When plans fail

Small group behavior and decision-making in the conspiracy of 1808 in Germany

Bibliographic Data

ID10071647
AuthorsR C Raack (Department of History, California State College, Hayward, corresponding author)
Year1970
Volume14
Issue1
Pages3-19
Publication date1970-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/002200277001400102
OpenAlexW2010263024
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

It is striking that modern historians and social scientists alike have so far failed to study the workings of the secret conspiracy in the light of twentieth-century theories of social behavior. One reason for this is that careful researchers, honor bound to evidence, all too rarely find records of what participants meant to keep hidden. Fortunately, the sources for Germany in Napoleonic times afford enough information on one conspiracy to permit piecing together a continuous, albeit imperfect, historical narrative. Since conspiratorial societies, whatever their purpose, would seem to have important features in common, perhaps close examination of this one episode may suggest some general characteristics. Accordingly, my purpose here is to present the history of this anti-French conspiracy of 1808, and to analyze the historical evidence using available analogies and recent behavioral theory. Where gaps in the sources exist, I have reconstructed the record from historical examples of similar behavior and from the research results of other disciplines, especially recent systematic observations and laboratory studies in social psychology. I have tried to put together a study that might serve as a scholarly reference for those interested in unusual small group undertakings in the hope that my work will prompt additional research in which my general conclusions can be further tested and refined. Some of the important methodological issues raised by this type of study, in which the practicing historian deliberately sets out to exploit systematically the work of several disciplines in order to evaluate more adequately traditional historical source materials, are discussed in a brief epilogue. In the same place I have remarked on some important etiological problems which conclusions like mine inevitably raise

Comparative historical research · Epistemology · Exploit · Honor · Imperfect · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · History · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology