Suchergebnisse

Looks at the contribution of 'realism' to the analysis of conflict and criticisms of the realist approach. Examines the notion of power, the state as a rational actor and the illusion of 'the end of history'. Evaluates changes in the international order. (SJK)

Conflict resolution in a changing world / Committee on International Conflict Resolution -- Evaluating interventions in history : the case of international conflict resolution / Paul C. Stern and Daniel Druckman -- Defining moment : the threat and use of force in American foreign policy since 1989 / Barry M. Blechman and Tamara Cofman Wittes -- Economic sanctions and post-Cold War conflicts : challenges for theory and policy / Bruce W. Jentleson -- Spoiler problems in peace processes / Stephen John Stedman -- Ripeness : the hurting stalemate and beyond / I. William Zartman -- Interactive conflict resolution : a view for policy makers on making and building peace / Harold H. Saunders [and others] -- Interactive conflict resolution : issues in theory, methodology, and evaluation / Nadim N. Rouhana -- Past truths, present dangers : the role of official truth seeking in conflict resolution and prevention / Priscilla B. Hayner -- New challenges to conflict resolution : humanitarian nongovernmental organizations in complex emergencies / Janice Gross Stein -- Electoral systems and conflict in divided societies / Ben Reilly and Andrew Reynolds -- Autonomy as a strategy for diffusing conflict / Yash Ghai -- Language conflict and violence : the straw that strengthens the camel's back / David D. Laitin -- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe : its contribution to conflict prevention and resolution / P. Terrence Hopmann.

There is a strong scholarly consensus that domestic revolutions create conditions ripe for international conflict. Traditionally scholars have treated revolutions as events, after which there is a period of time during which international conflict is more likely. Yet some states experience significant international conflict only during and in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, whereas other states continue to engage in conflict for many years and even decades afterward. This article seeks to explain the persistence of conflict for some but not all revolutionary states by differentiating the concept of revolutionary leaders from that of revolutions as events, both theoretically and empirically. The author shows that existing theories linking revolution to international conflict underemphasize an important mechanism through which revolution leads to conflict: by selecting conflict-prone leaders through the dynamics of revolutionary politics. He argues that revolutionary politics allow leaders with certain characteristics, including high risk tolerance and strong political ambition to alter the status quo, to obtain executive office because individuals without these characteristics generally do not succeed in leading revolutions. Having obtained power, revolutionary leaders have aggressive preferences that make their states more likely than nonrevolutionary states to instigate international conflict. (World Politics / SWP)

Scholars argue that institutions in democracies constrain leaders and prevent international conflict. However, many democracies specify rules of governance in times of emergency that divert substantial power to the head of state. The manipulation of these "emergency powers" provides a rational motivation for conflict. Using a novel data set of emergency provisions within democracies, I test the relationship between emergency power strength and conflict propensity using several steps to achieve causal inference, including an instrumental variable analysis that exploits the specificity of the state's constitution as a plausibly exogenous determinant of emergency power strength. I find that emergency power strength is a strong predictor of conflict onset in democracies in each test and that states with strong emergency powers are substantially more likely to enact a state of emergency due to an international conflict. I conclude with a discussion of my findings and avenues of future research using these data.

This article reveals a temporal pattern of conflict behavior over the course of autocratic leaders' tenure. By identifying a commonly observed domestic political cycle in autocracies, I discuss how the level of domestic constraints on autocrats' conflict behavior changes over time in three distinct periods: (1) power struggle in the early period of tenure; (2) power consolidation; and (3) power dissipation in the later period of power transition. The empirical analysis on autocratic conflict cycle reveals that the likelihood of autocratic crisis initiation significantly increases during the early years of autocratic leadership tenure, after which it moderately decreases over time. This finding suggests that autocrats' tenure is a substantively important predictor of autocratic leaders' conflict behavior.

An examination of the taxicab rate war waged in Hawthorne, Calif in 1949, on the assumption that it is an interesting case stduy for students of conflict, since it included many of the elements of armed conflict: 'enemy' moves in the form of price reductions, ultimata followed by countermoves by firms which are adversely affected, the use of stratagems to mislead the enemy, additional hostile activity in the form of further. reductions or threatened reductions, the dissemination of propaganda to influence PO, the `signing' of peace treaties, & postwar problems. The war was won not by those firms which outdid their competitor in rate-cutting but by the firm which maneuvered its opponents into a losing operation & the philosophy of the victors.' I. Taviss.