Jumping into the Fray: Alliances, Power, Institutions, and the Timing of Conflict Expansion

Melin, Molly M.; Koch, Michael T.

doi:10.1080/03050620903328696

Cited by 19 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Luxembourg was not included during World War One as COW does not consider Luxembourg to be a member of the state system until 1920. 13 This finding is consistent with research that shows the relationship between alliances and intervention diminishes over time (Joyce, Ghosn, and Bayer 2014;Melin and Koch 2010). power shifts in the COW National Material Capabilities version 4.0 (Singer 1987) between the two primary belligerents prior to the war.…”

Section: Variablessupporting

confidence: 72%

“…From a practical standpoint, the question matters as interstate wars which experience military intervention are longer and deadlier than those that do not (Shirkey 2012b;Slantchev 2004). While substantial progress has been made on which states are more likely to intervene (Altfeld and Bueno de Mesquita 1979;Richardson 1960;Siverson and Starr 1991;Valeriano and Vasquez 2010) 2 and when they are likely to do so (Joyce, Ghosn, and Bayer 2014;Melin and Koch 2010;Shirkey 2009;2012a), far less is known about which wars are likely to draw in outside states. I argue interstate wars caused by commitment problems are more likely to experience military intervention than are wars with other causes.…”

Section: Which Wars Spread? Commitment Problems and Military Intervenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which wars spread? Commitment problems and military intervention

Shirkey

2017

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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This article argues that wars caused by commitment problems are more likely to experience outside military intervention than are wars with other causes. Wars caused by commitment problems are more likely to draw in outside states because they tend to be more severe and produce larger war aims. These larger stakes create both threats and opportunities for non-belligerent states thereby prompting military intervention. The greater stakes also generate incentives for belligerent states to seek outside aid. This relationship between commitment problems and intervention implies that while certain types of wars may be more likely to experience intervention, the same causes can explain both intervention and war initiation. The argument is tested on the Correlates of War Interstate War dataset using logit-based generalized linear models. The findings support the commitment problem hypothesis and have implications for the bargaining framework and for theories about the causes of multilateral and general wars.

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Section: Variablessupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Which Wars Spread? Commitment Problems and Military Intervenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which wars spread? Commitment problems and military intervention

Shirkey

2017

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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“…Actors outside a dispute may play varied roles in ongoing disputes. This paper does not seek to explain outside parties that join as an additional disputant (for research on this topic, see Siverson and Starr 1991; Heldt and Hammarström 2002; Melin and Koch 2010) but instead focuses on third parties that act as conflict managers. Third‐party conflict managers can help disputants deal with the information asymmetries and credible commitment problems that often lead to conflict (Beardsley 2006).…”

Section: A Holistic Approach To Conflict Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of State Relationships on If, When, and How Conflict Management Occurs1

Melin¹

2011

International Studies Quarterly

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This paper examines if, when, and how states act to manage militarized disputes. I argue that the relationship between the third party and disputants, the management history, and the characteristics of the conflict help us understand when management occurs and the management techniques employed. I find substantial evidence that biased third parties are quick to offer management services and to employ economic and diplomatic techniques. Conditions that increase the perceived probability of conflict resolution, such as previous conflict management, and factors that lower the cost of conflict management, such as costly conflict, lead to the timely use of diplomatic and verbal techniques. The findings offer significant contributions to both the conflict management and alliance literatures.In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt met with Russian and Japanese delegates to discuss the Russo-Japanese War, finally mediating after over a year of fighting and an estimated 130,000 casualties (Morris 2001). Conversely, Roosevelt acted immediately when France and Germany collided over the division of Morocco (Roosevelt 1985). While some conflicts, like that between France and Germany, are managed early on, other disputes, such as the Russo-Japanese War, must wait for outside management to occur. Still other conflicts never involve the international community at all. Although the Roosevelt presidency was marked by an active approach to foreign policymaking, 2 the very nature of the foreign policy decision process involves trade-offs, leaving some disputants to resolve differences on their own. Recently, the conflicts of Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sudan continued for prolonged periods without significant intervention despite extensive violence. Why did these conflicts continue while the international community took action in other conflicts before they turned deadly? Is there a systematic explanation of which conflicts receive the interest of outside parties and the timing of conflict management activities? two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The participants of the Journeys in World Politics workshop and members of the Working Group on Conflict Prevention also provided helpful suggestions. Sara McKeever, Andrea Morrison, and Jacob Hogan provided valuable research assistance. The Folke Bernadotte Academy provided financial support for the project.2 Roosevelt saw it as the duty of developed nations to help the underdeveloped world move forward. In Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone, he used the army's medical service to eliminate the menace of the yellow fever and install a new regime of public health. He used the army to build up the infrastructure, building railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrading roads and port facilities.

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“…Second, great powers are more likely to intervene due to their greater ability to influence the outcome of wars and greater logistical capacity (Altfeld and Bueno de Mesquita 1979;Aydin 2012;Findley and Teo 2006;Shirkey 2009;Siverson and Starr 1991). Third, allies of belligerents (Findley and Teo 2006;Joyce, Ghosn, and Bayer 2014;Melin and Koch 2010;Shirkey 2009;Siverson and Starr 1991) and fourth, states with cross border ethnic ties (Khosla 1999;Saideman 1997) are more likely to intervene. While important in illuminating which states intervene, by focusing on time invariant structural variables, these findings tell us little about when intervention is likely to occur.…”

Section: The Gap In Our Understanding Of Military Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joining by Number: Military Intervention in Civil Wars

Shirkey

2016

Civil Wars

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Understanding why and when states militarily intervene in civil wars is crucial. Intervention can increase civil wars' severity and the strategies employed in civil wars are shaped by the possibility of military intervention. This article argues that potential military interveners react to information revealed about warring parties' intentions and relative power. Without revealed information, potential military interveners are unlikely to reconsider their initial decision to remain out of the war. Revealed information causes non-belligerent states to update their expectations about the trajectory of the civil war causing them, at times, to change their calculus about the benefits of belligerency and thus intervene. This helps explain why civil wars spread and when they do so. This explanation is tested using generalized estimating equations on a new dataset of unexpected events for the civil wars in the Correlates of War Intrastate War and PRIO Armed Conflict datasets. States often worry that civil wars, such as the ongoing Syrian conflict, will draw in outside military forces. 1 Such concerns about military intervention in civil wars are quite reasonable-three fifths of civil wars experience some level of outside involvement, often by multiple states (Findley and Teo 2006). Previous studies have found that outside involvement can alter the outcome, duration, and severity of civil wars making understanding the dynamics of intervention important for both humanitarian and strategic reasons (

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Jumping into the Fray: Alliances, Power, Institutions, and the Timing of Conflict Expansion

Cited by 19 publications

References 36 publications

Which wars spread? Commitment problems and military intervention

Which wars spread? Commitment problems and military intervention

The Impact of State Relationships on If, When, and How Conflict Management Occurs1

Joining by Number: Military Intervention in Civil Wars

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