The determinants of war in international relations

Abstract

The study of warfare is one of the oldest and most important dynamics of interest for students of politics. This area of research is predominantly-but not exclusively-undertaken within the sub-field of international relations (IR). IR theorists argue that war is the contingent outcome of the interaction among variables operating at three "levels of analysis": the international level, the domestic level, and the individual level. The international level explores variables that operate exclusively "above" states such as anarchy and the distribution of power. The domestic level explores variables that operate exclusively within states, such as regime type and bureaucratic design. The individual level explores the ways in which individual psychology (i.e. beliefs, culture, personality) contributes to the outbreak of war. We also offer a discussion of new puzzles and challenges in the study of warfare, such as the decline of war hypothesis and the growing prevalence of civil war, insurgency and non-state violence. War has been a preoccupation of policymakers, heads of state and political leaders for as long as there have been political communities. Thus, the "study" of warfare can be said to have begun almost as soon as its practice (Keeley 1996; LeBlanc and Register 2003; Gat 2009). Early studies of warfare were undertaken by direct observers of war or by its practitioners, including landmark works by the Greek historian Thucydides and the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu in the 5 th Century B.C., as well as

Insecure Property Rights and Conflicts: How to Solve Them?

“…For instance, we do not model the process that leads players to decide to take a certain action (for instance, to go to war or to form a union). While this can be seen as a weakness of our approach, it is nonetheless consistent with the economics, and political science literature [24,40]. Our model is intended to provide a message, stressing the advantage that forming a union may have on players' welfare compared with any other solution available in the literature.…”

“…Garnett (2007) [23] suggests a variety of reasons that may justify a war, ranging from proximate to ultimate causes, from sufficient to necessary ones, and so on. Lopez and Johnson (2020) [24] offer a comprehensive and updated survey about the determinants of war from the point of view of political scientists. Nonetheless, there exists a large consensus in the literature that conflict is hardly avoidable.…”

“…The second assumption indicates that we do not model the process, which leads to a specific decision for each player. While some scholars focus on the political process, which determines the formation of preferences [50][51][52][53][54], Assumption 2 is not uncommon in international relations [24,40]. Nonetheless, although we do not investigate the political process, which leads to a specific decision, our model does not lose generality.…”

The Declining Hegemony of the United States and the Growing Influence of China: A Critical Perspective on Power Transition Theory in the 21st Century

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Organizing peace: an algorithmic analysis of four centuries of international law and the decline of war

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