Communicating Across the Warning-Response-Gap:
How Persuasion about Preventive Policy Works
Paper presented at the US Institute for Peace, 19/2/2009, Washington
Christoph O Meyer
King’s College London, Department of War Studies
FORESIGHT
Knowledge and Preventive Action
It is difficult to get money for medicine
but easy to get it for the coffin
(Chinese proverb)
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
(T.S. Eliot)
2
Early Warning and Preventive
Policy – The Puzzle
•
Underlying Assumptions:
1. accurate and timely warning is possible
2. preventive action is always better than crisis &
consequence management
•
•
3
But: ‘Missed Opportunities’ and WarningResponse Gap: Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur
What is causing the gap? Failure of warning,
failure of political will or something inbetween?
Blaming the Message: Causes
of Inaccurate & Late Warning
- Epistemological problems
Lack of Indicators (unknown knowns)
Uncertainty (known unknowns), eg secrecy/deception
Unpredictability (unknown unknowns)
Lack of Reliable Theory
- Indicator–Action Problem: Optimal point for warning is not just
defined by indicators, but also by ‚lead time‘ for policy options –
late rather than early warnings?
- Disincentives to rigorous academic forecasting in the social
sciences – Bias towards science of discovery (rather than
integration and application), reputational costs and political
instrumentalisation
Blaming the Politicians: Lack
of Political Will to Prevent
•
Asymmetric incentives to preventive policy: known
costs of action, but unknown consequences of
inaction
•
Too high receptivity causes resource depletion and
ultimately paralysis
•
How to define and justify acceptable residual risks
•
Short-term prevention vis-a-vis resolution of
underlying causes through crisis (‚let small rather
than big bubbles burst‘)
What about the In-Between? The Warning
Response Gap (George & Holl, 1997)
• the low stakes of international policy-makers regarding
many risks
• the uncertainty and ambiguity of predicting when a
crisis will escalate
• the lack of good theories and indicators to forecast
accurately
• the impact of over-prediction (cry wolf-syndrome)
• Informational overload of organisations/deciders
• political incentives for decision-maker to wait until
violence has escalated (corpses on the ground)
6
Critique of George & Holl (1997)
-Theoretical micro-foundations and assumptions remain
unclear – functionalist learning model?
- No systematic empirical test across cases, risk of
hindsight bias by focusing only on failure
- Leaves out potentially important explanations from
other literatures
- One-way, rather than discoursive understanding of
warning-response process: relationship between
warners-deciders, feed-back and direction
- Need to differentiate between cognitive and policy
impact of warnings
7
Figure 1: Model of the Warning–Response Discourse
W
A
R
N
I
N
G
I
N
D
I
C
A
T
O
R
S
Source Factors
Audience Factors
- Trustworthiness
- Independence
- Expertise
- Status
Individuals
Message Factors
Governmental Organisations
- Type & level of risk
- Evidential
ambiguity
- Argument/Appeal
- Usability/timeliness
of recommendations
- Reputational
implications
- Resource implications
- Organisational culture
- Coordination structures
- Causal & political
beliefs
- Costs of action/inaction
- Cognitive styles & biases
- Expertise & self-esteem
Cognitive
Processing
Feedback
& Reaction
Steps
Towards
Prevention?
Allocating
Attention
Positive vs
negative
feed-back
Comprehensio
n of risk
causes,
intensity &
consequences
Extended or
restricted
scope and
depth of risk
analysis
Prioritisation
of risk
prevention &
mitigation
Rationalising
Acceptance vs
Rejection
Addition or
withdrawal
of resources
for risk
analysis
Behavioural
change
towards
prevention
Changed
perception of
risk
Media organisations
Discourse Factors
- De-/ Politicisation
- Frame
compatibility
- Voice asymmetries
- Mode of discourse
- News values, esp.
relevance & proximity
- Editorial culture &
professional routines
- Political affiliation &
proprietor bias
Situational & Context Factors
Strategic culture – Current & previous ‘similar’ case - Policy fluid or fixed – Agenda competition – Proximity of Elections
8
Early Warning and Political
Response: Key Hypotheses (1)
A response to warning is more likely when:
1) Warnings originate from a trustworthy source from the
perspective of decision-makers. Trustworthiness is mostly a
function of being seen as unbiased or more likely compatibly
biased and reinforced by high status, indicators of expertise
and good past track-record in forecasting.
2) Warnings are unambiguous, salient and consistent across
different types of sources (governmental and private) and
when they include recommendations for feasible/low risk
preventive/mitigating options compared to the risks of inaction.
9
Early Warning and Political
Response: Key Hypotheses (2)
3) Warnings are communicated in situations when policy is not
deeply ingrained financially or politically, when they are supported
by lessons learnt from ‘similar cases’ available in recent history and
when there is little distracting ‘noise’ and agenda competition.
4) Producers and consumers of warning engage with each other at
an early stage in non-politicised discourse, using similar frames of
reference, offering each other near-equal voice opportunities and
interacting face-to-face.
5) Warnings resonate positively with the beliefs and interests of the
audience. Most importantly from the perspective of individuals is the
ideational fit, from the perspective of organisations the established
policy-fit, and from the perspective of the media, the
audience/commercial-fit.
10
Comparative and Longitudinal
Research Design
•
•
Comparision across cases, actors and time
Selection of 12 cases based on
• 1) High variation on dependent variable (responding to
warnings, from success to failure)
• 2) Moderate/high degree of European interests in country
and/or involvement in preventive action
• 3) Spread of cases between 1990-2008
• 4) Three cases each from recent Enlargement round, Balkans,
post-Soviet Space, and African Great Lakes region
•
Warning-Response Discourse studied through
process tracing enriched by quantitative/quantitative
discourse analysis
Potential Recommendations
•
•
•
•
For Producers of Warnings
- how to establish trustworthiness in terms of expertise/track record in
the eyes of different audiences
- how to present ambiguity/risk/options for policy (role-taking) for
different audiences
For NGO / Advocates
- when to go public, rather than approach decision-makers directly
- how to overcome news media thresholds in order to influence
For Organisations
- procedures for fast-tracking and processing urgent warnings
- organisational culture that encourages uncomfortable truths
For Decision-makers
- higher awareness of impact of own beliefs and cognitive biases
- higher awareness of lower risk opportunities for preventive action
Key Questions
- Identifying and measuring relatively successful cases in
terms of awareness and acceptance
-How good is “early warning” in terms of accuracy in
timeliness? Can we assume quality risk forecasts?
- How do scientists, think-tankers and NGOs cooperate? Is
there a collaborative or competitive warning community?
-What is the scope for influencing humanitarian and
conventional state and organisational interests?
-Has receptivity to warning increased since 1989 due to
normative and technological changes and if so what impact
does this have on preventive policy?
- Impact of financial crisis and security concerns on warningresponse discourse?
13
Thank you for your attention!
More about Foresight at:
www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/foresight
Questions?
14