International Relations Readings

“Why we will soon miss the Cold War” - John Mearsheimer, 1990

My thesis is this essay is that we are likely soon to regret the passing of the Cold War. We will be
lamenting the loss of the order that the Cold War gave to the anarchy of international relations: a
truly untamed anarchy -Hobbes’s war of all against all-. We had peace in Europe since 1945 thanks
to the bipolar distribution of military power on the Continent: the rough military equality between
the polar powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

-A “Hard” Theory of Peace

Two fundamental causes stand out about the behavior of states; The multipolar distribution of
power in Europe, and the imbalances of strength that often developed among the great powers as
they jostled for supremacy or advantage. Deductively a bipolar system is more peaceful for the
simple reason that under it only two major powers are in contention. This is more likely to produce
a rigid alliance structure. War is statistically more likely in multipolar system than in a bipolar one.
There is a reason that deterrence is more problematic under multipolarity. The resolve of opposing
states and also the size and strength of opposing coalitions are hard to calculate in this geometry
of power. Deterrence is most likely to hold when the costs and risks of going to war are
unambiguously stark. The more horrible the prospect of war, the less likely war is. Nuclear
weapons favor peace on both counts, since they further bolster peace by moving power relations
among states toward equality. The odium attached to these weapons of postwar order has kept
many in the West from recognizing a hard truth: they have kept peace.

Three scenarios of the nuclear future in Europe are possible.

1. The Europe without nuclear weapons scenario
Fashioning this nuclear-free Europe require that Britain, France and the Soviet Union rid
themselves of these talismans of their sovereignty -an improbable eventuality, to say the least.

2. The current ownership scenario

Under this Scenario status quo remains untouched.
3. The nuclear proliferation

This outcome is laden with dangers, but it also might just provide the best hope for maintaining
stability on the continent. A well managed proliferation could produce an order nearly as stable as
that of the Long Peace. The danger, on the other hand, that could arise from mismanaged
proliferation are both profound and numerous. The author is pessimists that a proliferation will be
well-managed. The members of the nuclear club are likely to resist it.

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-Is War Obsolete?

However, each of these “soft” theories of peace is flawed. There is no systematic evidence
demonstrating that Europeans believe war is obsolete. Under liberalism, the more prosperous states
grow, the greater their incentive for further political cooperation. A liberal economic order fosters
economic interdependence, a situation in which states are mutually vulnerable in the economic
realm. The main assumption underpinning it is wrong: states operate in both international political
and international economic environment, and the former dominates the latter when two systems
come into conflict. Interdependence is as likely to lead to a conflict as to cooperation, because
states will struggle to escape the vulnerability that interdependence creates, in order to bolster
their national security.
-Do democracies really love peace?

For multiple historical and logical reasons such as throngs manipulated by religious fervor and the
threat of authoritarian backsliding are arguments against the peaceful version of a democracy.
Lamentably, it is not possible for even liberal democracies to transcend anarchy.

If the Cold War is truly behind us, therefore, the stability of the past forty-five years is not likely
to be seen again in the coming decades.

Division within realists on balance of power

Balance of power useful for deterrence (defensive realism, Waltz). Power a tool. If we have
balance of power, nations don’t dare to attack each other.
Mearsheimer: states go for hegemony rather than just deterrence (offensive as opposed to
defensive realism); only military power matters, so balance of military power important (cold war).

The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory -Kenneth N. Waltz

In developing a theory of international politics, neorealism retains the main tenets of realpolitik,
but means and ends viewed differently, as are causes and effects. For Morgenthau, traditional
realist, the rational statesman is to ever strive to accumulate more and more power. Neorealism
sees power as a possible useful mean (defensive realism). The origins of hot wars lie in cold wars,
and the origins of cold war are found in the anarchic ordering of the international arena. In an
anarchic realm, peace is fragile. In the anarchy of states, the price of inattention or miscalculation
is often paid in blood.

In alliances among equals, the defection of one member threatens the security of the others.
Rigidity of alignment in a two-power world results in more flexibility of strategy and greater
freedom of decision. In a two-power competition, a loss for one is easily taken to be a gain from

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the other. In a multipolar world, dangers are diffused, responsibilities unclear, and definitions of
vital interests easily obscured. Miscalculation is the greater evil (over overreaction) because it is
more likely to permit an unfolding of events that finally threatens the status quo and bring power
to war.
It's in Waltz interpretation that we have a security dilemma: players don’t want power, they seek
security. For their own security states invest on arms, defecting on cooperation, even though the
main purpose remains security. In equilibrium eventually we have less security.

The causes of War -Geoffrey Blainey, 1973

Power is the crux of many explanations of war and peace, but its effects are not agreed upon.
Clausewitz argued that a dominant nation can preserve peace simply by its ability to keep inferior
nations in order. That a lopsided balance of power will promote war is probably the most popular
theory of international relations. Quincy Wright wrote in A Study of War that “the probability of
war will decrease in proportion as the number of states in the system increases”. For Blainey it is
axiomatic that a world possessing seven nations of comparable strength, each of which values its
independence, will be a substantial safeguard against the rise of one world-dominating power.
Decisive wars tended to lead to longer periods of international peace. Indecisive wars, in contrast,
the opposite.
According to that ledger an agreed preponderance of power tends to foster peace. Furthermore,
it is not the actual distribution or balance of power which is vital: it is rather the way in which
national leaders think that power is distributed. War is, indeed, a dispute about the measurement
of power.
Conclusion: For Blainey peace requires clear preponderance of power: Balance invites
expectations and attempts to achieve preponderance, hence war. Moreover, balance of power plus
war may lead to inconclusive or non-decisive war outcomes, leading more likely to new wars.
Information plays an important role in Blainey’s argument: before a war outbreak there is
uncertainty about who is ahead, especially if power is roughly balanced (The chancellor of
Germany Bethmann Hollweg later confessed they had overestimated themselves). It’s not
ambition alone, but a mixture of aims.

