Showing papers in "International Studies Quarterly in 2009"

Why Do Soldiers Rape? Masculinity, Violence, and Sexuality in the Armed Forces in the Congo (DRC)

Abstract: This article explores the ways soldiers in the Congo speak about the massive amount of rape committed by the armed forces in the recent war in the DRC. It focuses on the reasons that the soldiers give to why rape occurs. It discusses how the soldiers distinguish between “lust rapes” and “evil rapes” and argues that their explanations of rape must be understood in relation to notions of different (impossible) masculinities. Ultimately, through reading the soldiers’ words, we can glimpse the logics—arguably informed by the increasingly globalized context of soldiering—through which rape becomes possible, and even “normalized” in particular warscapes.

Digital Disaster, Cyber Security, and the Copenhagen School

Abstract: This article is devoted to an analysis of cyber security, a concept that arrived on the post-Cold War agenda in response to a mixture of technological innovations and changing geopolitical conditions. Adopting the framework of securitization theory, the article theorizes cyber security as a distinct sector with a particular constellation of threats and referent objects. It is held that “network security” and “individual security” are significant referent objects, but that their political importance arises from connections to the collective referent objects of “the state,”“society,”“the nation,” and “the economy.” These referent objects are articulated as threatened through three distinct forms of securitizations: hypersecuritization, everyday security practices, and technifications. The applicability of the theoretical framework is then shown through a case-study of what has been labeled the first war in cyber space against Estonian public and commercial institutions in 2007.

Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation

Abstract: Democratic and autocratic states routinely violate their international agreements protecting human rights. Scholars typically link ratification and compliance behavior theoretically but test their models separately; however, if the behaviors are jointly determined then we should treat them that way empirically. We consider how domestic judiciaries influence the joint choice to ratify and comply with international human rights regimes. Using data on the ratification status of states under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), states’ torture practices, and a series of measures of judicial effectiveness, we examine whether legal institutions are likely to constrain state behavior and by implication raise the costs of ratification.

Fostering Peace After Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design

Abstract: Lasting peace after civil war is difficult to establish. One promising way to ensure durable peace is by carefully designing civil war settlements. We use a single theoretical model to integrate existing work on civil war agreement design and to identify additional agreement provisions that should be particularly successful at bringing about enduring peace. We make use of the bargaining model of war which points to commitment problems as a central explanation for civil war. We argue that two types of provisions should mitigate commitment problems: fear-reducing and cost-increasing provisions. Fear-reducing provisions such as third-party guarantees and power-sharing alleviate the belligerents’ concerns about opportunism by the other side. Provisions such as the separation of forces make the resumption of hostilities undesirable by increasing the costs of further fighting. Using newly expanded data on civil war agreements between 1945 and 2005, we demonstrate that cost-increasing provisions indeed reduce the chance of civil war recurrence. We also identify political power-sharing as the most promising fear-reducing provision.

Why Should I Believe You? The Costs and Consequences of Bilateral Investment Treaties

Abstract: Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are the primary legal mechanism protecting foreign direct investment (FDI) around the world. BITs are thought to encourage FDI by establishing a broad set of investor’s rights and by allowing investors to sue a host state in an international tribunal if these rights are violated. Perhaps surprisingly, the empirical literature connecting BITs to FDI flows has produced conflicting results. Some papers have found that BITs attract FDI, while others have found no relationship or even that BITs repel FDI. I suggest in this paper that these results stem from statistical models that do not fully capture the causal mechanisms that link BITs to FDI. Extant literature has often suggested that BITs may encourage investment from both protected and unprotected investors, yet the literature has not allowed for a full evaluation of this claim. This paper explores the theoretical underpinnings and empirical implications of an institution that works in these direct and indirect ways, and offers a statistical test that is capable of distinguishing between the two. The results indicate that: (1) BITs attract significant amounts of investment; (2) BITs attract this investment from protected and unprotected investors; and (3) these results are obscured by endogeneity unless corrected for in the statistical model.

Regional Inequalities and Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: The case study literature is ripe with examples of a positive association between inequality and civil war, but systematic country-level studies have largely failed to find a significant relationship. One reason for this discrepancy may be that large-N studies tend to ignore spatial variations in group welfare within countries, although civil wars often take place within limited areas. We address this gap in the literature by applying GIS operations to Demographic and Health Surveys to construct new disaggregated data on welfare and socioeconomic inequalities between and within subnational regions in 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. These measures are coupled with geographical data on the location of conflict zones for the period 1986–2004. We find that conflict onsets are more likely in regions with (1) low levels of education; (2) strong relative deprivation regarding household assets; (3) strong intraregional inequalities; and (4) combined presence of natural resources and relative deprivation.

