Diversionary Theory of War

Abstract

What causes war? Among others, domestic unrest has been regarded as one of the factors contributing to interstate war. Many scholars, pundits, and policymakers have emphasized internal troubles to account for the occurrence of international wars, including the Falklands War, World Wars I and II, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Imjin War (Japan’s invasion of Korea in the late 16th century). Especially since the end of the Cold War, following the theoretical and methodological suggestions in Levy 1989 (cited under General Overviews), international relations scholars have paid increasingly more attention to domestic unrest and its interaction with other factors such as regime type and strategic rivalry to explain interstate and intrastate conflict. By taking different methodologies, such as quantitative statistical analysis, in-depth case study, and formal modeling, they build causal processes linking domestic unrest to international conflict, identify various factors at the levels of the individual, state, and dyad affecting the onset of a diversionary conflict, and provide empirical evidence supporting or disproving their theories.

Economic slowdowns and international conflict

“…Economic unrest and international conflict Economic growth is an important factor in studies of diversionary conflicts. The domestic approach to international conflict emphasizes internal unrest -economic as well as political -as a cause of international and domestic conflict (for a review, see Jung, 2019;Levy, 1989). Indeed, many historians and commentators have attributed serious international and domestic violence to internal unrest that challenged political leadership.…”