Cooperation under the Security Dilemma -Robert Jervis, 1978

Because there are no institutions or authorities that can make and enforce international laws, the
policies of cooperation that will bring rewards if others cooperate may bring disaster if they do
not. This is true, in Rousseau’s “Stag Hunt”. If they all cooperate to trap the stag, they will all eat
well. But if one person defects to chase a rabbit -which he likes less than stag- none of the others

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will get anything. In sum, although actors may know that they seek a common goal, they may not
be able to reach it.
A common concern among states is with direct attack: in order to protect themselves, states seek
to control, or at least to neutralize, areas on their borders. Moreover, many of the means by which
a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others. Indeed, in international politics
one’s state gain in security often inadvertently threatens others.
The prisoner’s dilemma differs from the Stag Hunt in that there is no solution that is in the best
interests of all participants. Prisoner's Dilemma: Focuses on the conflict between individual
incentives and collective benefit, often resulting in a worse outcome if both parties act out of self-
interest. Stag Hunt: Emphasizes the importance of trust and coordination for achieving the best
collective outcome, where both parties need to cooperate to reach a mutually beneficial result.

It is the fear of being exploited that mostly drives the security problem.
Subjective Security Demands: Decisions makers act in terms of the vulnerability they feel, which
can differ from the actual situation. First, even if they agree about the objective situation, people
can differ about how much security they desire or, to put it more precisely, about the price they
are willing to pay to gain increments of security. The second aspect of subjective security is the
perception of threat. A state that is predisposed to see either a specific other state as an adversary
will react more strongly and more quickly than a state that sees its environment as benign.

The security dilemma is insoluble when each state fears that many others, far from coming to its
aid, are likely to join in any attack. Churchill “it is sport to them; it is death to us”. The greater the
costs, the greater the incentives to try cooperation. Mutual cooperation will have a double payoff:
in addition to the direct gains, there will be the satisfaction of seeing the other prosper.
If the costs are high enough so that DD is the last choice for both side the game will shift to
“Chicken”. This game This game differs from the Stag Hunt in that each actor seeks to exploit the
other; it differs from Prisoner's Dilemma in that both actors share an interest in avoiding mutual
non-cooperation. In Chicken, if you think the other side is going to defect, you must cooperate
because, although being exploited (CD) is bad, it is not as bad as a total breakdown (DD).
Conflicts and wars among status-quo powers would be much more common were it not for the fact
that international politics is usually a series of small transactions.
Sometimes policy makers may think that the optimal way to obtain security is actually to strike
first, as the Directory did after the French Revolution.
Concerning nuclear weapons, it is generally agreed that defense is impossible-a triumph not of the
offense, but of deterrence. Attack makes no sense, not because it can be beaten off, but because
the at- tacker will be destroyed in turn.

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The other major variable, and also major ongoing debate about weapons in Ukraine, that affects
how strongly the security dilemma operates is whether weapons and policies that protect the state
also provide the capability for attack. When offensive and defensive postures are different, much
of the uncertainty about the other's intentions that contributes to the security dilemma is removed.
A weapon is either offensive or defensive according to which end of it you are looking at." The
French Foreign Minister agreed (although French policy did not always follow this view): "Every
arm can be employed offensively or defensively in turn. . .

Realism, Game Theory, and Cooperation -Robert Jervis, 1987

Generally, issues arise in particular historical contexts that shape preferences and behavior. The
moves in a game can change it. Chicken can become Prisoner’s dilemma if each side’s behavior
leads the other to believe that being exploited would be worse than mutual defection. How much
of international conflict is caused by the states’ inability to make and enforce binding agreements?

Sources of preferences: By taking preferences as given, we beg what may be the most important
question on how they are formed. Analysis is therefore facilitated, but at the cost of drawing
attention away from areas that may contain much of the explanatory “action” in which we are
interested. Different sources can be traced back though: trade theory, nature of the state and
transnational forces. Preferences also stem from the ideologies and beliefs of individual decision
makers. A state's preferences change as one set of decision makers replaces another. New
information or new beliefs can also lead to preferences for cooperation. Finally, preferences may
be unstable. Because the intellectual problems are great, key decisions are often difficult, and
continued thought may produce shifting evaluations.
Defection and Cooperation: Defection in one instance can produce mutual cooperation over the
longer run. Indeed, one implication of the theorizing about anarchy is that cooperation is enforced
by the possibility of defection.
Power: Usually on an international level power as strength and gains is always more relative than
absolute.
Perceptions, values and self-interest: The final set of problems concerns psychology, beliefs, and
values. In increasing order of conceptual difficulty, the issues are the psychological impediments
to cooperation, the role of values and the autonomy of beliefs, and the question of whether narrow
self-interest can explain most international behavior. Robert Keohane has noted that cooperation
may be explained in part by that people can operate with only bounded rationality; states need to
share norms and principles. It is a central tenet in international politics that people value the
security and well-being of their own state more than they do that of others. The self is defined as
the national self. Why should our attitudes toward others be based on their geographic location
rather than on the values they hold? (Canada -U.S.A example). In Realism, values are generally
taken as unproblematic and constant; they are givens in game-theoretic studies.

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Norms: actors must not only be prepared to punish those who defect, but also to act against those
who fail to punish them. Disproportionate retribution for cheating, called up by anger, can
induce future compliance: "it seems plausible ... that the emotion of guilt has been selected for in
humans partly in order to motivate the cheater to compensate his misdeed and ... thus to prevent
the rupture of reciprocal relationships." Because these emotions may sustain long-run cooperation
more than calculation would. Considerations of morality, fairness, and obligation are almost surely
large parts of the explanation for the fact that individuals in society cooperate much more than the
Prisoners' Dilemma would lead us to expect.
Liberalism and World Politics -Michael W. Doyle, 1986

Liberal states, founded on such individual rights as equality before the law, free speech and other
civil liberties, private property, and elected representation, are fundamentally against war; this
argument (Reagan’s doctrine) asserts. When citizens who bear the burdens of war elect their
governments, wars become allegedly impossible.

Liberal states are different: they are indeed peaceful, yet they are prone to war. This article will
draw the difference between liberal pacifism, liberal imperialism and Kant’s liberal
internationalism.
Liberal Pacifism: Certain characteristics are inherent of the liberal state, such as individual
freedom, political participation, private property and equality of opportunity. Jospeh Schumpeter
clearly believed that democratic capitalism leads to peace. As evidence Schumpeter claims that
throughout the capitalist world an opposition has risen to war and conflict; contemporary
capitalism is associate with peace parties and the industrial worker of capitalism is “vigorously
antiimperialist”. His explanation is quite simple: only war profiteers and military aristocrats gain
from wars. No democracy would pursue a minority interest and tolerate the high costs of
imperialism; consequently when free trade prevails, “no class” gains from forcible expansion. The
discrepancy between the warlike history of liberal states and Schumpeter’s pacifistic expectations
highlights three extreme assumptions.

