Nations at War: A Scientific Study of International Conflict
... Unele lucrări importante recurg la interpretări geografice, care evită determinismul și reușesc să ofere argumente raționale, combinând mai mulți factori, cum ar fi cele ale lui G. F. Kennan, Z. Brzezinski sau F. Braudel (Kennan 1947, Brezezinski 2000, Braudel 1986). Studiul cantitativ al războiului a arătat că proximitatea geografică reprezintă cel mai important predictor, dar că este doar unul dintre mai mulți factori, iar mecanismul cauzal nu este clar și se pare că apropierea oferă ocazia pentru conflict, dar și pentru cooperare, ceea ce concordă cu opinia lui H. J. Morgenthau (Geller și Singer 1998). Tot aici, o explicație a gradientului pierderii de putere leagă capacitățile de distanță și explică parțial de ce capacitățile SUA pot avea un impact redus în regiuni îndepărtate (sau cel puțin, necesită costuri mari). ...
... În special K. N. Waltz a subliniat distincția dintre putere ca relație și capacități (resurse) și a contribuit la orientarea investigațiilor empirice spre al doilea sens 29 . Tendința a fost consacrată de realitatea socială a Războiului Rece, în care număratul focoaselor devenise un sport favorit al experților și de programele de cercetare pozitiviste, cum ar fi Correlates of War (Geller și Singer 1998). K. Waltz, fondatorul neorealismului a considerat că securitatea este scopul minimal al actorilor internaționali și că puterea relațională este un mijloc, cel mai important, dar totuși cu un rol subordonat (Waltz 2006(Waltz [1979). ...
... O parte a cercetărilor se referă la diferitele consecințe ale acesteia, în special în ceea ce privește impactul unor distribuții de putere asupra stabilității internaționale, asupra șanselor de izbucnire și asupra magnitudinii războaielor sau asupra politicilor promovate de diverși actori (Wight 1998). Aici, intră dilema securității, teoriile despre balanțele de putere, despre rolul hegemoniilor, despre balansare, aliniere și alianțe, despre tranziția de putere sau despre gradul de concentrare a resurselor la nivel sistemic (Geller și Singer 1998). Alte tradiții de cercetare, aflate încă în curs de configurare, se ocupă de diferența dintre comportamentul marilor și micilor puteri, mai ales de cele din urmă (Lemke 2002, Buzan 2003, A. Miroiu 2005. ...
The study offers an answer to the question about whether China is a Great Power, by using a case study, with Power Transition Theory providing conceptual guidance. The theory is slighty modified in its general perspective, dependent variabile and operationalization. Covariation is the main in-case research technique. The answer is a cautious yes, the author underlining the multiple debates and uncertainities on this issue: conceptual, theoretical and operational.
... Bazı devletlerin/devlet gruplarının, farklı dinamiklere bağlı olarak savaş yatkınlığının ciddi ölçüde yüksek olduğu görülmektedir. Dolayısıyla bazı devletler, açıkça diğer devletlerden daha fazla kriz yaratma, savaş ilan etme ya da saldırgan fiillerde bulunma eğilimine sahiptir (Geller ve Singer, 1998;Maoz, 2004Maoz, , 2009Small ve Singer, 1982). Çoğunlukla uluslararası sistemin başat devletleri olan, yapısal ve kurumsal anlamda savaş yatkınlığına sahip devletlerin, bu eğilimlerini hükümetler arası anlaşma yoluyla, ya da yaptırımlarla, yatıştırma ile nötralize edebilmek, uluslararası sistem ya da bölge açısından yalnızca geçici bir çözüm olabilir. ...
... İngiltere ve Fransa ile sınırlarının bir kısmı Avrupa'da diğer kısmı Asya'da bulunan Rusya buna önemli örneklerdir. Öte yandan, savaş yatkınlığı sadece devletlere has bir durum olmayıp, aynı zamanda sistemlerin, bölgelerin, karar vericilerin, aktör çiftlerinin de savaş yatkınlığı üzerine savaş çalışmaları literatüründe epey çalışma yapılmıştır (Geller ve Singer, 1998). Bunun da ötesinde, belirli durumların/konuların da savaş yatkınlığını artıran unsurlar olduğu ortaya konulmuştur. ...