Why is there no race to the bottom in capital taxation

Abstract: This article explains the absence of a race to the bottom in capital taxation by analyzing fiscal competition under budget rigidities and tax equity constraints (fairness norms). We outline a political economic model of tax competition that treats the outcome of tax competition as one argument in the governments utility function, the others being public expenditure and tax equity. In accordance with previous theoretical research, tax competition tends to cause a reduction in taxes on mobile capital and an increase in the tax rates on relatively immobile labor in our model. Yet, our model predicts that governments do not fully abolish taxes on mobile capital. Instead, the government being least restricted by budget constraints and equity norms cuts tax rates to levels slightly below the lowest tax rates of those countries, in which governments are more constrained, where effective constraints are country size, budget rigidities and fairness norms. Analyzing data from 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries between 1975 and 2004 we find empirical support for the hypotheses derived from our theoretical model.

Multilateral Versus Unilateral Sanctions Reconsidered: A Test Using New Data

Abstract: Policymakers frequently argue that multilateral sanctions are more likely to induce a target state to alter its behavior than are unilateral sanctions. Repeated empirical studies using the familiar Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot data set demonstrate that unilateral sanctions “work” more often than multilateral sanctions, however. In this study, we subject three theoretical explanations for this counterintuitive finding to additional empirical testing utilizing the new Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) data. Somewhat surprisingly, the analyses using these new data support the intuition of policymakers; that is, multilateral sanctions do appear to work more frequently than do unilateral sanctions. Our results do support one theoretical argument, based on spatial models, that we test. This explanation holds that whether multilateral or unilateral sanctions are more effective depends on the number of issues at stake and on whether an international institution is involved. Our analyses provide support for these hypotheses.

Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for Human Rights

Abstract: A main justification for press freedom is that free media will act as a watchdog over the government While we would expect democracies to have free media and autocracies to have government-controlled media, some democracies have government-controlled media, and some autocracies have free media How this mismatch between regime type and media system influences government behavior is a puzzle worth exploring One of the most widely criticized government behaviors is the violation of physical integrity rights The question posed here is, how does media freedom affect government respect for these rights? In this article, I theorize that the relationship between media freedom and government respect for human rights differs, depending on the presence of democratic institutions The findings support my premise Specifically, the influence of media freedom on government respect for human rights is negative for the most autocratic regimes and positive for only the most democratic regimes

Wartime Sexual Violence in Guatemala and Peru

Abstract: This article is a comparative analysis of sexual violence perpetrated by state armed forces during the Guatemalan and Peruvian civil wars. Focusing on the type of violation and the context in which it occurs provides new insights into the motives behind its use in war. It introduces a new data set on sexual violence compiled from truth commission documents and nongovernmental human rights organizations’ reports. The data reveal that members of the state armed forces perpetrated the majority of sexual violations, that rape and gang rape are the most frequent but not the only abuses committed, and that women are the overwhelming majority of victims of sexual violence. Aggregate patterns suggest that state authorities must have known of mass sexual abuse and failed to act in accordance with international law. Moreover, some evidence suggests sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. However, mono-causal models cannot sufficiently account for the variation and complexity in its use. Even within the same conflict, sexual violence can serve multiple functions in different contexts and at different points in time.

Breaking Deadlocks in International Institutional Negotiations: The WTO, Seattle, and Doha

Abstract: Negotiations among members of international institutions often stalemate yet the outcomes vary. Sometimes talks end in impasse and other times in agreement. Several familiar theories are unable to explain the contrast between two prominent outcomes in the World Trade Organization—its 1999 deadlock in Seattle and its 2001 agreement in Doha, Qatar, on an agenda for a new round. Extensive original evidence from these cases documents mechanisms that can tip the negotiation process between impasse and agreement in any institution, not only economic ones. The study illustrates benefits for international relations research of building on the relatively neglected tradition of negotiation analysis, a substantial part of which is outside political science.

