Week 3:

Theoretical
Perspectives: The
Rationalist
Explanations

POL2116
Dr Weeda Mehran
 • Is war a rational phenomenon?
• Why do leaders wage war? For
whose benefit?
Today’s Session
• What are the economic costs and
benefits of armed conflicts?
 Puzzle: Wars are costly, why do they occur?

1. People (and state leaders in particular) are sometimes or

always irrational.
Arguments 2. The leaders who order war enjoy its benefits but do not pay
the costs, which are suffered by soldiers and citizens.
3. Even rational leaders who consider the risks and costs of war
may end up fighting nonetheless. (Fearson, 1995)
 1. Historians and political scientists: war can be a rational alternative for
leaders who are acting in their states' interest
2. Neorealism a dominant paradigm in international relations theory is
thought to advance or even to depend on rationalist arguments about
Rationalist the causes of war.
Explanations
Fearson (1995):
• “rationalist explanations for war” = "neorealist explanations”
• Explanations based on anarchy at the international level are not enough
 New Realism Explained by John
Mearsheimer

Questions:
1. What is neorealism?
2. What are some of the most important concepts in relations to
neorealism that Mearsheimer discusses in this interview?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8WJP7gD3cQ
Realism versus neo-realism
Sidebar Info to refresh
your memories
A rationalist explanation:
Disagreements about relative power

• “Wars usually begin when two nations disagree on their relative

strengths.”
• consequence of human irrationality

War due to the miscalculation of an opponent's willingness to fight:

• A’s erroneous belief that B would not fight a war over the matter
• Fearson: war can occur despite complete agreement
5 Rationalist Arguments in Relations to War:
1. Anarchy
2. Expected benefits greater than expected
costs
3. Rational preventive war
4. Rational miscalculation
5. Rational miscalculation or disagreement
about relative power
 Fearson’s Criticism of the
literature:

• War is costly and risky, why not locate negotiated settlements?

• Fail either to address or to explain what prevents leaders from reaching ex ante (prewar)
bargains

• A coherent rationalist explanation for war must do more than give reasons why armed
conflict might appear an attractive option to a rational leader

• Explanations should show why states are unable to locate an alternative outcome

(Fearson, 1995)
 • Preventive War Argument
• A state's leaders may rationally overestimate their chance of military victory
• Rationally led states may lack information
Fearson’s
Criticism :
However, states can in principle communicate with each other and so avoid a costly
miscalculation of relative power
 • Preventive war as a commitment problem
Preventive • Fearson: A declining state attacks not because it fears

War being attacked in the future, but because of the peace

it might have to accept
Fearson’s three mechanisms

1. Private information & Incentive to

misrepresent
2. Commitment Problems
3. Issue indivisibility
 Economic Modelling
Criticism: Little has been done toward modelling the political
I
economy of conflict.

Political scientists, produced an enormous literature on conflict,

formal theorizing is relatively new

The economists, whose selection and training equip them for such
analysis, have suffered from a "harmonistic bias" that puts the study
of conflict outside their explanatory jurisdiction.

Hirshleifer (1988): Economists and political scientists’ work in the

new field of public choice.
 Economic Modelling
II
Argument: “Individuals, groups, or nations are rarely totally "at war" or
totally "at peace”

• productive activity and appropriative activity

• Steady-state general equilibrium: when the parties interact both

productively and conflictually, yet a steady state is generated

(Hirshleifer, 1988)
THE ANALYTICS OF Peace- The utility of the economic approach to conflict:
Conflict Continuum main themes are
1. the private search for advantage
2. the overall social balance or equilibrium

• Individuals and groups can choose between two

main ways of acquiring income:
• producing economic goods, versus
appropriating

• Individuals and groups must strike a balance

between using resources for peaceful production
or for intrusion and defense against others

(Hirshleifer, 1988)
• Civil wars have gained increasing attention from academics and policy
makers
Economies of Civil
Wars
• Civil wars have resulted much more deaths than wars between states since
World War II

• Research highlights the association between economic conditions and civil

conflict

• The literature does not convincingly establish a causal relationship

• Omitted variables
• government institutional quality
• Economic variables

(Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. and E. Sergenti, 2004)

 GDP Growth & Civil War

Collier & Hoeffler: civil wars are fundamentally driven by economic opportunities rather than by political grievances:
• slow income growth
• low per capita income
• natural resource dependence
• lower male enrollment in secondary education
• rebel military advantages

• Relationship between GDP growth and Civil War

• Data: Armed Conflict Data Database /Uppsala Uni
• GDP growth is significantly negatively related to the incidence of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa
• 5% drop in annual economic growth can increase the likelihood of civil war by 12 %

(Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. and E. Sergenti, 2004)

 “Economic Shocks and Civil
Conflict: An Instrumental
Variables Approach,”

• Variables: rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for

economic growth
• 41 African countries during 1981–99
• The association between economic conditions and civil
war is a causal relationship rather than simply a correlation
• Inter-country differences in the impact of income shocks
on civil conflict
 Opportunity Costs?
Opportunity Costs Argument: Collier and Hoeffler stress the gap between the returns
from taking up arms relative to those from conventional economic activities

Repressive State Capacity: Fearon and Laitin argue that individual opportunity costs
matter less than state military strength and road coverage.
• low national income leads to weaker militaries and worse infrastructure
• lower per capita GDP

Both opportunity cost + repressive state capacity: Miguel et al. (2004):

complementing than competing
 Group Discussion
• Discuss the rationality of war at various levels, e.g. state
level, community/group level, individual level.

• Why do Miquel & Satyanath, S. and E. Sergenti (2004) use

rainfall as a variable to assess the relationship between
income and armed conflict?

• What are endogenous and exogenous factors to a conflict?

References
Fearson, James D 1995, “Rationalist Explanations for War” International Organisations, Summer, 1995, Vol. 49, No. 3
(Summer, 1995), pp. 379-414
Hirshleifer, Jack “The Analytics of Continuing Conflict” Synthese, Aug., 1988, Vol. 76, No. 2, Formal Analysis in International
Relations (Aug., 1988), pp. 201-233
Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” American Polit. Sci. Rev. 97 (March): 75–90.
Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. and E. Sergenti (2004), “Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach,”
Journal of Political Economy 112, 725-753.
Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. 1998. “On Economic Causes of Civil War.” Oxford Econ. Papers 50 (October): 563–73.
Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. 2001. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Policy Research Paper no 355 (May). Washington,
D.C.: World Bank.
Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler 2002. “On the Incidence of Civil War in Africa.” J. Conflict Resolution 46 (February): 13–28.

Haron, James D., and David D. Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” American Polit. Sci. Rev. 97 (March): 75–90.

Jack Hirshleifer, Synthese , Aug., 1988, Vol. 76, No. 2, Formal Analysis in International Relations (Aug., 1988), pp. 201-233
Published by: Springer