There is growing debate concerning the nature of causation in political science. In comparative politics and International Relations, scholars are divided by probabilistic, mechanistic, and conditions-based definitions of 'cause.' Moreover, post-positivist approaches to political science increasingly eschew causal analysis altogether. This article argues that the source of these divisions is methodological, not philosophical. Using the example of the Cuban missile crisis, a contrastive, counterfactual approach to causation, where a cause exists when the occurrence of one event rather than another leads to one event rather than another, meets the intuitions and the practice of political scientists engaged in different methodological approaches with different purposes. A contrastive, counterfactual account meets the intuitions of scholars engaged in quantitative and qualitative methods, and captures many of the intuitions guiding debates within qualitative and interpretive methods. By developing a common, unified approach to a key philosophical division, it is easier to identify the differences that matter.

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States rarely declare war. For many international law scholars, just war theorists, and moral philosophers, the declaration of war is a moribund tradition that serves no important purpose. When declarations of war are defended, the argument is situated in the war powers debate about executive authority. In contrast, I argue that declaring war – making conditional and reasoned moral demands – continues to be an important requirement for just wars. States should declare war because states should make explicit (formal) moral demands before fighting. Declaring war is procedurally important because it ensures that a state makes a formal moral case, showing respect to innocent third parties whose interests are affected and providing targets the right to confront their accusers and hear evidence. While not a panacea, requiring declarations is a significant improvement on the ad hoc politics of wartime justification that plagues wars such as Iraq. Further, declarations, as ultimatums, are the only reasonable interpretation of the ‘last resort’ requirement in just war theory. A final section extends the argument to contemporary wars against non-state actors, showing that a politics of recognition underlying declarations of war may prove especially fruitful today.

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