UNIVERSITY OF GHANA LEGON

FACULTY: SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT: POLITICAL SCIENCE
PROGRAMME: MPHIL POLITICAL SCIENCE
STUDENT ID NUMBER: 10600322

A PRESENTATION ON THE MOTIVATION FOR FOREIGN POLICY DECISION

MAKING. A REVIEW OF A BOOK BY WILLIAM O. CHITTICK AND ANNETTE
FREYBERG-INNAN TITLED: “Chiefly for Fear, Next for Honour and lastly for Profit” An
Analysis of Foreign Policy Motivation in the Peloponnesian War.

The study of foreign policy entails the analysis of human reactions to the threats, challenges, and
opportunities presented by the international environment. Therefore, Foreign policy makers react
to issues according to the ways in which they perceive and interpret those situations and events.
Moreover, perceptions and interpretations of foreign policy situations are partly affected by
actors‟ preferences concerning the outcomes or consequences of possible courses of action. Such
preferences are shaped by actors‟ motives, those basic psychological driving forces which
determine which particular goals the actor will pursue.
The principal approaches or theories to the study of foreign policy employed by the author to
explain the motivation of Foreign Policy making are: first, the realist and neorealist theories
which rely almost exclusively on the motive of fear and the corresponding goals of power and
security. Second the Liberal and neoliberal theories concentrate on the motive of „profit‟ and the
goal of prosperity; and lastly, the sociological institutionalist and constructivist theories which
concerned primarily with the motive of social recognition or the goal of community. The above
approaches are useful in cases in which the assumed motivation does indeed represent the
decision maker‟s relevant preferences.
However, we believe that in most foreign policy decisions, all the three motives mentioned
above by the various theories such as fear, „profit,‟ and social recognition, play a very significant
role in explaining foreign policy behaviour on a more complete assessment of the decision-
makers‟ motivation.
The authors have fully developed a framework for incorporating a concern with all the three
motives into the study of foreign policy. The framework associates each of these motives which
are fear, „profit,‟ and social recognition with one general foreign policy goal “security,
prosperity, and community, respectively”. They posit that systematic differences among
individuals form one primary dimension of variance for each of these basic goals. This
dimension is described in terms of polar differences in: first, an actor‟s basic perceptions
concerning the relevant characteristics of its environment, second, the actor‟s choice of strategic
goals, and lastly, the actor‟s choice of strategic means. These are used to explain how fear,
honour and profit motives motivate the Foreign policy decision maker.
First of all, the motive of fear compels human beings to seek security in the form of
protection and advantage in conflicts with others and ensures immediate physical survival.
Actors perceive their security environment to be more or less competitive.
They therefore, hypothesized that the more competitive an actor perceives the relationship
between its community and those threatening its security, the more salient the motive of fear. In
the vice versa, the more cooperative an actor perceives the relationship between its community
and those representing potential threats, the less salient the motive of fear.
The positions foreign policy actors take towards possible security threats depend on whether they
perceive the relationships between themselves and the others as essentially competitive or
cooperative. Therefore, the actors‟ choice of strategic security goals reflects preferences similar
to the cooperative–competitive perceptual dimension. They hypothesized that if an actor
perceives a potentially threatening situation to be highly competitive, then the actor is more
likely to seek superior relative power, domination at the extreme, as its strategic goal. If the actor
perceives a potentially threatening situation to be less competitive, then the actor is more likely
to seek a mutual understanding or even accommodation as its strategic goal.
Hence an actor‟s choice of strategic security goals affects its preferences for the means used to
obtain security. If a foreign policy actor believes that domination of a potential enemy is
necessary for its security, that actor will be more prepared to use threaten force, which is to adopt
militarist policies. But if an actor seeks accommodation, that actor will prefer non-coercive, non-
militarist methods of dealing with security issues.
 More to the point, the motive of profit. The motive of „profit‟ arises from a perception of
need for opportunities. This motive inspires the pursuit of all those resources which, as for
example, money, education, or personal rights, are expected to better human beings‟ life
circumstances. It is thus to be understood not in a narrow material sense but similar to the liberal
conceptions of individual preferences, as a broader conception of the national interest. Those
perceptions most relevant to the pursuit of „profit‟ concern an actor‟s own status and capabilities
relative to those of the other relevant actors. They hypothesized that if an actor perceives itself as
superior to the others, then the actor will be prepared to interact with them but if an actor
perceives itself as inferior in capabilities to the others, then it will be hesitant to interact with
them because he wants to maximize profit.
Therefore, Foreign policy actors‟ responses to opportunities for „profit‟ depend on their
perceptions concerning their relative strength. Such perceptions thus affect the strategic goals
actors pursue with respect to the basic foreign policy goal of prosperity.
They therefore hypothesized that if an actor perceives itself to be inferior in capabilities to
relevant others, it will be more likely to pursue a foreign policy of isolation. In the Vice versa, if
the actor perceives itself to be in a superior position, it will favour a foreign policy of
interdependence because the socioeconomic goals of isolation on the one hand and
interdependence on the other also affect the relevant strategic means preferred by foreign policy
actors. Therefore, an actor who pursues an isolationist policy will be more likely to employ
protectionist policies while an actor who favours a policy of interdependence, on the other hand,
will strive for active involvement in the free trade of goods, services, money, and ideas in order
to maximize profit.
