IR-Comprehensive Exam

Andrew Moravcsik, "Taking Preferences Seriously: Liberalism and International Relations Theory," International Organization (Fall 1997), 512-553.

"This article reformulates liberal international relations (IR) theory in a nonideological and nonutopian form appropriate to empirical social science." (513) 'Form' has a double meaning in this context, as it both indicates Moravcsik's specific formulation of liberal IR as well as the set of principles which he sets forth as good reasons to grant paradigm status to liberal theory. In fact, the principal internal motivation of the article is to present liberal IR as a paradigm of equal empirical validity and analytic priority to realism and institutionalism (516). Much of the paper invokes a constant borrowing of liberal ideas on the part of the more dominant paradigms in IR. The specific formulation consists of three assumptions. In considering these, it is perhaps useful to keep in mind a concluding remark. "This article does not aim to provide a comprehensive intellectual history of classical liberal international thought, nor a self-sufficient guide to the normative evaluation of policy, but to distill a coherent core of social scientific assumptions for the narrower purpose of explaining international politics." (548) Assumption 1. "The fundamental actors in international politics are individuals and private groups who are on the average rational and risk-averse and who organize exchange and collective action to promote differentiated interests under constraints imposed by material scarcity, conflicting values, and variations in societal influence." Assumption 2. Representation and State Preferences. States (or other political institutions) represent some subset of domestic society, on the basis of whose interests state officials define state preferences and act purposively in world politics. Assumption 3. Interdependence and the International System. The configuration of interdependent state preferences determines state behavior. Moravcsik argues that these three satisfy four conditions: (1) generality, parsimony; (2) rigor, coherency; (3) empirical accuracy; (4) multicausal consistency . (516) The assumptions require that we identify a state not with a particular set of strategies or tactics, but instead with a set of preferences over states of the world, and among these states are included all possible conformations of the particular political, cultural, social situation within its boundaries. (see 518) This is starkly in opposition to those views of IR which see the 'state' as the essential unit of analysis, i.e. realism, institutionalism. The assumption is said to be consistent with three variants of liberalism: ideational, commercial, and republican liberalism. These are, in turn, views of liberalism stressing the roles of identity, markets, and political rent-seeking in domestic politics. These three are subsequently viewed as noncompeting and, when joined, in fact productive for understanding the functioning of the state in international politics. Finally, three notes on implications of the theory. These concern (1) some phenomena explained successfully by it (and not by its competitors), (2) a differentiation between functional regime theory, and (3) a potential empirical superiority of liberal IR. (534-5) A brief elaboration of each of these: (1) These phenomena include explanations for variation in the substance of foreign policy, historical change in the international system, and the rise of modern international politics. The dynamic nature of the new theory is stressed throughout this discussion, in contrast to the closed, static tendencies of its predecessors. (2) Functional regime theory thinks of regimes as identical with a particular realized set of tendencies, think of regimes as the primary actors of international relations. (3) Modern international politics involves an idea of evolution in the system of IR itself. The liberal theory accounts for this evolution in terms of shifting conformations within domestic horizons. Three final notes on implications of the theory: These concern (1) some phenomena explained successfully by it (and not by its competitors), (2) a differentiation between functional regime theory, and (3) a potential empirical superiority of liberal IR. (534-5) A brief elaboration of each of these: (1) These phenomena include explanations for variation in the substance of foreign policy, historical change in the international system, and the rise of modern international politics. The dynamic nature of the new theory is stressed throughout this discussion, in contrast to the closed, static tendencies of its predecessors. (2) Functional regime theory thinks of regimes as identical with a particular realized set of tendencies, liberat IR recognizes regime in the constitution the primary actors within them. (3) When the fundamental actors are viewed as relevant variables operating within states, they imply an omitted variable bias in any analysis of international relations that takes just states as the fundamental actors.

T. Clifton Morgan and Sally Howard Campbell, "Domestic Structure, Decisional Constraints, and War: So Why Kant Democracies Fight?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 35:2 ("Democracy and Foreign Policy: Community and Constraint"), pp. 187-211.

Argument: The greater the societal constraints on the chief decisionmaker of a state, the less likely a dispute involving that state will escalate to war. Findings: For major powers, higher levels of decisional constraints lead to a lower probability that conflicts will escalate to war. The relationship does not hold for minor powers, however, and may even be reversed. Many claim democracies are less prone to conflict because they are answerable to a public unwilling to pay the cost of war, but the empirical consensus is that democracies fight as often as other types of states. There is, of course, ample evidence that democracies don't fight each other. The authors' goal is to: (1) clarify existing theory by making an exceptionally well-specified theoretical argument linking democracy and peace; (2) test resulting hypotheses in the appropriate manner. Theoretical framework: Wars grow out of conflicts of interest between two or more state actors, and occur when neither side is willing to acquiesce to the other's demands and when both adopt military means to press their claims. To link peace and democracy, we assume state decision making can be constrained by domestic political structure. The authors argue that in democracies the electoral process can constrain, and furthermore, many non-democracies are as highly constrained as some democracies—this latter claim is their key insight, and in a footnote they provide evidence in the form of a cross-tab. There are 3 hypotheses, which match up to 3 independent variables: the more broadly based the "electorate" for leadership selection in a state and the more regularized the leadership selection process, the greater the decisional constraints on the leader; (2) constraints should be greatest when competition is highly institutionalized; (3) the greater the number of individuals/institutions that must approve a decision for war within a state, the less likely the leadership of that state is to decide for war. The authors argue that the most important of the constraints is #3, the ability of another institution to block a decision for war. Note that their argument is probabilistic; and it will only matter when there is an opportunity to decide for war. Empirical Testing Some explain the democratic peace by saying that democracies are less likely to initiate a dispute, though they are not less war-prone once a militarized dispute begins. The authors here are making the opposite argument, saying that disputes are just as likely regardless of domestic structure, but are less likely to escalate in states with constraints. The authors stress the fact that other studies showing democracies are just as war-prone as other states do not disprove their theoretical argument, because: (1) democracies may face these decisions more frequently, and/or (2) some non-democracies are as constrained as some democracies. Instead of combining the constraints in an index, the authors look at the constraints independently, as covariates because the constraints might not be of equal importance and because many nondemocracies can be highly constrained in some ways. The unit of analysis is an instance of dispute involvement, not a nation-year of existence. They run a logit, examining the relationship between each domestic structure variable and the probability that a disputant will become involved in war. Coefficients are generally in the predicted direction, but only the coefficient for the high constraint on executive selection (associated with competitive elections) approaches statistical significance at the 0.1% level. They get better results when they control for state power; for major powers, higher levels of decisional constraints lead to a lower probability that conflicts will escalate to war. The relationship does not hold for minor powers, however, and may even be reversed, and the authors speculate that minor powers are so constrained by their environment that internal politics has little impact on decisions for war.

John Owen, "How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace," International Security 19:2 (Fall 1994), pp. 87-125.

As a background, Owen highlights three common weaknesses of the "democratic peace" proposition (i.e. that democracies seldom, if ever, go to war against one another): (1) There is a problem with proposing common definitions for war and democracy; (2) Wars are so rare that random chance could account for the democratic peace observations; (3) Democratic peace lacks a convincing theoretical foundation and accordingly a sufficient causal mechanism that might explain it is not available to us. The article addresses the 3rd weakness. Owen argues that liberal ideas cause liberal democracies to try and avoid fighting each other and that these ideas prod liberal states into war with illiberal states. Owen describes a mechanism whereby liberal ideas lead to a liberal ideology and to liberal institutions and both, in tandem, bring about democratic peace. From an ideological perspective, liberals believe that all individuals are fundamentally equal and are best off pursuing self-preservation and material well-being. Since freedom is required for these pursuits and since peace is required for freedom; liberals conclude that coercion and violence are counter-productive. Liberals also believe that democracies seek their citizens' true interests and that thus by definition they are trustworthy. Non-democracies may be dangerous because they seek other ends, such as conquest or plunder. From an institutional perspective, democratic structures ensure free debate and by that help constrain the government and help translate liberal preferences into foreign policy (even in cases when illiberal statesmen are in power). That is because illiberal leaders are unable to rally the public to fight other fellow democracies. However the above explanation is likely to take place, according to Owen, only when liberals consider the other state democratic. In other words, if its peer states do not believe it is a liberal democracy, they will not treat it as one. Hence, Owen's explanation takes into account the importance of perceptions. Owen reviews two previous attempts to explain democratic peace: (1) Structural accounts that attribute the democratic peace to institutional constraints; (2) Normative accounts that attribute the democratic peace to ideas and norms held by democracies. For example, democracies believe it unjust and imprudent to fight one another. Following an examination of the typical statistical data sets that were used to back up each of these two theories, Owen concludes that there is no clear 'winner'. In fact, by carrying out a "process tracing" analysis on a number of historical case studies, he concludes that normative theory failed to take perceptions into account. At the same time, Owen found that democratic structures were just as likely to drive states to war as to restrain them from it. Therefore as an alternative, Owen proposes to synthesize both explanations. According to his consolidated explanation, the liberal ideology motivates some citizens against war with a fellow democracy and, at the same time, democratic institutions allow this ideology to affect the actual foreign policy formulation process. Owen stresses that claiming that liberalism pushes democracies to peace with each other does not imply that power politics have no force in determining the foreign policies of liberal democracies. Instead, liberalism is an additional force that contributes to foreign policy shaping. To empirically test his hypothesis regarding the causes of democratic peace (namely that a liberal democracy will only avoid war with a state that it believes to be liberal), Owen derives a set of expectations (or hypotheses) that should occur. Accordingly, if these hypotheses are falsified, Owen's deems his theory inadequate. The expectations/hypotheses are: (1) Liberal trust states they consider liberal and mistrust states they consider illiberal. (2) When liberals observe a foreign state becoming liberal by their own standards, they will expect pacific relations with it. (3) Liberal will claim that fellow liberal democracies share their ends, and that illiberal states do not. (4) Liberals will not change their assessments of foreign states during crises with those states unless those states change their institutions (otherwise power politics or another force will determine what label liberals attached to foreign states). (5) Liberal elites will agitate for their policies during war threatening crises. (6) During crises, statesmen will be constrained to follow liberal policy. To illustrate (not test) the validity of his argument, Owen presents four of twelve war-threatening historical case studies that he used in order to derive his argument. All twelve cases: (1) involve the US; (2) occur before 1945 (in order to neutralize the effects of bipolarity and nuclear weapons); (3) allow the perceptions and governmental systems of the other state to vary. The four cases presented in the article are: Franco-American relations in 1796-8, and Anglo-American relations during 1803-12, 1861-63, and 1895-96. While the cases demonstrate the validity of Owen's argument, they do not test it (since the argument was derived from them). In three of the cases liberalism helped to prevent a war. In one (Anglo-American relations from 1803-12), liberalism helped bring on a war. The cases also emphasized the importance of perceptions (e.g. Americans did not perceive England as liberal in 1803-12 but later changed their perception). Moreover, while Owen argues that realists are wrong in denying the existence of the democratic peace, he does not deny the role the power politics play in liberal democratic foreign policy. Liberals can care about the balance of power and still view it as part of a larger picture of international politics. Thus in the context of the democratic peace, a synthesis of realism and liberalism seems possible. However democratic peace does not necessarily lead to perpetual peace since threats to liberalism may lead to threats to peace. From an IR perspective, Owen maintains that the democratic peace provides strong evidence that ideas matter in international relations, both as shapers of national interest and as builders of democratic institutions.

James D. Fearon, "Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict", in D.A. Lake and D. Rothchild eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict, Princeton University Press (1998).

Fearon's article develops two main arguments: 1) It analyzes why the upsurge of ethnic conflict observed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union will be self-contained and unlikely to involve and polarize major powers and explains why—even though these conflicts are containable— major powers have humanitarian, economic and ideological incentives to understand and prevent them. 2) It suggests that the causes behind the resurgence of ethnic violence in the former communist countries result from commitment problems. The assertion is that in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, where there is no third party that can credibly guarantee agreements, ethnic majorities are unable to commit themselves not to exploit ethnic minorities in a new state. Regardless of what ethnic majority leaders commit to now, there is no guarantee that they will not renege on their promise in the future. Given this expectation, fighting now in hopes of secession from a weak, newly formed state might seem as a better alternative for the minority. (p.109) In terms of his first argument, i.e. that ethnic conflicts of the kind observed in Eastern Europe are self-limiting, Fearon contends that since these conflicts are about secession and self determination, their claims will only extend so far as to include brethren of non-negligible presence in the vicinity. Major powers are thus not seriously threatened by this for two main reasons: 1) thanks to the nuclear revolution, powers are far less dependent on allies than they were before; "the alliance preferences of minor powers simply do not matter as much as they did in the non-nuclear past." (p.110) and 2) "...for the most part ethnic conflicts are particularist rather than universalist" (p.111) While the Cold War was not simply about geopolitics but also about ideology, "ethnic conflicts cannot be a struggle for hearts and minds since ethnic identity is presumed to be ascriptive."(p.111) Fearon then proceeds with his discussion of the commitment problem using the example of the conflict between the Serb minority and Croat majority in Croatia in 1991. The rapid polarization of Serbs and Croats in Croatia— which is inconsistent with an "ancient hatreds" explanation, according to which there would be widespread hostility waiting to erupt at any time—is explained by a commitment problem operating between the majority Croats and the minority Serbs in Croatia. "With the declaration of independence, Serbs in Croatia whether extremist or utterly indifferent to such things, faced the prospect of entering the new state of Croatia with no credible guarantees on their political status, or economic and even physical security...Faced with this prospect, it would make sense for even nonextremists Serbs to try to fight now rather than later, despite the costs of civil war and the existence of bargains that majorities on both sides might have preferred." (p.115) In an attempt to make his argument more precise, Fearon uses a simple game model of the problem faced by a majority and minority ethnic group after the disintegration of an "imperial" authority previously over both of them. One of the main underlying assumptions of the game is that it will be more difficult for the minority to secede after the majority has consolidated its control of the new state and begun to build up its security apparatus. The solution to the model he specifies is a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. Backwards induction suggests that as long as the minority group would prefer fighting in the first period to receiving none of the benefits in the new state, then it will strictly prefer to fight for secession in the first period. "Costly ethnic war is thus explained as the result of the majority's inability to make a credible commitment to the minority." (p.118) Fearon also briefly discusses the differences between the ethnic security dilemma argument put forward by Posen and his discussion of the commitment problem. In Posen's work, preventive war becomes likely as a result of interspersed settlement patterns, which in turn create offensive advantages, making it possible for many competing groups to assume that their prospects in war would be better earlier than later. In Fearon's case preventive wars arise as a result of the majority's inability to credibly commit to the minority rather than to mutual miscalculations of relative power. Additionally, the security dilemma is typically assumed to explain how anarchy can lead to a war between security-seeking actors who have no aggressive or revisionist desires. The commitment problem on the other hand assumes that there must be some set of substantive issues over which the minority and majority have conflicting preferences. "Otherwise the minority has nothing to fear concerning what policies the majority will implement in the new state and the fact of anarchy is then inconsequential." Lastly, the commitment problem gives an explicit answer to why groups in conflict cannot reach a settlement but rather have to go to war, while the security dilemma does not, leaving the issue of why signaling could not be sued to reduce uncertainty unaddressed.(p.121) Fearon then proceeds to discuss certain factors that affect the severity of the commitment problem: 1) Military strength and cultural preferences of the minority: The commitment problem does not operate if fighting now is worse for the minority than the worst situation they would face in the future. 2) Settlement patterns of minority and majority groups: "When populations are highly intermixed, to "secede" means to fight and we should expect war by the logic of the model." (p.122); in Posen's account by contrast, interspersed populations are more prone to violence because of greater offensive advantage. 3) Presence of external guarantors or ethnic brethren in neighboring states who are both willing and able to threaten credibly to intervene on behalf of the minority if they are abused: The commitment problem can be eliminated if there is some powerful third party willing and able to commit to intervene if the majority does not respect political commitments to the minority. 4) The extent of the minority's expected decline in ability to secede in the future. 5) The value of "exit" for individuals in the minority group and the social and political organization of the minority. (e.g. urban dwellers would do better by exiting than rural farmers.)

