Signaling intentions through narrative persuasion : an examination of the Berlin Crisis

Abstract

This paper evaluates the criteria for persuasive international signaling in the context of an incentive to deceive. National-level heuristics interact with observable indices of behavior to condition the effects of intuitively-plausible narratives on persuasion. States use their heuristic understanding of their rival and observed indices of their behavior to make conclusions about the credibility of narrative explanations offered in support of attempts at persuasion. I examine communications between foreign policy decision makers in the Berlin Crisis to evaluate these attempts at persuasion, both deceptive and sincere.