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  • Eirene e Atena
  • Edited by Fulvio Attinà, Luciano Bozzo, Marco Cesa, Sonia Lucarelli
Book Chapter

The Appeasement Puzzle and Competition Neglect

  • Costantino Pischedda

Recent studies indicate that British appeasement towards Hitler followed a buying-time logic, i.e., it tried to postpone confrontation until Great Britain improved its military position through rearmament. However, this chapter shows that Germany actually extended its military edge over the appeasement years. Drawing on the literature on judgment and decision-making, the chapter theorizes that competition neglect – the tendency to focus myopically on one’s own capabilities and pay insufficient attention to those of the competition – may explain the puzzling gap between British policymakers’ plans and actual trends in the balance of power. The competition neglect thesis and an alternative explanation, positing the occurrence of miscalculation, are tested with a case study of British foreign policy towards Germany in 1937-38.

  • Keywords:
  • preventive war,
  • competition neglect,
  • appeasement,
  • balance of power,
  • biases,
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Costantino Pischedda

University of Miami, United States - ORCID: 0000-0002-8784-8623

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  • Publication Year: 2022
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

The Appeasement Puzzle and Competition Neglect

Authors

Costantino Pischedda

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-595-0.11

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Eirene e Atena

Book Subtitle

Studi di politica internazionale in onore di Umberto Gori

Editors

Fulvio Attinà, Luciano Bozzo, Marco Cesa, Sonia Lucarelli

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

208

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-595-0

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-594-3

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-595-0

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

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