When plans fail

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

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10071647
AutoresR C Raack (Department of History, California State College, Hayward, autor de correspondencia)
Año1970
Volumen14
Número1
Páginas3-19
Fecha de publicación1970-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/002200277001400102
OpenAlexW2010263024
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas18

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