Lastly, the motive of social recognition inspires actors to attempt integration into a
community, which can provide more protection and comfort than any actor would be able to
secure for itself. In order to be part of such a community, actors accept and internalize, at least to
some extent, that community‟s norms and rules of behaviour and, in turn, become able to shape
the nature and conduct of the collectivity. Those perceptions most relevant to the pursuit of
social recognition concern the conditions for communal identification with other relevant actors.
Actors therefore perceive their communities to be more or less exclusive. They hypothesized that
if an actor emphasizes those values which make its own community unique, then that actor will
feature an exclusive identity that clearly separates the community from its environment but if an
actor stresses values its community holds in common with others then that actor will exhibit an
inclusive identity which accentuates the similarities between the community and the
environment. With respect to their strategic goals, foreign policy actors who portray more
exclusive identities will be more likely to seek recognition through independence.
While those actors who hold more inclusive identities will be more likely to pursue integration
and unification at the extreme. Also, in terms of strategic means, foreign policy actors who seek
independence tend to prefer unilateral initiatives while actors who seek integration into a larger
community instead tend to act on a multilateral basis.
In a conclusion on this, they contend that all the three basic motives mentioned above need to
be taken into account in order to explain Foreign policy actors‟ decisions concerning any foreign
policy issue. But according to them, that not all the three motives may be equally salient on any
given occasion and so that it is important to explore the actors‟ positions with respect to all the
three motives of basic foreign policy making.
Foreign Policy Motivation In The Peloponnesian War
Before the outbreak of open hostilities between Athens and Sparta, an Athenian delegation at
Sparta defends the imperialist ambitions of Athens in the following manner. They claimed that
they had been „forced to advance their dominion to what it is, out of the nature of the thing itself;
as chiefly for fear, next for honour, and lastly for profit‟. They explained further that though
overcome by three of the greatest things such as honour, fear, and profit, they had both accepted
the dominion delivered them and refused again to surrender it, that they had therein done nothing
to be wondered neither at nor beside the manner of men.
To start with, the first important motive by the Athenians is fear and the term used by them
for this concept of fear is deos, which indicates a lasting state of alarm as opposed to a sudden
fright. It can also mean the possession of a reason to fear or of a means to inspire fear in others,
thus pointing to perceived requirements of preparation for the possibility of conflict. Thucydides
has the Athenians acknowledge that fear is one of the main psychological driving forces in
relations among states. That States try to protect themselves from others. They also try to inspire
fear in others, so as to deter them from attacking.
Secondly, the next important motive operating in relations among states, according to the
Athenians, is the desire for „profit‟. The term used by Thucydides, ophelia, can mean as much
profit or material advantage as well as a source of gains, especially of gains made in war.
However, and especially in Thucydidean usage, it also refers to material aid or support in war,
meaning that the Athenians might have tried to indicate that they were not just greedy for riches
but that they were trying to gather allies so as to make themselves more secure. This
interpretation makes sense, given the fact that the purpose of the Athenian speech was to excuse
Athenian expansionism in the eyes of her rivals. Clearly, defensive motivation must have been
considered less objectionable than offensive motives for imperialistic policies. Once again, it is
possible to establish an interpretive minimum consensus because the Athenians acknowledged
the role played in inter-state relations by the realization that security has an economic component
and therefore States need a minimum of resources simply to survive. Moreover, a quest for
greater security inspires the search for material advantage, since such an advantage is a
component of superior power.
Lastly, the third motive of the Athenians is the motive of „honour‟ and the term used they
have for „honour‟ is, time, and clearly has normative as well as material meanings. In the
normative sense, „honour‟ here can refer to the public esteem or elevated official position
acquired through actions which contribute to the success and glory of the community. A leader
of an Athenian people identified communal glory with their city‟s position of hegemonic
sovereignty giving up the pursuit of hegemony, in this sense, clearly would have been a
dishonourable thing to do. Therefore, the reasons for the pursuit of hegemony by the Athens are
the „honours‟ it brings in the form of material rewards and further increases in authority. As the
Athenian citizen required the recognition of his fellows in his pursuit of civic honours, so did the
status of Athens depend on the recognition which such pursuits, through force, persuasion,
propaganda, or example, afforded her in the world of Greek city states.
The three motives brought forth by the Athenians as an explanation for the sum of their foreign
policies preceding the war are broadly analogous to the basic motives on which the authors‟
analytical framework rests.
Foreign Policy Goals In The Peloponnesian War
Around the time of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek world was made up of small, autonomous
city states, which were largely incapable of defending themselves against outside threats.
Therefore, cooperation between the city states consisted in trade and occasional defensive
alliances under threat of foreign invasion. As the Athenian empire grew, clashes of interest with
the Spartan-led Peloponnesian, or Lacedaemonian, League became more frequent. In particular,
the two largest naval powers, Athens and Corinth became increasingly suspicious of each other‟s
intentions and hence the analysis of these foreign policy goals in the war.
To commence with, the security of many city states was further threatened by the danger of
revolt or revolution from within. Therefore, political divisions between democrats and aristocrats
as well as between various factions within those two camps complicated issues of external
security, since the different factions often seek support from opposing outside forces.
The possibility of internal war is frequently an important concern. Given the tense inter-city
atmosphere and the vagaries of domestic politics, the Hellenic city states typically can neither
feel truly safe from military attack nor calculate its effects on the polity. Therefore, rising
tensions in this highly competitive inter-state environment can only serve to strengthen the
priority of security as a foreign policy goal, which fuels Athenian expansionism and motivated
Lacedaemonian resistance.