First, his “materialistic monism” leaves little room for noneconomic objectives. Neither glory, nor
prestige, nor ideological justification, nor the pure power of ruling shapes policy.

Second, the same is true for his states. The political life of individuals seems to have been
homogenized at the same time as the individuals were “rationalized, individualized, and
democratized”. Since citizens seek material welfare, Schumpeter seems to presume that ruling
makes no difference.

Third, like domestic politics, world politics are homogenized. Materially monistic and
democratically capitalist, all states evolve toward free trade and liberty together.

Liberal imperialism: Machiavelli argues, not only that republics are not pacifists, but that they
are the best form of state for imperial expansion. Establishing a republic fit for imperial

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expansion, is moreover, the best way to guarantee the survival of a state. Machiavelli’s republic is
characterized by social equality, popular liberty and political participation, on the basis of the
Roman Republic, for liberty comes from “disunion” and popular veto.
Strength, and the imperial expansion, results from the way liberty encourages increased population
and poverty. Free citizens equip large armies and provide soldiers who fight for public glory and
the common good as it was their own (it actually is). Expansion thus calls for a free republic.
“Necessity, or political survival calls for expansion. There’s more for ourselves than just material
welfare”.
We can conclude either that (1) liberal pacifism has at least taken over with the further development
of capitalist democracy, as Schumpeter predicted it would or that (2) the mixed record of
liberalism—pacifism and imperialism— indicates that some liberal states are Schumpeterian
democracies while others are Machiavellian republics.

Liberal internationalism: Modern liberalism carries with it two legacies.

The first of these legacies is the pacification of foreign relations among liberal states. Liberal states
do exercise peaceful restraint, and a separate peace exists among them. It also offers the promise
of continuing peace among liberal states, and as the number of liberal states increases, it announces
the possibility of global peace this side of the grave or world conquest. We then consider the
possibility that liberals have indeed established a separate peace, but only among themselves.

Second legacy is the international “prudence”. Peaceful restraint only seems to work in liberal’s
relations with other liberals Liberal states have fought numerous wars with nonliberal states. In
the case in which war occurred also between liberal states, we account for miscalculations and
misunderstandings.
Kant argued that republics will progressively establish peace among themselves by mean of the
pacific federation or union, (foedus pacificum), described by the German philosopher in the
Second Definitive Article. Although Kant obliquely refers to various classical interstate
confederations and modern diplomatic congresses, he develops no systematic organizational
embodiment of this treaty and presumably does not find institutionalization. He appears to have in
mind a mutual nonaggression pact, perhaps a collective security agreement. Perpetual peace, for
Kant, is an epistemology, a condition for ethical action, and, most importantly, an explanation of
how the “mechanical process of nature visibly exhibits the purposive plan of producing concord
among men, even against their will and indeed by means of their very discord”. Peace is an ethical
duty because it is only under conditions of peace that all men can treat each other as ends, rather
than means to an end. Kant shows how republics, once established, lead to peaceful relations. He
argues that once the aggressive interests of absolutist monarchies are tamed and the habit of respect
for individual rights engrained by republican government, wars would appear as the disaster to the
people’s welfare that he and the other liberals thought them to be. . . . Yet these domestic republican

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restraints do not end war. They do introduce republican caution—Kant’s “hesitation”—in place
of monarchical caprice.
A separate peace, then, exists among liberal states.

Conclusion: Unlike Machiavelli’s republics, Kant’s republics are capable of achieving peace
among themselves because they exercise democratic caution and are capable of appreciating the
international rights of foreign republics. Unlike Schumpeter’s capitalist democracies, Kant’s
republics—including our own—remain in a state of war with nonrepublics.
Perpetual peace, Kant says, is the end point of the hard journey his republics will take.

Political Bias and War -Jackson and Morelli

They examined how countries’ incentives to go to war depend on the “political bias” of their
pivotal decision makers. This bias is measured by a decision maker’s risk/reward ratio from a war
compared to that of the contry at large.

The ratio of share of benefits from war compared to share of costs for this pivotal agent is thus a
critical determinant of a country’s decisions. We call this ratio “political bias”. If it is close to one,
then the country’s critical decision maker’s relative benefits/costs are similar to the country. If this
ratio is greater than one, then we say that the country leader has a “positive bias”. An unbiased
leader is “representative” of the interests of the country, in the sense he or she sees the same relative
benefits and costs from a war as the country does as a whole. Political bias essentially embodies
anything that might lead to different incentives for the critical decision maker relative to the society
as a whole. For instance, in an authoritarian regime, it may be that a leader can keep a
disproportionate share of the gains from a war.
In general, political bias reflects the different cost/benefit calculation of the agent (the leader or
pivotal decision maker in the government) who bargains on behalf of the principal.
If both countries have unbiased leaders, then war can be avoided, provided the countries can
make transfers and provided they can commit to peace conditional on receiving transfers.
Therefore, wars between democracies are avoided not due to similarity of norms or cultural
affinities, but due to a lack of political bias in the bargaining process. Their model does predict
that two “politically biased” democracies could still go to war with each other if they are each
sufficiently biased. Thus, mutual democracy is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for
peace.

Using political bias as the key driver of war, and assuming a negative correlation between political
bias and the level of democracy, our model provides an explanation of the stylized fact that
democracies tend to win wars against autocracies: ceteris paribus, more biased leaders are willing
to enter conflicts that they have a lower probability of winning.

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Another phenomenon on which their model can shed light is the so-called uneven contenders
paradox (first discussed by Carl von Clausewitz) which refers to situations in which one small or
weak country doesn’t concede or is the initiator of the conflict, even though it expects losses from
a war. In their model, the weaker country can in fact be the aggressor because of the leader’s bias
and or because the probability of winning, or war technology, is not very sensitive to the difference
in power between the two contenders. In other words, “who attacks whom” depends not only on
relative wealth but, crucially, also on their relative bias and on the technology of war.

