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Robert W. Jackman, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, died peacefully in San Francisco on October 8, 2009, after a long, courageous struggle with pancreatic cancer.

In diesem Artikel wird die Ausnahme des Langen Friedens im Lichte eines Wahrscheinlichkeitsmodells, welches die kollektive Erfahrung der grösseren Mächte berücksichtigt, untersucht. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass längere Friedensperioden ähnlich den 42 Jahren des sog. "Langen Friedens" in den vergangen 18 Dekaden nicht ungewöhnlich waren - solche Phasen traten etwas häufiger als 30 Prozent der Zeit auf. Die Periode zwischen 1826 und 1913 enthält weniger Kriegsbeteiligung der Grossmächte als die Zeitspanne des "Langen Friedens". Die Analyse zeigt dass längere Phasen des Friedens unter den Grossmächten nicht ungewöhnlich sind; Zeiten des Krieges unter Grossmächten sind eher die Ausnahme denn Normalzustand. Folglich schliessen wir, dass der "Lange Frieden" keine Ausnahme darstellt und seine Rolle in der Beurteilung von Kriegstheorien irreführend ist. (SWP-Jns)

In this article, we reconsider the rarity of the Long Peace in the light of a probability model that targets the collective experience of major powers. Our examination shows that consecutive periods of peace equal to the forty-two years of the so-called Long Peace are not uncommon over the past eighteen decades—these periods occurred slightly more than 30 percent of the time. The period between 1816 and 1913 actually contains less war involvement by major powers than the period of the putative Long Peace. Our analysis demonstrates that long periods of major power peace are not unusual; periods of major power war are more exceptional than normal. Thus we conclude that the Long Peace is not rare and that its role in evaluating theories of war is misleading.

Not surprisingly, the ratings of doctoral programs in the United States by the National Research Council (NRC 1995) are controversial. Some interpret the ratings as an indicator of relative program quality; others view them as little more than a gauge of the size and age of graduate programs, and still others deem them to be simply a popularity barometer.Employing data assembled in the NRC report, we examine whether the political science program ratings reflect two general sets of characteristics—the size and the productivity of faculty.All other things equal, program quality should vary directly with faculty size, and indeed size is emphasized as a key explanatory factor in the NRC report. The logic is straightforward. Very small departments lack the means to field a range of graduate courses of sufficient breadth to form the basis of a serious program. Larger departments enjoy the increased resources that allow for greater program depth and breadth. In addition, holding quality concerns constant, larger programs should on average receive higher ratings simply because they include more faculty.

Most wars do not expand beyond the initial two participants. Why is this so? We argue that wars remain small because initiators select as targets states that they believe will not receive third-party help and that they can defeat without such help. Drawing on the idea of selection effect, a model of this choice is presented and a hypothesis is derived in which initiators (1) will win most often in wars of one against one and (2) will win least often when the target receives any help. This hypothesis is tested against war outcomes for initiators and targets in the period 1816-1975 using probit regression. The expectation is supported. The authors conclude that initiators act as predators and are likely to attack target states they know they can defeat if these targets are not joined by coalition partners. This selection pattern tends to make small wars likely.

A considerable amount of the international politics literature attempts to explain international conflict on the basis of the distribution of power between and among nations. There are, however, divergent views of this linkage. One view argues that wars are most likely to take place between nations of similar power, while another asserts that wars are most likely when power is unequal. Research seeking to explore this phenomenon has not investigated the capability augmenting effects of alliances on power relationships and has tended to focus its attention upon the occurrence of wars. This research examines the individual and joint effects of power and alliance upon the probability of 256 conflicts to escalate to reciprocated military action. The main finding is that equality of power, supplemented by alliance with a major power for those nations that are weak, tends to restrain the likelihood that a conflict will escalate.

The relationship between the distribution of power among nations and the outbreak of war has been a question of perennial interest to students of international politics. Although recent empirical studies seem to support the idea that equal power will lead to the outbreak of war, a review of these studies reveals that the findings are heavily influenced by research designs that (1) include data not closely connected to the theory, (2) reduce the variance in the independent variables, (3) exclude cases of potential power disparity by using only conflicts between contiguous nations, and (4) provide analysis of a restricted range of cases. The article concludes by calling for the analysis of larger data sets with greater variance in both independent and dependent variables.