... Örneğin Waltz(1979:175), dünya sisteminde ikiden fazla taraf arasında pazarlığı daha zor bulduğundan, iki kutuplu sistemi daha istikrarlı görmektedir 6 . Morgenthau ise bu istikrarın kaynağını çok kutuplu sistemlerde olduğunu iddia etmektedir (Geller ve Singer, 1998;Morgenthau, 1948). Oysaki savaş kuramcıları, tüm bunların dışında anarşi kuramlarına alternatif bir hipotez geliştirir ve uluslararası sistemde istikrarın kaynağının hiyerarşik olarak örgütlenen tek kutuplu sistemlerde olduğunu iddia ederler. ...
... Raportul dintre producție și populație progresează foarte lent în cazul Chinei, deși populația a intrat în declin (vezi tabelul nr. 2), cu doar 6 procente recuperate într-un deceniu (17% din cel american în 2022, față de 11% în 2012), iar valoarea abia a egalat-o pe cea înregistrată la nivel mondial (circa 12.850 de dolari) (The World Bank 2024d). În general, gradul de concentrare a resurselor, la nivel mondial, este destul de mare, valoarea combinată a VNB-ului celor două coaliții reprezentând aproximativ 69% din cea mondială (Geller și Singer 1998) 24 . ...
... Teoria tranziției de putere sugerează că cea mai bună strategie, pentru hegemonul contestat, este de a consolida o coaliție a puterilor statu-quo 30 . Asocierile internaționale determină extinderea, magnitudinea și rezultatul unui conflict, ceea ce face necesară investigarea alianțelor și a altor formule diplomatice (Organski și Kugler 1980, Geller și Singer 1998. Folosind datele prezentate în secțiunea anterioară, reiese că gruparea statelor conservatoare deținea un avantaj de aproximativ 3 la 1 în fața Chinei și Rusiei, prin 2018, un decalaj suficient atunci pentru le oferi succesul într-o confruntare directă și de anvergură, chiar dacă India rămânea neutră. ...
... Raportul dintre producție și populație progresează foarte lent în cazul Chinei, deși populația a intrat în declin (vezi tabelul nr. 2), cu doar 6 procente recuperate într-un deceniu (17% din cel american în 2022, față de 11% în 2012), iar valoarea abia a egalat-o pe cea înregistrată la nivel mondial (circa 12.850 de dolari) (The World Bank 2024d). În general, gradul de concentrare a resurselor, la nivel mondial, este destul de mare, valoarea combinată a VNB-ului celor două coaliții reprezentând aproximativ 69% din cea mondială (Geller și Singer 1998) 24 . ...
... Teoria tranziției de putere sugerează că cea mai bună strategie, pentru hegemonul contestat, este de a consolida o coaliție a puterilor statu-quo 30 . Asocierile internaționale determină extinderea, magnitudinea și rezultatul unui conflict, ceea ce face necesară investigarea alianțelor și a altor formule diplomatice (Organski și Kugler 1980, Geller și Singer 1998. Folosind datele prezentate în secțiunea anterioară, reiese că gruparea statelor conservatoare deținea un avantaj de aproximativ 3 la 1 în fața Chinei și Rusiei, prin 2018, un decalaj suficient atunci pentru le oferi succesul într-o confruntare directă și de anvergură, chiar dacă India rămânea neutră. ...
... From the beginning, the idea of the nation, by nature of its boundary-drawing and the dynamics of national identity formation, was almost indissolubly linked to war, which was "the necessary dialectic in the evolution of nation" (Howard, 1994, p. 254), and "war has been the principal determinant in the shaping of nation-states" (ibid.). As has been argued ad nauseam, "the nation" and nationalist sentiment are potentially illusive and dangerous concepts and constructions (cf., e.g., Scheff, 1994;Geller & Singer 1998;Kaufman, 2001;Brunner, 2023). While some still argue that we can differentiate between "good" and "bad" nationalism, generally differentiating the two along the lines of ethnic and civic nationalism, research into the dynamics of national identity and the construction of nation have made it clear that "the nation" presents us with a potential that cannot be divided up in good or bad but rather exists along a continuum that may explode into obsessions of differentiation and exclusion thus making for an intimate connection between nationalism, national sentiment, and war, making "the nation" a salient issue in peace and conflict research (cf. ...
