FIRST NOTES: Why Are There Wars?

★ Defining War
○ war - an event that involves organized use of military power by at least two parties, reaching
a minimum threshold of severity
■ Interstate war - main participants are the states
■ Civil war - participants are within the same state; gov’t vs rebel
★ 3 Perspectives on Why Do Wars Occur
○ International Anarchy = wars; insecurity and competition for power
■ absence of a central authority = wars
■ States fight wars to:
● Increase their own power
● Counter the power of others
■ Two primary dynamics that can lead to war (realism):
● Preventive motive - desire to fight in order to prevent an enemy from
becoming relatively more powerful
● Security dilemma - arises when efforts that states make to defend themselves
cause other states to feel less secure; can lead to arms races and war because of
the fear of being attacked
○ Mistakes and Conceptions
■ decision makers inaccurately estimate their chances of winning or the costs that will
have to be paid
○ Wars Serve the Interests of Influential Groups
■ Wars are fought in spite of their costs because those costs do not fall on the actors who
call the shots
★ What do states fight over?
○ Territory
■ States come into conflict if more than one wants the same piece of territory
● it might contribute to the wealth of the state
● its military or strategic value
● valuable for ethnic, cultural, or historical reasons
○ Policies
■ one state enacts a policy that benefits it but harms the interests of another
■ state’s mistreatment of its own citizens
○ Regime Types
■ the composition of another country’s government
■ both superpowers intervened regularly in other states to prop up friendly governments
or to remove unfriendly ones
★ War as an Outcome of Bargaining Failure
 ○ Strategic interactions and bargaining
■ the kinds of disputes that lead to wars are often settled through institutional
mechanisms
■ Property disputes can be resolved by courts backed by effective police powers
■ turn to the legal system to solve the problem
■ policy disagreements and conflicting ideas over who should govern can be settled by
elections
■ interactions in which actors try to resolve disputes over the allocation of a good
● over the distribution of a disputed territory to determine whether there is a
division acceptable to both sides
● over each other’s policies so that objectionable ones might be modified or
eliminated
■ entailing compromise or give-and-take
○ crisis bargaining
■ at least one actor threatens to use force in the event that its demands are not met
■ coercive diplomacy - use of threats to advance specific demands in a bargaining
interaction
● Compellence - “Give me y, or else”, “Stop doing x, or else”
● Deterrence - “Don’t do x, or else”, “Don’t attack my ally x, or else”
○ The costs and likely outcome of a war determine which deals each side will consider
acceptable in crisis bargaining.
■ bargaining range - set of deals that both parties in a bargaining interaction prefer
over the reversion outcome; when the reversion outcome is war, the bargaining range
is the set of deals that both sides prefer over war

★ Why does bargaining fail to reach a peaceful settlement?

○ Incomplete information - a situation in which actors in a strategic interaction lack
information about other actors’ interests and/or capabilities
■ information is important because states need to be certain about their prospects in a
war (winnability and costs) and how much their adversaries values war
 ■ Each state usually has incomplete information on the
● Capabilities - state’s physical ability to prevail in war: the number of troops
it can mobilize, the number and quality of its armaments, the economic
resources it has to sustain the war effort; and
● Resolve - willingness of an actor to endure costs in order to acquire a
particular good; of its adversary
■ risk-return trade-off - in crisis bargaining, the trade-off between trying to get a better
deal and trying to avoid a war
■ The Problem of Credibility - believability; a credible threat is a threat that the
recipient believes will be carried out; a credible commitment is a commitment or
promise that the recipient believes will be honored.
● The credibility of the threat refers to the target’s belief.
● A threat is credible if the target believes that it will be carried out.
● A threat lacks credibility if the target has reason to doubt that it will be
carried out.
● What mechanisms do states use to make their threats credible?
○ Brinksmanship - a strategy in which adversaries take actions that
increase the risk of accidental war, with the hope that the other will
“blink” (lose its nerve) first and make concessions.
○ Tying Hands - a second way in which states can send credible signals
of their willingness to fight is by making threats in ways that would
make backing down difficult
■ under some conditions, threats can generate what are
known as audience costs—that is, negative repercussions
that arise if the leader does not follow through on the threat
or to honor a commitment
○ Paying for Power - a final mechanism that states use to signal their
resolve in a crisis involves taking costly steps to increase their
capabilities, such as by mobilizing and deploying a large military
force, increasing military manpower, and/or spending large sums of
money
○ Commitment problem - a commitment problem arises when a state cannot make credible
promises not to use force to revise a settlement or a bargaining agreement at a later date
■ What undermines commitment problems?
● Disputes over goods that can serve as a potential source of future bargaining
power
○ Territory
○ Weapons programs
● Anticipated changes in the balance of military capabilities
 ○ Economic growth -> military build-up
○ Development and acquisition of new technologies (e.g., nuclear
weapons)
○ Possible outcome: preventive war
■ a war fought with the intention of preventing an adversary
from becoming stronger in the future.
■ arise because a state whose power is increasing cannot
commit not to exploit that power in future bargaining
interactions
● Fear of attack by an opponent with a first-strike advantage.
○ The situation that arises when military technology, military
strategies, and/or geography give a significant advantage to whichever
state attacks first in a war.
○ Possible outcome: preemptive war
■ a war fought with the anticipation that an attack by the
other side is imminent
○ Indivisible goods - refers to a good that cannot be divided without destroying its value.
■ difficult to reach a compromise when the good in question is indivisible since states
tend to adopt an “all-or-nothing” attitude.
■ Indivisibility is not a physical property of a good but rather how that good is valued.
■ It is important not to place undue emphasis on indivisibility as a source of bargaining
failures:
● some of the difficulty of dealing with indivisible goods arises not from
indivisibility per se, but from weak enforcement mechanisms
● states may have strategic incentives to claim that they cannot compromise on
a particular issue, even if they actually could
■ Ways to allocate apparently indivisible goods that do not involve physical division:
● Shared control
● Compensation on another issue
★ What accounts for the downward trend in war incidence since World War 2?
○ Declining Conflict over Territory
○ Rising Costs of Wars
■ two major developments since 1945 have increased the expected costs of war
● advent of nuclear weapons, which gave states the ability to completely
obliterate each other.
● explosive growth of international trade and financial transactions
○ Democracy and International Institutions
■ expansion in the number of countries that have democratic political system
● Why might democracy have this effect?
 ○ democracy may make the leaders of states more sensitive to the costs
of war
○ democracy may make states more transparent to outsiders, thereby
reducing uncertainty about their capabilities and resolve
○ democratic states may bargain with one another differently than they
do with other states, avoiding threats and emphasizing compromise

