Victims Of Groupthink Analysis

Irving L. Janis' Victims of Groupthink Author(s): Paul't Hart Source: Political Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 247-278 Published by: International Society of Political Psychology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791464 Accessed: 11/01/2010 13:57
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Alternativesto the rationalperspectivehave takenmany forms. One important set of alternativeapproacheshas stressed the political dimensions of decision-makingprocesses: many actors, diverse interests, interagencyconflict, and ad hoc coalitions. In political models of choice, decisions are not the productof calculatedchoices by a governmentor a company as a unitaryactor, but rather the outcome of a bargaining process among different players in a politicalarena. The model of bureaucratic bureaucratic politics postulatesthatconflicts of interest and power games between differentsections, departmentsand agencies within a governmentadministration the most powerfuldeterminants policy are of choices (Allison, 1971; Halperin, 1974; Rosenthal, 't Hart, & Kouzmin, 1991). The model entailed a definite break with traditionalperspectives of rational between politics and administration. One decision-makingand a strictseparation of the most intriguingvariantsof the political model focuses on the empiricalfact that on many occasions, the outcome of the process is such that no decisions are taken at all (non-decision-making). The analysis should then seek to explain why some social issues receive attention from policy-makersand are finally acted upon, whereasothersdon't. This takes the analystto identify the social, political and bureaucratic forces and barriersthat
It is also one of the most intensely researched variablesin the social psychology of small groups. Perhapspartlybecause of its very pervasiveness, it is also one of the most elusive and multifacetedaspects of (decision) groups:there are several competingnotions of cohesiveness; there are differenttechniquesof measuringcohesiveness which do not always yield consistent results; Cohesiveness affects group behavior in numerousways. It pervades both group structureand process, and cohesiveness factors may act as either independent,intermediate,or dependentvariable.Essentially,many of the unresolvedproblemsin the analysis of groupcohesiveness reportedtwenty years ago by Cartwright,still exist today: How do various sources of attractioncombine in a composite measureof cohesiveness, what is the importanceof different sourcesof attraction groupcohesiveness and its subsequenteffects upon group on behavior,and what is the natureof causal linkages involving groupcohesiveness and other aspects of group structureand process (Cartwright, 1968; see also Golembiewski, 1962; Verba;1962; Golembiewski et al., 1968; Hare, 1976)? Cohesiveness and Group Members Just after WorldWarII, cohesiveness researchmoved swiftly throughthe systemic efforts of Festinger,Schachter,Back, and their associates. Much of the research programon informal social communicationby Festinger and his colleagues was devoted to studying group effects on individual members. The investigators,