Kenneth A. Schultz, "Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises," American Political Science Review 92:4 (December 1998), pp. 829-44.

Following the Putnam tradition of two-level games (which models the interaction between the domestic and international spheres and treats them as mutually dependent. See: Putnam, Summer 1998 in International Organization), Schultz develops a formal model with an international actor and multiple domestic actors in order to demonstrate how domestic political competition in a democracy (the independent variable) affects the probability of escalation of an international crisis (the dependent variable). The broader theoretical void that this article professes to address is the fact that existing literature explaining the democratic peace phenomenon tends to ignore the "growing body of literature on international crisis bargaining." According to Schultz, both categories of works that try to explain why democracies rarely fight one another (i.e. the institutional and normative sets of explanations) do not appropriately account for two insights: (1) Due to the high costs that are associated with war, we would expect all states (regardless of regime type) to have incentives to reach "efficient bargains." (2) The mutual preference of states for peace depends on their ability to overcome informational asymmetries that may prevent them from achieving an "efficient bargain" (i.e. a peaceful bargain). Since existing approaches to the democratic peace phenomenon do not account for or accommodate the two above insights (which are borrowed from the international crisis bargaining literature), Schultz proposes a model that demonstrates that "regular and public competition between political parties" (as is the case in democratic regimes) solves some of the problems of informational asymmetry by revealing to the rival state information about the government's "underlying political incentives and, hence, its willingness to wage war." The model assumes that: (1) Political parties "choose strategies designed to maximize their probability of election;" (2) Opposition parties have access to information relevant to the crisis; (3) The state permits an open political debate that can be "overheard" by the rival state. The existence of an opposition party in the model "permits information to be revealed more reliably than when the government is the lone voice of the state." Moreover, the introduction of an opposition party decreases the government's willingness to bluff. This is because the opposition can publicly denounce the government's policy and reduce the credibility of its threats. In turn, that should restrict the government from issuing threats or challenges which it believes it will not be able to back-up. What are the implications of this model for the probability of war? Based on this model, we would expect democratic states "to have enhanced ability to reach peaceful outcomes relative to states in which competition is restricted or takes place out of the public view." The importance of this finding is that it does require us to assume that democracies have inherent pacifist inclinations (which is the case with some of the existing explanations of democratic peace). There are two 'information revealing' mechanisms that help bring about the above result/prediction: (1) A credibility effect: the model suggests that "an unfettered opposition party can enhance the government's ability to make credible threats." (2) A restraining effect: Due to the opposition party's ability to undermine some of the government's threats, the government is forced to be more selective about making threats. Therefore, a government is less likely to engage in misrepresentation of its actual intentions.

Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648-1989, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. pp. 1-24, 306-334.

Holsti identifies several problems with war literature. First, most studies focus on single independent variables. At their best, such studies help identify necessary, but not sufficient causes of war. Second, the scope of explanatory variables is too broad, ranging "from genetic to cosmic" (5). This begs for ranking these in terms of significance. Third, most studies consider only one level of analysis. This is the source of the debate over determinism vs. free will: reliance on structural variables implies the former, while behavioral and issue-related variables imply the latter. Finally, while accumulated "reliable knowledge" (e.g. democratic peace, war-proneness of the Great Powers) is scarce, contradictory findings are legion. Holsti aims to address three problems that have been largely neglected by the study of war. 1. The role and types of issues that generate international conflict. Concentrating on ecological variables (i.e. systemic: power balance, alliance structure, etc., or national-level: state size, type of government, etc.) may tell us whether war is more or less likely under certain conditions, but fails at explaining or predicting individual wars. Comparative relevance and priority of these vis-à-vis decision-making variables is questionable: often, countries with identical attributes exhibit different behaviors and those with different attributes exhibit similar behavior; leaders create systemic conditions as much as they are constrained by them. Incorporating issues in research agenda can help understand why wars occur. Holsti suggests that determinism implied by focusing on the ecological variables is an extension of the view of war as irrational, as a breakdown of politics. On the contrary, a Clauzewitzean approach treats wars as instrumental, as extension of politics, a way to resolve conflicts over issues when the benefits of going to war overweigh the costs. Holsti advocates the latter approach. 2. Insensitivity to change and difference in the "meaning" and type of war. Throughout history and among different cultures, wars have had different "meanings" (e.g. entertainment, instrument of ambition, moral catastrophe), and so the causes or correlates of war in one case might not apply to another. Statistical studies largely ignore this caveat. Taking these ideational variables into account may help explain probabilistically why wars occur. Holsti hypothesizes that attitudes towards war correlate with the likelihood of war. When war was regarded as natural and/or desirable (an avenue to further personal ambition before 1815 or mechanism of evolutionary selection before WWI), wars were prevalent. Converse is true (Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed that general war would be unthinkable, etc). 3. The link between peace settlements and war. How peace settlements deal with resolving issues that spawned the preceding conflict determines probability of conflict in the future. Conflict-generating issues 1. Territory accounted for about half of all wars in the period between Westphalia and WWI, but declined in significance afterwards, especially since the end of WWII. Possible explanations for this decline are tightening of systemic constraints against this type of conflict or declining status of territory as proxy for power. Nevertheless, conflicts over strategic territory (that endowed with some tangible significance) remain salient. 2. Nation-state creation. Between 1815 and 1914 and since 1945, the plurality of all wars was fought over this issue. Its base is in the ideology of national self-determination and rejection of the imperial and hierarchical international order. 3. Ideology. Holsti rejects the realists' notion that ideology is merely a strategy in the ultimate quest for power or security. Democratic peace, for example, is an ideational phenomenon. Others include religious conflicts, republicanism vs. monarchy, communism vs. capitalism, etc. Such conflicts were most prominent since 1815 and especially since 1945. 4. Economics. Competition over commerce and colonial markets was prevalent throughout history and, specifically, in the periods 1648-1814. Subsequent decline in salience was rooted in realization that commerce is hampered by war. This triggered attempts to establish international norms governing trade, navigation, etc. 5. Sympathy with kin abroad. In the nineteenth century Russia, according to Holsti, was fueled by sympathy towards fellow Slavs in its conflicts with Turkey; while Kashmir, Cyprus, and Palestine are examples of this type of issue at work in the post WWII world. 6. Predation and Survival. Largely confined to World War II, though Arab-Israeli and other post-WWII conflicts could be characterized in that way. Other issues. The following are either rare or have disappeared from the international agenda: dynastic/succession issues, support of allies, maintenance of imperial/state integrity, regional dominance, etc. "Issues of the future" increasingly involve terrorism, drugs, environment, overpopulation, etc. The pattern emerging from the above classification is that "relatively abstract issues" have become more important than concrete ones. One explanations is that concrete issues are typically amenable to compromise and regulatory regime creation, while more abstract issues are typically zero-sum and indivisible.

David A. Baldwin, "Power analysis and world politics: new trends versus old tendencies," World Politics 31:2 (Jan., 1979), pp. 161-194

This article reviews pre-1980 scholarship on social power, wherein the term "power" is interchangeable with "influence" and "control"; situations in which A gets B to do something he would not otherwise do. The key idea is that in discussing power as a type of causation, it is essential to specify who is influencing whom with respect to what—both scope and domain must be specified, and if they were, we would move away from general theories of power toward more contextual analysis. First, why do power predictions fail? Failure to translate alleged "potential power" into actual power may be explained in terms of malfunctioning conversion processes, a lack of skill or will. Moreover, there are variations in the scope, weight, and domain of power; power resources useful in one policy—contingency framework will not be equally useful in a different one. Indeed, power resources in one framework may be liabilities in another situation. Preparing to deal with the worst contingencies may hinder one's ability to deal with less severe ones. No power resource begins to approach the degree of fungibility of money. Baldwin discusses various ways of thinking about power. He notes us of various aspects of the power relation. Interdependence may be measured in terms of relationships that are costly for each party to forego, i.e., opportunity costs, and therefore, to say that A and B are interdependent implies that they possess the ability to influence one another in some respect. He finds it unhelpful to conceive of power as unidimensional, with military force as the ultimate form of power. Better to think of power as a multidimensional phenomenon within policy-contingent scenarios. He identifies positive sanctions (rewards and promised rewards) as a form of power, frequently economic power. He argues that war involves significant cooperative dimensions and international politics is almost never a zero-sum game... in a zero-sum game, the absence of cooperative elements is the essential defining characteristic. Mixed-motive game models of negotiation almost always provide a more accurate description of real-world situations than do zero-sum models. Baldwin takes issue with Schelling's distinction between compellence (A threatening B to get B to do X) and deterrence (A threatening B to get B to refrain from doing X). Baldwin notes that any deterrent threat can be stated in compellent terms and vice versa. Schelling says it's easier to deter than to compel, and Baldwin thinks this because of the autonomous probability of the outcome one is trying to influence. Deterrent threats are used for easy tasks, while compellent threats are used for hard tasks.

James Fearon, "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes," American Political Science Review 88:3 (Sept. 1994), pp. 577-592.

Two Sentence Summary: Fearon develops a bargaining model based on the "war of attrition" to demonstrate the importance of audience costs in determining the outcome of crisis bargaining. Because democracies face higher audience costs, they are better able to credibly signal their resolve and are at an advantage in crisis bargaining situations. The Model: The model is an n-period two player extensive form game with three decision nodes at each time period. A player can attack, back down, or escalate. A choice to attack or back down terminates the game. The equilibrium concept is perfect Baynesian equilibrium. Players hold private information about their own resolve but only know the distribution of their adversary's resolve. After each time period, players update their estimate of the other player's resolve based on their actions. The game is set up so that escalation conveys information about greater resolve than previously estimated. Unlike the version with perfect information, in which the only Nash equilibria involve first round resolution of the crisis, the imperfect version approximates reality by containing equilibrium behavior which can result in war or backing down after several rounds of play. This result arises because states are not sure about the other player's resolve in the first round, but their information is updated through rounds of play. Substantive Conclusions: Following Schelling, Fearon argues that costly signaling is crucial in conveying credible information about your resolve to the other player and determining the outcome of crisis bargaining. Several forms of costly signaling exist, including the financial and organizational costs of mobilization, pure time preferences of leaders (think discount factor), higher risks of accidental war associated with escalation (Schelling, 1960), and the risk of preemption (i.e. if I escalate, you can hit me first, so I'm accepting a cost). Fearon finds these methods unconvincing for various reasons, and argues for the primacy of audience costs. Audience costs are incurred when a leader engages "the national honor" to a crisis situation and subsequently backs down. There are two relevant audiences. The first is international - a country that backs down loses credibility in the eyes of other international actors. The second is domestic - domestic constituents and political opponents will see the leader as incompetent or hold him/her accountable for tarnishing the nation's honor or international reputation. Fearon sees the domestic component as particularly salient, since leaders most often fall from power due to internal dynamics rather than foreign conquest, and domestic groups will use the international component to try to undermine him/her. In terms of comparative statics, a key conclusion of this paper is that relative audience costs matter. The side with a stronger domestic audience (i.e. democracy) is less likely to back down. Similarly, democracies can more credibly signal their intentions (by virtue of being able to tie their own hands) to other parties and therefore are at an advantage in crisis bargaining situations. Other factors that have been considered important in the traditional literature do not matter - relative capabilities, higher stakes in the issue, etc. These issues are taken into consideration by the states before they enter the crisis bargaining situation to begin with, and therefore become irrelevant once the bargaining commences.

Jeffry A. Frieden, "Actors and Preferences in International Affairs," in Powell and Lake, eds., Strategic Choice and International Relations.

Two principal points: (1) preferences must be kept separate from the strategic setting in order to distinguish between the causal role of actors' interests and the causal role of the environment; and (2) whether preferences are variables of interest or control variables, scholars must be explicit about how preferences are determined. Recall that the 'strategic setting' or 'environment' is defined by the actions available to the actors--the cells in a PD game--and an information structure that defines what the actors can know for sure and what they have to infer from the behavior of others (AND therefore may include institutions as well.) Preferences are part of all explanations yet are not directly observable, so care and precision is needed. An actor *prefers* some *outcomes* to others and pursues a *strategy* to achieve its most preferred possible outcome. Preferences, strategies, and outcomes are all distinct but related concepts. Within a given interaction, preferences are typically held constant in order to determine how preferences affect choices. Yet, without information about the strategic setting and/or the process of preference formation, it is impossible to know how behavior maps back to preference. There are three common sets of errors made with regard to preferences: (1) sins of confusion, confusing preferences with strategies; (2) sins of omission, focusing solely on preferences and ignoring the context; and (3) sins of commission, ignoring preferences altogether. Sins of confusion mix preferences and strategic setting: for example, to read that states maximize power and infer that this strategy is actually the state's preference, i.e., that power or survival is in the state's utility function. Sins of omission assert that variation in outcomes has nothing to do with variations in preferences, and sins of commission assert that variation in outcomes is solely owing to variation in preferences. Sins of omission arise when when one does not control for actors' preferences. Sins of commission arise when analysts observe an outcome and draw a direct line back to the preferences of actors (ignoring the possibility that strategic interaction might have fundamentally transformed the process and its end point.) Avoiding these sins requires the identification of preferences, which may be done by assumption, by observation, and/or by deduction. Assumption might be simply assuming states prefer to maximize national wealth or size. Economics assumes individuals and firms are wealth or profit-maximizing, but IR has different actors and different issues on many dimensions, so assuming state preferences can be hazardous. Observation (or induction) is when the scholar attempts to determine the national preference by investigating the country's behavior. Preferences are *revealed*. National preferences are often traced to the ideological perspectives of national elites; inducing not 'the nation's' preferences, but those of powerful actors (individuals, or private or public groups) who determine national goals. The danger of this approach is confounding preferences with their effects. This is especially difficult when trying to read preferences back from public postures countries take in bargaining. **It is especially egregious to "induce" preferences from observed behavior and then use those preferences to explain this very behavior.** Frieden's preferred method of defining preferences is to deduce or derive them on the basis of preexisting theory. Of course, the prior preference (from which the preference to be used in analysis is derived) is, in fact, assumed or observed in precisely the ways described earlier. Typically, the exercise is structured so that the features that determine the preferences to be derived are relatively easy to observe, so they are more easily validated. In most cases, national preferences do not emerge seamlessly from existing theories. Typically the application of theories of preferences to social collectivities requires a complementary theory of the aggregation of preferences, from individuals and firms up to groups, sectors, classes, and nations.

Robert Powell, In the Shadow of Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Chapter 4.