Also, by the mid-fifth century, trade among the Hellenic city states was extensive,
particularly within the existing alliances. Within the Delian League, Athens had assumed the
character of an imperial power, enjoying favourable trade conditions and demanding
considerable tribute payments from its subject cities. While landlocked Sparta had traditionally
worked to ensure its agricultural self-sufficiency, the naval power Athens relied more heavily on
trade and had protected access to its port, Piraeus, by means of a walled-in corridor. Generally,
Sparta, protective of its agricultural base and forced to supervise a large population of
disenfranchised field workers and avoided interventionist economic policies, while Athens,
conscious of its superior trading position, pursued imperialistic expansion. Hence the Athenian
prosperity was not more secure than that of Sparta, since, as Donald Kagan points out, „the
Athenian economy was increasingly dependent upon trade, a large part of it in the
Aegean and in the Hellespontine region‟. However, the expansion of Athenian political influence
increasingly contributed to the unease of its potential military rivals thus the war ensued.
Lastly, the third important foreign policy motive in the fifth century Greece is that of
„honour‟, or recognition by one‟s community. According to Michael Palmer, the traditional
Greek view of honourable conduct, as it is exemplified in the Athenian leader Pericles, perceives
„honour‟ as the greatest good an individual can achieve. The only way to achieve such „honour‟
is to devote oneself completely to the common good, the interest of one‟s community. The
primary community of reference for the Greek foreign policymaker is usually his city state, but
could conceivably also be a political grouping or a larger alliance. Religion and ideals of
citizenship hold communities together, but prove fragile under the pressures of war, hunger, and
desperation.
In conclusion, the chronological analysis of important foreign policy decisions during the
Peloponnesian War revealed the operation of the previously stipulated three foreign policy
motives and goals.
The Use Of Debates And Dialogue By The Authors To Explain The Application Of The
Three Motives And Their Respective Goals Of Foreign Policy Decision Making In The
Peloponnesian War
In the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, eight debates and one dialogue were used both to
determine which attitudes towards which foreign policy motives and goals were expressed on
each occasion and to understand how the relative potency of motives helped determine decisions
and actions at these critical junctures. Therefore, Thucydides appears to stress the motive of fear
as the ultimate trigger of warfare, some historians, such as Francis Cornford, argued that the
quest for „profit‟ was in truth the main source of hostility between Corinth and Athens. The
Athenians themselves, by mentioning „honour‟ second and, later, first among their motives, seem
to assert that the desire for recognition was equally important in leading them to expand their
empire. They believed that all the three motives should be taken into account to provide for a
comprehensive inquiry into the causes as well as the course of the Peloponnesian War.
The first one was the debate over the Corcyrean Alliance by 433 BC. Before the
Athenian assembly, the Corcyreans, who were neutrals under the Thirty Years‟ Peace agreement,
argued that Athens should not risk alienating the third largest navy in Greece at a time when it
can reasonably expect to become involved in a war with both Sparta and Corinth. Instead, that
the Athens should come to the aid of Corcyra now in order to ensure that Corcyra would, in turn,
be inclined to help the Athenians in the future. The Corcyreans were appealing to both the
motive of profit and the motive of fear in order to persuade Athens that it was in her own interest
to ally herself with Corcyra. First, an intervention in the situation in form of an alliance with the
powerful Corcyra would offer Athens new opportunities. In fact, the Corcyreans argued that
Athens would be better off making new friends than keeping old ones, if her new friends can be
more useful to her. Second, that having the Corcyrean navy on her side would improve the
Athenian security position in an eventual conflict with Corinth.
The Corinthian, who were still legally „friends‟ of Athens according to the treaty, did not
question the facts as presented by the Corcyreans. However, they argued that if the Athenians
want to remain on good terms with Corinth, Athens must not ally itself with Corinth‟s enemies,
the Corcyreans. Thus, the Corinthians argued for nonintervention based on the „honour‟ motive.
They attempted to sway Athens in their favour by pointing out that they should be „friends‟
because that is the way things had been and that was what was written in the treaty. They further
contended that Athens owed them a favour, since they did not intervene in favour of one of
Athens‟ subject cities, when it revolted against Athens. The Corinthian argument thus implies
that Athens and Corinth can remain on friendly terms only if both states abide by the principle of
non-interference established, and the alliance structures prescribed, by the present treaty.
Therefore, at the end of the first day of debate, the Athenian assembly was evenly divided. If the
war could be avoided, Athens should try not to alienate Corinth. However, if the war was
inevitable, then it would not be wise to allow Corinth to destroy the Corcyrean fleet. On the
second day, the Athenians stop short of deciding in favour of a full alliance with Corcyra. Athens
here proved to be partly constrained in her actions by the honour motive, as represented by her
treaty obligations and the arguments of Corinth. Instead of being able to take full advantage of
the prospect of a complete alliance, they agreed only to a defensive alliance with Corcyra and
this defensive alliance justified through the security goal. The Athenians felt that they could not
afford to watch Corcyra lose its navy without risking too much of their own power position.
The debate over the Corcyrean alliance illustrates the operation of all the three foreign policy
motives as well as the balancing of the motives which is a necessary part of rational foreign
policy decision-making. By deciding on a defensive alliance with Corcyra, the Athenians in
effect try to gain a friend without making an enemy, while at the same time protecting their other
community, security, and prosperity interests. As it had seen, such rational balancing became
increasingly difficult as the war continued.
