We examine the “progressivity” of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's theory of conflict as originally developed in The War Trap and as extended later. Bueno de Mesquita offers the progressivity of the expected utility theory relative to other theories and approaches to conflict as his major defense in responding to critics. Bueno de Mesquita essentially relies on Imre Lakatos' definition of theoretical progress in presenting his argument. A review of the literature addressing the concept of theoretical progress indicates that Bueno de Mesquita's application of Lakatosian criteria is incomplete and that Lakatos' criteria are themselves flawed. We review the philosophy of science literature dealing with theoretical progress or rational criteria for theory choice and evaluate the progressivity of the expected utility theory of conflict in light of criteria other than Lakatos'. While we do recommend further elaboration of Bueno de Mesquita's theory, we do not find it more progressive than its rivals.

In reviewing empirical studies on the causes of war, scholars claim to find evidence of progress. Most reviewers, however, do not present a set of explicitly defined criteria and when they do, their criteria are oftentimes ambiguous and vague. The objective of this study is to provide a set of criteria that are clearly defined and then to apply them in a systematic and objective way to one area of conflict studies: the diffusion of war. To do this, I draw upon criteria taken from the works of Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos and Laudan and re-evaluate the progressiveness of empirical studies addressing war diffusion. The criteria I apply include generality, simplicity, precision, predicting novel information, anticipating results and solving both empirical and conceptual problems. My analysis indicates that there is little evidence of progress on most of these criteria. I suggest that perhaps one reason for declining interest in this area is due to the failure of scholars to view the war diffusion research program as progressive. I also argue that social scientists be more explicit and clear in identifying their evaluative criteria so that their resulting evaluations are more objective and rigorous.

The overarching objective of the original article was to apply a well-defined set of measures in a systematic and objective way to evaluate the extent of scientific progress within a given research program. The measures chosen were identified and defined by major philosophers of science. These measures were then applied to the empirical studies on the diffusion of war. Starr and Siverson claim to find problems in my analysis that undermined the conclusions I reach. This reply argues that each of their claims is unfounded. Moreover, they fail to refute the conclusion that the marginal progressiveness of their program is a significant reason for reduced interest in this topic.

Axiomatic and deductive theorizing about international political conflict has precipitated lively debate. Much of the disputation of recent years has derived from an expected utility theory of conflict advocated by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. In the June 1990 issue of this Review, Roslyn Simowitz and Barry L. Price dissected crucial parts of Bueno de Mesquita's formulation of the theory, arguing that it suffers from errors of logic and clarity. In this controversy, James D. Morrow challenges the claims of Simowitz and Price that the reviewed theory is logically and conceptually flawed. In turn, Price and Simowitz join issue.

No abstract