Networks of Intergovernmental Organizations and Convergence in Domestic Economic Policies

Abstract: We studied three potential causal mechanisms through which network dynamics of intergovernmental organizations (IGO) might cause convergence in domestic economic policies. First, IGO networks facilitate policy learning by providing relevant information. Second, they encourage policy emulation by creating a sense of affinity among countries that are closely connected by IGO networks. Finally, some powerful IGOs ‘‘coerce’’ their member states to adopt certain policies. We used causal modeling to test the relationships between different types of IGOs (and the causal mechanisms to which they mostly correspond) and policy convergence. The findings demonstrate the important roles played by salient IGOs such as the WTO, the EU, and the OECD, with each of them having a strong converging effect on their member states’ domestic economic policies. More interestingly, we find that the cumulative effects of multiple layers of even the weakest types of IGOs have strong causal effects on states’ domestic policies. Indeed, the shared memberships in IGOs with economic functions and with the minimal level of institutional capacity are not only statistically associated with, but also have converging causal effects on, countries’ domestic policies. This supports the information-driven policy learning mechanism. The emulation mechanism in which IGO networks create a sense of affinity and therefore facilitate policy diffusion and convergence, on the other hand, is not supported by empirical analysis.

Transnational Terror and Human Rights

Abstract: Do terrorist attacks by transnational groups lead governments to restrict human rights? Conventional wisdom holds that governments restrict rights to forestall additional attacks, to more effectively pursue suspected terrorists, and as an excuse to suppress their political opponents. But the logic connecting terrorist attacks to subsequent repression and the empirical research that addresses this issue suffer from important flaws. We analyze pooled data on the human rights behavior of governments from 1981 to 2003. Our key independent variable of interest is transnational terrorist attacks, and the analysis also controls for factors that existing studies have found influence respect for human rights. Repeated terrorist attacks lead governments to engage in more extrajudicial killings and disappearances, but have no discernable influence on government use of torture and of political imprisonment or on empowerment rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. This finding has important implications for how we think about the effects of terrorism and the policy responses of states, non-governmental organizations, and international institutions interested in protecting human rights.

Paradigmatic Faults in International‐Relations Theory

Abstract: American scholars routinely characterize the study of international relations as divided between various Kuhnian “paradigms” or Lakatosian “research programmes.” Although most international relations scholars have abandoned Kuhn's account of scientific continuity and change, many utilize Lakatosian criteria to assess the “progressive” or “degenerative” character of various theories and approaches in the field. We argue that neither specific areas of inquiry (such as the “democratic peace”) nor broader approaches to world politics (such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism) deserve the label of “paradigms” or “research programmes.” As an alternative, we propose mapping the field through Weberian techniques of ideal-typification.

Seeking Escape: The Use of Escape Clauses in International Trade Agreements

Abstract: In agreements that include flexibility enhancing mechanisms such as escape clauses, how do institutions realize the benefits of flexibility while preventing its abuse? The conventional wisdom is that escape clauses must be made costly, but I show this claim to be at odds with empirical observation. In the GATT/WTO, the institution where escape clauses are most prevalent, compensation following escape was only widespread in the 1950s. Since then, it has been progressively abandoned, in favor of appeals to exception. This alternative mechanism relies on an institution's ability to verify the severity and exogeneity of the domestic circumstances of states seeking temporary escape. Relying heavily on GATT archives, I show how early on in the institution, members had made the link between costless escape and increased monitoring, and pursued reforms to achieve both objectives. The success of members’ ability to verify escapees’ domestic circumstances is observed in the record of safeguard disputes throughout the GATT/WTO's history. Finally, I use the hypothesized link between verifiable information and the chosen escape mechanism to explain an otherwise puzzling GATT incident, that of French emergency trade measures in 1968.

Sleeping With Your Friends' Enemies: An Explanation of Sanctions-Busting Trade

Abstract: Research indicates that if third parties provide assistance to sanctioned states, the sanctions are less likely to be successful. However, the scholarship on the profile of sanctions busters and their motivations remains underdeveloped. Drawing on the realist and liberal paradigms, this piece develops two competing theories to account for third-party sanctions-busting. The hypotheses drawn from these theories build upon existing work on sanctions, the political determinants of international trade, and the effects of indirect interstate relationships. A quantitative analysis develops a new measure to identify sanctions-busting behavior for a dataset covering 77 sanctions cases from 1950 to 1990. The liberal and realist explanations are then tested. The results offer strong support for the liberal theory of sanctions-busting and less support for the realist theory. In particular, the analysis reveals a counter-intuitive finding that a sender’s close allies are more likely to sanctions-bust on the target’s behalf than are other states.