To partially conclude, in our model it is possible to go to war even though they both have complete
information about the relative likelihood of winning, and despite the fact that they could bargain
and make payments to avoid war and that war burns resources.
The Geography of interstate resource wars -Caselli, Morelli, Rohner

The main predictions of the theory are that conflict is more likely when at least one country has
natural resources, when the resources in the resource-endowed country are closer to the border,
and, in the case where both countries have natural resources, when the resources are located
asymmetrically vis-à-vis the border.

The reasoning is simple: reaching, seizing, and holding on to areas belonging to another country
is progressively more difficult and costly the further away these areas are from the border. The
further an advancing army has to go, the more opportunities the defender has to stop the advance,
the longer and more stretched the supply lines become, the greater the likelihood that the local
population will be hostile, and so on. Therefore, if countries do indeed engage in military
confrontations to seize each other’s mineral reserves, as hypothesized in the case study literature,
they should be relatively more tempted when these reserves are located near the border.
Hence, the presence and geographic distribution of natural resource deposits increases conflict if
it increases payoff asymmetry. Compared to the situation where neither country has oil, the
appearance of oil in one country clearly increases payoff asymmetry: the heightened incentive of
the resource-less country to seek conflict to capture the other’s oil tends to dominate the reduced
conflict incentive of the resource-rich country (which fears losing the oil).
When both countries have oil, conflict is less likely than when only one does, but more likely than
when there is no oil at all.
The more asymmetrically distributed the oil fields are vis-à-vis the border the more likely it is that
two oil-rich countries will enter conflict. The overall message is that asymmetries in endowments
and location of natural resources translate into asymmetries in payoffs and are thus potentially
important determinants of territorial conflict.

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On Economic Interdependence and War -Morelli, Sonno

Copeland’s theory revolves around whether economic interdependence between great powers has
a

significant effect on the probability of conflict between them. It’s a meddle between the liberal and
realist theories. His, proposes an alternative trade-expectations theory: a positive outlook on future
trade and investment reduces the incentives to go to war, while negative expectations problems, a
potential preemptive or preventive war incentive. In Copeland, states are seen as security
maximizers, like in the realist perspective, but security come primarily from commercial power,
which is the liberal component of the theory.
§ Liberal theory: a dependent state, in the welfare maximization logic, has no interest in
starting a war with its trade partner, given the goal of welfare maximization. Hence,
security in the liberal thinking is a byproduct of the fact that both traders refrained from
war for welfare reasons.
§ Realist Theory: for a realist scholar, on the other hand, leaders focus on maximizing the
security of their own state, and with this primary concern in mind, interdependence is
basically a risk factor for war, as it makes the state vulnerable.
§ Neo-Marxist: they assume that capitalist trading states are more likely to start a war in a
peripheral state to find raw materials at a cheap price, an export market for their own goods,
and a place to invest their surplus capital. If neo-Marxists agree with liberal scholars when
they say that capitalistic sectors are driven by material gains, they also implicitly agree
with realism affirming that the need for secure trade and investment ties makes groups
worry about their future control over their economic partners for security reasons.
§ Trade Expectation Theory: states are primarily concerned about security, like realism
theory, but the main driver of security is the expectation of safe commercial power.
Copeland makes the case that trade has always been consistent with the security concern.
Copeland then aims to bridge the gap between the liberal and the realist approaches with a more
dynamic and comprehensive stance.
McDonald proposed an argument in line with Copeland’s: low trade barriers and the fact that the
state-owned firms are a small part of the entire economy constitute a source of positive
expectations and peace (capitalist peace). In this scenario, a state cannot afford to start a military
conflict, both because it will lack the economic resources and because private business interests
will oppose such a decision. On the contrary, the likelihood of an armed conflict is higher with a
protectionist system and a large scale of the economy in the hands of the state.

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Some scholars obtain the prediction that the probability of escalation should be lower for countries
that trade more bilaterally because of the opportunity cost associated with the loss of trade gains.
Countries more open to global trade have a higher probability of war because multilateral trade
openness decreases bilateral dependence to any given country and the cost of a bilateral conflict.

International Relations Theory -Andrew H. Kydd

1.1 International relations theory

We start with a set of postulates and assumptions.

1. States are the most important actors. State actions determine war and peace, and set the
conditions under which economic activity takes place. This makes a theory state centric.
2. States interact in a context of anarchy. This implies that states may fight each other if they
wish, but it also means they cannot make commitments that they do not wish to keep in the
future.
3. States are rational which means that they make decisions based on their evaluations of
consequences of their actions
Rational choice theorists are, therefore, interested in optimization or the mathematical problem of
selecting the value of a variable that maximizes the value of a function. Conflict is usually
associated with inefficiency and cooperation with efficiency.
There are five main explanations of inefficiency in international relations articulated by
Fearon(1995):
1. Indivisible Goods: if states simply do not value intermediate compromise solutions highly,
each side prefers to take a chance on getting all or nothing.
2. Private information: people operate with different beliefs, which may prevent them from
coming to agreement in bargaining situations. Mistrust. The parties will then have difficulty
overcoming their uncertainty and may fail to cooperate.
3. Changing power: if a state fears it will lose power in the future and wishes to attack while
it is stronger rather than allow itself to decline and then have to make the concessions from
a position of weakness. This is the logic of preventive war. This issue is often referred to
as the “commitment problem”
4. Monitoring problems: if a state cannot immediately detect efforts to exploit them and so
fail to cooperate because it makes them vulnerable to exploitation. If states were able to
perfectly monitor each other’s behavior, there would be no such thing as surprise.
5. Impatience: when there are short-term temptations to exploit the other side, states can still
cooperate if they value future payoffs sufficiently. The “shadow of the future” can keep
states cooperating only if they care about the future.

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Mismatch Theory in General -Morelli

In the context of war and conflict, mismatch theory suggests that wars are more likely to occur
when there is a significant discrepancy between a country’s actual power and its status or
influence in the international system. This mismatch creates tensions, as powerful nations may
feel they are being unfairly constrained or disrespected, while declining powers may try to hold
onto their status despite losing relative strength. In short, mismatch theory in this context implies
that wars can happen when there is a gap between how powerful countries are and how much
power they are actually allowed to wield in the international system.

Let the military strength of A and B be MA and MB respectively, and let m ≡ MA/MA+MB .
Let the relative political-economic power of A be denoted by p.

