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How do term limits affect international conflict behavior? We revisit this question using new quarter-year-level data on presidential political ambition in the US from 1816 to 2010. Multi-country research finds that the re-election motive decreases the likelihood of conflict initiation. We argue that there are good reasons to expect that the US is different. We find that politically ambitious US presidents are more likely to initiate international conflicts. Consistent with previous research, however, we find that political ambition appears to be unrelated to a president's chances of becoming the target of a militarized dispute.

This dissertation introduces an agent based model driven by the behavioral assumptions of the bargaining theory of war. The model is applied to explain why wars cluster geographically and why democracies do not fight other democracies. Simulation results suggest new explanations for both of these phenomena. The emergence of regionally clustering conflict can be explained by the tendency of shifting power to motivate renegotiation when agents pay costs for projecting power and select their bargaining partners. Regions of democratic peace occur when groups of agents share information more effectively than their competitors. The dissertation develops and validates these theories with statistical analysis of simulation results and case studies

Studies of power parity and conflict implicitly assume all balanced dyads are created equal. However, variation exists within the capabilities of the states in these particular dyads. I address the question of what affects the likelihood of conflict onset within relatively balanced dyads. I argue uncertainty-in particular the uncertainty of the expected costs of conflict-determines the likelihood of conflict among these dyads. More uncertainty of costs means a greater likelihood of miscalculation leading to bargaining errors. First, I argue as an opponent's capabilities increase, uncertainty of costs increase and the likelihood of conflict increases. Second, military action serves a purpose in bargaining and can help reduce uncertainty by signaling a state's willingness to inflict and endure costs in order to gain a better settlement. Third, information transmission is likely to be effective only when states have the capability to inflict significant costs. As such, while greater capabilities will lead to a high likelihood of conflict onset, they also lead to a reduced likelihood of conflict escalation. The testing of nondirected dyads from 1946 to 2001 supports the theory's implications. ( International Interactions (London)/ FUB)

I argue that decision-making processes by the president and the national security establishment and a conception of past US military operations as credibility-establishing precedents for future US military actions have tended to result in a fixation on political developments occurring in a relatively small number of nations. Together, these foreign-policy making routines produce a high degree of regularity in US military activities whose importance is not often appreciated in studies that emphasize more variable domestic political forces, such as diversionary theory, or traditional security concerns, such as realism. I use both a zero-inflated, negative binomial model and a proportional hazards model to illustrate the impact of past US militarized dispute behavior on the prospects for future military activity. I find that past US conflict behavior exercises the most important influence in both models.

PurposeThe present study investigates the relationship between servant and authoritarian leadership, and leaders' third-party conflict behaviors in followers' conflicts, thereby contributing to integrating knowledge on leadership styles and leaders' third-party conflict behaviors. This study aims to investigate leadership and conflict management in a context hardly studied: local religious communities or convents within a female religious organization.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected quantitative survey data from 453 religious sisters, measuring their perception of leaders' behaviors. These religious sisters live in local religious communities within a Catholic Women Religious Institute based in Nigeria (West Africa) and in other countries across the globe.FindingsResults show that servant leadership relates positively to leaders' third-party problem-solving behavior and negatively to leaders' avoiding and forcing. Moreover, authoritarian leadership relates positively to leaders' third-party avoiding and forcing behaviors.Originality/valueThis study expands theory development and practices on leadership and leaders' third-party conflict behaviors. The authors associate servant and authoritarian leadership with leaders' third-party conflict behaviors: avoiding, forcing and problem-solving, in followers' conflicts. The authors offer practical recommendations for religious leaders on servant leadership and leaders' third-party conflict behaviors.

This article reviews empirical res on pol'al instability, or conflict behavior within nations, in light of a new typology of diff kinds of pol'al instability. The typology is further evaluated by factor analytic solutions of data coded for 32 SubSaharan African nations, & a preliminary investigation of temporal relationships between indices of diff kinds of pol'al instability in these nations. It is suggested that pol'al instability (1) be distinguished from conflict in pol'al systems, (2) be conceptualized as the result of conflict involving elites, communal groups, & mass movements, & (3) that the diff conceptual dimensions be distinguished, ie, elite instability, communal instability, & mass instability. In conclusion, recommended is the development of theories which explain the conditions where conflict is exacerbated or inhibited re conditions for instability of elites, communal groups or mass movements. 8 Tables. Modified AA.