Principal‐Agent Problems in Humanitarian Intervention: Moral Hazards, Adverse Selection, and the Commitment Dilemma

Abstract: A number of recent studies have concluded that humanitarian intervention can produce unintended consequences that reduce or completely undermine conflict management efforts. Some analysts have argued that the incentive structure produced by third parties is a form of moral hazard. This paper evaluates the utility of moral hazard theory and a second type of principal-agent problem known as adverse selection. Whereas moral hazards occur when an insured party has an opportunity to take hidden action once a contract is in effect, adverse selection is the result of asymmetric information prior to entering into a contract. Failing to distinguish between these two types of principal-agent problems may lead to policy advice that is irrelevant or potentially harmful. Along with introducing the concept of adverse selection to the debate on humanitarian intervention, this study identifies a commitment dilemma that explains why third parties operating in weakly institutionalized environments may be unable to punish groups that take advantage of intervention.

What Happened to the Idea of World Government

Abstract: What happened to the idea of world government, so central in the United States to public debate of the 1930s and 1940s, and why has it been replaced by ‘‘global governance’’? This article reviews the reasons behind that evolution—the need to incorporate interdependence and nonstate actors into analytical frameworks along with a lack of imagination from analysts—as well as the pluses and minuses of both concepts. When states still could solve or attenuate most problems, world government remained a possible objective and not far from the mainstream. Paradoxically, now that states visibly cannot address a growing number of transboundary threats, world government is unimaginable; and even more robust international organizations are often looked upon askance. Could the same far-sighted American political commitment that created a new generation of international organizations after World War II re-emerge under the Obama administration, if not in 2009, then at least by the end of a second term? Le machin (the thing) is what Charles de Gaulle scornfully called the United Nations (UN), thereby dismissing multilateral cooperation as frivolous in comparison with the real red meat of world politics, national interests and Realpolitik. He conveniently ignored—as many amateur and professional historians have since—that the formal birth of ‘‘the thing’’ was not the signing of the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, but rather the adoption of the ‘‘Declaration by the United Nations’’ in Washington, DC, on January 1, 1942. The same 26 countries of the powerful coalition that defeated Fascism and rescued France also anticipated the formal establishment of a world organization as an essential extension of their war-time commitments. These were not pie-in-the-sky idealists. After the failure of the League of Nations, states did not view the second generation of universal international organizations in the form of the UN system as a liberal plaything to be ignored but rather a vital necessity for post-war order and prosperity. Numerous other politicians and pundits since de Gaulle have made careers by questioning the UN’s relevance and calling for its dismantlement. Mine, in contrast, has revolved around trying to strengthen the world organization. Thus, the 50th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA) in the city that hosts United Nations headquarters provides me with an opportunity to revisit the United Nations from a particular angle: the desperate requirement for a third generation of intergovernmental organizations that * Presidential Address, 50th Convention of the International Studies Association, New York, N.Y., February 16,

Harmonizing the Humanitarian Aid Network: Adaptive Change in a Complex System

Abstract: Humanitarian aid operations save many lives, but they also fail to help many people and can have unintended political consequences. A major reason for the deficit is poor coordination among organizations. In contrast to “lessons learned” studies that dominate the literature on this topic, this article uses systemic network theory, drawn from business management literature. It presents the humanitarian aid community as a complex, open, adaptive system, in which interaction of structure and processes explain the quality of the response to environmental demands. Comparison of aid operations in Rwanda in 1994 and Afghanistan in 2001 probes the argument that the humanitarian system is becoming more effective by developing characteristics of a network through goal-directed behavior of participating organizations. The study finds development of network characteristics in the system when clusters of organizations learn to coordinate more closely, but the system is constrained by the workload of a crisis environment, lack of trust among organizations, and the political interests of donor governments.

