Tiberiu Dragu. 2010. Is There a Trade-off between Security and Liberty? Executive Bias, Privacy Protections, and Terrorism Prevention

Tiberiu Dragu. 2011. "Is There a Trade-off between Security and Liberty? Executive Bias, Privacy Protections, and Terrorism Prevention." American Political Science Review 105(1): 64-78.

Model:

• Privacy is given as exogenous.
• Terrorists maximize their utility with respect to terrorist activity a.
• Anti-terrorist agencies maximize their utility with respect to effort against terrorism e.
• The terrorist activity levels and the effort against terrorism jointly determine the probability of a successful terrorist attack.
• Solve the problem the way you would a Cournot problem.

Assumptions:

• Privacy shifts the best response functions. 
• Increasing privacy decreases costs of attack for the terrorist. The marginal cost also decreases in privacy.
• Increasing privacy increases costs of attack for the anti-terrorist agency. The marginal cost also increases in privacy.
• The terrorist organizations costs increase in a and are convex.
• The anti-terrorist organization costs increase in e and are convex. 

Results:

• The probability of a terrorist attack does not necessarily decrease when privacy decreases. 
• The expected utility of the anti-terrorist agency always increases when privacy decreases, even if the probability of terrorist attack increases when privacy decreases.

James D. Morrow. 1999. The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation in International Politics

James D. Morrow, “The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation in International Politics,” in Lake and Powell, Strategic Choice, pp. 77-114.

Summary by Taylor

Main Point: Both strategic settings and preferences determine actors’ choices, and the choices of many actors determine outcomes.  Since the choices of other actors affect the final result, an actor cannot simply chose a course that will lead to its desired outcome.  From this, three different strategic problems (among others) arise: signaling, commitment, and bargaining. Understanding domestic politics is necessary to understanding strategic choice.

R. Harrison Wagner. War and the State

R. Harrison Wagner. War and the State. Chapter 1, The Theory of International Politics.

Realists draw conclusions that do not follow from premises. Offensive Realists believe that an anarchic international community will lead to aggressions by states attempting to maintain security and promote the idea of a world government to maintain order. Defensive Realists believe that an an anarchic international community will lead to defensive military stances rather than aggression. All structural Realists agree that interstate wars will continue to occur as long as there is no world government.