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	Prospect Theory in International Relations	Operational Code Analysis
Campo	International Relations	International Relations
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1997	1969
Ideatore	Kahneman & Tversky (theory); Jack Levy and others (IR application)	Nathan Leites (origin); Alexander George (construct); Walker, Schafer & Young (VICS)
Tipo	Behavioral decision-theoretic framework for foreign-policy choice	Content-analytic measurement of leaders' political belief systems
Fonte seminale	Levy, J. S. (1997). Prospect theory, rational choice, and international relations. International Studies Quarterly, 41(1), 87–112.	George, A. L. (1969). The 'operational code': A neglected approach to the study of political leaders and decision-making. International Studies Quarterly, 13(2), 190–222.
Alias	Prospect Theory IR, Loss Aversion in Foreign Policy, Framing and Risk in International Relations, Behavioral Decision Theory in IR	Operational Code, Verbs in Context System (VICS), Belief System Analysis, Operational Code Construct
Correlati	3	3
Sintesi	Prospect theory, the behavioral account of choice under risk developed by Kahneman and Tversky, has been applied across international relations to explain foreign-policy decisions that expected-utility models struggle with. As surveyed and assessed by Jack Levy (1997), the key ideas are that leaders evaluate outcomes as gains and losses relative to a reference point rather than in absolute terms, that losses loom larger than equivalent gains (loss aversion), and that people are risk-averse for gains but risk-seeking to avoid losses. These departures from rationality illuminate why states gamble to recover losses and take excessive risks to defend the status quo.	Operational code analysis measures a political leader's belief system — their fundamental assumptions about the nature of politics and the best strategies for pursuing goals — from the leader's own words. Originating in Nathan Leites's study of the Bolshevik mindset and reformulated by Alexander George (1969) into a structured set of philosophical and instrumental questions, it later became a quantitative method through the Verbs in Context System (VICS). By coding how a leader talks about conflict, cooperation, control, and risk, analysts characterize the cognitive framework through which that leader interprets the world and chooses action.