War and pieces

There is increasing recognition among human geographers that conceptualising the spatiality of peace is a vital component of our collective disciplinary praxis. Within this emergent literature, this paper seeks to position anarchism as an ethical philosophy of nonviolence and the absolute rejection of war. Such an interpretation does not attempt to align nonviolence to any particular organised religious teaching, as has recently been advocated by some geographers. Instead, the paper argues that the current practices of religion undermine the geographies of peace by fragmenting our affinities into discrete pieces. Advancing a view of anarchism as nonviolence, the paper goes beyond religion to conceptualise peace as both the unqualified refusal of the manifold-cum-interlocking processes of domination, and a precognitive, pre-normative and presupposed category rooted in our inextricable entanglement with each other and all that exists. Yet far from proposing an essentialist view of humanity or engaging a naturalised argument that reconvenes the “noble savage”, the paper contextualises the arguments within the processual frameworks of radical democracy and agonism in seeking to redress the ageographical and ahistorical notions of politics that comprise the contemporary post-political zeitgeist.     

War and Splendour

Abstract

Collective performances cannot be understood only from the intentions of the organizers, participants and bystanders, and from their historical, political, economic and ideological contexts. Cultural performances close in on themselves and evolve with their own logic: that of ceremony and festival in which their own scenes of splendour, dance and war adjust to one another.     

Mutual Optimism and War

Working with the definition of mutual optimism as war due to inconsistent beliefs , we formalize the mutual optimism argument to test the theory's logical validity. We find that in the class of strategic situations where mutual optimism is a necessary condition for war—i.e., where war is known to be inefficient, war only occurs if both sides prefer it to a negotiated settlement, and on the eve of conflict war is self-evident—then there is no Bayesian-Nash equilibrium where wars are fought because of mutual optimism. The fundamental reason that mutual optimism cannot lead to war is that if both sides are willing to fight, each side should infer that they have either underestimated the strength of the opponent or overestimated their own strength. In either case, these inferences lead to a peaceful settlement of the dispute. We also show that this result extends to situations in which there is bounded rationality and/or noncommon priors.     

War,pillage, and markets

Neoclassical economic theory has produced an extensive body of knowledge about market exchange based on cooperative relations: private property. This leads to an artificial dichotomy between cooperation and conflict though. It is best to view market exchange as lying along a continuum of conflict and cooperation. Conflict and cooperation are intertwined. From a game theoretic model of Hobbes' world, I show that a number of property rights structures are possible. Each is characterized as possessing varying degrees of conflict and cooperation. Finally, from a repeated game, I show how conflictual relations (mutual predation) may support more cooperative relations (private property). This new equilibrium is sub-game perfect.     

Leader Incentives and Civil War Outcomes

This article examines the influence that rebel and state leaders have on civil war outcomes, arguing that incentives to avoid punishment influence their strategic decision making during war.  Leaders in civil war face punishment from two sources: internal audiences and opponents. I hypothesize that leaders who bear responsibility for involvement in the war have a higher expectation of punishment from both sources following unfavorable war performance, and thus, have incentives to continue the fight in the hope of turning the tide and avoiding the negative consequences of defeat. These incentives, in turn, make leaders who bear responsibility more likely to fight to an extreme outcome and less likely to make concessions to end the war.  These propositions are tested on an original data set identifying all rebel and state leaders in all civil conflict dyads ongoing between 1980 and 2011.  Results support the hypothesized relationships between leader responsibility and war outcomes.     

Veto Players and Civil War Duration

Civil wars show a remarkable variation in how long they last. Some end within days; others continue for decades. What explains the extreme intractability of some wars while others are resolved quickly? This article argues that conflicts with multiple actors who must approve a settlement (veto players) are longer because there are fewer acceptable agreements, information asymmetries are more acute, and shifting alliances and incentives to hold out make negotiation more difficult. This veto player approach to explaining variation in civil war duration is tested using a new dataset containing monthly data on all parties to each civil war begun since World War II. The statistical analysis shows a strong correlation between the number of veto players and the duration of civil war.     

Civil War and the Social Contract

In this contract-theoretic modelthe government promises a transfer to itspotential opponent in return for notengaging in a civil war. Two causes ofcivil war are identified: (i) imperfectcredibility increases the cost of therequired transfer, and may make itunfeasible; (ii) asymmetric informationfaces the government with the classicefficiency/rent-extraction trade off, andcivil war is used as a screening device.This problem can be solved by creating amixed army. The model determines whether amilitary regime or a redistributive stateprevails in a peaceful equilibrium. Astatistical illustration is presented,using African data.     

相互依赖理论视野中的战争与和平

战争与和平是国际关系的两种基本状态,它们的相互交替始终支配着人类社会的发展。规避战争,寻求和平,一直是近代以来国际社会和各国人民的期盼和努力方向。在当代西方国际关系理论中,围绕着这一主题展开了范式之间的争论,相互依赖和平论就是其中影响较大的一种。相互依赖能否带来和平,这是本文所要讨论的核心议题。     

Viewpoint: China and Space War

In January of 2007, China knocked one of its weather satellites out of orbit, and threw the international community into panic. Some figured the satellite-killer test was the harbinger of a future war in space that could cripple a technology-dependent United States military. This viewpoint examines the possibilities of a Chinese assault on American satellites.