Uneven rates of growth and development eventually result in changes in the distribution of power, which may lead to disparities between the distributions of power and benefits. As a result, we can expect to see conflict between rising and declining powers, perhaps to the level of war. By employing a simple bargaining model, this chapter analyzes how states cope with the threats arising from a shift in the distribution of power. Here Powell adds to the model in chapter 3 the ability to account for a changing distribution of power. Two important cases are considered - one of complete information and the other with asymmetric information - each for which states' equilibrium strategies are derived. These strategies are then used to examine the relative danger of war during power transitions and whether faster shifts in power are more dangerous. For a declining state D and rising state R, Powell's model considers several variables at a time (round of the game) t: the probability that the rising state prevails in war, p; the distribution of benefits, x; the distribution of territory, q; a state's concerns about future payoffs represented by a discount factor, δ; and the rising and declining states' cost of fighting, r and d respectively. See figures on pages 121, 126 and 137. Note some important assumptions: states are assumed to have a common discount factor and to be risk neutral or averse (p.121); in the asymmetric case, the declining state is assumed to prefer making concessions to launching a preventive war (p.133) and only the declining state is unsure of the rising state's willingness to use force (p.134); and the distribution of power is assumed to shift for reasons which are exogenous to the analysis (e.g. uneven rates of economic growth not formalized in the model, p.123). This final assumption precludes the case where a state's current power depends on resources that it has acquired or given away in the past. For an analysis of this situation, see Fearon (1996). If information is complete, the declining state knows how much it has to concede to the rising state in order to satisfy the latter's minimal demands. The declining state can either appease the rising state by making sufficient concessions or go to war. The declining state prefers appeasement to war if it has a large stake in the initial distribution of benefits and if the distribution of power does not shift too rapidly. Under these circumstances, the distribution of benefits adjusts to reflect the changing distribution of power, and the shift in power passes without war. On the other hand, if the declining state has a small stake in the status quo or if the distribution is expected to change quickly, the declining state prefers a fight and attacks in the early phase of the shift in power. A rapid shift in the distribution of power thus creates a commitment problem that results in preventive war even though both states would be better off if they could commit themselves to not using force to alter the status quo; see Fearon (1993). Asymmetric information creates a risk-return trade off: unsure of the rising state's willingness to use force, the declining state is uncertain of what it has to concede to appease the rising state to avert or delay war. How the rising state responds to concessions depends on its willingness to flight. The declining state only knows that the more it offers, the more likely it is to satisfy its adversary's demands and the less likely war becomes; however, larger offers also mean having less if they are accepted. The declining state resolves this trade off by making a series of concessions to the rising state. Concessions are large enough to satisfy the rising state's minimal demands if that state is relatively unwilling to use force, and the status quo is revised in favor of the rising state (historical example: Britain and the US in early 19c). If, however, the rising state is relatively willing to use force, the declining state's concessions are too small to appease the rising state and war results. The more resolute the rising state, the earlier the fighting starts. Powell's analysis shows that (contrary to the claims of the power-transition school), power transitions - when the rising state catches up with the declining state and the two are roughly equal in power - are not the most dangerous phase of a shift in the distribution of power. Moreover, Powell's model demonstrates that faster shifts are no more dangerous than slower shifts. However, Powell argues, changes in the technology of coercion that make fighting more costly do make shifts in power less likely to break down in war.

Randall L. Schweller, "Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?" World Politics 44:2 (1992, pp. 235-69.

The article examines how domestic political structures (e.g., a democratic regime) affect the initiation preventive war in cases involving an ongoing power shift. In other words, it offers an explanation (that is based on the nature of the domestic structures) as to why some power shifts result in preventive war while others do not. The broader puzzle that Schweller addresses is whether democratic states are more pacific than non-democratic states. He believes that the existing literature, which aimed to address this puzzle, did not adequately specify the dependent variable (i.e. the type of war), the causal links, and did not hold constant other variables that could influence the involvement in war (e.g., a power shift). Accordingly, he offers a partial, but important, explanation to two questions: Are democracies less prone to get involved in a conflict? And, how do states react to a decline in their relative power? Preventive war is defined as a war that is "motivated by the fear that one's military power and potential are declining relative to that of a rising adversary... states wage preventive wars for either offensive or defensive reasons: to take advantage of a closing window of opportunity or to prevent the opening of a window of vulnerability." Although the historical evidence suggests that democratic states are not less likely to be involved in war in general, Schweller's contention is that "only non-democratic regimes wage preventive wars against rising opponents." In contrast, when the declining state is democratic it will attempt to form counter-alliances, if the challenging state is non-democratic, and will prefer a policy of accommodation, when the challenging state is democratic. To reiterate one implication of his hypothesis, Schweller contends that a power transition involving a non-democratic state is a necessary but not sufficient condition for preventive war. To provide a broad explanation to the above contention, Schweller offers a causal account that relies on the adverse effect of liberal public opinion on the willingness of democratic leaders to indulge in preventive action. The "liberal complaisance" of democratic states means that the public mood is willing to support bold action only in response to great anger or great fright. That means that the logic of preventive action, that implies initiating war now to avoid future risks, is peculiar for a democratic audience. And since a large-scale war is expected to entail heavy political costs, decision-making elites will be reluctant to initiate a preventive war against strong opponents (an exception to that is the case of weak opponents: since strong opposition will not necessarily occur, such wars might take place). In addition, the institutional heritage of openness and division of power, which are generated by the democratic public opinion, inhibit the preventive motivation for war. The explanation to that is that the military's offensive inclinations are curbed by a supervising civilian regime. Moreover, the prevailing enlightened liberal-moral-values (e.g., individual liberty and pursuit of happiness) prevent the initiation of predatory or offensive preventive wars (i.e. wars with aims such as national glory, economic gain, or territorial acquisition). As opposed to preventive wars, pre-emptive wars, which occur in reaction to an imminent and immediate danger, are morally acceptable in the eyes of a liberal-democratic public opinion. To explain the specific prediction of his theory, Schweller suggests that: (1) Democracies will accommodate a democratic challenger because they view their relationships with other democratic states in positive-sum, rather than zero-sum, terms. (2) Democracies will balance, rather than prevent, a non-democratic challenger (unless they feel that the outcome is certain and not costly) because they will not want to alienate their democratic allies. (3) Non-democratic states will wage a preventive war against democratic and non-democratic challengers due to "the combination of militarization of society, glorification of national power, amoral and technically rational approach to politics, and centralized authority." These characteristics will also tend to alarm the neighbors of such states and thus heighten the motivation for preventive war, which authoritarian neighbors may contemplate. To test the theory, the author examines a database of all great power preventive wars since 1665. Apparently, the model's predictions were strongly confirmed by the data. In addition, three case studies were surveyed in more detail to examine and demonstrate the theory's causal explanations. To conclude, the author employs the theory to make predictions about the outcome of current events (e.g., he believes that the pacific Russian reaction to the rise of German power in the beginning of the 1990's emanates from, and its continuation depends on, its democratization processes) and of "emerging" power shifts (i.e. he predicts that the US will respond with peaceful accommodation the expected rise of Japan...). Another relevant future prediction that the author offers is that although significant global power shifts are underway, we can expect a peaceful change due to the increase in the number of democracies in the world (and due to the rapid spread of liberal values).

John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton, 2001. Ch.3 and (55-137)

Ch. 3: Wealth and Power The author argues that power is based on the particular material capabilities that a state possesses. There are two kinds of power: latent power and military power. The former refers to the socio-economic ingredients (i.e., wealth and population) that can be transformed into military power. Military power is the most significant factor that influences relations among the states, and is based largely on the size and strength of army and its supporting air and naval forces. However, the author does not equate a state's superiority in power with its military success, as could be seen in the Vietnam War. In measuring the latent power, the author excludes the use of population size because wealth already incorporates demographic dimensions of power as well. It is argued that although GNP is an effective gauge in measuring the level of latent power, the author confines the use of GNP in comparing states' powers after 1960, because GNP has a problem in comparing states at different level of industrial development. The author uses a composite indicator that shows 1) iron and steel production 2) energy consumption of a state to measure latent power of states between 1816 and 1960, and proves its effectiveness by examples such as France and Germany during the 19th century, and rise and fall of Russia in the 20th century. But power realities do not always reflect the hierarchy of wealth because of 1) variances in degree of transforming wealth into military power ("diminishing returns) 2) variances in the efficiency of that transformation 3) differences in weapons procurement pattern. Ch. 4: The Primacy of Land Power Mearsheimer argues that 1) Army is the dominant form of military power in the modern world 2) Large bodies of water limit the power-projection capabilities of army. The second point makes it difficult for any state to achieve "global" hegemony. It is also said that the alliance patterns that formed during the Cold War are evidence that land power is the principal component of military might. Army is important in warfare because it is the main military instrument for conquering and controlling land, which is the supreme political objective for territorial states. Although navies and air forces can project power by means such as blockade or strategic bombing, they cannot win a great-power war without army, which is the only type of force that can expeditiously defeat an opponent. Blockades usually have limited effects because 1) great powers can gain the necessary materials by other means (i.e., recycling, stockpiling, substitution) 2) the populations of modern states can absorb great amounts of pain (economic difficulty) without rising up against their governments 3) governing elites rarely quit war because of the punishment to its population. Strategic bombing (non-nuclear [air] attacks on the enemy's homeland) has become important in the 20th century, but it is unlikely to gain more importance because of nuclear weapons, and unlikely to succeed from the similar reasons with blockades. Blockades and strategic bombing occasionally affect the outcome of great-power wars but rarely play a decisive role in shaping the final result. The stopping power of water acts as significant limits on the number of troops and the amount of firepower that a navy can bring to bear in amphibious operation, and it also made difficult for navy to support the land forces at hostile environment. Certain modern technological developments (i.e., airplanes, submarines, naval mines, railroads) worked against naval forces either by 1) making it difficult for navies to reach the enemy shores 2) making it difficult for amphibious forces to prevail after they put ashore. The historical record shows that insular great powers (Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.) are much less vulnerable to invasion than continental great powers (France, Germany, and Russia), because of the stopping power of water. Nuclear weapons are revolutionary because of its devastating destructive capabilities. Although it made states more cautious in using force, but under the presence of multiple numbers of great powers with survivable nuclear retaliatory forces [situation of mutual assured destruction (MAD)], security competition between them will continue and it will make land power to remain as the key component of military power. A MAD world is highly stable because there is no incentive for any great power to start a nuclear war that it could not win. Assessing the balance of land power requires a three-step process. 1) Estimation of the relative size and quality of the opposing armies, both peacetime and after mobilization by looking at: the number and quality of soldiers, the number and quality of weapons, and their organizations 2) Taking air forces that support armies into the analysis by looking at: the number of aircrafts, pilot efficiency, the strength of air defense systems, reconnaissance capabilities, battle-management systems 3) Considering the power-projection capability inherent in armies by looking at: the presence of stopping water, the presence of allies across the water. In conclusion, armies (plus their supporting air and naval forces) are the paramount form of military power in the modern world, while large bodies of water and nuclear weapons reduced likelihood of the clashes between the great power armies. Two implications for stability among the great powers: 1) the most dangerous states in the international system are continental power with large armies. Insular powers are unlikely to initiate wars of conquest against other great powers. 2) Given that oceans limit the ability of armies to project power, and that nuclear weapons decrease the likelihood of great-power army clashes, the most peaceful world would probably be one where all the great powers were insular states with survivable nuclear arsenals.

Robert Powell, In the Shadow of Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Chapters 1-3

Chap 1: States and Strategies This book conceptualizes power as a means and not an end, and tries to explain how power maps onto state behavior. It accepts basic stylized neorealist assumptions of anarchy, unitary actors, material military resources, etc. Yet, Powell suggests that widely-made neorealist arguments need to be qualified: neither balance nor preponderance of power is more peaceful; there is no general tendency to balance; anarchy does not imply a preoccupation w/ relative gains, nor the impossibility of cooperation. Instead, he concludes that: (1) war is least likely when the international distribution of benefits reflects the underlying distribution of power, and (2) whether states balance, bandwagon, or abstain while others fight depends in a complex way on diverse factors including the cost of fighting, the aggressiveness of coalition partners, and the extent to which military forces cumulate when combined in an alliance. Powell identifies commitment issues, informational asymmetries, and the technology of coercion as the 3 key factors defining states' strategic problems. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the archetypical commitment problem. Informational asymmetries occur when different actors know or believe different things about a situation-i.e., when there is uncertainty about states' preferences or capabilities. Informational asymmetries create problems when two conditions hold: (1) the missing information matters, and (2) when one actor knows something the other actors does not, and the former has an incentive to lie about what it knows. The technology of coercion describes the relation between when an actor does and how those actions exert coercive pressure. THIS IS KEY, because the greater an actor's coercive capabilities, the more powerful it is. Note: by making defense impossible, the nuclear revolution transformed the means through which coercive pressure can be applied from a contest of military strength into a contest of resolve. Each state tries to influence the other by trying to hold on longer in the face of a growing risk that events will go out of control. Jervis and Waltz claim that this makes war much less likely. There are three ways that a state can respond to threats in the context of stylized neorealist assumptions: it can reallocate resources already under its direct control in what Waltz calls "internal balancing," it can try to resolve conflicts and diffuse threats through bargaining and compromise, or it can try to draw on the resources of others by allying with them. The strategic environment as effected by asymmetric information, technologies of coercion, and commitment capabilities determines which of these responses states choose, and how these responses are chosen. *********************************** Chap 2: Guns, Butter, and Internal Balancing in the Shadow of Power States' inability to commit themselves to refraining from using force against each other (a commitment problem) forces them to make trade-offs between guns and butter (which is considered an "intrinsically-valued end" in Powell's "guns vs. butter model".) These trade-offs leave the states worse off than they would have been if they had been able to commit themselves to abstaining from using military force. Changes in the actors or in the technology of coercion affect states' military allocations and whether or not they fight. Changes that increase a state's payoff to attacking relative to living with the status quo induce both states to allocate more to their military sectors. If a state becomes more willing to run risks, its expected payoff to attacking rises and this leads to greater overall military allocations. Internal balancing fails and peace breaks down if at some point the higher payoff to fighting exceeds the reduced value of the status quo. The models in this book assume states try to maximize current and expected future income, consistent with existing IR theories. In "After Hegemony", Keohane tried to show that neorealism's pessimistic conclusions about cooperation do not follow from its core assumptions. A few years later, Grieco said that Keohane had mistaken these core assumptions by positing states cared about absolute gains, whereas neorealism required a concern for relative gains. Grieco's claim that a state's concern for relative gains must be modeled in the state's utility function is NOT an interesting thing to say, because one can also model a state's concern for relative gains by making a detailed specification of the strategic arena in which the state finds itself. But, more importantly, "Do states, as many have claimed, try to maximize their relative power positions?" i.e., is power an end in itself, or do the strategic incentives extant w/in the international environment lead states to try to maximize their power? The answer is the latter: if states do try to maximize their power, it is because they see this as the most effective means they have of furthering their interests. Powell creates a formal model to show that, starting with two states that are identical except that offensive advantages are larger in one state than the other. He shows that any change that increases either state's payoff to attacking relative to the status quo leads both states to increase their military allocations. If these changes are sufficiently large, both states have to devote so much to the military and therefore derive so little benefit from maintaining the status quo that internal balancing breaks down in war. "Factors that increase either or both states' payoff to attacking relative to the status quo lead to higher military allocations. These larger military allocations mean less consumption and, thus, a lower payoff to remaining at peace"(81). Cooperation theory generally argues that the more states care about the future, the easier it is to sustain cooperation, BUT, if a state exploits others by making a short-run sacrifice to obtain a long-run advantage, then a longer shadow of the future makes cooperation more difficult. Powell repudiates the claim that states do not try to maximize their power, and says that existing arguments that states are concerned about relative gains fail to be convincing. Yet, states in Powell's model are certainly concerned with their relative power, for if a state does not devote enough of its resources to the military, it will be relatively weak and its rival will attack. But this is not power maximization. If they were, they would dedicate all resources to military power. The more a state consumes today, the weaker it will be tomorrow, and the more likely it is to be defeated if attacked. The guns-versus-butter model shows that "a strategic setting in which 'each of the units spends a portion of its effort, not in forwarding its own good, but in providing the means of protecting itself against others' (Waltz 1979, 105) does not by itself imply a concern for relative gains. Other assumptions are needed to sustain this conclusion, although it is not clear what those assumptions are. If states are actually concerned about relative gains, we do not understand why (80)." ********************** CHAPT 3: This chapter centers on states' efforts to resolve conflicts of interest and defuse threats to use force through compromise and bargaining. How does the probability that the bargaining will break down into war vary with the distribution of power between the states? Is war least likely if, as the balance-of-power school argues, power is evenly distributed between the states, or is war least likely if one state preponderates, as the preponderance-of-power school claims? In his model, 2 states bargain about revising the status quo. The states make offers and counter-offers until they reach a mutually acceptable settlement or until one becomes sufficiently pessimistic about the prospects of reaching an agreement that it uses force to try to impose an outcome. The states' equilibrium strategies make it possible to calculate the probability that bargaining breaks down in war as a function of the distribution of power between the two states. A weak country is more likely to accept any specific demand, but more will be demanded of it than would be demanded of a stronger state. The probability of war is a function of the disparity between the status quo distribution of benefits and the distribution of power: War is least likely when the existing distribution of benefits reflects the underlying distribution of power. Note that with complete information, bargaining never breaks down in war, and the states never fight in equilibrium--if one of the states is dissatisfied, the satisfied state offers the dissatisfied state control over an amount equivalent in value to its payoff to fighting. When there are informational asymmetries and one of the states is potentially dissatisfied (might prefer war to concession), the potentially dissatisfied state never rejects an offer in order to make a counter-offer. Once the satisfied state makes an offer, the probability of war equals the probability that the dissatisfied state counters this offer by attacking. The technology of coercion also affects the risk of war, as part of what goes into the 'cost' and risk of war. The larger the cost of fighting, the lower the risk; the larger the offensive advantage, the higher the risk.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.

