Egypt’s handover of Tiran Islands to Saudi Arabia
Analyzed by the Rational Actor Model Linda Bongers
In the last couple of months, Egypt´s president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and both their foreign ministers have held a number of high-level talks. It seems that they have not only continued their old alliance, but are strengthening it too. Last April, after one of those meetings, president Sisi announced that he will transfer two small islands, Tiran and Sanafir, located in the Red Sea, to Saudi Arabia. These islands are controlled from Cairo since 1950, subsequent to the request from Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud to protect it. Because of their location, the islands are strategically important for various countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Despite the authorities are emphasizing that the islands had always been Saudi territory, president Sisi faces sharp criticism for ‘selling out’ Egyptian land.
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The foundation of the Rational Actor Model is the assumption that every decision or action is motivated by a conscious calculation of advantages, thus motivated by rational behavior. By following the Rational Actor Model, we can thus assume that the choice to give the Tiran islands to Saudi Arabia was, after considering all the alternatives and their resulting consequences, the most value-maximizing rational
KAILI HONG PER.3 THE ISLAMIC EXPANSION The early Islamic empire expanded in a couple of ways. One of the ways was the war. I found this evidence in document A where it says that the Muslims to fight gathered together to fight the Greeks. The Greeks would tie each others foots to each other so none of them would escape during the war.
The Mongol invasion on Baghdad could possibly be thought of as a critical moment in world history. The Mongols left a cavernous trauma on all parts of the Muslim world. It made the population drop significantly, they were left with no leader,it ruined the central points of Islamic civilization, and all of their major buildings and markets were destroyed. Despite the difficulties that Baghdad and the Islamic world faced because of this attack, Islam still stood strong to continue to be a major world religion. One of the major effects was the population drop.
The Importance of Rationality At often times one may believe that making decisions should be predominantly based upon what one may feel or desire, though in reality such process frequently results in negative consequences, thus why in the process of making decisions, love should not overtake rationality. When love is prioritized in decision making, it tends to cause thoughts that typically won’t better the situation for those who are involved, while rationality would instead provide the proper reasoning to create a suitable outcome. In the process of making decisions, love should not overtake rationality.
Rational behavior is not easy to achieve but it is possible. According to Charles Elder and Roger Cobb, “Rationality implies that political actions and evaluations are the product of consistent preferences, logical analysis, and abundant [unbiased] information. Irrationality, on the other hand presupposes that political actions and reactions are based on emotional impulses and blind prejudices that defy logic and that are insensitive to fact.” Elder and Cobb both compared the understanding of rational behavior and irrational behavior. Human beings are basically non-rational people.
According to Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis the “modern design theory, the rational design problem is reduced to selecting among a set of given alternatives, each of which has a given set of consequences.” Taken with the game theory urged by Allison and Zelikow it should result in “optimal choices in narrowly constrained, neatly defined situations. In these situations, rationality refers to an essentially Hobbesian notion of consistent, value-maximizing reckoning or adaption within specified
o Qatar imports most of its food, through land, sea and air. When the economic blockade took place. It has closed the only land border Qatar shares with Saudi Arabia. This means that now Qatar has to operate like an island. Higher costs are the outcome as many essential goods such as food and medicine had to be imported through air as an emergency step to maintain the standard of living of the citizens of the country.
The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophy’s impotence, but the proof of philosophy’s power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state—it is only philosophy that can lead them out. — Ayn Rand, 1961 Look around the world, and you will see something that would have shocked anyone living in the after-math of 9/11. Following the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, with thousands of our citizens killed, Americans were rightly outraged—and their (healthy) response was to demand retaliation. Our leaders in Washington insisted that the people who attacked us would be made to pay.
Imagine traveling through the Sahara Desert with 60,000 other people for four months. This is what it was like on Mansa Musa’s hajj. Mansa Musa was the king of Mali; he was a powerful and generous leader. Mansa Musa went on hajj because he was a Muslim. He wanted to show his commitment to Islam.
Lindblom set the stage for further examination of rationality during the pivotal 1960s period of political science scholarship. Paul Diesing (1962) argued that rationality has multiple meanings and lamented the tendency to view rationality primarily as either technical or economic rationality concerned with organizational productivity and economic efficiency. Diesing develops a philosophy-oriented framework that argues for the study of three other forms of rationality—social, legal, and political. Aaron Wildavsky (1966), one of the 20th century’s most influential political scientists, takes the cue and warns strongly against framing rationality in terms of decision-making strategies or techniques such as cost–benefit analysis, systems analysis,
Extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction can in many circumstances be a useful and legitimate response to transnational crime. Criminal activity is not always confined to territorial boarders, and so the law may seek to follow the crime to prevent an offender from enjoying impunity. A number of states have included in their criminal legislature provisions allowing for the investigation and prosecution of international crimes, even when such crime is committed outside their national territory and whether or not the perpetrators or the victims are nationals of the state concerned”. The importance of extraterritorial jurisdiction was also seen in the Advisory Opinion of 11 April 1949 – Reparations for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations. Personnel of the UN were targeted in Palestine which culminated in the assassination of
There are four major decision-making models- rational, bounded rationality, incremental and garbage can models. In the following, pros and cons of each model will be discussed and explain why Incremental and Garbage Can Models can best describe the decision made during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rational model is a cognitive process, which the decision-makers run through rational steps. The steps refer to definition of problems, identification and evaluation of alternative policies, implementation of the best policies among all and finally monitoring of effects, ran through a unitary decision-maker (Taylor, 1998). Theoretically, the model can search for the best solution to the problem based on the comprehensive consideration.
POLICY POINT PAPER FOR PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU ISSUE: Under the previous Harper government, the Canadian government brokered a $15-billion deal to sell weaponized armoured vehicles manufactured in Ontario to Saudi Arabia. Does this deal align with Canada’s “principled” foreign policy, and how should the new Trudeau government proceed with the deal without hurting Saudi Arabian relations and its own reputation in human rights? BACKGROUND: Saudi Arabia is Canada’s second largest export market in the Middle East. Exports in 2014 were valued at $1.2 billion mainly in vehicles, equipment and mechanical/ electrical production. Canada imports more than twice that amount- the majority in mineral production.
Strengths: The major strength of The kingdom of Saudi Arabia relies heavily on its strategic location. As it is the birthplace of prophet Mohammed and the birth of Islam, it has great antiques and history that is appreciated by Arabs, Muslims and everyone around the world, as the history of the Arab peninsula goes back to more than 1400 years. This provides tons of historic information and antiques that will attract tourists around the world. Another strength is the constant visits from Muslims throughout the year, which will motivate the Saudi government to be on a constant road to development to provide ease for visitors when performing religious rituals.
So most of the people know what is a rational choice but still act irrationally and make poor financial decision. So now the real question is why human beings do this. The main reason is that most of us are lazy or do not have time to think thru the ups and downs of a decision. So why shouldn’t people make irrational decisions. It is because most of the time making irrational decision might make people worse of than
The international relations schools of thought known as Realism and Idealism identify specific and similar characteristics of actors in the conceptual development of their theories. While many of these characteristics can be generalized as being synonymous with the two theories, both theories make a separate distinction in what specifically constitutes an actor. In Realism, the term “actor” refers directly and solely to the state: a combination of government, leaders, decision-makers, etc, that act as a unitary entity to promote the interests of the state. Idealists, however, expand on what constitutes an actor to include both the state and people. Not only do the principles of Idealism assert that the state and people should be considered actors, in fact, both they must be viewed as actors.