Whereas, in the past, social work publications dealing with armed conflict were of interest to a relatively small community; beginning with the Ukraine conflict, this issue has moved into the center of social work discourses. This has raised issues concerning the positioning of social work in political and armed conflict again. Looking at the literature on social work and armed conflicts, it is generally assumed that the definition of the human rights profession also holds for social work in situations of violent collective conflicts. This, however, raises questions. This paper will argue that antinomies emerge for social work resulting from the definition as a human rights profession and the realities of humanitarian work in armed conflicts which have yet to be dealt with.
... Others, though, point out that recent experiences with economic turmoil, internecine violence and interstate wars, and a continually deteriorating environment, belie any notions that crises are becoming less frequent or less severe globally (Fry 2015;Lewis and Lewis 2018;Braumoeller 2019;Covey 2020). Such arguments combine ideas about institutional and/or economic development and geographic differences explaining incidence of crises and violent events in different parts of the world or across more-or-less developed contemporary states (i.e. between Global North and Global South nations) (Geller and Singer 1998;Lemke 2002). ...
Societal ‘crises’ are periods of turmoil and destabilization in socio-cultural, political, economic, and other systems, often accompanied by varying amounts of violence and sometimes significant changes in social structure. The extensive literature analyzing societal crises has concentrated on relatively few historical examples (large-scale events such the fall of the Roman Empire or the French and Russian Revolutions) emphasizing different aspects of these events as potential causes or consistent effects. To investigate crises and prior approaches to explaining them, and to avoid a potential small-sample size bias present in several previous studies, we sought to uniformly characterize a substantial collection of historical crises, spanning millennia, from the prehistoric to post-industrial, and afflicting a wide range of polities in diverse global regions; the Crisis Database (CrisisDB). Here, we describe this dataset which comprises 168 crises suggested by historians and characterized by a number of significant 'consequences' (such as civil war, epidemics, or loss of population) including also institutional and cultural reforms (for example improved sufferance or constitutional changes) that might occur during and immediately following the crisis period. Our analyses show that the consequences experienced by each crisis is highly variable. The outcomes themselves are uncorrelated with one another and, overall, the set of consequences is largely unpredictable when compared to other large-scale properties of society suggested by previous scholars such as its territorial size, religion, administrative size, or historical recency. We conclude that there is no ‘typical’ societal crisis of the past, but crisis situations can take a variety of different directions. We offer some suggestions on the forces that might drive these varying consequences for exploration in future work.
The eighth way people practice politicking is preemption. This means getting in first, and it applies across the board. One form is particularly important, which is the preemption done by science itself. This said, a number of rationalists are trying now to preempt these preemptors by highlighting several problems with their project. These include those that arise from the assumptions rationalists make, the biases languages create, the consequences that anthropocentricity causes, and the influences that our drives, emotions, intuitions, and spiritual inspirations can have.
The American Indian war lasted over one hundred years, and is a major event in the history of North America. As expected, since the war commenced in late eighteenth century, casualty records surrounding this conflict contain numerous sources of error, such as rounding and counting. Additionally, while major battles such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn were recorded, many smaller skirmishes were completely omitted from the records. Over the last few decades, it has been observed that the number of casualties in major conflicts follows a power law distribution. This paper places this observation within the Bayesian paradigm, enabling modelling of different error sources, allowing inferences to be made about the overall casualty numbers in the American Indian war.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The idea of 'hybrid sovereignty' describes overlapping relations between public and private actors in important areas of global power, such as contractors fighting international wars, corporations regulating global markets, or governments collaborating with nongovernmental entities to influence foreign elections. This innovative study shows that these connections – sometimes hidden and often poorly understood – underpin the global order, in which power flows without regard to public and private boundaries. Drawing on extensive original archival research, Swati Srivastava reveals the little-known stories of how this hybrid power operated at some of the most important turning points in world history: spreading the British empire, founding the United States, establishing free trade, realizing transnational human rights, and conducting twenty-first century wars. In order to sustain meaningful dialogues about the future of global power and political authority, it is crucial that we begin to understand how hybrid sovereignty emerged and continues to shape international relations.