A Sectoral Analysis of Human Rights and FDI: Does Industry Type Matter?*

Abstract: While there is a considerable degree of consensus about the economic determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI), the role of socio-political factors has only recently come under scrutiny In this study, we build upon research on one such factor, human rights Specifically, whereas extant research into FDI examines aggregate investment indices, we seek to disaggregate the analysis of FDI to further assess the role of human rights, namely physical integrity rights, in investment decisions As FDI is a heterogeneous enterprise, we posit that the importance of human rights varies in part due to the nature of the industrial sector In particular, two factors that vary across industrial sectors—skill requirements and the degree to which societal acceptance or “social license” is sought—likely increase the salience of human rights concerns in investment decisions To empirically assess these linkages, we analyze US FDI across 10 different sectors We find human rights to be a significant determinant of FDI across sectors that value higher skills and integration within the host society

Openness, Uncertainty, and Social Spending: Implications for the Globalization? Welfare State Debate

Abstract: We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import competition has more severe consequences for perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. In response, government management of openness will be more vigorous under these conditions regardless of whether the leader increases or decreases spending. Economic selection mechanisms at work will produce an outcome wherein, at higher levels of openness, further import liberalization has smaller effects on perceptions of job insecurity and dislocation. Hence, both the demand and the supply of government management of openness will be lower.

From Armed Conflict to War: Ethnic Mobilization and Conflict Intensification*

Abstract: This article presents a new line of inquiry into ethnicity and armed conflict, asking the question: are conflicts in which rebels mobilize along ethnic lines more likely to see intensified violence than nonethnically mobilized conflicts? The article argues that the ascriptive nature of ethnicity eases the identification of potential rebels and facilitates a rebel group’s growth, leading to an increased risk for war. This proposition is empirically tested using a Cox model on all intrastate armed conflicts 1946–2004; the results show that ethnically mobilized armed conflicts have a 92 percent higher risk for intensification to war. In extending the analysis, the study finds that the vast majority of conflicts intensified in the first year, but for every year a low-scale conflict remained active thereafter, the risk of intensification increased, peaking around year 12.

Gender and Negotiation: Some Experimental Findings from an International Negotiation Simulation

Abstract: Increasingly, scholars have taken note of the tendency for women to conceptualize issues such as security, peace, war, and the use of military force in different ways than their male counterparts. These divergent conceptualizations in turn affect the way women interact with the world around them and make decisions. Moreover, research across a variety of fields suggests that providing women a greater voice in international negotiations may bring a fresh outlook to dispute resolution. Using experimental data collected by the GlobalEd Project, this article provides substantial support for hypotheses positing that females generate significantly different processes and outcomes in a negotiation context. These findings occur both in terms of female negotiation behavior and the impact of females as negotiation facilitators/mediators.

Inequality and Human Rights: Who Controls What, When, and How

Abstract: This article tests the empirical relationship between inequality and the protection of personal integrity rights using a cross-national time-series data set for 162 countries for the years 1980–2004. The data comprise measures of land inequality, income inequality, and a combined factor score for personal integrity rights protection, while the analysis controls for additional sets of explanatory variables related to development, political regimes, ethnic composition, and domestic conflict. The analysis shows robust support for the empirical relationship between income inequality and personal integrity rights abuse across the whole sample of countries as well as for distinct subsets, including non-communist countries and non-OECD countries. The hypothesized effect of land inequality is also born out by the data, although its effects are less substantial and less robust across different methods of estimation. Additional variables with explanatory weight include the level of income, democracy, ethnic fragmentation, domestic conflict, and population size. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the results are not due to reverse causation, misspecification or omitted variable bias. The analysis is discussed in the context of inequality and rights abuse in specific country cases and the policy implications of the results are considered in the conclusion.

Politics or the Economy? Domestic Correlates of Dispute Involvement in Developed Democracies

Abstract: Consideration of the effects of domestic politics on international conflict behavior often consists simply of contrasting democracies with non-democracies. One notable exception is work that links economic performance and the use of force. This link has often been addressed through use of a diversionary perspective. In this paper, we argue that more important than the alleged incentive to pursue a rallying effect when times are bad are domestic political and economic factors affecting leaders’ constraints, representing some of the costs to pursuing adventurous foreign policies. We examine three sources of constraints on democratic leaders: the willingness of the constituency to support the use of force internationally; the macroeconomic preferences of the party’s constituency; and an interaction of those preferences with the state of the economy. We find that in developed democracies, the political orientation of the government is a significant factor affecting the likelihood of international conflict initiation. Specifically, right governments are more likely to initiate interstate disputes; economic conditions have a significant but lesser impact.