Also, the second and the third of the debates analysed here occurred at the Congress in
Sparta in 433 BC, where the Corinthians had come to persuade Sparta to go to war with Athens.
The second debate began with an exchange between the Corinthian delegation and a group of
Athenians who happened to be in the city at the time. As Donald Kagan and Laurie Johnson had
explained, that the Corinthians aimed the brunt of their criticism at the appeasement strategy
pursued by the peace party which had been in power in Sparta. The Corinthians invoked the
„honour‟ motive by arguing that the Athenians had an insatiable aggressive character and, in an
attempt to put the Spartans to shame, comparing that character with the passive nature of the
Spartans in general and Spartan pacifists in particular. Using the profit motive, Corinth argued
that it was in Sparta‟s interest to intervene in order to halt the expansion of Athenian influence.
Finally, using the fear motive, Corinth attempted to portray Athens as an acute military threat.
The Athenians therefore countered first of all by denying that they behaved any worse than other
states in matters of inter-state politics. After all, they pointed out, „it hath been ever a thing fixed,
for the weaker to be kept under by the stronger‟. Considerations of „honour‟ and justice, the
Athenians claimed, played a role only in relations among equals, where power relations are not
decisive. In light of this reasoning, the Athenians had shown more mercy in their dealings with
subject cities than they had to. While it was only natural to dominate those who were less
powerful by exerting one‟s authority but Sparta is most definitely not considered inferior, much
less subject to Athens. Thus, Sparta can expect Athens to abide by the rules of conduct among
equals. Secondly, the Athenians denied that they pose any offensive threat to Spartan security. At
the same time, they were attempting to deter Sparta from military action. Extolling their own
virtues and emphasizing their own power, the Athenians explained that although they do have a
powerful alliance, it was not the result of unchecked greed and untempered passions, but rather
the natural outcome of an inter-state situation which compelled Athens to respond by expanding
its empire. That empire grew gradually at first, at the request of allies who were fearful of Persia
when Sparta was not willing to exert itself on their behalf. Subsequently, it continued to grow
when the Athenians began to fear that former allies might harm them by breaking away.
It was clear that Corinth and Athens did not disagree on the nature of the international situation
or on the fundamentals of inter-state politics. According to Laurie Johnson, „by blaming the
Spartan‟s lack of initiative more than the Athenians grasping for empire, the Corinthians sanction
as natural both the endless pursuit of power and the defense against it‟. The Corinthians also
agreed that Athens was not merely striving for material profit, but also for military power and for
glory. Rather than attacking Athenian motivation or the claim that Athenian behaviour was
natural given the circumstances, the Corinthians confirmed the Athenian thesis by accepting it as
the „natural law‟ of politics and by following its line of reasoning.
In the second debate at Sparta the Spartan citizens debated the issue among themselves. The fact
that the Athenian interpretation of the situation is shared by some Spartans as well is shown by
the fact that Archidamus, king of Sparta, repeated the argument that the perception of Athens as
a threat is a function of circumstance rather than an exceptional situation which requires
immediate military intervention.
Archidamus emphasized the motive of „profit‟ or rational self-interest. He urged his fellow-
citizens not to be ashamed of their deliberative and prudent character and not to let them be
drawn into a war Corinth was trying to start in its own particular interest. However, more
Spartans shared the view of Sthenelaidas who contended that Athens must be stopped now
before it takes over the Peloponnese. Sthenelaides emphasized the motive of fear in the form of
the Athenian military threat. The fact that it took Sparta some considerable time after the
Congress both to call its allies together for a formal declaration of war and to send an army into
the field suggested that the city remained divided on the issue. Partly, the different interpretations
of the Athenian threat stemmed from different views of the moral character of Athens‟ behaviour
towards both allies and enemies.
The Athenian delegation argued that, even while expanding its empire, Athens had always acted
with proper restraint. Its alliance with Corcyra is purely defensive and its relations with its allies
were based on law rather than brute force. In opposition, the Corinthians argued that Athens had
subjugated its allies without their consent and that it was fully prepared to act solely according to
its own self-interest rather than with any consideration for justice and other common norms. In a
sense, the Corinthians argued that Athens, by its own actions, had removed itself from the
community of civilized city-states as it had been formalized in the Thirty Years‟ Peace treaty.
The perception of Athens as an enemy required the allies of Corinth to stress the differences
rather than the similarities between their own cities and Athens. Thus, different beliefs with
respect to community concerns can be seen to influence the perception of other problems, such
as the potential security threat which was the leading issue at the Congress.
Furthermore, the next cluster of debates occurred in the fifth year of the war and was
solely on the rise of ideology. Sparta had launched attacks on Attica, but, as foreseen by Pericles
(the leader of Athens), the resulting battles proved not to be decisive. Although both sides were
still determined to win the war, they were becoming increasingly aware of the enormous risks
and costs involved in a prolonged conflict. The strategy of Pericles, leader of Athens during the
early years, was to avoid fighting the powerful Spartan army on land, which means that the land
around the city walls of Athens, with all the products of its fields, had been lost to the enemy.