What is a “net provider of security,” or a “global security provider”? How are such roles adopted by rising powers? We define a net provider of security as a social role, when an actor provides novel, niche, and functionally differentiated security duties, supporting burden-sharing in providing public goods. The nascent literature on these US-vectored roles characterizes role adoption as largely successful. However, rising powers contest the US-designated net provider of security role. Rising powers have stated or latent foreign policy goals to shape international order in their strategic vision, reflecting ideational capacity to reconceptualize their role in global politics, or a material capacity to reposition their rank. Building upon insights from role theory, we illustrate that rising powers exploit temporal and rhetorical ambiguities and leverage their material and ideational resources to execute role differentiation through three micro-processes of role resistance—role acknowledgment, role task rejection, and role task substitution—used to promote an idiosyncratic role, casting the US-vectored role as non-functional, non-representational, and untenable. We examine crucial cases of rising powers, India and China, to develop our theoretical contribution. Our findings speak to the literatures on the logic of identity management, rhetoric in international politics, the taxonomy of contemporary ad hoc security arrangements, and the epistemological project of globalizing international relations.
Previous research on armed conflict among nation-states has identified two structural conditions in the international system that appear to be connected to the incidence of war: (1) the degree of preponderance enjoyed by the leading state and (2) the amount of volatility in the overall pyramid of international power. Wars are less likely to occur when a single dominant state holds a decisive advantage over its nearest competitors, and stability exists in hierarchy of the other preeminent states. This chapter assesses how much restrictive war-initiation norms contribute to reducing warfare above and beyond the influence of these two conditions. According to the results from a hierarchical regression analysis of system structure, international norms, and war during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, restrictive norms have a statistically significant negative impact on the frequency of war after the effects of preponderance and volatility have been taken into account.
The random and indeterminate nature of the current unipolar world is marked by a condition of increasing entropy. This claim is maintained by two assumptions. First, relative capability advantages under unipolarity do not translate as easily as they once did into power and influence over others. Second, systemic constraint is a property that limits actors’ freedom of action by imposing costs and benefits on certain kinds of actions. Unlike past multipolar and bipolar systems, the current unipolar system exerts only weak, systemic constraints on the unipolar power and all other actors as well. Thus, polarity has become a largely meaningless concept. Today, system process rather than structure best explains international politics, and this process is one of entropy. Finally, the author suggests two pathways from unipolarity to a more balanced international system: one is fairly consistent with standard balance-of-power realism; the other restores equilibrium by means of entropy. This current unipolar moment may become transcendent when the most powerful international actor, - the United States of America, - would choose to adapt to and to harness the social power of numerous nonstate international actors that are due take over the leading role in the future world’s politics.
Cambridge Core - Social Theory - The Closure of the International System - by Lora Anne Viola
This article provides a conceptual and empirical review of power analysis in International Relations. The main objective of this article is to bridge the gap between conceptual and empirical research on power. First, it reviews various definitions of power by focusing specifically on International Relations literature. Second, it identifies and illustrates key measurement issues concerning the national power capacities of major powers. In this article, the Composite Index of National Capabilities for 20 countries for the period between 1991 and 2012 is used to demonstrate the change in power distribution among major powers. Lastly, it introduces diplomatic representation and war proneness as two new variables that enhance the empirical analysis of power by adding a relational dimension while working with tangible and quantifiable data. These two variables are both indicators and sources of national power. The article concludes by suggesting that diplomatic representation, and war proneness of countries, should be taken into consideration analytically if one wants to comprehend the dynamics and effects of power distribution among the most powerful countries in today’s world.
There has been speculation for some time that unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are poised to revolutionize military land operations. These expectations have amplified with recent developments, not least the reported deployment and testing of Russian weaponized UGVs in Syria. Yet when it comes to the operational use of mobile ground-based robots – armed or otherwise – the recent history of the technology can be described as one of promise so far unfulfilled. By tracing past and present efforts to develop and field UGVs – and the enduring challenges that lie therein – this article attempts to gauge the likely impact of such systems in future conflict, as well as their effect on international security more broadly. The article concludes that although UGVs will almost certainly become a major – if not indispensable – feature of future military land operations, they will, similar to other promising militarily relevant technologies before them, continue to produce unrealistic expectations about their impending revolutionary effect.
