Suchergebnisse

In earlier efforts to explain international conflict and integration, the central focus was upon national attributes and decisionmaking as crucial to understanding the actions of states in war- and peacemaking. Recently, however, we have begun to critically reconsider these assumptions. In the face of their inability to fully account for the actions of states in international conflict and cooperation, we have sought out a more basic, disaggregated approach to these questions. We believe that the concept of leverage may serve as an important explanatory factor in theories of interstate relations. Here we offer some preliminary arguments concerning leverage and bargaining among domestic and international actors, fleshing out some of the possible relationships between economic and political behaviors and their effects on the war- and peacemaking activities of states in the international system.

This book examines conflict patterns among great powers from 1870 to 1914 using historical inquiry as well as econometric analysis – thus yielding an integrated narrative based by statistical results and parameter estimates for a system of simultaneous equations. ; Each equation in the model represents a "piece" of a dynamic system of simultaneous equations, with the variables signaling the individual factors shaping the overall dynamics over time. Rendered in the form of an econometric model, the system consists of (a) growth and expansion, (b) intersection and collision national of interests, (c) military competition leading to greater military expenditures, (d) alliances and counter-alliances and (e) evidence of violent behavior – all constituting the escalating dynamics of a conflict spiral that, almost inevitably, results in war.