Chapter 6 - War and Its Causes

Question 1

What’s the name of Huntington’s work and what did he argue? (3)

Answer 1

1) Clash of Civilizations
2) After Cold War, war no longer over ideology but religion and classes
3) Conflict is built into our social system and inevitable

Question 2

What is Kaplan’s argument and his main work? (2)

Answer 2

1) The Coming Anarchy

2) State failure will destroy the state-based system rather than external factors

Question 3

What are the 3 COW Categories?

Answer 3

1) Interstate Wars
2) Threats of Military Force
3) Extra-State Wars

Question 4

What are 5 types of Interstate Wars?

Answer 4

1) General Wars (incl. most powerful states)
2) Hegemonic Wars (determine future hegemony)
3) Total War
4) Proxy War
5) Limited War (when not Great powers fight)

Question 5

What is a extra-state war?

Answer 5

War between
1) national govt and

2) an entity
3) in a foreign territory
4) which is not an internationally recognised state

Question 6

How many MID National War Initiations were there 1900-49 and 50-99 respectively? (2)

Answer 6

1) 2.8 per 100 Country-years

2) 0.6 per 100 country-years

Question 7

What does Mueller argue?

Answer 7

Downwards trend in National War Initiations since 1949 raises doubts about realisms assumptions about war’s inevitability

Question 8

What is the trend for Threats/use of violence recently? (2)

Answer 8

1) Less threats/use of violence since WWII but still considerable.
2) more often threats/display of force rather than use since 1990

Question 9

What are 5 immediate causes of war?

Answer 9

1) Economic Resources
2) Policy Disagreements
3) Political Regimes
4) Ethnic Identity
5) Territory

Question 10

What are 2 assumptions Realists make about state decisions to go to war?

Answer 10

1) States are rational actors (act rationally)

2) States are unitary actors (no internal dynamics)

Question 11

What are 6 individual-level factors realists do not take account of in decision-making?

Answer 11

1) Misperceptions
2) Stress (can lead to misperceptions)
3) Motivated Biases
4) Groupthink (Janis)
5) Over-optimism (Blainey)
6) human nature loving war (Jünger)

Question 12

What 2 factors explain the democratic peace thesis?

Answer 12

1) Institutional Constraints (Russet) (checks within system)

2) Normative Constraints (Owen) (beliefs/values in leaders)

Question 13

What are 4 caveats to the democratic peace theory?

Answer 13

1) democracies still fight non-democracies
2) the underlying reasons for why it is true are uncertain
3) Civilian-based party-machines are as peaceful as democracies (Weeks)
4) Individual-level factors can still cause wars between democracies

Question 14

What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism? (2)

Answer 14

1) Patriotism = absolute value assigned to one’s state

2) nationalism = relative value assigned to one’s state (Machida)

Question 15

What is nationalism’s link to war? (2)

Answer 15

1) nationalists finds use of force to protect territory more acceptable (Machida)
2) nationalism is associated with higher propensity to launch inter-state wars (Schrock-Jacobson)

Question 16

What is equality’s link to war? (1)

Answer 16

states with higher levels of gender equality use less military violence in military crises (Caprioli and Boyer)

Question 17

What are the 2 views on anarchy’s relation to war?

Answer 17

1) permissive: gives free reins to individual and state level factors (Waltz)
2) propellant: anarchy positively causes war (Fearon)

Question 18

What are 2 factors causing anarchy to be a propellant of war?

Answer 18

1) Private information problem (states overstate resolve and capability)
2) Commitment Problem (fear of future power of adversaries - strike now)