IMITATION IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING, ANALOGIES AND FOREIGN POLICY..

"Imitation and emulation are two mechanisms of competition in international relations that are theoretically posited but empirically diffuse. Goldsmith provides a trenchant overview of the extant literature, finding that specification and operationalization problems may explain the disconnect between theory and evidence. Providing a distinctive and generalizable approach drawing on concepts from psychology and organizational behavior, this book refines theories of foreign policy to include observational learning to identify when imitation is likely and what behaviors are most imitated. Both statistical and case study methods are used to uncover patterns of analogy usage."--Jacket.