----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
Just because states are run by a group, there's no reason to suppose that they can't display rational and consistent purpose over time (as do corporations, parties, etc.). Gabriel Kolko put it well at the outset of his "Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945":
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Well the above presents a problem as to what constitutes rational and consistent State purposes over historical time, a problem no one has solved satisfactorily. Just look at the word storm over Kydland and Prescott's 1977 JOPE paper on the inconsistency of time and policy optimization or the work of the Austrian Ludwig Lachmann. Overinterpreting the purported unity of State policies is very problematic. Ex post narratives and rationalizations can obscure as much as they disclose.
Ian