Therefore, Athenian access to the sea was protected by the walls which connected the city to the
Piraeus, but the Athenian treasury was depleted and the city, overpopulated because of refugees
from the surrounding farmland, was suffering greatly from disease. On the other hand, Sparta has
yet to win any major victory in the war. Military leaders on both sides searched for popular
support to continue a war which had already lasted longer than had been foreseen. As Paul
Woodruff points out, it was clear in retrospect that, „as long as Athens conceded the land to
Sparta, and Sparta the sea to Athens, there was no hope of either side‟s bringing the war to an
end‟. It was not until much later, when Sparta received Persian support to build a navy that the
balance of power shifted enough to allow for the defeat of Athens.
One of the most serious threats confronting Athens at this juncture was the danger of revolt by
subject states in the empire. The Athenians discovered that the ruling oligarchs in Mytilene, an
independent ally on the island of Lesbos were plotting to rise up against Athens. This constituted
a serious challenge, because the Mytileneans, unlike most other allied cities, had been allowed to
maintain their own navy. The fact that even a city which had received such preferential treatment
was ready for revolt was alarming to the Athenians, who were careful to make an example of
Mytilene in order to dissuade other subject cities from a similar course of action. The Athenians
fear that if they were to lose important segments of their empire, they would lack the resources to
resist Spartan invasions. The Mytileneans sought the help of Sparta, and in an effort to justify an
alliance between themselves and the Peloponnesians they claimed to share customs with the
Peloponnesians that they do not share with Athens. This is the first time that the racial
differences between Dorians and Ionians are portrayed as irreconcilable. From this point on, the
racial differences referred to in the History seemed to take on a new meaning and traditional
definitions of Greek community gradually broke down. The war was partly transformed from a
power struggle between the Spartan alliance and the Athenian alliance into a racial war between
Dorians and Ionians. When the revolt of the Mytileneans is finally put down, a thousand
prisoners were brought back to Athens for punishment. Therefore, a debate was held before the
Athenian assembly in order to determine the fate of the Mytileneans who betrayed Athens and
the empire and this bled to the Mytilene debate in 427 BC.
More so, the next debate was the debate over Mytilene in 427 BC where Cleon, a
skilled demagogue and leader of the Athenian war party, presented the view that all males in
Mytilene, not only the one thousand prisoners, should be put to death as a deterrent to other
subjects who might be tempted to revolt. Diodotus also argued against him that Athens ought to
spare the democrats in Mytilene and put to death only the oligarchs, because it was in Athens‟
interest to side with the many against the few. Although the debate between Cleon and Diodotus
was ostensibly concerned with justice or morality, it was evident that the real question before the
assembly was how Athens could best serve its strategic self-interest by deterring future revolts in
the empire. More so than Cleon, who most likely appeared vengeful to the Athenian citizens,
Diodotus seemed to argue purely from expediency. His argumentative strategy implies, as Laurie
Johnson had put it, that „a great power must counter human‟s natural compulsions with power,
not with argument or judicial procedure‟. The fact that the outcome of this particular debate was
a relatively merciful punishment for Mytilene was coincidental and depended solely on
extraneous calculations of Athenian interest. The overriding motive at work here is profit or
rational self-interest, which led to the evaluation of alternative courses of action purely in terms
of the utility of their outcomes for Athens.
At the end of the first day, the assembly decided with Cleon to put to death all of the males in
Mytilene and enslaved the women and children, but this decision was revoked on the next day,
when, after a second round of debate, the Athenians came to the conclusion that it would be
enough to take the lives of the one thousand prisoners. The success of Diodotus‟ arguments
marked an important turning point in the war. From this point on, Athens adopted a deliberate
and far-reaching policy of sponsoring democracies throughout the Greek world. Athens
systematically implanted democratic rulers in all the cities she controlled and encouraged
democratic revolutions in the others. Thus, the war between Athens and Sparta at this time also
became a conflict between two opposing ideologies concerned with the organization of the polis.
Athenian motivation was imbalanced the motives of „profit‟ and fear had merged and clearly
dominated considerations of the community. Shortly after the debate on the fate of the
Mytileneans, an event occurred at Plataea, a small town on the border between Attica and
Boeotia, which indicated that these fundamental changes have had some effects on the Spartan
alliance as well. Plataea had special status in the Greek world since its citizens fought with
exceptional bravery against the Persian invaders. The city had traditionally been allied with
Thebes, which was now in league with Sparta. However, the Plataeans were then an independent
ally of Athens and obligated under the present treaty to support her in this war. When Athens
failed to come to the rescue of Plataea, Plataea was forced to capitulate to Sparta. A small
garrison of Plataeans agreed to surrender to the Spartans only when they were promised a fair
trial. When the Spartan judges arrived, however, they did not charge the Plataeans with any
crimes, but simply asked whether the Plataeans had rendered the Spartans or their allies any
service during the war. Realizing that they were going to be condemned without recourse to
moral argument, the Plataeans asked for permission to present a defence, and a debate ensued
between the Plataeans and the Thebans.
