Preventive War and Democratic Politics.

Levy, Jack S.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2007.00489.x

Cited by 55 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…States' expectations about the future are critical in determining whether war occurs. We show that war is more likely when the expected shift in relative power is large, likely, and durable, in line with the arguments of scholars of the preventive motivation for war (Taylor, 1954;Levy, 1987;Copeland, 2000;Levy, 2008). More surprisingly, we find that war can occur when neither, one, or both have acquired a new technology: the commonsense intuition that the preventive motivation for war will be highest when one state, but not the other, possesses the new weapons is true only under certain conditions.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

Arms Diffusion and War

Bas

Coe

2012

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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We present a model of the relationship between the spread of new military technologies and the occurrence of war. A new technology could shift the balance of power, causing anticipatory war as one side tries to prevent the other from obtaining it. When one side already has it, war is more likely when the shift in power is large, likely, and durable. When neither side has it, war is more likely when the expected shift is asymmetric (e.g., one side is more likely to get it) and when the two sides fear that a war will occur once one of them has it. We illustrate the model with historical examples from the spread of firearms (the Musket Wars in pre-colonial New Zealand) and of nuclear weapons (the end of US nuclear monopoly, and the 1967 Six-Day War). A broader implication is that major power competition can unintentionally cause wars elsewhere. * Comments are welcome and should be sent to mbas@gov.harvard.edu and acoe@fas.harvard.edu. We are grateful to

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

Arms Diffusion and War

Bas

Coe

2012

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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“…The theoretical importance of preventive war has been reinforced by the formalization of the "commitment problem," which emphasizes the impediments to conflict resolution under conditions of shifting power as one of only two or three paths to war for unitary rational actors (Fearon 1995;Powell 2006). My aim here is to build on my earlier work (Levy 1987(Levy , 2008, provide a conceptual introduction for the historically-based commentaries on preventive war in this issue, and suggest promising directions for future research.…”

Section: Rutgers Universitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Preventive War: Concept and Propositions

Levy

2011

International Interactions

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Commentary 87Scott Silverstone argues that political leaders often incorporate estimates of the consequences of war for the postwar international order into their calculations about whether or not to initiate a preventive war. Responding to the common argument that Britain and France would have been better off initiating a preventive war against Germany in 1936 rather than waiting to fight three years later after a vigorous German rearmament program, Silverstone argues that an important but overlooked reason for British leaders' rejection of the military option in 1936 was their fear that military action would not solve the security problems facing Britain and that it would contribute to an unstable and illegitimate postwar political order.Dale Copeland examines the Japanese decision for war against the United States in 1941. He argues that the anticipation of economic and military decline and future insecurity, fueled by depression-induced restrictive trade policies that would cut off Japan from badly needed resources, led Japanese decision makers to a desperate preventive war driven by better-now-than-later and lesser-of-two-evils logic.Preventive war is a state strategy to use military force to forestall an adverse shift in the distribution of power between two states. It is driven by the perception of a rising adversary, the anticipation of a decline in relative power, and the fear of the consequences of decline, which include diminishing bargaining leverage, the likelihood of escalating demands by an increasingly powerful adversary, and the risk of war under worse circumstances later.

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“…Recently, this view has been supplemented by other research programs, which argue that state behavior is also shaped by non-material factors, such as ideas and norms (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001;Raymond 1997;Gelpi 1997). Conforming to norms in International Relations includes adhering to alliance commitments (Leeds 2003;Leeds et al 2000), not initiating preventive wars (Levy 2008), maintaining negotiated settlements (Gelpi 1997), and observing reciprocity in interstate relations (Rajmaira and Ward 1990;Ward and Rajmaira 1992). Research progress has been made showing that norms matter despite concerns over definitions and methodology and the lack of an overall consensus on the power of norms to direct human behavior (Raymond 1997;Bicchieri 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Social norms and the traditional deterrence game

Carlson

Dacey

2009

Synthese

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Bicchieri (The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of norms, 2006, xi) presents a formal analysis of norms that answers the questions of "when, how, and to what degree" norms affect human behavior in the play of games. The purpose of this paper is to apply a variation of the Bicchieri norms analysis to generate a model of norms-based play of the traditional deterrence game (Zagare and Kilgour, Int Stud Q 37:1-27, 1993; Morrow, Game theory for political scientists, 1994), the paradigmatic model of conflict initiation in International Relations. The deterrence game is modeled here as a sequential decision problem. As such, our analysis is an adaptation of Bicchieri's game-theoretic formalization of norms to what we will call the norms account of the game. We find that the standard account of the traditional deterrence game is a special case of the norms account of the game. We also show that the adaptation of Bicchieri's analysis of social norms yields new and interesting claims regarding when, how, and to what degree norms operate as a constraint on risk-related behavior in the traditional deterrence game. Moreover, we discuss how the results of the model provide testable propositions of relevance to the role of norms in international interactions.

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Preventive War and Democratic Politics.

Cited by 55 publications

References 44 publications

Arms Diffusion and War

Arms Diffusion and War

Preventive War: Concept and Propositions

Social norms and the traditional deterrence game

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