SECOND NOTES: Domestic Politics and War

★ Influence of Domestic Politics on War

○ Paradox: Why can states not resolve their conflict peacefully, considering war is costly?
■ The assumption that war is costly makes sense when we think of the state as a unitary
actor, but once we look inside the state, it is clear that the costs and benefits of
war are not distributed equally within the country.
○ Different actors within the state may place more or less value on the issue in dispute.
★ Key Questions:
○ Do wars serve the national interest or the narrow interests of office hungry politicians,
multinational companies, and/or a “military industrial complex” composed of glory-seeking
militaries and profit-seeking arms merchants?
○ How do domestic institutions, such as democracy, influence a government’s decisions and the
likelihood of war between states?
★ Whose Interests Count in Matters of Wars and Peace?
○ The interactions among states at the international level can be fundamentally affected by
interactions among actors at the domestic level.
■ Individuals or groups motivated by varied interests
■ Interaction of these interests can fundamentally affect the interests of the national
government and the foreign policies it pursues
○ Domestic Interests
■ national/general interests - something that most, if not all, actors within the
country share
■ narrow/particularistic interests - held by only a relatively small number of actors
within the country, such as a particular business, an ethnic minority group, or
individuals within government.
★ Interactions, Institutions, and Influence
○ Which actors matter, and which interests are likely to influence foreign policy decisions?
■ Institutions and Interactions
○ Domestic institutions help determine who runs the government, how decisions are made,
and how disputes are resolved.
■ Decision-Making
 ■ Accountability and Responsiveness
■ Small vs. Large Groups
★ Key Domestic Actors in Foreign Policy