More so, the debate at Plataea continued where the Plataeans sought mercy from the
Spartans on the grounds that they honoured the Spartans who died in Plataea during the Persian
Wars. They argued in the sense that the old norms of the traditional community of united Greek
cities should held even under the present circumstances in which the members of that community
had turned against one another. From their perspective, it was relevant that the Thebans once
betrayed that pan-Hellenic community by consorting with the Persians. This accusation angered
the Thebans, who felt that the Plataeans plea must be having some effect on the Spartans, and
they asked to speak so they could ensure that the Plataeans receive the most severe punishment
for siding with Athens. Without acknowledging their own earlier collaboration with the Persians,
the hated enemies of both Athens and Sparta, the Thebans attempted to turn the tables by arguing
that it was the Plataeans who were in league with the enemy, Athens. They failed to
acknowledge the old moral code the Plataeans adhered to and instead of falling back on an
ideological argument in order to justify their present position. Athens was portrayed as a security
threat. The Plataeans, according to the Thebans, were just as dangerous, because they had
become „Atticized‟. This is a new concept which suggests that the threat posed by the Athenian
empire ran much deeper than previously acknowledged. Athens was not only dangerous because
of its power, but also because of its way of life, which was spreading throughout its realm of
influence. Athens, and all others like her, must be destroyed in order to eliminate the ideas which
made her so dangerous.
These two debates underscored the fact that a new ideological dimension had been added to the
war. From the standpoint of Sparta and its allies, Athens had become a „tyrant‟ city, capable of
„Atticizing‟ cities throughout her empire. Ideology was used to reinforce the perception of
Athens as a security threat. Sparta then perceived the need to challenge the Athenian empire
directly, and it could appeal effectively to those within that empire who had either Dorian or
oligarchic sympathies. The Athenians, on the other hand, could then see themselves as leading an
alliance of democratic states, which preserved the freedom of citizens all over Greece from the
tyranny of the few.
Although ideological appeals are more prevalent than moral arguments during this phase of the
war, the ideological fervour had not yet reached the point at which negotiations were out of the
question. Indeed, in the seventh year of the war Sparta offered Athens a peace agreement. The
Athenians, however, turned down this offer, because they had the upper hand in the conflict at
the time. In 422/421 BC Athens and Sparta finally agreed to the Peace of Nicias, which was
overall favourable to Athenian interests, but not before Sparta had begun to incite some of
Athens‟ allies to revolt against Athen. This according to Thucydides was not considered as an
end to the war, since he recognized that the peace could not hold.
Also, the Melian dialogue in 416 BC ensued as the war continued where the Athenians,
who were clearly capable of taking the city of Melos by force, offered the Melians liberal terms
if they would join the empire without a fight. The Melians refused and offered various reasons
why Athens would be better served by allowing them to maintain their neutral position. They
appealed to the motive of „profit‟ or rational self-interest, even to the extent of subsuming under
it the motive of „honour‟ with its moral implications. The Athenians, according to the Melians,
had an interest in recognizing them as neutral friends. However, the Athenians made it clear that
they could not accept Melian neutrality. According to the Athenian delegation, Athens was more
afraid of losing her power position than of continuing to alienate Sparta and its allies. Security
considerations, especially with respect to a perceived internal threat, now dominate even
considerations of rational self-interest, and the Athenians could not afford to allow city-states to
stay out of the empire when this could make them appear weak to others. Thus, the traditional
option of neutrality ceased to be viable, as both Athens and Sparta increasingly relied on a
simple friend or foe scheme. When the Melians refused the Athenian terms, the Athenians laid
siege to the city, starved its inhabitants into submission, and eventually put all men to death and
enslaved all women and children. This incident, especially if compared with the earlier treatment
of Mytilene, shows the extent to which, in Athenian minds, the goal of security had taken
precedence over all other considerations, particularly those of justice and morality. The motives
of „profit‟ as well as social recognition have become subsumed under the motive of fear, which
means that they have been reinterpreted to the extent that they do not operate effectively as
independent motives at all. Shortly after the Melian dialogue, the Sicilian city of Egesta offered
Athens money if she would aid her in a conflict with her immediate neighbour Selinus, which
was backed by Syracuse, the largest city in Sicily. Athens was tempted to undertake the
expedition on the pretext of helping Egesta, because the Athenians, blocked in the east by the
Persian Empire, had long had an interest in expanding their own sphere of influence to the west.
An assembly was called in Athens at which Nicias and Alcibiades, the leading conservative and
radical politicians of the day respectively, lead the debate.
More to the point, the debate on Sicilian expedition by 415 BC. This debate focuses
mainly on the issue of security. Nicias, who played an important role in forging the peace named
after him, opposed the expedition on the grounds that it was too dangerous, since Sparta and its
allies were looking for an excuse to break the peace and attack Athens. Alcibiades, eager to lead
the expedition himself, dismissed these concerns, arguing that internal and external strife among
the Sicilian cities offered a unique opportunity to expand the Athenian empire. Indeed,
Alcibiades claimed that Athens must continue to expand the empire in order to protect itself from
destruction through conflict. Thucydides suggested that this new argument was of special
significance. The Athenian leaders had become so afraid of their enemies, be they at home or
abroad, that their actions became almost entirely driven by this fear. The same need for security
which led Athens to deny neutrality to the Melians then led the city to launch an expeditionary
force in an attempt to silence opposition at home.
