Replication Data for: Making Concurrence-Seeking Visible: Groupthink, Discourse Networks, and the Iraq War 2003

Groupthink is one of the most popular and extensively discussed approaches in studying small group decision-making. However, the methodological question of how to make concurrence-seeking, as the key element of groupthink, visible, has received insufficient attention. To make group decision behind closed doors more visible and methodologically advance groupthink theory, I introduce Discourse Network Analysis and apply it to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Results demonstrate that the U.S. decision to go to war was based on a sudden and undisputed threat perception that exhibited hasty concurrence-seeking. Given this threat perception, and a fierce struggle between advocates of a diplomatic solution and supporters of a military response, the United States chose a military strategy—one that inevitably resulted in war.