Chapter 2: An Essay on Bargaining "This chapter presents a tactical approach to the analysis of bargaining." (p.21) It deals with the distributional aspect of bargaining, where a better bargain for one translates as a worse bargain for the other. In this case each party is guided by its expectations of what the other party will accept. Since both parties are mutually aware that they are guided by expectations, the only way to reach a bargain is through a concession. But why would anyone choose to concede? The logic behind concession is that some agreement is in many cases better for both sides than no agreement at all. However, it is hard to determine who will concede and how much he will choose to concede. In that respect, a thorough understanding of the tactics employed can be illuminating. "The purpose of this chapter is to call attention to an important class of tactics, of a kind that is peculiarly appropriate to the logic of indeterminate situations. The essence of these tactics is some voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice. They rest on the paradox that the power to constrain an adversary may depend on the power to bind oneself;" (p.22) According to Schelling, making your commitment credible and irreversible strengthens your overall bargaining position. Power, strength and skill—contrary to commonly held beliefs—are not always an advantage in bargaining. They might not get you far if you are dealing with a stubborn and unsophisticated counterpart. People in bargaining positions should note that bluffing, either by tactic or deception, can be an important element of bargaining. But considering it is easier to prove true something that is actually true rather than something that is false, how does one person make another believe something especially if that something is not true? "Answer: make it true" (p.24) Shelling provides a buyer and seller of a house example to illustrate his point. "...if the buyer can accept an irrevocable commitment, in a way that is unambiguously visible to the seller, he can squeeze the range of indeterminacy down to the point most favorable to him." (p.24) Commitment will only work if it is communicated and viewed as credible. In a world where absolute commitments are freely available and practical problems are absent, we have a game with a first move advantage: whoever commits first wins (assuming the commitment is absolute and there are no communication difficulties.) It is thus clear that there is a logic behind self-commitment that can bring about a more positive outcome. For instance, "when national representatives go to international negotiations knowing that there is a wide range of potential agreement within which the outcome will depend on bargaining, they seem often to create a bargaining position by public statements, statements calculated to arouse public opinion that permits no concession to be made. If a binding public opinion can be cultivated and made evident to the other side, the initial position can thereby be made visibly 'final'." (p.28) In sum: 1) Incurring a commitment is not sufficient in itself; it is essential to convincingly communicate it to the other party. 2) Establishing the commitment is not easy; neither is it easy to convey to the other party how strong your commitment is. 3) Similar activity (i.e. choices of commitment) might be available to both parties. 4) Though the possibility of commitment might be available to both sides, it is not necessarily equally available (i.e. one party might be able to more readily commit than the other). 5) There is always a possibility of a stalemate due to lack of adequate communication or the establishing of an immovable position that goes beyond the ability to concede. The ease or difficulty of a commitment tactic also depends on certain institutional and structural elements of the bargaining situation. These structural characteristics may make commitment more possible to one party than the other. For instance the decision to use a bargaining agent, the decision to put one's reputation at stake through public commitment, the choice to negotiate other topics simultaneously or in the future are some of the structural elements that can affect the bargaining situation. Another important element that needs to be considered is that of casuistry: if one party reaches the stage where concession is advisable, he has to make sure that his constituency does not perceive of this concession as capitulation. "One, therefore, needs an 'excuse' for accommodating his opponent, preferably a rationalized re-interpretation of the original commitment, one that is persuasive to the adversary himself." (p.34) It is thus to party A's advantage to facilitate the concession coming from party B by showing to party B that it can make a moderate concession which is consistent with his former position. According to Schelling there are two types of threats: 1) Threats that each party has every incentive to carry out in retaliation to an unfavorable move by the other side. The potential deterring effect of these threats is not their primary function. 2) Threats that each party has no real incentive to carry out and whose specific purpose is to deter through promise of mutual harm. Committing oneself to an act one would rather not perform, as a way to deter the other party, can be successful if the party commits to the point of no return, forcing the other to concede if it wants to avoid mutual destruction. "When a person has lost the power to help himself, or the power to avert mutual damage, the other interested party has no choice but to assume the cost or responsibility." (p.37) The party threatened also has some options: it can perform the act before the threat is communicated by the other party, it can arrange to share the risk with others, or it can choose to misrepresent its payoffs. In order to maximize the credibility of a threat, it needs to be stated in terms that are precise and irreversible and clearly communicated to the other party. Additionally, it is preferable to decompose a serious threat a series of smaller consecutive threats. Any transgression would be punishable, indicating in a sense the party's commitment to the threat. "Similar to decomposing a threat into a series is starting a threat with a punitive act that grows in severity with the passage of time." (p.42) "The promise is a commitment to the second party in the bargain and is required whenever... an agreement leaves any incentive to cheat." (p.43) In the case of promises, fulfillment is not always observable because it is not always possible to measure compliance. As a result, the promise might have to be expressed in observable terms that might in actuality not be the intended object of the bargain. Decomposition is applicable to promises as it is to threats. There is in a sense a repeated game mentality: agreements are enforceable if the parties are concerned to maintain future opportunities for agreement. The value of trust and future interaction "outweighs the monetary gain from cheating in the present instance." (p.45) Even if there won't be any interactions in the future, a sense of recurrence could be constructed by dividing the issue in consecutive parts. Chapter 3: Bargaining, Communication and Limited War In cases of limited war, where issues of incomplete and asymmetric information are prevalent, tacit bargaining becomes important. In this Chapter, Schelling examines some of the concepts and principles that seem to underlie tacit bargaining in situations such as those of limited war. Some of the salient issues in tacit bargaining can also inform our understanding of cases of explicit bargaining. The cases that are of most importance are those that involve conflicts of interest between the two parties. Assuming common interests, tacit coordination would require coordination of predictions, i.e. mutual recognition of some unique signal that coordinates the parties' expectations of each other. Results from certain artificial environment tests have suggested that, "people can often concert their intentions or expectations with others if each knows that the other is trying to do the same." (p.57)Finding a mutually recognized sign may depend on several different factors such as analogy, precedent, symmetry, aesthetic or geometric configuration etc. Imagination might play a bigger role in this than logic. These mutually recognized signs or focal points tend to be prominent or conspicuous in some way or another. They tend to be unique in a fashion that prevents ambiguity. In case of divergent interests, it may be to the advantage of one of the parties to be unable to communicate. For instance, "if one can announce his position and state that his transmitter works but not his receiver, saying that he will wait where he is until the other arrives, the latter has no choice. He can make no effective counteroffer, since no counteroffer could be heard." (p.59) Interestingly enough, in a sample of conflicting-interest games that Schelling tried on different people, the conclusions were the same as those in the games of common interests. "The need for agreement overrules the potential disagreement and everyone must concert with the other or lose altogether." (p.60) When compared to tacit bargaining, explicit bargaining doesn't appear to have a need for 'coordination' since there can be direct communication. Nevertheless, some form of coordination is still present in explicit bargaining manifested in behaviors such as acting according to precedent, gravitating towards the status quo or natural boundaries etc. "The obvious place to compromise frequently seems to win by some kind of default, as though there is simply no rationale for settling anywhere else." (p.69) The obvious outcome depends greatly on how the problem is formulated, on what analogies or precedents the definition of the bargaining issues calls to mind, on the kinds of data that may be available to bear on the question in dispute." (p.69) The fundamental problem in tacit bargaining, though it appears to be that of communication, is actually a problem of coordination. In order for the two parties to reach a Nash Equilibrium, or what Schelling calls "a final outcome... from which neither expects the other to retreat" (p.70), their expectations have to converge. "The 'coordination' of expectations is analogous to the 'coordination' of behavior when communication is cut off." (p.71) "..tacit and explicit bargaining are not thoroughly separate concepts but [rather] the various gradations from tacit bargaining up through types of incompleteness or faulty or limited communication to full communication all show some dependence on the need to coordinate expectations." (p.73) This discussion on tacit bargaining suggests that it is possible to find limits to a war, even without overt negotiations, and tries to provide a better understanding of where to look for the terms of agreement. Though tacit bargaining is possible, there is no assurance that it will succeed or that it will result to a particularly favorable outcome compared to the alternatives if full communication had been possible.

Helen V. Milner, Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and Information. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Chapters 3 and 4. (pp. 67-134)

Chapter 3: "A Model of the Two-Level Game (Co-authored with B. Peter Rosendorff)" Milner and Rosendorff model a two-level game with four actors. The foreign country (F) is a unitary actor; the domestic country is disaggregated into three sub-state actors: the domestic executive (P), the domestic legislature (C), and domestic interest groups (E). Each player wants the policy closest to its ideal point: f for F, p for P, c for C, and e for E. Utility decreases linearly and symmetrically as the implemented policy deviates from each player's respective ideal. Outcomes result from interaction at both levels of the game. Milner and Rosendorff use a spatial model to represent the international bargaining game and base this level of the two-level interaction on realist assumptions. (p. 69-70) The international level of the game is modeled using a Nash Bargaining Solution (which maximizes the sum of the products of the distance between the solution selected along the pareto frontier for each player). The NBS does not have a "well-defined institutional structure; politics on that level are assumed to be anarchic, and international negotiations are generally conducted without a constitutionally mandated sequence of moves." (p. 70, also see p. 72) Milner and Rosendorff view the domestic interaction as central to achieving a NBS. To model the domestic interaction, they employ a version of the agenda-setter, take-it-or leave it bargaining game, modified to include two agenda setters (F and P). C votes the proposal up or down, resulting in the agreement point a from the status quo q. If there is no agreement, then the equilibrium reverts to q. Milner and Rosendorff analyzed several situations and found that under: International negotiation without domestic politics, no cooperation is a common outcome in the complete information setting. When q is not between p and f, agreement is possible, but as the distance between p and f grows, the area of no agreement grows. Domestic politics with complete, symmetric information, the preferences of C affect the range of a if c < q < (2c - p). (This is given by the NBS.) If c is far from q, C's influence over a weakens. Thus, a is less likely to be achieved with c. Divided government with complete, symmetric information, the farther c is from p, the less likely a will be achieved. If agreement is achieved, it will be closer to c than to p. Domestic politics with asymmetric information, cooperation is less likely because P and F are fully informed, but C is not sure about F's preferences. Domestic politics with asymmetric information and an interest group, makes a more likely than without E. E is not P, but has complete information about the agreement such that C listens for E's endorsement, obtains information from this signal, and then votes on a. Divided government with asymmetric information and an interest group, a moves with respect to c and p. Multiple interest groups and asymmetric information, the interest group nearest the status quo exerts the greatest influence over the median legislator. Additional endorsements provide C with more information and help it obtain an agreement closer to c. Chapter 4: "Political Institutions and International Cooperation" Milner argues that domestic political institutions affect the distribution of power between national actors, determining whose interests will dominate policy making. "Variations or changes in this institutional relationship influence the probability and terms of international cooperation." (p. 99) The five key elements of the legislative process are: agenda setting, amendment, ratification or veto, use of referendums, and side payments. While the model in chapter 3 only considered agenda setting and ratification, chapter 4 considers how changes in the distribution of the five legislative processes affect international cooperation. Milner finds that when control of legislative processes "is concentrated in the executive, the executive's preferences prevail. When control is dispersed to the legislature, its preferences will come to the fore." (p. 127) In terms of the specific processes, Milner asserts that in foreign affairs, the executive is usually the agenda setter, but that if that power falls to the legislative branch, then the legislature can set the terms of the debate. In terms of amendment power, Milner observes, "In most parliamentary systems, the executive tends to be the agenda setter and the parliament usually has full power of amendment." (p. 104) Amendment power decreases the probability of the legislature rejecting the bill. While veto power constrains the agenda setter, amendment power is more significant because it can shift the agreement point. The power to call referendums either allows the executive to bypass or override the legislature (if the executive has the authority to call referendums) or (if constitutionally mandated) merely reverts to the bargaining model in Chapter 3, with the median voter (instead of the median legislator) as the pivot. Finally, side-payments may come in many forms. Milner concludes that the probability of successful cooperative agreement is highest when decision-making power is concentrated in the most dovish domestic political actor.

Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Chapters 6 and 7

Chapter 6: Three Cultures of Anarchy In this chapter, Wendt makes two arguments: (1) anarchic structures construct their elements and (2) anarchy can produce three logics of macro structure based on what kind of roles (enemy, rival, and friend) dominates the system. Structure is defined to be shared ideas or culture of an anarchic system, and these structures and roles are instantiated in states' representations of Self and Other and acquire logics and tendencies that persist through time through ensuing practices and collective representation. Wendt argues that states in the system are functionally differentiated, and this functional differentiation depends on role differentiation, which care attributes of structures, not agents. Each logic of anarchy is in turn has three different degrees of internalization (compliance, self-interest, and legitimacy), which determine how deeply embedded the states are in that culture. As enough number of states acquire the particular conception of Other (enemy, rival, and friend), the logic of anarchy becomes a collective representation, taking on a life of its own and becoming a property of the system. In the first degree of internalization, the norms of the system are followed because states are coerced to do so. In the second degree, the states follow the norms for the instrumental reason of achieving their self-interests. In the third degree of internalization, the norms become legitimate. Only in this situation can it be said that the norms are so deeply internalized as to affect the states' identities and interests. "The Other is now inside the cognitive boundary of the Self, constituting who it sees itself as in relation to the Other." (273) The Hobbesian culture is characterized by the representation of the Other as an enemy, who does not recognize the Self's right to exist as a fee agent. In this culture, security is a zero-sum game, and security dilemmas are acute because of intentions of other actors in the system. The Lockean culture represents the Other as a rival. The rival differs from the enemy in that it recognizes the Self's right to life and liberty, and expects others to do the same. State sovereignty is such a right in the current international system and has become an institution shared by many states. This culture tends to be more peaceful as states recognize one another's sovereignty and hence generates the possibility of reciprocity. The Other's conception in the Kantian culture is friendship. Friendship requires states to (1) settle disputes without war or threat of war and (2) states will fight as a team if security of any one is threatened. In effect, these rules create a security community in which there is the assurance that the member states of that community will not settle disputes physically but in some other way. The cultures have both causal and constitutive effects on the internalization of identity. The causal effect concerns "the role that the culture plays in the production and reproduction of Other's identity over time." (274) The constitutive effects of culture show, on the other hand, that "identities and interests depend conceptually or logically on culture in the sense that it is only in virtue of shared meanings that it is possible to think about who one is or what one wants." (274) Chapter 7: Process and Structural Change Wendt first discusses the two models of "what's going on" in the social process. One is the rationalist model, which takes agents as exogenous to process. What is at stake in this model are behavioral choices. i.e. "the social process consists of interlocking actions seeking to satisfy given identities and interests by adjusting behavior to changing incentives in the environment." (366) The other model is the constructivist model, which takes agents as endogenous to process. This model assumes that agents themselves are in process. What is at state in this model is the identities and interests of the actors, while agents still choose behaviors in response to changing incentives. Two models of identity formation: (1) Natural Selection: Natural selection occurs when organisms that are poorly adapted to the competition for scarce resources in an environment fail to reproduce and are replaced by the better adapted. This process works iff survival is difficult. (2) Cultural Selection: It occurs through imitation or social learning. Imitation refers to the situation where "actors adopt the self-understandings of those whom they perceive as 'successful'," (325) while social learning is the mechanism in which "identities and their corresponding interests are learned and then reinforced in response to how actors are treated by significant Other." (327) This takes place when actors interact, as they take a particular role identity and then cast the others in a corresponding counter-role that makes their own identities meaningful. Collective identity and structural change: structural change here refers to cultural change and occurs when actors redefine who they are and what they want. In other words, since the structure of any internalized culture is associated with a collective identity, "a change in that structure will involve a change in collective identity, involving a breakdown of an old identity and the emergence of a new." (338) The transformation of collective identity comes about trough the mechanism of cultural change, especially social learning based on reflected appraisals of the Self and the Other. Master variables Lastly, the author examines four causal mechanisms, or "master variables" that could explain why states in a Lockean world would engage in prosocial security policies and thereby spur collective identity formation. The master variables are interdependence, common fate, homogeneity, and self-restraint. The first three can be grouped as efficient causes of collective identity, and the last as permissive cause. Through the operation of these four master variables, states may transform the collective conception of the Self and the Other, enabling a collective identity to emerge and resulting in the Kantian culture of anarchy.

Wendt

Constructivism

Waltz

Defensive Realism

Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3rd ed. New York: The Free Press, 1988. Chapter 8.

In this chapter, Blainey challenges the balance of power theory as an explanation of war and peace, and uses the concept of relative bargaining power to explain the conditions under which wars and peace occur. Believing that "war is usually the outcome of a diplomatic crisis which cannot be solved because both sides have conflicting estimates of their bargaining power," (114) the author argues, "Wars usually end when the fighting nations agree on their relative strength, and wars usually begin when fighting nations disagree on their relative strength." (122) (original emphasis) Hence it is not the actual distribution of power but the ways in which national leaders perceive that power is distributed, that determines the outbreak of war or peace. According to Blainey, an agreed preponderance of power tends to produce peace, thus rejecting the balance of power explanation of peace. That is why a general war which ended in decisive victory produces a long period of peace, while indecisive wars are likely to be followed by a short period of peace, as there is less chance for the opposing sides to "agree" on the estimates of their relative powers. A diplomatic crisis is a crisis in the estimates of relative bargaining power. A nation with an increasing deficit in international power may not recognize its weaknesses, while its rivals may lower their estimates of that nation's bargaining power. Given their divergence of perception of their relative strength, this situation often leads to frustrated negotiations as each demands far more than the other is prepared to yield. Also, the appeal to war is favored as each believes that it is more likely to win. Blainey also argues that the post-WWII world is not all that different from the previous periods, even after taking into account the technological advances such as the development of nuclear weapons. It is just a different game obeying the same rules. He ends the chapter with a list of seven factors relevant for assessing the relative strength of a nation. · Military strength · Predictions of how outside nations would behave in the event of war · Perceptions of internal unity of both opposing nations · Historical memory or forgetfulness of the suffering of war · Economic strength · Nationalism and ideology · Mental qualities of the leaders.

Robert Keohane, After Hegemony. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Chapter 1. (and bits of other chapters as necessary)

In this classic statement of neo-liberal institutionalism, Keohane addresses conflict in the international system. Conflict arises when "[i]nterdependence leads democratic governments to expand state activity in order to protect their citizens from fluctuations in the world economy. (Cameron, 1978) When state activity takes the form of seeking to force the costs of adjustment onto foreigners, discord results." (5-6) Keohane argues that Realism views discord as a consequence of fundamental conflicts of interest. Realism fails to explain the existence of "system-wide patterns of cooperation that benefit many countries without being tied to an alliance system". (7) Realism argues that the creation and maintenance of international institutions relies on the existence of a hegemon. In contrast, Institutionalists argue that cooperation is "essential in a world of economic interdependence, and ... that shared economic interests create a demand for international institutions and rules." (7) Keohane further identifies a group of "sophisticated institutionalists" who view institutions "more broadly as 'recognized patterns of practice around which expectations converge' (Young, 1980, p. 337). They regard these patterns of practice as significant because they affect state behavior" such that "interdependence creates interests in cooperation." (8) Keohane's argument proceeds as follows: Chapter 3 distinguishes cooperation (active attempts to adjust policies to meet the demands of others) from harmony (shared interest without need for adjustment) and discord (conflict of interests). Keohane argues, "The mere existence of common interests is not enough [for cooperation]: institutions that reduce uncertainty and limit asymmetries in information must also exist." (12-13) Chapter 5 applies a collective goods argument to explain cooperation among self-interested states. International institutions that facilitate transparency and effective monitoring (or international regimes with norms of reciprocity that facilitate nonnegotiated adjustments) can reduce instances of free-riding and defection. (83-84) Chapter 6 uses theories of market failure (e.g., Coase) to develop a functional theory of international regimes. Regimes reduce transaction costs, reduce uncertainty, and increase information, facilitating cooperation. (92-95) Chapter 7 relaxes the rational actor assumption in two ways. First, Keohane relaxes the assumption that states have perfect information and rationally consider every alternative before making a decision. Keohane allows that states may act under "bounded rationality". Regimes provide shortcuts to continuous calculations of self-interest, allowing for the convergence of behavior due to socialization. The informal rules of thumb provided by regimes make state action more predictable, and may provide opportunities for governments to bind their successors. "Even egoistic actors may agree to accept obligations that preclude making calculations about advantage in particular situations, if they believe that doing so will have better consequences in the long run than failure to accept any rules". (13) Second, Keohane argues that states' conception of self-interest may not always be egoistic. He points to two features of international regimes which appear puzzling from an egoistic standpoint: 1) the morally obligatory status of regime rules; and 2) unbalanced exchanges of resources that often persist for long periods of time. (14) Keohane concludes his theoretical discussion of regimes by noting that regimes persist "even after the conditions that facilitated their creation have disappeared: regimes acquire value for states because they perform important functions and because they are difficult to create or reconstruct." (14) Thus, "hegemony is less important for the continuation of cooperation, once begun, than for its creation." (12) Section III contextualizes Keohane's theoretical discussion in terms of post-war history through 1984.

Barry R. Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict", Survival 35:1, pp. 27-47.

In this work, Posen attempts to explain the occurrence of ethnic conflict by using a basic concept from the realist paradigm in international relations—"the security dilemma". More specifically, Posen looks at the factors that can create an intense security dilemma after the break up of an imperial order, when groups are faced with the task to provide for their own security. Posen equates the collapse of an imperial regime (e.g. the Soviet Union) with "emerging anarchy" (p.103) and contends that the groups emerging from the collapse of this imperial order would have the quest for security as their primary concern. In their competition for security, groups amass more power than needed for their security and thus start posing a threat to others. Posen contends that in this state of emerging anarchy, offensive and defensive capabilities become indistinguishable, making the offense superior to the defense; this situation clearly signals the presence of an intense ethnic security dilemma. Posen contends that groups assess each other's offensive military capabilities in terms of cohesion and past military record. "The nature of military technology and organization is usually taken to be the main factor affecting the distinguishability of offense and defense." (p.105) However, such distinctions are hard to make. A key element of combat power of armies that can be deemed of an offensive nature is the cohesion and strength of the group's national identity. "The groupness of the ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic collectivities that emerge from collapsed empires gives each of them an inherent offensive military power." (p.106) Given that the military capabilities of the ethnic groups tend to be rather rudimentary, their offensive will be stronger the more cohesive their sponsoring groups appear to be. "In sum, the military capability of groups will often be dependent on their cohesion, rather than their meager military assets."(p.107) In terms of the superiority of offensive over defensive action, Posen discusses the role of technology and geography. As far as technology is concerned, if a group inherits a nuclear deterrent and its neighbors do as well, "groupness" is not likely to affect the security dilemma with as much intensity as in non-nuclear cases. "Because group solidarity would not contribute to the ability of either side to mount a counterforce nuclear attack, nationalism is less important from a military standpoint in a nuclear relationship." (p.108) Geography and settlement patterns can also give an advantage to offense over defense, with the presence of isolated ethnic groups giving rise to incentives for preventive war. After the collapse of central authority, groups find themselves compelled to make calculations of their relative power. Due to the complexity of the situation many of the groups believe that their prospects of war are better earlier rather than later and thus groups are tempted to proceed with preventive military actions. Posen then proceeds to outline two case-studies to prove his argument: Croats-Serbs and Russia-Ukraine. In the case of Croats and Serbs, each group identified the reemerging identity of the other as an offensive threat. Settlement wise, Serbs were scattered in vulnerable islands and could only be rescued by offensive action from Serbia. Additionally, as Croatia achieved international recognition, its military power was expected to grow. Therefore from the Serbian perspective, Serbs in Croatia were insecure and expected to become more so. "Preventive war incentives were consequently high" (p.112) The case of Russia and Ukraine is quite different from the Yugoslav case: "A principal stabilizing factor here is the presence of former Soviet nuclear forces in both Russia and Ukraine, which provides each republic with a powerful deterrent." (p.114) Each side perceives of the other's "groupness" in rather benign terms and settlement patterns do not create pressure for offensive action. The history of relations between Russia and Ukraine is according to Posen conducive to peace. In sum, "in Yugoslavia Croats and Serbs found each other's identity a threat because of the primitive military capabilities they could field and the terrible record of their historical relationship. In the Russia Ukraine case, nuclear weapons mute the conventional competition, making group cohesion less of a military asset." (p.118) Posen ends his discussion by highlighting his three (far-sweeping) conclusions (p.119): 1) The security dilemma and realist international relations theory have considerable ability to explain and predict the probability and intensity of military conflict among groups emerging from the wreckage of empires. 2) The security dilemma suggests that the risks associated with these conflicts are quite high. 3) If outsiders wish to understand and reduce the odds of conflict, they must assess the local groups' strategic view of their situation.

Review of: Jervis, Robert. "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma." World Politics 30:2 (1978). pp. 167-214.

Jervis argues that international peace can be modeled as the 'stag' in stag hunt, where the states are actors and the 'chasing the hare' corresponds to going to war. In this first simple view, there are three qualifications to this model. (1) International cooperation, unlike the stag, is not guaranteed in the long run. (2) States whose real objective is to maintain the status quo may be nonetheless pressured to expand their military capabilities. (3) One state's security gains may detract from other's security; in my words, each state's guns make it more secure but also threaten other states. In stag hunt, expected payoffs are lower when one hunter chooses to go alone in search of a hare. With respect to international cooperation, a nation can seem to abandon its international commitments by building up its arsenals. While this build-up need lead to aggressiveness, or even be in terms of offensive weapons, other states might interpret any movement as a possible aggression. "The fear of being exploited ... most strongly drives the security dilemma." (172) When there is little fear that one state is trying to exploit the other, the game may take on a sequential nature - meaning that one state may have the luxury to wait and evaluate more precisely the effect of another state's activities. Conversely, asymmetries in play, like those produced when one state is more powerful than another, matched with uncertainty about the meaning of actions, can create instabilities. In particular, one fears a kind of cascading effect where a small increase in military capacity by one state leads to a parallel increase by another, ad infinitum. A number of interesting dynamics are discussed. For example, if the cost of going to war is excessive, the game takes on the character of 'chicken.' One state might abandon its commitments to peace if it thinks that the other state will not retaliate in kind. So in this case, because the costs of retaliation are sufficiently high, a state will not risk retaliation by abandoning commitments in the first place. Of course, if cooperating is itself very costly for the first state, then the additional losses incurred by retaliation may be worth risking. But, any gains from this exploitation may be mitigated by long run costs incurred through a higher long-term probability of conflict. These kinds of dynamics drive the status quo of international relations. The paper then discusses the manner in which the already mentioned, necessary expansion of defensive capabilities can lead to arms race or conflict - even between partners who are committed to this status quo - and develops this possibility as the idea of 'four worlds.' (211) (1) In the first, offense (as in offensive weaponry) has an advantage over defensive weaponry and offense and defense are indistinguishable. This world is very unstable since an opponent as offensive may interpret incorrectly slight increases in defensive capability. Then, since offense has the advantage over defense, they must respond by building up even more capacity. If that build-up is also interpreted as an offensive one, then the process is iterated and an arms race is developed. This is the world where the security dilemma is deadly. (2) In the second world, defense has the advantage, and offense and defense are still indistinguishable. The security dilemma exists, because one state cannot determine whether its opponents are building up offensive or defensive weapons. However, this world can be stable. Since defense has the advantage over offense, a defensive response can be smaller than the indeterminate buildup to which it responds. There is no cascade: small movements generate smaller responses by status-quo seeking states. Most of history looks like this, in the sense that fortifications or guerillas to fight against an opposing army have been easier to produce. (3) In the third world, offense has the advantage, and offense and defense are distinguishable. In this world, there is no security dilemma, but aggression is possible. This comes about because small increases in one state's offensive capabilities is clearly interpreted and responded to by a response of similar magnitude. This can lead to the same cascading effect as in the first world, but the dynamic here is driven solely by the fact that it is more difficult to defend oneself than attack one's enemy. (4) Finally, in the fourth world, defense has the advantage, and offense and defense are distinguishable. This world is extremely stable. Small increases in offensive capability are met by smaller increases in defensive capability; increases in defensive capability are easily interpreted as such and not as a provocation.

Stephen D. Krasner, "State Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade," World Politics 28:3 (April 1976), pp. 317-347.

Krasner's puzzle is how to explain the structure of trade openness over time: why was the period between the world wars characterized by high tariffs, and the period between 1945 and 1960 characterized by trade openness? Krasner's answer is his "state power theory", that hegemonic economic and military powers provide the carrots and sticks necessary to open closed markets because as hegemonic economic powers they have the incentive to do so. "Greater openness exposes the domestic economy to the exigencies of the world market. That implies a higher level of factor movements than in a closed economy, because domestic production patterns must adjust to changes in international prices. Social instability is thereby increased . . . The impact will be stronger in small states than in large, and in relatively less developed than in more developed ones" (319). Though trade liberalization increases the utility of both small and large states, the latter have more bargaining power in devising trade regimes because their opportunity costs suffered from closed trade regimes are less. Large states have less to lose because their economy is already takes advantage of economies of scale and diversification among many sectors, and because the proportion of trade to total GNP is less for large states than for small states, who rely heavily on trade. Where large military asymmetries exist, large states can open markets forcefully, as the British did in Africa during the 19th century. Krasner divides economic history into several periods in his empirical test of whether hegemony causes trade openness: "The argument explains the periods 1820 to 1879, 1880 to 1900, and 1945 to 1960. It does not fully explain those from 1900 to 1913, 1919 to 1939, or 1960 to the present" (335). The latter three cases that depart from the theory can be explained by the stickiness of trade regimes that persist even after state power relations have created the opportunity for change. These opportunities are fulfilled only with "cataclysmic" events, such as the Great Depression, the potato famine of the 1840s, and the two world wars. Thus an amended sticky version of the state power theory is supported by the evidence.