This debate is particularly interesting because of the way in which the speakers attack one
another on a personal level. Both Nicias and Alcibiades appeared willing to use any argument in
order to win a majority in the assembly. They appeared to be motivated by personal, not
community interest. When the assembly, at the end of the first day, overwhelmingly voted in
favour of the expedition, Nicias tried to make the Athenians reconsider by exaggerating the
sacrifices Athens would have to make in order to see the policy succeed. Due to an earlier
conflict, anti-Syracusan sentiment in Athens was high, and Nicias‟ plan failed when the
assembly granted him all the support he asked for. Clearly, the expedition to Sicily was
motivated primarily by fear, rather than by calculations of „profit‟ or considerations of „honour.‟
The Athenians lose no time in sending out expeditionary forces, since they intended to surprise
their enemies. They had not even reached their destination, however, when Alcibiades was called
back to Athens to be put to trial for allegations of sacrilege. Even prior to his departure, it had
become clear that the additional support from Athens expected by the forces in Sicily was not
forthcoming. It was then even more important for the Athenians that internal dissension within
the city of Syracuse would give them a decisive advantage. At this point, Thucydides allows us
to assess this prospect by describing the climate of opinion within the city of Syracuse.
Last but not least, the debate at Syracuse in 415BC where the Syracusans called an
assembly when they heard rumours of the Athenian expedition. At this debate, the conservative
leader Hermocrates urged the Syracusans to stop the Athenian forces before they could reach
Sicily. The democratic leader, Athenagoras, denied the possibility of an attack by Athens and
claimed that the rumour of an Athenian expedition was being spread by oligarchs who wanted to
regain power by appealing to the people‟s fears. Finally, an unnamed general proposed the policy
that would win the war for Syracuse. That the city should bury its political divisions and act as
one, doing everything necessary to overcome the threat from the outside. The general argued that
such prudence was in the long-term interest of the city, thus serving the profit motive. The
Syracusans decided to take some precautions against a possible Athenian attack.
Lastly, the debate at Camarina in 415/414 BC which occurred after the Athenian
victory over Syracuse on the Helorus Road, both cities attempted to win the support of Camarina
on the southwest coast of Sicily. Representatives from Athens and Syracuse came to Camarina
for a debate. The Athenians told the citizens of Camarina: „We have told you that we hold our
dominion yonder upon fear and that upon the same cause we come hither now, by the help of our
friends to assure the cities here that the Athenians themselves now stress the primacy of the fear
motive over the motives of „honour‟ and „profit‟. The Camarinans were not convinced of the
non-aggressive intentions of Athens and decided to remain neutral in the conflict. Like the
Syracusans, they chose prudence and moderation as being in their best interest over an active
pursuit of increased military security. Both debates in Sicily provided a striking contrast between
the reasoning of the Athenians, and that of the Sicilian cities. By this time, the Athenians had
come to rely on ideology to justify the enormous sacrifices necessary to keep fighting the war.
Threat perceptions were coloured by this ideology and Athenian foreign policy motivation was
heavily unbalanced in favour of the security goal. In contrast, the Sicilian cities betrayed a
concern with all the three motives. Their motivation was more balanced than that of Athens, their
reasoning less clouded by ideology. This was perhaps an important reason for their success
against an Athens whose good judgment was becoming increasingly undermined under the strain
of the war effort.
From this time on, the Athenian war effort was doomed. In 413, Syracuse, aided by the Spartan
general Gylippus defeated the Athenian expedition and inflicted grievous losses on the Athenian
forces. In 412, many of Athens‟ allies rebelled, and in 411 the democratic government of Athens
was overturned in favour of an interim oligarchic arrangement known as the Four Hundred. The
Athenian fleet forced a return to democracy the following year. The Athenians were finally
defeated by Sparta. This therefore shows effective consideration of all the three motives and their
respective goals of foreign policy decision making in the Peloponnesian war which was between
the Athenians and the Spartans in the Greek city state.

THE IMPACT OF IDEOLOGY IN THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

The dominant motive for the main protagonists at the end of the History of the Peloponnesian
War is the motive of fear. However, security issues at the time of the Sicilian expedition are very
different from what they were at the beginning of the war. In 431 BC, even the Corinthians had
not viewed the very existence of the Athenian empire as tantamount to a direct threat to their
survival. To be sure, they were worried by the power of Athens, yet it would have been enough
to put Athens in its place, perhaps force her to tear down the long walls which protected her
access to the sea. After the empire had become „Atticized‟ and Athens had become the „tyrant‟
city, the enemies of Athens required much harsher measures in order to feel safe. This is in large
part due to the impact of ideological reasoning on both the relevant actors‟ perceptions of actual
situations and their ranking of different motives and goals.
Ideologies are by nature expansive. While their core ideas may emerge in a certain well-defined
policy area, the strength of ideological convictions combined with the human need to minimize
cognitive dissonance leads to the subsumption of other issue areas under the main topic of
ideological concern. A motivational balance exists when all the three basic motives are
considered as separate components. If any one of those motives is defined in terms of another, it
is subsumed and therefore ceases to exist as a motivational force in its own right. When the
motivational balance is disturbed in this way, ideological arguments are commonly used to
justify this state of affairs, leading to a further degeneration of rational political discourse.
First, in the case of the Peloponnesian War, we can observe how first community, and
later prosperity interests, were progressively redefined to allow for the absolute primacy of the
motive of security, which had come to form the core of Athenian imperialist ideology. First,
arguments from moral conviction, traditional norms, or a sense of traditional community began
to be used more and more as mere cover-ups for real power political interests. This rhetoric
served to obscure an actual transformation of international as well as domestic norms.
