ABSTRACT
The application of artificial intelligence techniques and computational models to study intentional activity in international relations reflects a diversity of concepts, research foci, and methods. In sum, computational modelers using Al techniques have an interest, which they share with descriptive researchers focusing on how people make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, in constructing a new process-based paradigm of foreign policy and international relations. There are several reasons for relying more on information-processing insights in future Al modeling efforts. Research on how people process information has tended to highlight the fact that political decision-makers act more like limited information processors than rational maximizers or incremental satisficers. The highly adaptable nature of intuitive decision making and the use of intuitive heuristics to understand and to solve complex problems often lead to fundamental errors or biases in the processing of information. A number of theoretical frameworks have been offered as fundamental heuristics for studying foreign policy decision making.