David A. Lake and Robert Powell, "International Relations: A Strategic-Choice Approach" in David A. Lake and Robert Powell eds., Strategic Choice and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 3-38.

Lake and Powell introduce the strategic-choice approach (SCA) to international relations. It focuses on choices made by diverse actors under strategic interaction - a situation in which an actor's ability to further its ends depends on the actions others take. There are three principal components in the SCA: 1) Treating strategic problems and interactions per se as the unit of analysis; 2) Actors and environments constitute a strategic interaction, such that actors have preferences and beliefs, while environments consist of actions and information; and 3) Methodological assumptions such as: agnostic attitude toward the 'appropriate' level of analysis in IR, strategic interactions at one level aggregates into interactions at other levels in an orderly manner, partial equilibrium perspective, avoidance of untheorized changes in preferences or beliefs as explanations. There are three benefits from this approach: 1) It is useful in organizing one's thinking about IR, and is unique as a perspective; 2) It helps sharpen the logic of (other) theories by emphasizing micro-foundations and providing fuller description of strategic setting; and 3) It tends to break down some outmoded and counterproductive distinctions in the study of IR and political science. Assumptions and Components 1. Purposive action: the SCA is based upon rational-choice theory. Actors make purposive choices to the best of their ability and choose the strategy that best meets their subjectively defined goals. 2. Strategic Interactions as the Unit of Analysis: the SCA views IR as strategic interactions between actors (individuals, NGOs, governments, IO's, etc.). 3. Way of Organizing Strategic Problems: The SCA breaks strategic interactions into actors and their environments. Strategic environments are composed of 1) actions available to other actors and 2) an information structure that defines what the actors can know for sure and what they have to infer from the behavior of others. Actors are composed of two attributes: 1) preferences defined as the rank ordering of the outcomes of the strategic interactions defined by their environment, and 2) prior beliefs about the preferences of others. Actors always make some probabilistic assessment on opponents' preferences. 4. The pragmatic nature of theory: Beyond individuals, all actors are social aggregates. The SCA assumes that interaction of substate actors aggregate into a state's preferences and beliefs, and then states interact with other states in the international arena. Therefore, interactions between substate actors do not shape the underlying preferences of the state. Appropriate 'main actors' vary depending on the nature of strategic situation. 5. Methodological Bets: 1) The SCA is agnostic toward the appropriate level-of-analysis in IR. 2) The SCA assumes that interactions do aggregate in an orderly fashion, in a sense that aggregate successfully represent the sum of "local-level" interactions. 3) The SCA is based on a partial equilibrium perspective, so certain events out of the "box" are ignored in analysis. 4) When characterizing a strategic interaction, specifying the attributes of the actors is just as important as specifying the environment. To explain changes in behavior, the SCA turns to changes in the environment rather than changes in preferences or beliefs. The SCA decomposes the state into more basic substate actors and see how the change in environment at a specific affect the interactions among actors and the way that their goals aggregate into state goals. Characteristics and Implications The SCA emphasizes microfoundations, or the causal chain linking the actors and their environment to the outcomes by focusing on strategic interactions. The SCA also tends to break down traditional distinctions between the levels of analysis, security and international political economy, and IR and other areas of political science. Alternative Approaches The cognitive and constructivist approaches constitute influential alternatives to the SCA. Cognitive approach assumes actors could be "non-rational" (fail to respond to their environment with a coherent purposive calculation) from cognitive limitations, motivated biases, or misperceptions. Constructivism assumes actors and environments are mutually constructive, therefore clear distinction between the two is not possible and desirable.

David Lake, "Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War," American Political Science Review 86:1 (March 1992), pp. 24-37.

Lake's puzzles are the democratic peace phenomenon and the propensity of democracies to win the wars they fight. His explanation is based on microeconomic theory of the state, especially the state's rent seeking behavior. Rent is defined as "returns greater than what is necessary to sustain the factors of production in their present use." (24) According to Lake, the state-society relations resemble that of the monopolistic market, as the state has the monopoly over the supply of protection. Due to this situation, the state earns rents, as it charges the price of protection above what it would otherwise be under the perfectly competitive market. (see the diagram on p. 25) There are three main variables influencing the state rent seeking behavior, namely, the respective costs of monitoring state behavior, voice and exit. The higher the costs of monitoring, exit and voice, the greater the ability of the state to earn rents. Lake then argues that rent seeking behavior creates an imperialist bias in a state's foreign policy, since so doing raises the costs of exit and the demand of the citizens for state protection (through racketeering and extortion) as well as allow state officials to extract greater rents. He then applies this theory to his puzzles. First, on the democratic peace phenomenon. Lake argues that because democracies pose two threats to autocracies—(1) reducing the costs of exit in autocracies and (2) reducing the costs of monitoring in autocracies—they tend to be the targets of autocracies' expansion. Also, democracies may intervene in the domestic affairs of autocracies "to construct democratic political structures [but only] as long as the costs of the intervention are less than the expected costs of a war stimulated by state rent seeking behavior." (30) This then implies hat democracies are less likely to fight each other due to the absence of an imperialist bias in their foreign policies. Second, on the propensity to win wars. Lake argues that democracies enjoy three advantages over autocracies due to fewer rents in democratic societies. (1) They create fewer economic distortions and hence can devote more resources to security. (2) They enjoy greater societal support for their policies, improving the state's extractive capacity. (3) They are likely to form overwhelming counter-coalitions against expansionist autocracies, since the autocracies are more likely to target democracies.

John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. Chapters 1, 2.

Mearsheimer uses the offensive-defensive balance developed by Jervis, Van Evra, and Snyder, to refine Waltz's "defensive realism" into "offensive realism". The actors in offensive realism are great powers, states that "have sufficient military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the world" and fight to at least a war of attrition. (5) "Offensive realism" is based on five assumptions: "the international system is anarchic"; "great powers inherently possess some offensive capability"; "states can never be certain about other states' intentions"; "survival is the primary goal"; and states are rational actors. (30-31) From these assumptions, Mearsheimer directly deduces, "Apprehensive about the ultimate intentions of other states, and aware that they operate in a self-help system, states quickly understand that the best way to ensure their survival is to be the most powerful state in the system." (33) In this conception of the international system, great powers live in a perpetual security dilemma. (35-36) Great powers are not unthinkingly aggressive. Mearsheimer recognizes that there are costs and benefits associated with proposed military action, and that states must weigh the costs against the anticipated benefits. (37) Mearsheimer defines a hegemon as "a state that is so powerful that it dominates all the other states in the system. No other state has the military wherewithal to put up a serious fight against it." (40) Thus, if a hegemon exists, it is the only status quo power; in all other situations, all great powers are revisionist. (35) Mearsheimer distinguishes between regional and global hegemons. Although there has never been a global hegemon, regional hegemons do exist. (40-41) Powers balance against other power's military capabilities. While wealth and population are indicators of capacity, a state's actual power is embedded in its armies, "because they are the principal instrument for conquering and controlling territory—the paramonutn political objective in a world of territorial states." (43) He argues that the level of fear (and implicitly, the likelihood of war) varies due to three power considerations. First, second-strike nuclear capacity decreases fear. Second, great powers separated by large bodies of water decreases offensive capability and fear. Third, inequality in the distribution of power in the system increases fear. Bipolarity is the most stable distribution of power, followed by multipolarity, followed by multipolarity with a potential hegemon. (44-45) Mearsheimer posits a hierarchy of state goals. Non-security goals (such as economic prosperity, ideology, national unification, and human rights) are secondary to security goals. He dismisses a world peace movement because the states that promote it are the states that would otherwise lose out if the status quo were not preserved, and without certainty that the effort would succeed, those who support the movement are likely to have lost ground in terms of the balance of power. (50-51) Finally, he argues that states consider the distribution of absolute gains in relative terms. (52-53)

Bear Braumoeller, "Deadly Doves: Liberal Nationalism and the Democratic Peace in the Soviet Successor States," International Studies Quarterly 41:3 (1997), pp. 375-402.

Normative accounts of the democratic peace maintain that democracies do not fight one another since democracy is strongly associated with liberalism, which in turn gives rise to mutual respect and beliefs in autonomy and freedom from foreign intervention. These beliefs result in peace among states that share them. The article's argument is that in the states of the former Soviet Union this logic is unlikely to hold, since they are characterized by a nonuniversalist form of liberalism, liberal nationalism, which is centered on the idea of national self determination. Its adherents are both very liberal and willing to use force to achieve their goals. The notion of liberal nationalism dates back to the 19th century, when liberalism and nationalism found a common home in revolutionary movements. Because national self determination is at the heart of liberal nationalism, and because a majority of nations were then subject to alien rule, it had to accept violence and abandon liberalism's objection to the use of force. It should be noted that this type of nationalism is different than the integral nationalism prevalent in the 20th century. The author argues that Ukraine is characterized by liberal nationalism. In Ukraine, as in other non-Russian republics, the dissolution of the Soviet Union combined with preexisting institutional cleavages to provide strong incentives for independence, an objective which appealed to both nationalism and liberalism and enabled their accommodation. In Russia liberalism and nationalism have been adversaries since the Westernization under Peter I and this adversary continues to date. There has been no impetus for nationalism and liberalism to join forces. The author uses three surveys carried out in Russia and Ukraine in 1993-1994 to test several hypotheses: 1. Leaders perceive foreign relations to be more conflictual than do citizens. 2. Leaders are more likely than citizens to advocate the use of force to resolve conflicts (Hypotheses 1 and 2 follow from the structural explanation of the democratic peace). 3. Individuals who are liberals and who believe another country to be democratic will perceive less conflict with that country than would otherwise be the case. 4. Liberals are less likely than illiberals to advocate the use of force to resolve conflicts (Hypotheses 3 and 4 follow from the normative explanation of the democratic peace). 5. Liberals in Ukraine are more likely than illiberals to advocate the use of force to resolve conflicts. 6. Liberals should identify themselves with nationalists in Ukraine but not in Russia (follows from the argument about liberal nationalism in Ukraine). 7. Liberals in Ukraine should express inclusivist concepts of citizenship. The findings: 1. Liberal nationalism seems to be widespread in the non-Russian former republics of the Soviet Union. The evidence suggests that this form of liberalism is not pacific and seems so predispose its adherents to the use of force, especially in the name of national autonomy. Accordingly, the spread of this particular form of liberalism may hurt the prospects for peace. Where liberalism and nationalism find no common ground, as in Russia, liberalism does play a pacifying role. 2. Combination of liberalism - whether or not of the nationalist type - and perceptions of democracy improves relations among countries by lowering perceptions of hostility. 3. If the people in control of foreign policy are political and military elites, there is considerable evidence to demonstrate that their images of potential opponents are more negative than those of the citizenry and some to suggest that they are more willing to advocate the use of force. To the extent that a more diverse group of elites has influence over policy, however, these generalizations are less likely to hold. 4. Democratization, if widely implemented and recognized may improve the prospects for peace among the Soviet successor states. If, however, peace obtains in the face of persistent disagreements over issues of autonomy and the rights of national minorities, it may do so despite liberal attitudes toward the use of force rather than because of them. The results suggest that democratic peace scholars have overlooked the fact that liberalism is not monolithic, and the context in which it arises strongly influences its implication for peace.

Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), Chapters 4, 5, 6.

Overview This is Waltz's classic statement of minimalist or defensive neo-realism. The distrubution of power among states constitutes the structure of the international system, and is characterized by anarchic. States are the primary actors, and act on a principal of self-help. States seek to maximize relative power and engage in balancing behavior to ensure their survival. Anarchy limits cooperation among states, but a global goverment is not desirable in any case. States that do not engage in realpolitik will be left behind. Chapter 4: Reductionist and Systemic Theories. Theories of international politics deal with events at both the sub- and supranational levels. "Theories are reductionist or systemic ... according to how they arrange their materials." (p. 60) A reductionist theory explains the behavior of parts. Waltz argues, "It is not possible to understand world politics simply by looking inside of states. ... Every time we think that we see something different or new, we will have to designate another unit-level 'variable' for its cause" leading to "the infinite proliferation of variables." (p. 65) Waltz points out that although actors change, similarities in outcomes recur. "If the same effects follow from different causes, then constraints must be operating on the independent variables in ways that affect outcomes." (p. 68) For Waltz, these constraints are at a systemic level. A systemic theory focuses on the structure of the international system, where the "structure is defined by the arrangement of its parts." (p. 80) "Structure affects behavior within the system, but does so indirectly" through socialization and competition. (p. 74) Just as "[s]ocialization encourages similarities of attributes and of behavior[, s]o does competition." (p. 76) Waltz implicitly argues that states emulate other states both to fit into an international society of states, and to maintain their place in the international system. (pp. 76-77, and more directly on p. 92) Chapter 5: Political Structures For Waltz, a structure possesses an ordering principle, specifies the functions of formally differentiated units, and distributes capabilities across those units. (p. 82) In the international system, Waltz identifies anarchy, defined as the absence of a central authority, as the ordering principle. (p. 89) He "assume[s] that state seek to ensure their survival." (p. 91) As long as states exist in an anarchic system, "they are not formally differentiated by the functions they perform" which justifies treating them as like units (alike in that irrespective of size, they are autonomous political units which face similar tasks). (p. 93, 95-96) Waltz recognizes that international organizations and transnational corporations exist, but dismisses them because "structures are defined not by all of the actors that flourish within them but by the major ones." (p. 93) Thus, "a theory that denies the central role of states will be needed only if nonstate actors develop to the point of rivaling or suprassing the great powers, not just a few of the minor ones." (p. 95) "The structure of a system changes with changes in the distribution of capabilities across the system's units." (p. 97) Although this statement seems to violate his assertion that structure must be independent of units, Waltz defends this claim by arguing, "Although capabilities are attributes of units, the distribution of capabilities across units is not." (p. 98) Although he does not specify clearly here, it seems that Waltz is arguing that a bipolar world (between Germany and England) is analytically similar to a bipolar world (between the United States and the USSR), and that a systemic change would be a shift along the continuum from anarchy to hierarchy, such as a shift from bipolarity to multipolarity. Chapter 6: Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power Waltz distinguishes between violence and anarchy. Drawing heavily on Hobbes, Waltz points out, "Among states, the state of nature is a state of war. This is meant not in the sense that war constantly occurs but in the sense that, with each state deciding for itself whether or not to use force, war may at any time break out." (p. 102) The threat of violence is characteristic of anarchy, not violence itself. Waltz's distinction between violence in the international and domestic realms relies on the right of a government to reserve the right to use force. In the case of the private use of force, citizens can appeal to the government, but in the international system, there is no authority to which states may appeal. Furthermore, anarchy limits the cooperation between states in two ways: 1) States are uncertain about the distribution of gains from cooperation. Uncertainty about another state's future intentions works against cooperation. (Waltz implies the notion of relative gains here.) (p. 105-106) 2) Dependency on other states (whether through trade or through "cooperative endeavors") reduces a state's ability to ensure its survival in an autarkic, self-help system. "Like organizations, states seek to control what they depend on or to lessen the extent of their dependency." (p. 106) Waltz identifies this inability to cooperate as a "prisoners' dilemma" because each state, acting for its own interest, produces a result which is undesirable at the systemic level. (p. 107-109) Furthermore, Waltz argues that an anarchic realm is better than an ordered international system. Moving to a more hierarchical arrangement in the international system would lessen the risks of war between states, but would entail the creation of "agencies with effective authority and extending a system of rules." Waltz points out that these administrative bodies, like other institutions, would be managed by individuals for whom "the first and most important concern" is "to secure the continuity and health of the organization." Furthermore, with centralized institutions, "the means of control become the object of struggle. Substantive issues become entwined with efforts to influence or control the controllers." (p. 111) Waltz points out that if an armed struggle breaks out to control the central agencies, it would be a "world civil war." He favors an anarchical system, because "[i]n the absence of organization, people or states are free to leave one another alone. Even when they do not do so, they are better able, in the absence of the politics of the organization, to concentrate on the politics of the problem and to aim for a minimum agreement that will permit their separate existence rather than a maximum agreement for the sake of maintaining unity." (p. 112) Balance of Power (pp. 116-128) Waltz argues that given states as unitary actors (with either minimalist or imperialist motives), and given more than two states in the system, states engage in balancing behavior. He contrasts balancing with "bandwagoning" behavior. "Because power is a means and not an end, states prefer to join the weaker of two coalitions. They cannot let power, a possibly useful means, become the end they pursue. ...If states wish to maximize power, they would join the stronger side, and we would see not balances forming but a world hegemony forged." (p. 126) Waltz recognizes that balance-of-power theory is limited. The predictions are indeterminate and do not specify what or how quickly balancing behavior will occur. He argues, however, that even with a time lag in behavior, that the balancing behavior does occur.