So, if A does not attack, they keep a fraction p of the valuable resources, whereas if A attacks A
wins the cake with probability m.

Attacking has a cost c.

Attacking yields expected payoff m − c while not attacking yields p, hence attack if (m − p) > c.
So, if c comes from a distribution F, probability of war = F (m − p), increasing in mismatch.
So what matters is not whether military power is balanced or not; what matters is not whether
political-economic power are balanced or not; what matters is whether one player has a particularly
high mismatch – for example coming from resource asymmetries.
Relationship between mismatch and interdependence
Between country A and country B, for any given mismatch, an increase in BD should reduce the
likelihood of war, for the usual opportunity cost reasons. On the other hand, looking inside a single
country (say country A) the effect may go the other way: for any given mismatch between the
powers of one group and another in country A, an increase in total gains from trade internationally
may increase the probability of a civil war.

Genocide and Mass killing Risk and Prevention -Esteban, Morelli et al.
Abstract; They apply constrained optimization models to the study of a regime’s decision to
initiate genocide or mass killing (GMK) and to “optimal” techniques of mass atrocities. Moreover,
they will introduce the “bleakness theorem”.
Introduction; Is mass killing a ruler’s direct objective, an end, or is it an outcome that emerges
when alternative means of inflicting harm are considered “too expensive” relative to the cost of
mass killing? Under what conditions would destruction of the out-group be seen as necessary and,
if feasible, what would be the most cost-effective way to destroy the out-group? Posed this way,

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mass atrocities do not “just happen”. Instead, they result from and are carried out according to the
in-group’s assessment of the benefits and costs of such
choices relative to alternative means of achieving in-
groups objectives.
To the “neoclassical” economic theorist, the
techniques identified by Lemkin and other genocide
scholars are inputs input a victim group’s destruction.
A baseline Model: When is GMK an Optimal choice?
Assume that this ruling group has a well-defined
objective such as defending, maintaining, or
expanding political or territorial power and this
objective is perceived to be under severe threat from
an unarmed out-group of a given size, which we generally call “rebels”.

Imagine that we Imagine that we are the leaders of

an in-group regime that perceives a serious threat to
our control of the state. If we lose control we might
be incarcerated and executed. In short, we perceive
an “existential threat” (Mayersen).
In this threatening environment, our options for
achieving control have been narrowed to fighting or
threatening to fight rebels, R, or attacking civilians,
C. Note that R and C are not ENDS but MEANS of
achieving control (Q). We also assume that there is
an average price to be paid from one’s resources per
unit of rebels contested—one unit is one rebel or a
battalion of rebels—and this is labeled as Pr. Similarly, an average price is expended per unit of
civilians to be killed (Pc).

Where f(R,C) stands for the production function in which the elimination of rebels or civilians, or
both, are needed to produce maximum control, Q. The production function assumes that the in-
group has only one output and two inputs.

Solutions;
In panel (a), such an optimum occurs at a point where the in-group chooses to allocate all resources
to only contest rebels and none to kill civilians (called a corner solution). The choice for R is R*>0
and for C it is C* = 0, where the asterisk (*) indicates “optimal,” the maximum achievable in light
of the available resources.

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 Panel (b) depicts a decidedly different outcome
in which the in-group’s optimal choice is an
interior solution such that it allocates some of its
resources to contesting rebels (R*>0) and some
to killing civilians (C*>0). When C* is very
much larger than zero, a mass killing occurs. Put
differently, when in the pursuit of the control
objective it is cheaper to contest rebels than it is
to kill civilians, then the reasonable (“rational”)
choice is to pursue rebels alone. But if it becomes sufficiently cheap to kill civilians, given the
objective of maximizing control, the in-group will be predicted to pursue them in addition to the
out-group’s rebel forces.
If the unit price of killing civilians, Pc, is relatively low in terms of overall resource expenditure,
the resource line will rotate toward C, leading to an increase in the amount of civilian killing. This
inverse relationship between the price of killing civilians and the number of civilians killed is an
example of economists’ law of demand applied to GMK. Specifically, the cheaper it is to kill
civilians, the greater the amount of killing demanded, everything else the same.
Tools of genocide and mass killing prevention; Following scholars who have applied such models
to terrorism they highlight three classes of GMK prevention policy: 1) resource policies, 2)
productivity (or isoquant) policies and 3) price policies.
1. An example of a resource policy is shown in panel (a) Given a decline in the in-group’s
resources, it will decrease its demand for civilian killing from C* to C*’ assuming C is a
normal input. Policies that might reduce the in-group’s resources include asset freezes and
embargoes.
2. The second category is productivity (or isoquant) policy. As noted, when isoquants are
relatively at (more horizontal), the model tends toward a corner solution in which the in-
group only contests rebels and there is no civilian killing (C* = 0). When the isoquants
become steeper (more vertical), they begin to “roll down” the resource line leading to an
interior solution in which civilian killing now occurs (C*>0). Thus, in panel (b), as
isoquants become steeper, civilian killing increases from C* = 0 to C*’ to C*’’. Steeper
isoquants occur when there is an increase in the productivity of killing civilians relative to
the productivity of contesting rebels. Hence, policies that make attacking civilians less
productive (e.g., safe havens) and contesting rebels more productive will tilt the isoquants
toward the corner solution in which killing civilians is not chosen.
3. The third policy category is price policy, which can be broken into two categories: (1)
increases in Pc and changes in Pr. Examples of policies that increase Pc are third-party on-
the-ground (defensive) protection of vulnerable civilians; the increase in Pc causes the

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 resource line to rotate inward along the C axis
(the same resources expended at higher cost
reduce the killing, C* falls, all else—especially
killing productivity—being equal).

High Genocidal input substitution possibilities

in a constrained optimization model;

These are designated by I (as in section 6.3). It also has many inputs with which to achieve out-
group destruction such as direct killing (K), cutting the out-group’s means of physical existence,
such as starvation (S), work-to-death enslavement (E), and coercive relocation (R). To keep the
exposition simple, assume the in-group uses only two inputs: direct killing (K) and starvation (S).
There is an average price per unit of victims directly killed, Pk (e.g., a soldier’s time, a rearm, and
a bullet), and a price per unit of civilians starved, Ps (e.g., the cost of restricting a victim’s access
to food).
The bleakness theorem; There’s a policy
dilemma, namely, efforts to restrict what
a genocidal regime can do along one or
several dimensions will not stop a
determined in-group from working
around such efforts. What if the inputs
were a dozen? In that case, the in-group’s
ability to substitute across inputs to
achieve its genocidal objective would be
rendered easier, and the challenge of
civilian protection would be rendered
more difficult.

