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none—but that George Bush and some of his key advisors did lie to the
American people about the threat from Iraq. Mearsheimer argues that leaders are most likely to lie to their own people in democracies that fight wars of choice in distant places. The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.
185:)/"backfiring," which is where telling a lie leads to a failed policy. He also emphasizes that there are two other kinds of deception besides lying: "concealment,” which is where a leader remains silent about an important matter, and "spinning," which is where a leader tells a story that emphasizes the positive and downplays or ignores the negative. Mearsheimer does not consider the moral dimension of international lying; he looks at it simply from a realist perspective.
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criticised the book's realist perspective for understating the disadvantages of lying. They also suggested that
Mearsheimer finds few examples of lies in international politics only because of his narrow definition of what counts as a lie: explicitly verbal untruths, not misdirection by other means.
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Mearsheimer suggests that most political lies fall into one of five categories: inter-state lies, fear-mongering, strategic cover-ups, nationalist myths, and liberal lies. He explains the reasons why leaders pursue each of these different kinds of lies. He also says that international lying can have
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The book maintains that leaders do not lie much to other countries, and that democratic leaders are actually more likely to lie to their own people than autocrats. Thus, he starts his book by saying that it is not surprising Saddam
Hussein did not lie about having WMD—he truthfully said he had
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The book argues that leaders lie to foreign audiences as well as their own people because they think it is good for their country, citing the example of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's lie about the
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in August 1941, due to a deep commitment to getting the United States into World War II, which he thought was in
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Why
Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
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Why
Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
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The Great
Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities
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The work attracted several positive reviews, with both
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231:Barker, Alexander (2011-10-17)
96:United Kingdom, United States
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250:Lozada, Carlos (2011-04-15).
293:Stuar A Reid (2011-01-14).
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431:Books by John Mearsheimer
295:"Diplomacy and Duplicity"
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183:unintended consequences
72:Oxford University Press
421:2011 non-fiction books
63:International Politics
233:International Deceit
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74:(U.S.) and
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216:References
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189:Reception
76:Duckworth
68:Publisher
179:blowback
167:incident
158:Synopsis
105:Hardback
44:Language
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297:. Slate
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47:English
385:(2019)
377:(2011)
369:(2007)
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34:Author
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165:Greer
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88:2011
78:(UK)
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