○ Leaders - make foreign policy decisions; decide when to make threats, what demands to issue,
and ultimately, whether to wage war; matter the most because, by whatever rules of politics
operate in their country, they have the authority to make these decisions
○ Bureaucracy - collection of organizations—including the military, diplomatic corps, and
intelligence agencies— that carry out most tasks of governance within the state.
○ interest groups - groups of individuals with common interests that organize to influence
public policy in a manner that benefits their members.
○ General public - most numerous but rarely the most powerful; the influence of ordinary
citizens varies considerably with domestic institutions
★ Do Politicians Spark Wars Abroad in Order to Hold On to Power at Home?
○ 1982 Argentina vs Great Britain
■ the islands were not particularly valuable pieces of territory
■ the war was surprising because of the imbalance in military power between the two
states
■ Why did Argentina pick a fight with such a formidable foe, and why did Britain react
so strongly to defend its right to islands that seemed to be of diminishing importance?
● domestic political interests of the countries’ governments
★ What do leaders want?
○ Leaders have:
■ varied interests of their own
■ personal motivations
○ How could these motivations affect leaders’ decisions about war and peace?
■ Responsiveness to the interest of those who control their political fate
■ Control of policies to shape their environment
★ Rally Effect and Diversionary Incentive
○ The tendency of people to become supportive of their regime when it encounters dramatic
international events, such as war.
○ Why do people rally around the flag at times of international crisis?
■ People feel greater attachment and loyalty (patriotism)
 ■ Political opponents may decide to dampen their criticism of the government in times
of national crisis, with government dominating political discourse
■ Diversionary tactics
■ Scapegoating (blame foreigners)
○ Rally effect can give leaders a diversionary incentive.
■ a temptation to spark an international crisis in order to rally public support at home
○ Gambling for resurrection
★ Do Leaders “Wag the Dog”?
○ Inconclusive evidence
○ Leaders do not systematically use international conflict for diversionary purposes or to
gamble for resurrection.
★ The Political Costs of War
○ Why might diversionary effects be weak?
■ war can impose domestic political costs in addition to promising benefits
○ One way to see the relationship between the costs of war and its domestic political
repercussions is to consider how public support for war changes as the costs mount
★ Do Countries Fight Wars to Satisfy the Military or Special Interest Groups?
○ Alternative perspective: Wars are fought to benefit military and business interests
○ “Industrial-Military Complex”
■ alliance between military leaders and the industries that benefit from international
conflict, such as arms manufacturers
■ have hawkish interests - anticipate the benefits of war and pay few costs for it.
★ Bureaucratic Politics and the Military
○ Decisions about war and peace are shaped not only by state leaders but also by the interests of
the bureaucratic organizations involved in the decision-making process (e.g., military,
diplomats and foreign ministry, intelligence community).
○ The military is usually the most influential bureaucratic actor in matters of war and
peace.
○ Compelling (albeit incomplete) argument that the more influence the military has over
foreign policy decision-making, the more belligerent the state will be. Why?
■ Ideological - leaders in the armed forces may be predisposed to seeing military
solutions to foreign policy problems, overestimating the effectiveness of force relative
to other alternatives
■ Organizational - the military can demand larger budgets and more personnel when
the state is frequently engaged in international conflict than when it is at peace
■ Professional - military officers find that combat experience is crucial to being
promoted to the highest ranks
★ Interest Groups: Economic and Ethnic Lobby
○ Businesses with investments abroad may influence the foreign policy decisions of the state.
 ○ Business groups may try to influence foreign policy to protect their interests.
○ Interest groups that organize around ethnic ties are another influence on foreign policy.
○ Not all interest groups lobby for hostile actions; some prefer peaceful cooperation/relations
with foreign countries.
★ How Can Small Groups Have a Big Influence on Policy?
○ The answer lies in the nature of the interactions between these different actors and the
institutions that regulate their relations.
■ How could economic interest groups “hijack” a state’s foreign policy for their own narrow
interests?
● “Precisely because taxpayers are more numerous, the costs of intervention to
any individual are quite low. As a result, no individual citizen has much
incentive to become informed about the situation, to call a member of
Congress to weigh in on the policy, to go to Washington to bang on the doors
of the State Department, and so on.”
★ How Do Domestic Interests Affect International Bargaining?
○ that domestic interests affect the likelihood of international conflict primarily by determining
the extent of the state’s ambitions
★ Why Don’t Democracies Fight One Another?
○ Democratic peace refers to a well - established observation that there are few, if any, clear cases
of war between mature democratic states.
○ Is this absence of wars among democracies a coincidence, or is there something about democratic
institutions that facilitates peaceful relations among states that have them? In what ways might
shared democracy influence interstate bargaining?
■ two broad ways in which domestic institutions can affect the likelihood of war:
● by influencing the interests of states and their leaders
● by influencing the bargaining interaction between and among countries
■ democracy - political system in which candidates compete for political office through
frequent, fair elections in which a sizable portion of the adult population can vote.
● the ability of different individuals and groups to compete for political office
● the ability of a large portion of the people to participate in the selection
process through voting
● Liberal - a philosophy that emphasizes the value of individual liberty
■ autocracy - political system in which an individual or small group exercises power
with few constraints and no meaningful competition or participation by the general
public.
★ Representation, Accountability, and Interest in War
○ Domestic institutions shape leaders’ interests in war and peace.
 ○ The costs of war are paid by society at large but generally not by the leader who makes
the decision to wage war. The leader (esp. autocracies), by contrast, rarely has such direct
exposure to the costs of war.
○ Democratic institutions align the interests of the ruler with the ruled, through
representative institutions
○ Accountability: the ability to punish or reward leaders for their decisions
○ Constraints on the use of force can make democratic states appear to be tempting targets to
their nondemocratic foes.
★ Democracy and the Bargaining Interaction
○ How do democratic institutions affect bargaining interaction?
■ Transparency
■ Ability to send credible signals
★ Does Democracy Cause Peace?
○ Other possible explanations:
■ Democracy and peace may be sharing a common cause: economic development
(“capitalist peace”).
■ Peace causes democracy (reverse)
■ Peace as shared strategic interests of democratic states, despite their domestic
institutions