We characterize the possible

ineffectiveness of GMK intervention of
the previous paragraph in a qualitative
manner as a “bleakness theorem.” What we mean is that when an in-group has numerous possible
inputs (perhaps dozens) to achieve what it deems to be desirable attributes from GMK, piecemeal
protection policies along just one or a few dimensions will have relatively little overall effect, and
sometimes no effect, in protecting the out-group.

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Behavioral economics; reference point dependence and loss aversion—to show why the
establishment of high repression as a reference point makes it even more di16cult (i.e., pricey) to
dislodge than standard constrained optimization theory would already predict.
Tragically, previous repression can serve to lock in and even expand
repression over time owing to human tendencies toward reference dependence and loss aversion.
Policies that attempt to take away an in-group’s ability to repress its own citizens will be framed
as a loss, assuming everything else is unchanged, and loss aversion will cause the in-group to
magnify the cost of that loss beyond what the standard constrained optimization model would
predict.

A possible solution: moving a repressive state to non-repression is not a one-o16 policy but one
that can generate a stream of peace dividends year-by-year as accommodation becomes a new and
self-reinforcing norm.

Power in the Pipeline -Gallea, Morelli, Rohner

Abstract; This paper provides the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the role of natural gas
for the domestic and international distribution of power.
Overall, the main findings reinforce the notion that fossil fuels are not just poison for the
environment but also for political pluralism and healthy regime turnover.
Introduction; Gas markets and their political consequences could not be more topical and timely
in current geopolitics. Indeed, a key characteristic of natural gas is that it is much cheaper to
transport through pipelines than with any alternative technology. This gives key strategic power
to central nodes in the pipeline network, whereas for oil it is easier to substitute supplier and
intermediaries.
There are various reasons to think that in countries occupying a central node in the network of
international gas pipelines it is easier for a given regime to cling to power. First of all, key players
on the gas market may be able to escape some types of international sanctions, and lower
international scrutiny may fuel regime survival. Second, being a key intermediary in the world gas
trade is lucrative and may allow politicians to corrupt or weaken oppositions and hollow out
institutions.

Increases in gas centrality have led on average, to a lower frequency of sanctions against such
more central countries. Moreover, while trade of oil takes place using tanker ships crossing the
oceans, gas trade in contrast relies predominantly on a network of gas pipelines, hence making
transport of gas via pipelines much cheaper.

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Discussion; Positive changes in centrality of a country in the gas trade network determine higher
probability of regime survival, and such a leader durability effect does not seem to come from the
overall greater economic opportunities.
In a nutshell, gas centrality does not seem to increase the total welfare of the country but rather
has a significant effect on the consolidation of power by the leaders, with internal and external
mechanisms working in the same direction.
Lecture: Overall, availability of oil and gas could lead to corruption and desire of unlimited power.
Being central in the “betweenness-centrality” sense, in the gas market has a significant impact on
the stability of its regime. Their intuition is that it could be that if being at power is very lucrative,
there are a lot of internal conflicts. The intermediary has several dependent countries. A change
towards pure democracy would be ostracized.

Three possible sources of regime durability of gas central countries:

1. Reluctance of dependent countries to impose sanctions;
2. Stronger incentives to reduce democratic internal cooperation;
3. More central countries do better economically à lower internal pressure to change.
We find strong evidence for the first, weak evidence for the second, no support for the third.

Resource concentration and civil Wars -Morelli, Rohner

Abstract; They find that civil wars should be expected to take place more frequently when the
homeland of a concentrated minority group is particularly resource rich.

Two things seem to matter in general for civil war incentives: balance of control on resources.
When trying to resolve a conflict between two groups over control of resources, one difficulty is
that the relative strength of the two groups may differ from the relative wealth of natural resources
of the territories they occupy.
If an ethnic group is particularly influential for the government of a country but another group has
an important presence (in terms of population size and rootage to the territory) in a region of the
country that is particularly rich in terms of natural resources, the tensions between the two criteria
of surplus sharing mentioned above are maximized, and are exacerbated by the fact that the two
groups have access to different threats: the powerful group controlling government forces should
typically be stronger in a nationwide ethnic conflict, but the minority group could sustain the
secession threat with guerilla war and focus its lower total strength on the defense of the area where
it is locally stronger. They modeled these tensions in the following way: in a country divided into
two regions and populated by two major groups, they assume that the nationwide group has a
realistic offensive advantage when starting a nationwide conflict, while minority group mostly

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concentrated in one region has a probability of winning in a secessionist civil war that exceeds the
probability of winning nationwidely.
There are indeed many case where, when the presence of a concentrated ethnic group coincides
with large natural resource abundance concentrated in its region, the concentrated minority group
could be financially better off if it were independent and may under some conditions have
incentives to start secessionist rebellion.
Comments
Resource sharing to groups may strengthen group identities and salience of group identities, as
much as representation quotas for ethnic groups, even if well motivated.
Better perhaps to focus on equal individual access to public services and resource windfalls
eliminating any ethnic group condition.
In an ethnic voting democracy, we should expect lower mismatch for each group, and a
government could require presence of at least majority of groups deciding, hence confrontation
remains between government coalition of groups and main opposition group. In autocracies instead
one group may have power and multiple opposition groups may exist and threaten to form
coalitions, creating more internal conflicts due to the related additional uncertainty and multilateral
interests.
So, if ethnicity is salient democracy better than autocracy for peace chances in general, but even
better would be to move away from ethnic politics, moving to standard politics without salience
of groups.

Groupthink and the Gulf Crisis -Steve A. Yetiv

“Groupthink” refers to a situation in which decision-makers seek to achieve a concurrence among
group members more than to make calculated, carefully considered decisions.
The theory of Groupthinking developed by Irving Janis remains highly influential in explaining
how groups make decisions.