Identity and Securitization in the Democratic Peace: The United States and the Divergence of Response to India and Iran's Nuclear Programs

Abstract: While almost a decade old, Ted Hopf’s observation that the democratic peace is an observation in search of a theory still holds validity. In particular, the mechanisms behind the democratic peace are poorly understood, making it difficult for scholars to provide a compelling explanation. Underappreciated in the existing work is the role of identity and the importance this has for driving the democratic peace. With a focus on developing a dyadic democratic peace mechanism and using a case study approach, this paper utilizes the Copenhagen School’s securitization framework to examine how identity plays out in the US response to the Indian and Iranian nuclear programs. It finds that in fact identity does play an important role in how security policy is constructed. In policy terms, if the democratic peace does rely on identity to trigger the constraining norms that limit the escalation of conflict to violence, it is unlikely the democratic peace can be spread by force and it is possible that states nominally democratic can be excluded from the community of democracies if their behavior or significant other aspects of their perceived identity are at variance with the accepted democratic identity standard.

Market Structure, Electoral Institutions, and Trade Policy

Abstract: The view that intra-industry trade is politically easier to liberalize than inter-industry trade is widely held and potentially explains key features of the global trading system. This view, however, rests on weak theoretical and empirical foundations. I argue that intra-industry trade can in fact lead to higher protection, but only where electoral institutions privilege narrow protectionist interests. I support this hypothesis with an analysis of trade barriers in 4,400 sectors in 65 countries and an analysis of lobbying in the US. My results imply that scholars should stop invoking intra-industry trade as an explanation for low trade barriers in wealthy countries and advanced manufacturing sectors. They also have important implications for the more general relationship between political institutions, collective action, and policy outcomes.

Changing Economic Openness for Environmental Policy Convergence: When Can Bilateral Trade Agreements Induce Convergence of Environmental Regulation?

Abstract: Citizens’ concerns about (international) environmental protection standards are of increasing importance to governments in industrially advanced, high-regulating countries. In almost any proposal for a trade agreement, countries with low environmental regulation standards are required to introduce higher policy standards in exchange for high-regulating countries dismantling their trade barriers and granting access to their domestic markets. Low-regulating countries often act as required and introduce legislation aimed at reducing pollution. This leads to declaratory or de jure policy convergence. But such legislative action is not always associated with de facto or actual policy convergence, since policies are not always enforced. To analyze the strategic aspect of this potential “slippage,” we set up a game-theoretic model with imperfect information. In the model, a high-regulating and a low-regulating country negotiate a bilateral free trade agreement with environmental provisions. We show how potential gains from trade, policy enforcement, and reputation costs, as well as domestic demands for environmental protection affect the occurrence of environmental policy convergence through conditional trade agreements. This study thereby advances our understanding of the relationship between bilateral trade and convergence of environmental policies.

Public Commitment in Crisis Bargaining

Abstract: The ‘‘audience cost’’ literature argues that highly-resolved leaders can use public threats to credibly signal their resolve in incomplete-information crisis bargaining, thereby overcoming informational asymmetries that lead to war. If democracies are better able to generate audience costs, then audience costs help explain the democratic peace. We use a game-theoretic model to show how public commitments can be used coercively as a source of bargaining leverage, even in a complete-information setting in which they have no signaling role. When both sides use public commitments for bargaining leverage, war becomes an equilibrium outcome. The results provide a rationale for secret negotiations as well as hypotheses about when leaders will claim that the disputed good is indivisible, recognized as a rationalist explanation for war. Claims of indivisibility may just be bargaining tactics to get the other side to make big concessions, and compromise is still possible in equilibrium.

Does Attrition Behavior Help Explain the Duration of Interstate Wars? A Game Theoretic and Empirical Analysis

Abstract: Does attrition behavior, defined as waiting for the other side to give in despite the costs of delay, help explain the duration of interstate wars? To answer this question we develop a war and bargaining model that integrates a dynamic progression of the war and allows the rivals to make offers at any time of their choosing while they fight. The model predicts that, in equilibrium, states choose to fight without making significant offers in the hope that the other side will give in to outstanding demands. The model also predicts that each side’s flow cost of war increases with the probability that the other side gives in to its demands. This is the testable consequence of attrition behavior. Our statistical analysis suggests that both challenger and defender include attrition behavior in their conduct of warfare, and that this behavioral element significantly affects the duration of interstate wars.