Peter Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert Putnam, eds. Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Politics and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Chapters by Odell, Kahler, and Evans (pp. 233-264, 363-394, 397-430)

The introduction to Double-Edged Diplomacy (by Andrew Moravcsik) is worth reading even though it was not an assigned part of the reading. Moravcsik explains that the purpose of this edited volume is to analyze the effects of domestic factors on international politics, and specifically to implement the "two-level game" approach suggested by Robert Putnam in his seminal article. He also outlines a research agenda comprised of two steps: - Relax the assumption of constant state capabilities to mobilize resources - Relax the assumption of stable state preferences The specific chapters assigned address the following cases and issues: - John Odell: The use of threats by the U.S. as a strategy in international economic bargaining against Brazil and the European Community, 1985-1987 - Miles Kahler Interactions between the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an international financial institution (INI), and the countries of Jamaica and Somalia to restructure the countries' debt - Peter Evans Conclusions Odell's article analyzes the use of threats in international economic bargaining, and specifically examines two effects: - Constituents in the threatening state that oppose implementing the threat may attempt to delay the government's implementation or impose political costs if the government proceeds. By either type of action, their actions can undermine the threatening government's credibility in the eyes of the target state and thus encourage the target state to resist the threat. - Political leaders in the target state may prefer to yield to the threats, but may face such severe domestic political penalties that they refuse to yield. If resistance is a popular stance, objective interests take second priority to political stakes. Kahler's article analyzes the causes of "successful" negotiation between the IMF and Jamaica to restructure the state's international debt and of "unsuccessful" negotiation with Somalia. - In both cases, the countries initially resisted reaching agreement even though the costs to the state of non-agreement were high. The variance in the behavior of the two states is explained by differences in the specific cost-benefit calculus of the states' elites. - In this analysis, the IMF is treated as an actor on a par with the developing countries having its own "domestic agenda." Hence, organizational politics within the IMF has an impact on the process, and tends to push the institution to continue to lend to debtor countries when it might seem more logical to suspend assistance. In the conclusion, Evans draws observations from the other articles and presents the following summary: - Concerning variation in the relative autonomy of national leaders compared with domestic constituencies: - The strategy of claiming, "My hands are tied..." does not seem to be effective - The autonomy of national leaders decreases over the course of a negotiation, since interest groups mobilize and leaders eventually stake firm positions - "Hawkish" leaders have less freedom of action than "dovish" leaders - Attempting to manipulate perceptions of whether an agreement can be ratified is usually not effective - Agreements depend less on national leaders' strategies and more on the configurations of international and domestic interests. Specifically: - When costs are concentrated and benefits diffuse, agreements are usually doomed - Interests (international or domestic) that create obstacles in the short run are often subjected to restructuring in the long run - Authoritarian disenfranchisement associated with small win sets is as great an obstacle to agreement as pluralistic interests in a democracy - Transnational actors may contribute to transnational synergies, but may also find some state-to-state agreements threatening to their specific interests.

Stephen Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War," in Steven E. Miller, ed., Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. pp. 58-107.

The primary argument that van Evera puts forward in this article is the assertion that the "cult of the offensive" was a principal cause of WWI. The "cult of the offensive", a phenomenon that was particularly prominent in Europe the decades preceding WWI, is defined by van Evera as the militaries' tendency to glorify the offensive and adopt offensive military strategies, often accompanied by civilian elite assumptions that the offense had the advantage in warfare. (p.58) Though based on the resources and technology of the time (machine guns, barbed wire and railroad development)defensive warfare clearly had an advantage over offensive warfare, Europeans lived under a set of political and military myths "which obscured both the defender's advantages and the obstacles an aggressor would confront" (p.59) 'Attack is the best defense' was one of the mottos in Germany, whose military glorified the offense and guided the Schlieffen Plan, envisaging attacks on Belgium, France and Russia. Similar bias for the virtues of the offensive—arguably to a lesser extent— was to be found in France, Great Britain, Belgium and Russia. "Mythical or mystical arguments obscured the technical dominion of the defense, giving this faith in the offense aspects of a cult or a mystique..." (p.61) There were mistaken arguments put forward implying that the machine gun actually favored the offense and British and French officers suggested that the superiority of moral on the attacking side overcame superior defensive firepower. In terms of alliances, many Germans believed that 'bandwagoning' with a powerful state rather than 'balancing' against it was the guiding principle (p.62) and were hoping that Germany's growing strength would get England to opt for neutrality and frighten Belgium into surrender. According to van Evera, there are five major dangers that may develop when the offense is strong. They were all clearly relevant in the 1914 crisis (p.64-65): 1) States adopt more aggressive foreign policies both to exploit new opportunities and to avert new dangers which appear when the offense is strong. 2)The size of the advantage accruing to the side mobilizing or striking first increases, raising the risk of preemptive war i.e. states mobilize or attack to seize the initiative or deny it to adversaries. 3) Windows of opportunity and vulnerability open wider, forcing faster diplomacy and raising the risk of preventive war. 4) States adopt competitive styles of diplomacy (e.g. presenting opponents with faits accomplis) since the gains promised by such tactics can easily justify the risks they entail. 5) States enforce tighter political and military secrecy, since national security is threatened more directly if enemies win the contest for information. German expansionism reflected the belief that conquest would be easy both for Germany and for its enemies and that German security required a wider empire, which would be readily attainable either by coercion or conquest. Bandwagon logic fed hopes that British and Belgian opposition to German expansion could be overcome, and the presumed power of the offense on behalf of the Germans made conquest appear both feasible and necessary. A similar mixture of insecurity and perceived opportunity was present throughout Europe. The French feared that the gaining of territory by Austria would affect the general balance of power in Europe and thus harm French interests. Russian policy was motivated by fear that Austrian expansion would undermine Russian security and by hopes that Russia could destroy its enemies. "In short the belief that conquest was easy and security scarce was an important source of German-Entente conflict. Without it, both sides could have adopted less aggressive and more accommodative policies." (p.71) An important question in regards to the 1914 crisis is whether WWI was a preemptive war. According to van Evera, the war was preemptive if Russia and France mobilized preemptively, since these mobilizations spurred German and Austrian mobilization, opening windows for war. The war was also preemptive if Germany struck Liege preemptively. Three pieces of evidence suggest that important preemptive incentives existed and helped to shape conduct: 1) Most European leaders apparently believed that mobilization by either side which was not answered immediately could affect the outcome of war. 2) Many assumed that significant mobilization measures and preparations to attack could be kept secret for a brief but significant period. 3) Governments carried some mobilization measures in secrecy, suggesting their belief that secret measures were feasible and worthwhile. None of the European sides allowed for any delay, fearing that the other side would gain the initiative. First-strike advantage was thus considered important, reflecting the implicit assumption that the offense had the advantage. "Had statesmen understood that in reality the defense had the advantage, they also would have known that the possession of the initiative could not be decisive, and could have conceded it more easily." (p.75) In addition, secrecy was overvalued. Many officials believed that secret action for a short time was possible. This is why Russian officials apparently lacked confidence in their own ability to detect German or Austrian mobilization and thus decided to mobilize ahead of time so as to forestall surprise preparation by their adversaries. Like their Russian counterparts, French officials also feared that Germany might mobilize in secret. "For their part the Germans apparently did not believe they or their enemies could mobilize secretly, but they did speak in terms suggesting that Germany could surprise the Belgians." (p.77) The notion of a "window of vulnerability" seems to have also influenced German and Austrian actions. The window of vulnerability logic was in a sense supporting a preemptive strike: 'Russia is only getting stronger and stronger; we should thus attack now than get crushed later'. Thus WWI was in part a preventive war launched by the Central Powers in belief that they were saving themselves from a worse fate. "The cult of the offensive also helped cause the arms race before 1914 which engendered the uneven rates of military growth that gave rise to visions of windows." (p.84) In terms of mobilization, the plans of all sides were characterized by a certain degree of inflexibility. The scope and character of these plans reflected the assumption that the offense was strong. The cult of the offensive gave planners greater power to bind statesmen to the plans they had prepared, since present plans raised the cost of improvisation if statesmen insisted on adjusting plans at the last minute. A representative example of this is the case of Russia. Russian leaders announced on July 28 1914 that they will partially mobilize against Austria on the 29th. However, after this announcement, Russian military officers made it clear to civilian leaders that the only options were really between full mobilization or complete retreat since partial mobilization would impede full mobilization. They opted for the former. The cult of the offensive made Russian military believe that full mobilization was a safer choice than partial mobilization. "...the logic of general mobilization in Russia largely reflected and depended upon conclusions deduced from the cult of the offensive, of from its various manifestations. Without the cult of the offensive, a partial southern mobilization would have been the better option for Russia." (p.89) Two aspects of the European alliance system fostered the outbreak of war: 1) Both alliances had an unconditional offensive character—allies supported one another unreservedly, regardless of whether their behavior was defensive or provocative. As a result a local war would tend to spread throughout Europe. 2) German leaders were not convinced that Britain would fight as an Entente member, which encouraged Germany to confront the Entente. In both cases the cult of the offensive contributed to the problem. "...the unconditional nature of alliances rather than their mere existence was the true source of their danger in 1914." (p.97) Indeed, there was a strong assumption in France and Britain that the security of the Entente members was closely interdependent. "These dynamics reflected the general tendency of alliances toward tightness and offensiveness in an offense-dominant world." (p.100) The ambiguity of British policy is also often blamed for leading to WWI. The British government is often accused of causing the war by failing to warn Germany that Britain would fight. (p.100) However, British failure to warn Germany was due as much to German secrecy as to British indecision. Indeed, this culture of secrecy led to a plethora of blunders and accidents. Nevertheless, "the blame for 1914 lies less with the statesmen of the times than with the conditions of the times and the severe demands these placed on statesmen." (p.103) Van Evera concludes by reemphasizing that the cult of the offensive was a major underlying case of the war of 1914 that built on a wide range of secondary dangers and led to the involvement of many world powers in the war. "The 1914 case thus supports Robert Jervis and other theorists who propose that an offense dominant world is more dangerous..." (p.106)

James D. Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization 49:3 (1995), pp. 379-414.

Overview Critique of rationalist or neorealist explanations of war - such arguments fail to address why leaders don't reach ex ante bargains that would avoid the costs and risks of fighting. Fearon's explanations 1. Withholding of private information and incentives to misrepresent - under bargaining situations, leaders might have an incentive to misrepresent their preferences to gain leverage, and this can lead to war even if a mutually preferable solution exists in reality. War might also serve as a way to convey information about one's capabilities to others. 2. Commitment problems - mutually preferred solutions exist, but players have an incentive to defect from such a solution (P.D.) • High offensive (first-strike) advantage - I can attack first and eliminate you. This makes repeated game equilibria infeasible • Preventive War - states cannot commit credibly about their future behavior • Advantages gained from concessions - if I give you my guns now, you can not credibly commit to not shooting me with them (3. Issue Indivisibilities - not as convincing as #1 and #2, but some issues might not be easy to compromise over because they are indivisible: i.e. who sits on the throne of Spain. Side bargains are often feasible but subject to domestic constraints - i.e. difficult for states to trade territory these days.) Common Explanations that Fail 1. Anarchy - this does nothing to prevent states from striking bargains 2. Preventive War - why don't rising and declining states strike bargains instead? 3. Positive Expected Utility - A demonstration of the bargaining range (p.387) shows that there always exists a set of negotiated settlements that both sides prefer to fighting. Assumptions: • Both states need to recognize the existence of a real probability p that one will win the conflict • Risk-averse or risk-neutral states • Continuous range of settlements exists (i.e. issue divisibility) 4. Disagreements about Relative Power 5. Miscalculation of an Opponent's Willingness to Fight - #4 & #5 both neglect the ability for states to communicate. Require Fearon's explanations to be tenable.

Robert D. Putnam, "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics," International Organization 42:3 (Summer 1988), pp. 427-461.

Putnam offers a conceptual framework "for understanding how diplomacy and domestic politics interact." The existing literature on the relations between domestic and international affairs "consists either of ad hoc lists of countless 'domestic influences' on foreign policy or of generic observations that national and international affairs are somehow 'linked.'" Putnam's challenge is, then, to seek a theory that integrates both spheres and accounts for the areas of entanglement between them. Such a theory should help us "organize and extend our empirical observations." To respond to the above challenge, Putnam suggests a two-level approach which (unlike the state-centric theories) "recognizes that central decision makers strive to reconcile domestic and international imperatives simultaneously." Putnam draws a distinction between the national and international levels and emphasizes that "each national political leader appears at both game boards." In Putnam's model an international negotiation process is broken into two sequential stages. In Level I: the negotiators bargain and reach a tentative agreement. In Level II: the agreement is ratified thru a process that includes separate discussions with each group of domestic constituents. Based on the above model (and additional assumptions), Putnam explains why the notion of win-sets (i.e. the set of all possible Level I agreements that would gain the support of the constituents at Level II) is important. He contends that: (1) Larger win-sets make Level I agreements more likely. By contrast, the smaller the win-set, the greater the risk that the negotiations will break down as a result of 'involuntary defection' (a term that is contrasted with 'voluntary defection' and is dependent upon the 'deliver ability' of a Level I negotiator); (2) The larger the perceived win-set of a negotiator, the more he can be 'pushed around' by the other Level I negotiators (this is related to Schelling's principle that stressed the importance of manipulating and narrowing one's own win-set). However, the effect of decreasing one's own win-set too far, might be that there will be no feasible agreements. Three sets of factors that affect the size of win-sets (and thus the likelihood of success of a negotiation) are proposed and analyzed: (1) Level II preferences and coalitions - the size of the win-set depends on the distribution of power, preferences, and possible coalitions among Level II constituents. The lower the cost of 'no agreement' to constituents, the smaller the win-set. Accordingly, we would expect more self-sufficient states with smaller win-sets to make fewer international agreements and drive harder bargains in those that they do make. Another distinction that Putnam makes, in relation to the role of preferences in determining the size of win sets, is between homogenous and heterogeneous issues. In cases of the former, the more the negotiator can 'win' at Level I, the better his odds at winning ratification. In cases of the latter, 'the more, the better' rule of thumb does not necessarily apply and, consequently, domestic divisions may actually improve the prospects for international cooperation (these are cases that Putnam finds more interesting). Other relevant factors include the participation rates of constituents in Level II discussions. These may vary according to the degree of politicization of an issue. (2) Level II institutions - the size of the win-set depends on the Level II institutions. For example, ratification procedures affect the size of the win-set (e.g., if a 2/3 congressional majority is required to ratify a treaty, the win-set is decreased). In another example, the greater the autonomy of the decision makers from their Level II constituents, the larger their win-set (e.g., a dictatorial regime will be expected to have a larger win set due to its lack of dependence on domestic approval processes). (3) Negotiators' strategies - the size of the win-set depends on the strategies of the Level I negotiators. For example, each Level I negotiator has an interest in maximizing the other side's win-set. Also, to expand his win set, the negotiator may exploit side payments (both domestically and internationally induced) and may strive to reinforce the political standing of his negotiating counterpart.