Cambridge Core - Religion: General Interest - Wrestling with God - by Cecelia Lynch
The effect of religious factors on politics has been a key issue since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent rise of religious terrorism. However, the systematic investigations of these topics have focused primarily on the effects of religion on domestic and international conflict. Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics offers a comprehensive evaluation of the role of religion in international relations, broadening the scope of investigation to such topics as the relationship between religion and cooperation, religion and conflict, and the relationship between religion and the quality of life. Religion is often manipulated by political elites to advance their principal goal of political survival. Zeev Maoz and Errol A. Henderson find that no specific religion is either consistently more bellicose or consistently more cooperative than other religions. However, religious similarity between states tends to reduce the propensity of conflict and increase the opportunity for security cooperation. The authors find a significant relationship between secularism and human security.
Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - Restraint in International Politics - by Brent J. Steele
The English School tradition offers a compelling framework for understanding war as an institution within an international society constructed by states. Nonetheless, analyses of the causes of inter-state insecurity offered by English School scholars are underspecified and fail to develop distinct middle-range theories based on these core insights. These problems can be remedied through an engagement with the subfield of quantitative conflict studies. This pairing of ‘scientific’ and ‘classical’ research traditions seems improbable, but the methodological barriers to conversation can be overcome if claims about the circumstances and causes of war are contextualised historically. Important findings in conflict research vindicate the English School understanding of war as a social institution of an anarchical society and a norm-governed mechanism for resolving disputes between political entities. Further dialogue between these approaches would deepen our understanding of how the global institutional landscape shapes both war and peace.
How do rising powers execute normative resistance to shape international order? Contrary to the existing literature, I argue that rising powers are productive agents of normative change and international order-making, through the use of rhetorical adaptation to contest pre-existing orders. Rhetorical adaptation is a strategy and set of tactics that simultaneously modifies norm content, while reducing critiques of obstructionism. To make this argument, this article traces China’s efforts as a ‘norm shaper’ regarding the responsibility to protect through the inception, institutionalization and implementation of the norm in the landmark 2011 Libya intervention. China layers traditional sovereignty norms under the responsibility to protect, focusing and narrowing the emerging norm by fortifying the primacy of the state. While I show how China resists co-option into an evolving ontological order that challenges traditional sovereignty, the article also addresses the unforeseen consequences of China’s normative efforts that ‘backfired’ to permit the use of the responsibility to protect to justify Libyan regime change. More broadly, this article speaks to rising powers as agents crafting international order, and the process of normative resistance that occurs throughout the norm life cycle. I draw from publicly available documents and semi-structured interviews with Chinese foreign policy and United Nations elites.
Alexander the Great’s conquests ushered in the Hellenistic era throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East. In this period, the Seleucids, one of most successful of the Successor dynasties, ruled over most of the Middle East at the height of their power. Yet two rising powers in the ancient world, Rome and Parthia, played a crucial role in the decline and eventual fall of the Seleucids. In a prior article, I argued that geopolitical developments around the Eastern Mediterranean in the middle third century BCE were indirectly responsible for the emergence of the Parthian state in Iran. Disastrous military conflicts at home and abroad in the west caused a sudden decline of Seleucid power in the 240s–230s, triggering what political scientists call a power-transition crisis. This article utilizes similar approaches to historical analysis and International Relations theory to contend that, after a period of recovery, a further sudden decline of Seleucid power in the 160s–130s triggered another power-transition crisis that brought an end to Seleucid hegemony over the Middle East permanently. The crisis facilitated the rapid transformation of the Parthian state from a minor kingdom to a major empire, drastically changing the international environment of the ancient world.
Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - Reasoning of State - by Brian C. Rathbun
Der Ausbruch des russisch-ukrainischen Konflikts schien die 40 Jahre andauernde Phase der kooperativen Sicherheit zwischen Ost und West nach der KSZE-Schlussakte von Helsinki von 1975 zu beenden. Nach 1989 gab es noch einige ermunternde Signale, dass der Geist kooperativer Sicherheit aufrechterhalten werden könnte wie die Pariser Charta der OSZE 1990, die NATO-Russland-Gründungsakte 1997, die Militärkooperation im NATO-Russland-Rat, die strategische Partnerschaft mit Russland 2010, die ständige Modernisierung des Wiener Dokuments über Vertrauensbildung in Europa von 1992 bis 2011, die Erklärung des OSZE-Gipfels von Astana 2010 sowie die Annahme des neuen START-Vertrages über nukleare strategische Raketen.