Janis’s theory examines small elite groups at critical junctures in the foreign policy process,
although the theory is of cross-disciplinary salience. According to Janis, groupthink is a
concurrence-seeking tendency that develops particularly at an early decision-making stage.
In such a group, ‘the members’ striving for unanimity override[s] their motivation to realistically
appraise alternative courses of action. As Janis points out, when ‘groupthink dominates,
suppression of deviant thoughts takes the form of each person’s deciding that his misgivings are
not relevant, that the benefit of any doubt should be given to the group consensus’. As a result,
individuals hesitate to dissent, and conflict avoidance becomes a norm.

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Groupthink is most likely to occur in groups that are cohesive or, in other words, exhibit a high
level of amiability and esprit de corps among their members. But while high cohesiveness is
necessary for groupthink to occur, it is not sufficient. Rather, four structural conditions also play a
crucial role. They are (1) group insulation from outside sources of information and opinion that
could challenge group beliefs; (2) a lack of tradition of impartial leadership; (3) lack of norms
requiring methodical decision-making procedures for considering evidence and alternative
options; and (4) homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology. These conditions
increase the likelihood of groupthink because they predispose group members to believe that
before all alternatives have been carefully weighed, a prevailing course of action has developed
that they should support. The conditions represent ‘the absence of a potential source of
organizational constraint that could help to prevent the members of a cohesive policy-making
group from developing a norm of indulging in uncritical conformity.
International Relations with Platini
Mass killings with Umberto Platini, le joueur de foot
Mass killing: the intentional killing of a significant number of the members of any group of
noncombatants (as the group and its membership are defined by the perpetrator).
Genocide: acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group.

Traditional explanations focus on societal cleavages and dehumanization. Mass killings are the
result of societal cleavages and hatred.

Problem on selecting on the dependent variable. Many more instances of hatred toward other
groups did not lead to mass killings. Mass killings in China, Cambodia, USSR, Algeria targeted
people of similar groups without a history of long-lasting hatred.

1. Why leaders order mass killings (strategic logic of mass killings)

Leaders order mass killings when they might be beneficial.

- Groupthink issues.
Definitions:

• Coercion: threat to inflect pain on target if target does not accede to demands
• Strategic bombing: deliberate use of aerial attacks against the enemy’s military, industrial,
and civilian infrastructure to weaken its ability to wage war
• Contrast with tactical bombing, which focuses on specific military targets.
In long devastating conflicts, leaders sometimes resort to mass killings when they find victory to
be unattainable using other means. Particularly, countries may use strategic bombing to coerce
enemy:

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1. Break morale of population or get them to rebel against their leaders

If anything it galvanizes victims, it strengthens the population cohesion. At worst it produces

apathy and anger. Government propaganda uses this to demonize enemy.

2. Destroy infrastructure and degrade economic and military output

Does not destroy ammos basically; army economies have been particularly resilient. It affects
citizens much earlier than government.

3. Decapitation/kill the leadership

High-ranked are often protected underground or isolated places.
Groupthink
Janis Irving: a psychological phenomenon where the desire for consensus and cohesion leads
a group to make poor decisions by suppressing dissent and ignoring alternatives.

Organizational features

Structural elements: Insulation of the Group, lack of tradition of impartial leadership, lack of
norms requiring methodical procedures, homogeneity of member’s social background.

Triggering elements: High stress, low hope of a better solution, low self-
esteem/insecurity/political uncertainty.
Symptoms of groupthink:
Overestimation of the group: illusion of invulnerability (overconfidence of one own means).
Belief in inherent morality of the group (translating policy decisions on ethical or moral
grounds that leave little space to the alternatives).
Closed-mindedness: collective rationalizations (encapsulating that issue at hand on larger
frames of understanding that are common in the group, i.e. fight against communism),
stereotypes of out-groups (bidimensional and simplistic view of the enemy).
Symptoms of defective decision-making:
- Incomplete survey of alternatives
- Incomplete survey of objectives
- Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
- Failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives
- Poor information search
- Selective bias in processing information at hand
- Failure to work out contingency plans

Illusion of Invulnerability:

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• The group was excessively optimistic about the success of the operation. Members believed
that the invasion would trigger a mass uprising against Castro and that the plan would unfold
without serious complications.
• Belief in the Inherent Morality of the Group: The decision-makers believed that their
cause—overthrowing a communist government in Cuba—was morally justified. This
made them overlook the ethical and strategic implications of intervening militarily in another
sovereign country, particularly given the potential for civilian casualties and international
condemnation.
• Stereotyped Views of Out-Groups: The U.S. leadership stereotyped Castro and his
regime as weak and easily overthrown. They underestimated the Cuban military’s capacity.
The reasons behind the failure:
- Flawed planning: no contingency plan in place for the unsuccess of ground invasion
- Lack of critical debate: the group did not thoroughly examine whether non-military options,
such as diplomatic pressure or covert actions
- Overreliance on air support: When the bombing campaign was scaled back for fear of
provoking the Soviet Union, it severely weakened the invasion's chances of success.
- Misreading of the Cuban public sentiment: The US did not realize the widespread popularity
of Castro’s regime, and its ability to mobilize support.

Groupthink and Vietnam

Before 1964, U.S. military involvement was limited to providing aid and advisors to the South
Vietnamese government. As the Viet Cong insurgency and North Vietnamese support for the
communist forces grew, the U.S. faced increasing pressure for greater intervention

• After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident 1964 President Johnson acquired authority to escalate U.S.
military involvement without a formal declaration of war.

• Massive buildup of U.S. troops, along with bombing campaigns like Operation Rolling Thunder.
• Despite increasing military commitments, the U.S. was unable to achieve a decisive victory
• Janis argues that the Vietnam case contains significant elements of groupthinking
Illusion of Invulnerability: Overconfidence in the ability of the U.S. military to achieve victory.
Key decision-makers believed that the U.S. could win the war through sheer military force.

• Collective Rationalization: Domino theory assumed that if Vietnam were allowed to be

communist, communism would have spread all over (self-fulfilling prophecy that allows for
escalation)

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Belief in the Inherent Morality of the Group: Need to contain communism.

Stereotyped Views of Out-Groups: The Johnson administration largely viewed North Vietnam
as a puppet of the Soviet Union and China, ignoring the strong nationalist motivations.

