Bruce Russett

Abstract: Triangulating Peace tackles today's most provocative hypothesis in the field of international relations: the democratic peace proposition. Drawing on ideas originally put forth by Immanuel Kant, the authors argue that democracy, economic interdependence, and international mediation can successfully cooperate to significantly reduce the chances of war.

Abstract: Democratic states are in general about as conflict- and war-prone as nondemocracies, but democracies have rarely clashed with one another in violent conflict. We first show that democracy, as well as other factors, accounts for the relative lack of conflict. Then we examine two explanatory models. The normative model suggests that democracies do not fight each other because norms of compromise and cooperation prevent their conflicts of interest from escalating into violent clashes. The structural model asserts that complex political mobilization processes impose institutional constraints on the leaders of two democracies confronting each other to make violent conflict unfeasible. Using different data sets of international conflict and a multiplicity of indicators, we find that (1) democracy, in and of itself, has a consistent and robust negative effect on the likelihood of conflict or escalation in a dyad; (2) both the normative and structural models are supported by the data; and (3) support for the normative model is more robust and consistent.

Abstract: By illuminating the conflict-resolving mechanisms inherent in the relationships between democracies, Bruce Russett explains one of the most promising developments of the modern international system: the striking fact that the democracies that it comprises have almost never fought each otherBy illuminating the conflict-resolving mechanisms inherent in the relationships between democracies, Bruce Russett explains one of the most promising developments of the modern international system: the striking fact that the democracies that it comprises have almost never fought each other

Abstract: Inequality and concentration are central concepts in all the social sciences. Economists study inequalities in the distribution of wealth, income, productivity, or goods. Sociologists may be concerned with social mobility-inequality of opportunity-or with inequalities in living conditions-the degree to which minority groups are concentrated in particular residential areas. A political scientist must be concerned with political inequality-concentrated, unequally distributed power. He may, for instance, need a measure of legislative malapportionment. Though the variables may be different, the basic question is the same: What is the degree to which wealth, or good living conditions, or power, are concentrated in a society? Since the questions are conceptually similar, it is reasonable to expect that the problems of quantification might be similar, and that the tools of measurement developed in one social science might be applicable to studies in another field. Yet there has been little interchange across disciplines, and scholars in each field persist in using techniques which are in some respects inferior to those used other fields. This article examines a number of measures of inequality, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and compares the results given by some of the measures when they were applied to data on representation state legislatures and on land distribution.

Abstract: Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis, our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker--we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow residual across countries. At a deeper level, we document that the differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are driven by differences in institutions and government policies, which we call social infrastructure. We treat social infrastructure as endogenous, determined historically by location and other factors captured in part by language.

Abstract: While heated arguments between practitioners of qualitative and quantitative research have begun to test the very integrity of the social sciences, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba have produced a farsighted and timely book that promises to sharpen and strengthen a wide range of research performed in this field. These leading scholars, each representing diverse academic traditions, have developed a unified approach to valid descriptive and causal inference in qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. Their book demonstrates that the same logic of inference underlies both good quantitative and good qualitative research designs, and their approach applies equally to each. Providing precepts intended to stimulate and discipline thought, the authors explore issues related to framing research questions, measuring the accuracy of data and uncertainty of empirical inferences, discovering causal effects, and generally improving qualitative research. Among the specific topics they address are interpretation and inference, comparative case studies, constructing causal theories, dependent and explanatory variables, the limits of random selection, selection bias, and errors in measurement. Mathematical notation is occasionally used to clarify concepts, but no prior knowledge of mathematics or statistics is assumed. The unified logic of inference that this book explicates will be enormously useful to qualitative researchers of all traditions and substantive fields.

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

Abstract: Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.

Abstract: In the period 1946-2001, there were 225 armed conflicts and 34 of them were active in all of or part of 2001. Armed conflict remains a serious problem in the post-Cold War period. For three decades, the Correlates of War project has served as the main supplier of reliable data used in longitudinal studies of external and internal armed conflict. The COW datasets on war use the relatively high threshold of 1,000 battle-deaths. The Uppsala dataset on armed conflict has a lower threshold, 25 annual battle-deaths, but has so far been available for only the post-Cold War period. This dataset has now been backdated to the end of World War II. This article presents a report on armed conflict based on this backdate as well as another annual update. It presents the procedures for the backdating, as well as trends over time and breakdowns for the type of conflict. It assesses the criteria for measuring armed conflict and discusses some directions for future data collection in this area.