources
Bonham, Sergeev, and Parshin, "The Limited Test Ban Agreement: Emergence of New Knowledge Structures," International Studies Quarterly (1997) 41, 215-240. [JSTOR]
Figurative Language (On Demand Lecture: 13 min and 35 sec. This lecture was created in Producer for PowerPoint, and it takes a few minutes to load.)
Coding Exercise: State of the Union Address by President Bush on 29 January 2002. Excerpt | Uncoded | Coded
"The 'Axis of Evil' Metaphor and the Restructuring of Iranian Views toward the US," (with Daniel Heradstveit): Word | PowerPoint
"What the Axis of Evil Metaphor Did to Iran," (with Daniel Heradstveit): Article PDF | PowerPoint
"The 'War on Terrorism': Comparing Linguistic Formulations of Japanese, Russian, and Western Officials" (with Daniel Heradstveit): Paper | PDF | PPT
“From Axis of Evil to a New Beginning: Discourses of Bush and Obama.” Paper presented at the International Society of Political Psychology, Annual Convention, July 2010: Word | PDF |
Content
Analysis: Cognitive Mapping
Matt Bonham
Cognitive Mapping and Cognitive Maps
The goal of this research program is to develop a coding (content analysis) technique for representing belief systems of decision-makers, as well as a computer simulation model to analyze these representations in order to provide both an explanation and a prediction of the behavior of decision-makers in a comparative context.
The basic unit of analysis for this research program is a "cognitive map."
A cognitive map is a representation of a worldview, consisting of nodes (representing values, beliefs, attitudes, and actions) and links (representing perceived causal and other relationships between the nodes). More detailed information about cognitive maps can be found here:
"Explanation of the Unexpected: The Syrian Intervention in Jordan in 1970," in R Axelrod (ed.), The Structure of Decision, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
"Simulation Techniques," in R. Axelrod, ed., The Structure of Decision, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976 (with George J. Nozicka and Michael J. Shapiro).
Definition of a Cognitive Map: The representation of an actor's reality as a "cognitive map" consisting of nodes (points) and edges (linkages). Nodes are used to represent the actor's concepts, including events, actions and values, and the edges are used to represent perceived causal relationships. Using a cognitive map, one can identify idea chains or explanatory paths.
Example 1:
Illustrative Cognitive Map
Example 2:
Environmentalist
Example 3:
Middle East Expert
Construction of Cognitive Maps:
We develop cognitive maps by interviewing decision-makers or coding texts that reflect their perceptions of policy issues. The maps are usually so complicated that they are difficult to represent on paper, but they are easily manipulated by computer algorithms using simple matrix algebra. We use these matrices and the computer model to predict how decision-maker respond to new information about policy situations.
Here are the procedures for creating cognitive maps:
1.
Code the text by identifying the
concepts and the
explicit or
implicit causal linkages between them.
2. Construct a concept dictionary.
3. List relationships between concepts.
4. Draw the cognitive map.
5. Convert to matrix form:
Example
Coding Exercise: State of the Union Address by President Bush on 29 January 2002.
Excerpt | PowerPoint: Not Coded and Coded
Uses of Cognitive Maps:
Data for Shapiro-Bonham Cognitive Process Model
We have compared the results of the computer-generated predictions with actual policy outcomes in a variety of situations, including US policy makers and the Middle East conflict, policy makers in Austria and Finland with respect to participation in European institutions, oil resource policy in Norway, and US-SU relations during the Cold War.
Cognitive Maps and "Ontological Pre-Understandings"
While we were working on this research program we were approached by Victor M. Sergeev, a Russian scholar who was director of a laboratory at the US-Canada Institute in Moscow. Sergeev was interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis from the Russian perspective, and he was intrigued by the cognitive mapping approach, because of its flexibility across different levels of abstraction in a wide variety of situations.
When Sergeev used the cognitive mapping technique to code the Russian texts from the Cuban Missile Crisis, he found that the Russian cognitive maps looked very different from the American and other Western maps. The Russian maps looked very simple, and it was impossible to follow the chains of cognitive relations because they were separated.
In the course of
explaining these differences, we developed the theory of "ontological
pre-understandings."
An ontological pre-understanding is a
"socially
approved cognitive structure." It reflects the cultural and linguistic
underpinnings that people bring to the situation. An ontological pre-understanding is
culturally determined and difficult to change. Within this framework we have
distinguished between three major views of the
world:
- Nominalistic: views the world in behavioristic terms of simple cause-effect relationships and reactions to immediate stimuli, (this view is common among bureaucrats and Third World leaders).
- Holistic: views the world in a biological metaphor, there are underlying processes in the world that are moving toward some nebulous, ill-defined outcome. These processes are generally hidden under the surface, and there is not much you can do to change that outcome (this is a typical Russian view).
- Structural: takes into account patterned relations between objects, states of affairs are describe in more complex causal linkages, such as event A prevents event B. This produces a "procedural representation" view of the world whereby change is the result of structured and deliberatively ordered actions.
This differentiation between three world views enabled us to create a new cognitive mapping coding scheme that accommodates non-Western thinking.
Sergeev has developed these notions in a series of conversations in Moscow with me about ontological preunderstandings in December 1990.
We applied the new framework to the test ban treaty negotiations that took place in 1963, mapping out Kennedy and Khrushchev's cognitive maps during the talks. Over the course of the negotiations, the cognitive maps for Kennedy and Khrushchev became more similar. There was a problem with the Russian maps, because they were much more simplified, and less inter-related.
As Kennedy and Khrushchev got closer to an agreement, they were in essence translating the worldview of their opponent into their own, and vice-versa. In 1997, we published a paper in International Studies Quarterly. In the paper, we argued that this kind of understanding and convergence of worldviews is a prerequisite for effective cross-cultural understanding and agreements.
Figurative Language and the "War on Terrorism"
This section focuses on how leaders in
We
discusses the difficulties of defining "terrorism," because, unlike Marxism
or capitalism, "terrorism" is not an ideology.
Instead the term may be used to designate actions that are used by
members of non-governmental organizations against civilian targets.
In the case of the "war on terrorism," the signifier, "terrorism," is
used widely by many, including the governments of the
Because the designation of the signified depends upon the speaker,
the concept of terrorism seems to be subjective and fluid.
The signified switches radically both by context and over time, while
the only aspect that is stable is the signifier, "terrorism."
We go on to illustrate the
problems of talking about "terrorism" by doing a semiotic analysis of this
sign, using examples from speeches of former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi
and Russian President Putin.
Finally,
the paper analyzes the "war on terrorism" as an ontological metaphor (Lakoff
and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By).
Differences between Japanese and Russian uses of the metaphor, on the
one hand, and the approach of the