Ronald Rogowski, "Institutions as Constraints on Strategic Choice," in Lake and Powell, eds. Strategic Choice and International Relations, pp. 115-136.

Rogowski surveys the literature on the effect of institutions on foreign economic and security policy. Rogowski's survey of empirical and theoretical work challenges the realist model in which domestic institutions are entirely endogenous -- they are determined through selection in the anarchy of interstate-war. He suggests that domestic institutions determine foreign policy, and supports the observation that competition in the international arena may be less fierce than in the domestic economy. The institutional features (independent variables) include the franchise (who makes the decision, including strength of different voting sectors (women, wealthy, bureaucracy, aristocrats, etc.), number of cross-cutting cleavages (class, religion, etc.), representational mechanisms (e.g., tenure in office, size of districts, number of representative bodies), and decision rules (number of veto points, amount of delegation). Dependent variables include substantive policy bias such as free trade or status quo, credibility of commitments, coherence (stability) of policy decisions, ability to mobilize resources and troops, and types of strategies. The hypotheses presented are best viewed in table format, on page 135. These hypotheses are illustrative, and do not include all the hypotheses reviewed in the article. Hypotheses on the effect of the franchise include: female suffrage causes pacific policy, strong bureaucracy causes credible commitment, cross-cutting cleavages cause unstable policy, democracy causes greater extractive capacity, and democracy causes the strategy of demagoguery. Hypotheses on the effect of representational mechanisms include: larger constituency causes free trade, longer, more secure term of office causes greater credibility, single-member districts cause chance of accidental majorities, short terms and easy recall of representatives cause low slack between constituency wishes and representation, and more extractive capacity, and multiple bodies cause more bargaining, bluff, and signaling. Hypotheses on the effect of decision-rules include: more veto points cause status quo, credibility, instability, incoherence, and less extractive capacity; delegation restricts constituency access to specialists. In conclusion, Rogowski calls for increased research on the under-studied question of the effect of domestic institutions on foreign policy, especially from a formal-theoretic and principal-agent perspective.

Thomas C Schelling, Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. Chapters 2, 3.

Schelling's focus is the way in which military capabilities are used as bargaining power in a calculated "diplomacy of violence." He does much to explain deterrence during the Cold War by considering military strategy not as a science of victory, but rather a science of communication involving capability, threat, credibility and commitment. Chapter 2, "The Art of Commitment" argues that deterrence is about intensions, and not just estimating enemy intentions but influencing them. This raises a communication problem: some threats are hard to make, i.e. are not inherently credible and thus are possibly taken for granted. Deterrence requires the ability to project military power and also the ability to project intentions, and there is sometimes a high price to pay to make threats convincing. While considering credibility and rationality, Schelling presents two interesting paradoxes of deterrence: 1) in threatening to hurt somebody if he misbehaves, it need not make a critical difference how much it will hurt you - the point is making your enemy believe your threat is real; 2) in deterring an adversary, it does not always help to be perceived as fully rational. Robust deterrence requires one to get himself into a position where he cannot fail to react as he promises (threatens). This often depends on relinquishing the initiative to the other side, limiting one's own options and making intentions clear to potential enemies. Schelling provides what we now consider classic Cold War examples, e.g. American "trip-wire" forces in West Berlin. The process of commitment involves a nation's honor, obligation and diplomatic reputation becoming attached to a response. Policy is usually not a prefabricated decision; it is the whole set of motives and constraints that make a government's actions somewhat predictable. Commitments are also often interdependent: consider American efforts during the Cold War to check the spread of Communism in various parts of the world. Strategies of commitment can include discrediting an adversary by outwardly discounting his commitments, escaping commitments by eliciting cooperation from a rival to allow a retreat, or by circumventing an adversary's commitments with "salami tactics." It is important to distinguish between a threat that compels - one that often requires punishment to be administered until the other acts - from a threat that deters, which is administered if he acts. In order to induce compliance rather than start a spiral of reprisals and counteractions, it is useful to demonstrate the limits to what one is demanding. Moreover, coercive threats require corresponding assurances, for example: "one more step and I'll shoot [and if you stop, I won't fire]." Brinkmanship is a competition in risk-taking, a war of nerves involving initiating a moderate risk of mutual disaster while wagering that the other party's compliance is feasible within a short enough time span to keep the cumulative risk within acceptable bounds. Discussion of this tactic provides the transition to the next chapter. Chapter 3, "The Manipulation of Risk" considers the uncertainty of war and diplomatic confrontation, including accidents that can lead to crises and in particular, the problem of unpredictable commitments. Uncertainty adds an entire dimension to military relations, which Schelling labels the manipulation of risk. Furthermore, uncertainty imports tactics of intimidation into the game. Brinkmanship is the manipulation of the shared risk of war by exploiting the risk that someone may inadvertently cross the point of no return. To illustrate this point, Schelling discusses the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The essence of a crisis is that neither side is fully in control of events; there exists a serious danger of miscalculation and escalation. This is why deterrent threats are often credible. The threat of nuclear war is not the only credible deterrent however; limited war can deter continued aggression or be used as a means of intimidation, by representing an action that effectively enhances the risk of a greater (more costly) war. But threats of nuclear war are fundamentally different because if the nuclear threshold is passed, the tactical objective and considerations that govern a conventional war no longer apply. Instead, the stakes are raised to the highest strategic level in a war of nuclear bargaining and demonstration - a war of dares and challenges, of nerves and threats. The resulting situation can be likened to a game of chicken where no one can trust with certainty that someone will have the last clear chance to avert a tragedy and pull back in time. An important point that comes out of the discussion of chicken is the concept of face or national image. More than just a factor of pride motivating actors to take irrational risks, face consists of other countries' beliefs about how a state can be expected to behave, contributing to its reputation for action. The concept of face is a product of the interdependent nature of a country's commitments. It also suggests the importance of decoupling an adversary's prestige and reputation from a dispute, in order to allow them to back down while saving face. Manipulating risk and bargaining can negotiate disputes through the diplomacy of violence, but some countries may have interests in conflict that are worth the associated risk, so there is no guarantee that war can be averted.

Kenneth A. Schultz, "Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War," International Organization 53:2 (Spring 1999), pp. 233-66

Schultz addresses the question of influence of domestic political institutions to state behaviors. He presents an empirical test to discriminate two main arguments on the mechanism of democratic peace theory: 1) the "institutional constraints" approach (institutions promote accountability and competition tend to increase the political risks associated with war) and 2) the perspective which focuses on informational properties of institution (democratic institutions have higher transparency/better signaling abilities which reveal government's incentives more successfully). When threatened from other democracies, the former perspective expects the threatened state would resist because it thinks the aggressor faces high political costs for waging war. The latter suggests that democratic governments are better able to reveal their true preferences, and the threatened states will draw back. Schultz tests the looking at states' responses to military threats from other democracies (NOT frequency of crises or wars) by applying a formal model of crisis bargaining to data on militarized disputes from 1816 to 1980. He modeled the probability that a target state will reciprocate when confronted by a challenge, and the results were consistent with the informational perspective: the disputes initiated by democratic states were less likely to be reciprocated than those initiated by non-democratic states. [ Model ] Players: S1initiates and S2 responds Strategy: CH (challenge), SQ (status quo), CD (concede), RS (resist) Payoffs: 0 (S1), 1 (S2) in the beginning, a (audience cost of DB), w1 and w2 (costs of war) (CD) |----- (1, 0) (CH) |----- S2 ----- | (DB) |-----(-a, 1) S1 -------- | (RS) |-----S1------| (SQ) |--- (0, 1) (RS) |-----(w1, w2) 1) Complete information: w1 and w2 are common knowledge - S1 will stand firm (SF) iff ... w1 > - a. [Reads: the cost of war for S1 is lower than audience cost] - S2 knows for sure whether threat from S1 is genuine or not, and there is no danger of war. Two equilibriums: SQ (0,1) or CD (1,0). There can be no war. 2) Incomplete information: wi (w1, w2) are randomly/independently determined from uniform probability distribution [- Ci - di, - di], where Ci, di 0, and i=1,2. - S1 will SF (1 > - a), CH then DB (b w1 - a), and SQ (-C1 - d1 w1 < b) according to the value of w1. S2 responds according to the probability q that w1 > -a given that S1 has made a challenge ( 1 > q > 0). S2 expects war with probability q and expects DB with probability 1-q. In equilibrium, S2 resists only if its expected value from war (w2) is sufficiently high to make the gamble (RS) worthwhile. The probability that a challenge will be resisted is equal to the probability that w2 exceeds this threshold. Institutional Constraints Informational perspective Outcome Increase in costs of war (d1) Complete Information Increase in audience cost (a) S1 challenges (CH) - - + S2 resists (RS) [ + ] [ - ] [ - ] War [ CH -> RS ] + / - - + / - The differences between the two models are not clear in their predictions on probability of challenge and/or war. However, they are clearly different in S2's response. The test results attained using Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) data set showed that: 1) target states are more likely to resist non-democratic challengers than democratic ones 2) target's power status does not seems to have a measurable impact on the likelihood of reciprocation (minor power can no less resist threats from major powers than threats from minor powers). Two caveats: 1) maybe challenges from democratic states are less likely to be resisted because of selection of targets (democratic states deliberately choosing targets that are likely to back down) that are unlikely to put up a fight, not because of superior signaling abilities of democracy 2) BOTH perspectives could be right, because democratic institutions can both increase political costs of war and facilitate information revelation at the same time.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, James D. Morrow, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alastair Smith, "An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace," American Political Science Review 93:4, pp. 791-807.

Several findings related to democracy and war appear in the literature: 1. Democracies do not go to war with each other. 2. Democracies fight nondemocracies. 3. Democracies win a disproportionate share of the wars they fight. 4. When disputes emerge, democratic dyads choose more peaceful processes of dispute settlement that other pairing of states. 5. Democracies are more likely to initiate wars against autocracies than vice versa. 6. In wars they initiate democracies pay fewer costs in terms of human life and fight shorter wars than nondemocracies. 7. Transitional democracies are more likely to fight than stable democracies. 8. Larger democracies are more constrained to avoid war than smaller democracies. The authors criticize the existing normative and structural explanations of the democratic peace. They develop a model that accounts for the regularities above without assuming that one type of polity is more constrained than the other and without assuming normative differences. Their basic assumption is that political leaders in all systems are motivated by the same universal interest: desire to remain in office. Keeping office depends on the continued support of the winning coalition (W) which is a part of all the participants in the selection of leadership (selectorate, S). The leaders in each nation know that following the international dispute they will face reselection. The members of S will evaluate the payoff they receive under the incumbent and compare it with what they expect to receive by deposing the incumbent and choosing a domestic challenger. In order to remain in office an incumbent will have to provide more utility to the coalition members than that offered by the challenger. How does this affect the decisions about war? The leader implements policies which produce public goods (benefit everyone in the polity) and private goods (consumed by members of the winning coalition). The scarcity of resources requires leaders to choose how much resources to spend on benefiting the public and how much to focus on the wants of their core supporters. At the first stage of the game the leader in nation A chooses between war and negotiations. If she selects war, she also chooses how hard to fight. If war occurs, the leader of B, having observed A's effort level, also chooses how hard to fight. The key finding is that democrats try harder in wartime than do autocrats. As leaders increase their level of effort during war, they increase the probability of victory. A military victory benefits everyone, including members of the winning coalition, the leader and the selectorate. Yet increased war efforts come at the expense of having fewer resources to provide private goods for supporters. The rate at which increased effort diminishes supporters' benefits depends upon W. When the winning coalition is small, each member's share of the resources is high, thus increased war effort drastically reduces the utility of members of the winning coalition. When W is large, each member of the winning coalition receives a small share of the private goods in the first place. Therefore the reduction in supporters' utility from the channeling of resources into war efforts instead of distributing them as private benefits is small. This means that that the cost of improving the probability of victory increases as the supporting coalition gets smaller. In contrast to the marginal benefit of increased effort (an increase in the probability of victory) which is independent of political institutions, the cost of increased efforts is dependent on them. The larger a leader's winning coalition the less important private goods become relative to foreign policy success. Therefore, all else being equal, the larger the winning coalition, the more resources a leader dedicates to the war effort. This leads to the conclusion that democratic leaders, who require large winning coalitions, try harder in wars than do autocrats, who need support from a small coalition to stay in office. Democratic leaders cannot easily compensate for policy failure by doling out private goods and thus need to succeed in foreign policy. They will try harder in wars than autocrats who can compensate for policy failure by providing private benefits to their few key backers. What follows form that? First, democracies are less attractive targets than autocracies. Second, democratic leaders, unlike autocratic leaders, are reluctant to pursue wars they do not expect to win, because failed policies may bring political defeat. They will generally attack only if they anticipate victory, and will prefer to negotiate when they do not expect military success. Because autocracies do not try as hard in war, they make attractive targets for democracies. In contrast, two democracies are reluctant to fight each other. Since both try hard, each minimizes the chance that the other will win. Autocrats do not depend upon military victory to keep their job. They prefer winning to losing, but their political survival is a function of satisfying their small group of supporters rather than providing the citizens with successful policies. They are more willing to gamble on war than democrats. Thus democracies and autocracies can fight each other and autocracies can afford to fight each other. According to the model, democracies' propensity to try hard makes it difficult to guarantee victory if they fight, and they will therefore seek to avoid a bloody and protracted conflict between them. The exception arises when one party in a democratic dyad is much weaker than the other. In that case, large democracies may attack small ones but the small ones are expected to sue peace rather than fight back. This is because democracies need a high probability of victory in order to fight. The model also supports the diversionary theory of war, which maintains that leaders who face domestic problems will initiate an international conflict. A democratic leader with failed public policies is unlikely to retain office unless she has an astonishing change in performance. At this point she has an incentive to gamble everything on the outcome of the conflict, since only a successful war may leave her in office. Contrary to the earlier argument, now there is no disadvantage to fighting. If she loses she will be deposed, but she would have been removed anyway. Hence a democratic leader with failed policies is potentially bellicose. To sum up: Democrats are relatively unattractive targets because domestic reselection pressures cause leaders to mobilize considerable resources for war effort. In addition to trying harder than autocrats, democrats are more selective in choosing targets. Defeat may lead to domestic replacements for democrats, so they only initiate war when they expect to win. Because democracies use their resources for the war effort rather than to reward backers, they are generally able to overwhelm autocracies and to fight relatively short and less costly wars. Yet, democracies find it hard to defeat other democracies which also try hard. Hence, democratic states rarely attack one another.