Second, at the beginning of the war, Athens, Corinth, and Sparta were careful to consider
their responsibilities within the existing legal framework. Although neutrality was a tenuous
principle, it was initially respected. During the Peace of Nicias, it was evident that neutrality had
become less acceptable. By the time the Athenians had sailed to Sicily, third party attempts at
neutrality were interpreted as acts of open hostility by both main protagonists. What is more,
external threats became progressively internalized. Athenian fears of revolt within the empire
gradually expanded to include heightened fears of internal revolt within Athens itself. Under the
pressures of war, the politics of the city became more personalized. Reasoned debate gave way
to demagoguery, and personal fears and ambitions, rather than a concern for the common good,
began to drive Athenian policymaking. Eventually, Athens was to succumb to internal strife as
much as to external resistance.
Third, communities were redefined to fit the friend-foe pattern which was driving the
conflict. The empire was „Atticized‟ as Athens requested unconditional surrender from its allies.
In response, enemies of the Delian League, who had previously argued that Athens acted as an
imperial power which suppressed its subject cities, now claimed that once Athenian territory had
become „Atticized‟, it was perfectly acceptable to treat those subject cities as enemies, just like
Athens itself. The racial differences between Dorians and Ionians, which had been meaningless
during the Persian War and hardly seemed relevant at the beginning of this conflict, became
essential in its later phases. Similarly, the difference between cities ruled by the demos and those
ruled by oligarchs became crucial as the war developed, even though it is reasonable to assume
that many Greeks realized that such differences in arrangements were often a function of chance
or circumstance. In the end, it became possible for the participants to conceive of the war as a
conflict between democratic city-states led by Athens and oligarchic city-states led by Sparta.
Also, the progressively ideological character of the Athenian foreign policymaking was
clear in which their beliefs concerning community shifted towards a more exclusive identity as
the conflict progressed. As they made it clear in their speech before the Spartan Assembly in
433, the Athenians perceived of justice and morality as constraining forces which limited their
freedom to act in their own interest. They admitted that among equals that is within a community
such constraints are legitimized by necessity. Thus, they attempted to reduce the number of their
equals by removing themselves from the community of independent city-states as it existed
under the Thirty Years‟ peace treaty. By increasing their own power to the extent where they
could dominate all other communities, they gained freedom in their inter-city relations from
community concerns such as lawfulness or morality. The underlying philosophy of the Athenian
thesis is part of a political strategy which leaves the Athenians free to pursue their partial self-
interest without the limitations imposed by recognition of the needs and opinions of other
members of the political realm.
Furthermore, the argumentative strategy of the Athenians is ultimately self-defeating. The
weakening of the concept of community which, in this case, goes along with its redefinition in
more exclusive terms is progressive and does not stop at the city gates.
The unity of the city of Athens itself is progressively lost as individual and factional interests
take precedence over Athenian community concerns. „Us against them‟ becomes „me against
you‟ a condition of manifest or latent stasis which parallels Hobbes‟ „state of nature‟. As ably
demonstrated by the „father‟ of political realism, in such a „war of all against all‟ fear must be of
necessity became the dominant human passion or ideology.
More so, as the war progressed, prosperity interests as well began to be subsumed under
and dominated by the dominant goal of security. At the beginning of the war, Corinth and Athens
could be seen to calculate their power advantages in economic, military, and diplomatic terms.
All these areas of interest had a bearing on security issues, yet they were also distinct from such
issues and from one another. In 425 BC Athens turned down the Spartan peace offer because she
expected further gains from the war. However, by the time Athens decided to undertake the
Sicilian expedition, cost was no longer a major concern. The city was intended to embarking on
this venture regardless of the enormous sacrifices needed in terms of resources. Unlike in the
minds of the citizens of the Sicilian city-states, in the minds of the Athenians the quest for
security clearly overwhelmed calculations of interest. This was at least partly the function of the
decay of Athenian political discourse as it was so astutely observed by Thucydides.
Lastly, when the war began, states and their leaders had clearly attempted to develop war
strategies which would be rational under the circumstances, in the sense that they would
maximize benefits and minimize costs. The motive of self-interest was strong enough to make
such an approach seem necessary. As the war continued to require greater sacrifices, politicians
redefined the benefits to be gained in order to keep up popular support for the war effort. One
example can be found in a speech by Pericles, in which he told the Athenians not to be too
disturbed by the loss of their properties in Attica, because the idea of Athens, which they were
fighting for, was so valuable that it could not even be assessed in monetary terms. Such
arguments required considerable rhetorical skills, which in turn supported the rise of
demagogues in the political landscape of Athens. With democratic politics in Athens at their
worst, before long the war effort had become so irrational that the Athenians were in no mood
even to discuss the costs of the Sicilian expedition.
In summation, it is clear that ideological arguments functioned to simplify the complex reality of
the war in the minds of its participants. The pressures which the war imposed in terms of an
extreme scarcity of decision-time and other resources led to an increased reliance on ideological
schemata as cognitive shortcuts. Under such conditions, goal directed behaviour becomes more
difficult to identify, as lines of reasoning are obscured, either inadvertently, due to a lack of
cognitive resources, or deliberately, in the service of an ideology. The loss of both prudence and
moral restraint which Thucydides perceives is largely tied to an increased influence of ideology
in the policymaking process. As each side felt the pressures of the war, it sought more effective
ways of persuading itself and others to continue the war effort. Community and prosperity goals
were therefore sacrificed to a martial ideology which increasingly overpowered all other
considerations and, in the end, led to Athens‟ tragic demise or defeat hence the end of the
Peloponnesian War.