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The Gartner-Siverson war initiation model's focus on selection bias and initiators selecting vulnerable targets is attractive, but it demands further specification. A predictive model of war initiations might not retain statistical significance after 1945. The authors examine 16 possibly related variables and develop a three-variable initiation model, adding information on target regime type and war duration to the original lone initiator-lone target variable for war initiations between 1816 and 1992. The instability of the initiation model before and after 1945 can be traced to changes in who initiates wars. The predatory initiator model does not predict minor power dyads very well, and these dyads have come to dominate the post-1945 war landscape. Several reasons for this phenomenon are suggested, including the argument that the context in which weaker states initiate wars renders opportunistic predators less likely and less successful.

One school of thought on European state making argues that discontinuous change in weapons and tactics led to the expansion of armies, and, therefore, states. Others argue that decision makers expanded state organizations to make war for its own sake, not simply because the tools of war changed. Although this controversy is not easily resolved, the empirical evidence indicates that major expansions in army sizes over the past 500 years were almost exclusively related to major wars fought over regional and global primacy. Moreover, the leaders in expanding armies were usually the states aspiring to regional hegemony and their principal opponent. This evidence buttresses the argument for drawing a direct relationship between war and state making—instead of emphasizing an indirect relationship between weapons/tactics and army size.

Der Artikel untersucht den Einfluß der langfristigen Entwicklung des Außenhandels auf das Zollniveau. In kurzer Frist wird von dem umgekehrten Zusammenhang ausgegangen, daß protektionistische Maßnahmen das Außenhandelsvolumen einschränken. Eine Kausalitätsanalyse auf der Datenbasis mehrerer Industrieländer für den Zeiraum 1854 - 1990 unterstützt die Annahmen über die kurz- und langfristigen Zusammenhänge. Allgemein gilt, daß die Auswirkungen des Handels auf den Protektionismus größer einzuschätzen sind als umgekehrt. Bei der Analyse kurzfristiger Entwicklungen sollten die langfristigen Zusammenhänge nicht vernachlässigt werden. (swp-clv)

Despite the widespread assumption that tariffs reduce trade volume in the short term, it is conceivable that long-term expansion and contractions in trade actually drive tariff levels. A Granger causality analysis performed on British, U.S., French, German, Japanese, and a systematic aggregate data on GDP-tariff levels encompassing the 1854–1990 period finds mixed support for both the short- and long-term interpretations. In general, the antecedence of trade on protectionism predominates over the antecedence of protectionism on trade. One implication is that the long-term context should not be ignored in analyzing short-term dynamics.

Of approximately 100 empirical democratic peace articles published in journals and papers presented at conferences over the last 10 years, none identifies a positive and statistically significant relationship between democratic dyads and militarized conflict. Therefore, many international relations researchers have reached the conclusion that widespread democratization will lead to a more peaceful world. Nevertheless, two different attacks on these fundamental premises have been advanced recently. One argues that the pacificity of democratic dyads is restricted to the post-World War II era. The other argues that democratizing states, as opposed to states experiencing regime changes, have a greater propensity to engage in war. The present authors find that neither the arguments nor the evidence hold up well to closer scrutiny. First, when controlling for changes in specific predominant rivalry structures, pre-1914 democratic dyads are less likely to engage in militarized conflict. Second, democratic transitions do not produce a window of heightened vulnerability to war participation.