Although the negative effects of overconfidence are more likely to be mentioned in the literature, some researchers have argued that the benefits of overconfidence may outweigh its costs. We attempted to explore the positive effects of overconfidence in competitive situations. We had participants compete against fake opponents who were overconfident and then measured their competitive performance in two studies. In Study 1 we examined the effects of overconfidence on competitive performance in a competitive situation and the possible mechanism for this overconfidence. In Study 2 we investigated the characteristics of the performance in a competition after a mismatch between the level of confidence and the fake opponent’s actual competence was revealed. Our results indicated that overconfident individuals tend to be perceived as more competent and more likely to benefit in the process of competition. Even after a mismatch between the level of confidence and the real competence was revealed, the overconfident individuals were not punished in that they made as much money as the less overconfident and still got higher competence ratings. Together those studies suggested that overconfidence has its advantages in competitive situations.
The American Indian war lasted over one hundred years, and is a major event in the history of North America. As expected, since the war commenced in late eighteenth century, casualty records surrounding this conflict contain numerous sources of error, such as rounding and counting. Additionally, while major battles such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn were recorded, many smaller skirmishes were completely omitted from the records. Over the last few decades, it has been observed that the number of casualties in major conflicts follows a power law distribution. This paper places this observation within the Bayesian paradigm, enabling modelling of different error sources, allowing inferences to be made about the overall casualty numbers in the American Indian war.
When the scientific revolution in the study of international relations (IR) started in the 1960s, two prominent early pioneers who had particularly lasting impact on the field were Rudolph J. Rummel and J. David Singer.
Kriege erzeugen Unsicherheit. Sie gehen in der Regel mit hohen Opferzahlen und weitreichender Zerstörung einher, gefährden das friedliche Zusammenleben der Völker, die territoriale Integrität von Staaten und die internationale Rechtssicherheit. Ein Hauptbetätigungsfeld der Forschung im Bereich der internationalen Sicherheit ist daher die Kriegsursachen- und Konfliktforschung. Sie versucht, die politischen, historischen, kulturellen, sozialen, religiösen, ökonomischen und ideologischen Ursachen von bewaffneten Konflikten und Kriegen zu identifizieren und zu analysieren.
Die Frage nach dem, was eine liberale Perspektive in den Internationalen Beziehungen (IB) ausmacht, ist unter ihren Protagonisten notorisch umstritten. Deshalb nähert sich der Beitrag dem Liberalismus in den IB aus der Perspektive seiner GegnerInnen: Was fordert VertreterInnen von Realismus, Konstruktivismus oder Kritischer Theorie heraus, wenn sie sich mit liberalen Ansätzen auseinandersetzen? Jetzt treten zwei Merkmale hervor. Auf der einen Seite werden diese Ansätze mit einem spezifischen Optimismus verbunden. Nach liberaler Überzeugung lässt sich internationale Politik so organisieren, dass alle Menschen ein selbstbestimmtes Leben ohne Furcht und Not führen können. Auf der anderen Seite wird Liberalismus in den IB mit drei konkreten Friedensstrategien verbunden. Es geht um Frieden durch Demokratie, Frieden durch wirtschaftlichen Austausch und Frieden durch internationale Institutionen. Der Beitrag diskutiert vor dem Hintergrund der Einwände von Realismus, Konstruktivismus und kritischer Theorie systematisch die Stärken und Schwächen der drei liberalen Friedensstrategien. Dabei wird zunächst jeweils das traditionelle liberale Argument für die Wirksamkeit von Demokratie, Handel und internationalen Institutionen präsentiert. Anschließend werden die aktuellen empirischen Befunde referiert, um dann die neueren theoretischen Interpretationen dieser Befunde durch liberale Autoren zu diskutieren. Jeder Abschnitt schließt mit einer knappen Präsentation der Einwände aus anderen Denkschulen und der kritischen Würdigung liberaler Hoffnungen. Im Ergebnis wird sichtbar, dass die liberalen Hoffnungen nach wie vor Bestand haben und durch die empirische Realität internationaler Politik (noch) nicht widerlegt sind. Gleichzeitig sollten sich aber die Protagonisten der liberalen Perspektive in den IB intensiver als bisher um angemessene theoretische Modelle zur Erklärung der oft komplexen empirischen Befunde bemühen.
