Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community (PDF) - CIA

CHAPTER SIX
In contrast, 25 percent responded that democracy was guided by the center
(the party and the cadres), 19.5 percent that democracy meant that the government
would solicit people’s opinions (the party would ask people what they
thought), and 11 percent that democracy meant the government would make
decisions for the people based on the people’s interests but not including the
people’s direct vote. These three responses were more in line with then-current
party doctrine and tended to be from individuals over 36 years of age living in
both urban and rural settings. This was the same demographic that experienced
the Cultural Revolution.
The election of representatives and the division and limitation of those representatives’
power—what I would have considered to be two key aspects of
democracy—were chosen by 10 percent of the sample, only slightly larger
than the 6.3 percent of Chinese respondents who reported that they didn’t
know what the word “democracy” meant. My own perception of democracy
fit with a young, urban, elite, college educated population, not with the majority
of Chinese citizens.
There was a very small sample of citizens in Tiananmen Square demanding
what looked and sounded like my American version of democracy. Yet, however
much the students’ message resonated in the West, it did not do so in
China. My expectations notwithstanding, there was a cognitive disconnect
between students and average citizens, which, along with the visceral semiotics
of the Cultural Revolution, kept the two apart. 7 It was not just the message
that had kept people in their homes during the PLA siege on Tiananmen; it
was also the messengers.
The label “ethnocentrism” might be accurate, but it does not diagnose the
root of the problem. I did not use a variety of tools or techniques to question
my underlying assumptions and, therefore, I failed to make an accurate forecast.
There were obvious statistical and analytic flaws. The former was principally
a sampling error, both frame and selection bias (the students at
Tiananmen did not represent the general population in Beijing or China at
large). More significant than simple technical or statistical flaws, however, my
frame of reference and my assumptions about meanings, context, and values
(or culture) misled me.
The assumptions I made about the Tiananmen protests were products of my
own enculturation, and I am not convinced that anything short of the experience
of analytic failure would have been sufficient for me to examine the process
underpinning my reasoning. I never would have reexamined my mental
mode without experiencing failure. Failure is an event that is easily remem-
7
Semiosis is the production of cultural signifiers or signs and the cultural or contextual meaning
of those signs. This includes all modes of visual and auditory production.
80