Policymakers and international relations scholars concur that prestige is critical to world politics because states having prestige enjoy greater authority. An examination of how policymakers assess their and other states' prestige, however, reveals that this traditional view of prestige is wrong, for two reasons. First, policymakers do not analyze their own states' prestige, because they feel they already know it. They use their feelings of pride and shame as evidence of their state's prestige. Second, political and psychological incentives encourage policymakers to explain another state's behavior in ways that make it unlikely that states gain prestige. Policymakers systematically discount the prestige of other states; a belief that their state has earned the respect and admiration of others is therefore illusory. Consequently, the justification for costly prestige policies collapses. In other words, states should not chase what they cannot catch. Evidence from the South African War supports this conclusion.

中文翻译：

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国际声望的错觉

政策制定者和国际关系学者一致认为，声望对世界政治至关重要，因为拥有声望的国家享有更大的权威。然而，对政策制定者如何评估他们和其他国家的声望的研究表明，这种传统的声望观点是错误的，原因有二。首先，决策者不会分析自己国家的声望，因为他们觉得自己已经知道了。他们用他们的骄傲和羞耻感作为他们国家声望的证据。其次，政治和心理激励鼓励政策制定者以一种使国家不太可能获得声望的方式来解释另一个国家的行为。政策制定者系统地贬低其他国家的声望；因此，认为他们的国家赢得了他人的尊重和钦佩的信念是虚幻的。最后，代价高昂的声望政策的理由崩溃了。换句话说，国家不应该追逐他们无法抓住的东西。南非战争的证据支持这一结论。