Pressure on dissenters: George Ball, one of the few high-ranking officials who consistently
opposed the escalation of the war, was marginalized in discussions.
Groupthink and the Gulf Crisis

Elements of group thinking during the gulf crisis:

• Stereotyped views of Saddam Hussein and his regime. Saddam was seen as an irrational and
unpredictable actor. Closed path towards negotiations.
• The growing momentum toward military action likely discouraged some individuals from
expressing their doubts about the potential risks and long-term consequences of war.

• Unchallenged the determination of the President for a military solution

• NSA advisor Scowcroft's strong alignment with the president’s views and his commitment to
maintaining group cohesion may have prevented deeper exploration of diplomatic alternatives.

• President Bush’s experience in several diplomatic posts, the job as CIA director and the years
as a high-level official in Washington were instrumental in gathering a large consensus in the
international community
• Colin Powell’s stress on the security of US military personnel allowed for a prudent and over
capable deployment of forces.
• Unexpected fragility of Iraqi forces

Individuals committing atrocities

Average can become perpetrators of atrocious crimes when embedded in structure that normalizes
the need for elimination of a target group. Societal and organizational structures assign values to
individuals. Rejecting the values in a totalitarian society which assigns sub-human worth to groups
of individuals can require cognitive, cultural and emotional means that are beyond the endowment
of the average person. (do you agree? Yes) It is necessary to build resilient cultures against values
that allow for the enactment of violence.

The Yemeni Conflicts: A Mismatch Theory Interpretation -Cambrini

With respect to Yemen, we argue that the two ongoing conflicts were driven by the mismatch
between the military and the economic power of the Houthis in the centrist civil war of the
separatists, vis-à-vis the central government.

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Literature: Gurr stated through his theory of relative deprivation that collective action is the
consequence of unfulfilled aspirations, that is the discrepancy between what goods and conditions
of life people think they are entitled to and the ones they can actually achieve. Collier and Hoeffler
claim that based on the Gini coefficient measuring income distribution among individuals, the
economic grievance motive does not predict the incidence of rebellion. In their analysis, Collier
and Hoeffler categorize economic inequality as a type of grievance together with ethnic and
religious divisions, as well as political repression and exclusion. They conclude that overall, the
grievance model does not provide a powerful explanation of civil war onset. They find instead that
economic and military variables related to the opportunity to stage a rebellion. Langer (2008)
highlights how the political exclusion of a group’s elite represents a necessary condition for the
same group’s socioeconomic disadvantage to determine conflict breakout.
Mismatch definition: the difference between a player’s relative strength and its relative political-
economic power.
Populism and War -Mattozzi, Morelli, Nakaguma
The rise of populism may lead to profound global repercussions, particularly in the areas of
international trade and security. Their analysis shows that protectionism, and the associated
reduction in the gains from trade due to a populist taking office in a superpower, unambiguously
increase the risk of civil conflict. Intuitively, a reduction in the gains from trade, and the resulting
reduction in the size of the domestic distributable surplus, leads governments in ethnically divided
societies to renegotiate their “social contract”.
Interestingly, when countries are asymmetric, a reduction in domestic output leads to more wars
if the negative shock disproportionately affects the ex-ante more aggressive and militarily more
powerful country.
Proposition 1: Under assumptions guaranteeing interior solution, a reduction in W due to e.g. to
a protectionism shock causes both a reduction in the concessions made to rebels – and hence to
higher inequality- and an increase in the probability of conflict. Therefore, Morelli’s analysis
suggests that the election of a committed populist in a superpower spreads inequality around the
world and raises the likelihood of civil wars in divided societies.

Proposition 2: Populism in the form of protectionism and disengagement raises the likelihood of
civil wars in ethnically divided societies. Furthermore, if the super power had been engaged on the
rebels side, populism exports inequality through both channels.

General Theory and evidence on populism

- Trust being very low implies demand for simple and monitorable commitments; but
conditional on choosing to supply a simple policy commitment: the strategy of anti-elite
rhetoric is a clear complementary strategy, together with anti-media, anti-bureaucracy, anti-

23
 judiciary… because such agencies of restraint can reduce the probability of completion of the
commitments made.
- Evidence of impact of distrust on more commitment and more anti-elite rhetoric in US data.
Nationalism v Globalism dimension
Many scholars find that nationalism v globalism cleavage is becoming the dominant one, whereas
in the past it was mostly left-right
The emergence and increasing relevance of the global v national dimension is not exogenous:

- New and some old parties decide to pander offering more protection from immigrants and
global competition.
- Strategic choice by right-wing parties to emphasize the external threats, in order to attract some
of the poor and economically insecure who otherwise on the economic dimension would go
left.
- Moving towards nationalism helps the rich because distracts the people from asking more
redistribution.

Consequences for international relations

Anti-elite rhetoric and focus on globalization and immigration fears change the salience of such
policy dimensions in people voting decisions.
As a result, if populists win they are expected to close markets, close borders, America first,
disengagement from “luxury” international affairs.
Big risks:

- Trade war (Which was problematic before WWII).

- Humanitarian crises and war of civilizations.
- More conflicts due to strategic disengagement of super-powers.

Populism is a strategy that uses external threats to acquire public approval.

Populist rulers in economic superpowers have important effects on international relations conflict
risk, and inequality.
Introduction
America first commitment will affect exporting countries almost everywhere, causing reduction of
divisible surplus within each such country. If the distribution of political and economic power of
different groups, government and opposition groups in particular, is fixed, then such a reduction
of the cake should imply a decrease of greed incentives.

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However, we show that when groups in power can alter the social contract, they react to lower
divisible surplus with a cut of share for opposition groups, à greater inequality if the revision is
accepted or conflict otherwise.
Strategic disengagement also contributes to strengthen the position of governments in ethnically
divided countries.

Summary effects for interstate level

For interstate wars protectionism creates conflict risks with similar intuition as in liberal theory,
but they show that the risk of interstate wars goes up in symmetric country pairs and in pairs where
the stronger country militarily is the one suffering the most from the cut in global trades.
Civil wars
Government g reacts to change in distributable surplus W by offering a new share x to the
opposition group r, under uncertainty about the cost of war for r . The timing of the events is as
follows. First, the government chooses a concession level x > 0 under uncertainty about the cost
of war for the rebels, cR. Then, the rebels observe the realization of cR and, upon receiving the
government’s offer, decide whether to accept or reject it. If the offer is rejected, a civil war ensues.

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