Traditional militarization theory argues that as the armed forces increase their influence in government, because of an increase in their capabilities, the state becomes more likely to adopt an aggressive foreign policy that can lead to war.1 “... [T]he presence of military capabilities means participation in decision making by officials responsible for those capabilities, who are likely to urge or endorse the use of force and who regard it as a proper and feasible step.”2 According to Stuart Bremer, “the militarization of a society may cause leaders and followers alike to conclude that war is inevitable rather than merely possible.”3 The conventional wisdom, at least, is that military leaders are more likely to endorse war mainly because they are more familiar with that policy instrument. They tend to be alarmist and rely on offensive military solutions.4
High levels of militarization of a state’s government increase both the probability of war, and produce less effective strategies. The increased probability of war results from the isolation and distortion of a state’s decision-making process so that it produces war-prone policies. It produces less effective strategies by privileging military instruments over diplomatic ones. Militarization is the measure of the extent of use of military structures and procedures in a state’s decisionmaking process. These effects are reduced not by eliminating military influence, but by balancing military and diplomatic inputs within an embedded decision-making process.
This chapter incorporates a comparative case study analysis
of the Bush Doctrine
in an attempt to test the claim whether it represents continuity
in US foreign policy toward the Middle East. In doing so, it analyzes the policy that led to the 2003 Iraq war because of its overall impact on US foreign policy toward the region. Focusing on the strategic aspect of the policy, not on the managerial one
, this chapter also analyzes whether there was a change in US geostrategic objectives and the strategies it implemented to achieve those objectives. The study finds that there is no change in the geostrategic objective to prevent the emergence of a rival regional power and the grand strategy of offshore balancing used to achieve the objective.
Der friedensethische Beitrag der Internationalen Beziehungen findet sich v.a. im Bereich der Pragmatik, d.h. in der Formulierung, theoretischen Begründung und empirischen Untersuchung von Friedensstrategien. Eine friedensethische Orientierung ist damit noch nicht gegeben, weil die hypothetischen Imperative des Friedens in konkurrierende Forschungsprogramme eingebettet sind. Allerdings haben sich die Gewichte in den letzten Jahren deutlich zulasten des Realismus und zugunsten der „idealistischen“ Forschungsprogramme und ihrer kompatiblen Strategien verschoben.
Examines the reciprocal relationship between the probability of losing office and the probability of crisis initiation using a two-stage probit model on a data set of all leaders between 1919 and 1992. Role of the tenure considerations of a national leader in international conflict behavior; Overview of diversionary war and the theories that link the risk of losing office and international conflict; Importance of the domestic economic and political features of a country to the probability of conflict initiation.
The literature on diversionary war has long argued that a leader's tenure considerations play an important role in international conflict behavior. However, for the diversionary use of force to be rational, international conflict must in turn affect the leader's tenure. A two-stage probit model on a new data set of all leaders between 1919 and 1992 is used to examine this reciprocal relationship between the probability of losing office and the probability of crisis initiation. Contrary to theories of the diversionary use of force, results show that an increase in the risk of losing office makes leaders less likely to initiate a crisis, and an increase in the risk of an international crisis makes leaders more likely to lose office. Results also suggest that democracies are overall less likely to initiate a crisis because of the domestic political insecurity of democratic leaders.
We address a well-known but infrequently discussed problem in the quantitative study of international conflict: Despite immense data collections, prestigious journals, and sophisticated analyses, empirical findings in the literature on international conflict are often unsatisfying. Many statistical results change from article to article and specification to specification. Accurate forecasts are nonexistent. In this article we offer a conjecture about one source of this problem: The causes of conflict, theorized to be important but often found to be small or ephemeral, are indeed tiny for the vast majority of dyads, but they are large, stable, and replicable wherever the ex ante probability of conflict is large. This simple idea has an unexpectedly rich array of observable implications, all consistent with the literature. We directly test our conjecture by formulating a statistical model that includes its critical features. Our approach, a version of a “neural network” model, uncovers some interesting structural features of international conflict and, as one evaluative measure, forecasts substantially better than any previous effort. Moreover, this improvement comes at little cost, and it is easy to evaluate whether the model is a statistical improvement over the simpler models commonly used.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.