Constraints, states, and wars

Abstract. The rational choice assumption is already disputable at the individual level of decisionmaking. At the level of collective decision-making unitary rational action is an unrealistic assumption. It neglects the transitivity of collective preferences issue, the logic of collective action and freeriding, the agency problem, and the human tendency to agree with each other irrespective of the facts. While unitary rational action is rejected as a basis for theorizing on international relations and war, the idea of decision-making under constraints seems as valid in the interstate context as in economics. The most important constraints on national security decision-making are the anarchical character of the international system and the corresponding need for self-help, the security and the territorial delimitation dilemmas, the presence or absence of plausible blueprints for victory, and the presence or absence of domestic constraints on bellicosity. A simple explanatory model of war built on these ideas is suggested and tested with dyadic data for the 1962–1980 period. In addition, there is some discussion of why collective security is doomed to fail, and why hegemony rather than balance improve the prospects of peace.