Domestic institutions and decision-making in foreign policy and conflict situations: the role of the news media and the Greek-Turkish paradigm

In the contemporary era, commonly described as the information age, it comes as no surprise that much attention has been paid to the public and informational dimensions of those domestic institutions that affect international relations and state interactions in situations of conflict. However, no systematic investigation of the role of the news media as a domestic institution has taken place so far. The paper addresses this deficit through a conceptual and empirical demonstration of the latent effects of the media logic and output on governmental decision-making. I suggest that with the use of game theory the news media can be systematically located in the decision-making process as a domestic contextual institution that induces apparently irrational strategic choices in the international domain. An investigation of the coverage that a Greek-Turkish territorial crisis received from the Greek press puts the theory into practice and highlights the significance of the news media in understanding international outcomes. [Taken from chapter introduction]