Dispensa- 6 -Power Mismatch Theory Model + The rationalist explanations of war Flashcards
model of war (mismatch) Components
- Military strength of A and B: MA and MB
- m: first-mover’s advantage m ≡ ma/(ma+mb) (If A attacks, A wins the cake with probability m)
- p: A’s relative political-economic power (If A does not attack, they keep a fraction p of the valuable resources)
- c: cost of attack
Incentive to attack
- Attacking yields expected payoff m-c.
- Not attacking yields p.
Hence, attack if (m−p)>c or m-c>p
Increase in civil wars
Reasons for the increase in civil wars and decrease in inter-state wars:
- Increase in international trade revenue leads to
- increase in asymmetry of resources of groups in a country A
Bargaining View
- The only important power asymmetry variable : military one, m.
p is endogenous. - Model of the Bargaining View:
• Country A considers its relative military strength m and makes a proposal p
• Country B decides whether to accept (1 − p) or go to war.
- Thus, explaining wars means explaining why bargaining breaks down (i.e., why can’t A find an offer that can be acceptable for B).
Reasons for diplomacy (negotiation) failure
- Agency Problem like biased leaders
- Indivisibility of disputed object (Jerusalem)
- Multilateral Interests
- Asymmetric Information
- Commitment problem
Multilateral interests
Scenario
- who and what
- Incentive to attack
- Standard example
the resource is claimed by more than two powers leading to inherent instability
- A,B,C are interested in the control of a resource of value 1.
- Incentive to attack:
• forward looking greed: if A wins against B then it can also more easily conquer C
• forward looking fear: A could fear that B and C could form a coalition against A if A does not attack. - Inherent instability:
• If (A∪B), C not stable because C could offer A better deal in (A ∪ C );
• If grand-coalition (A∪B∪C), not stable because the two strongest do not need to give much to third (especially true in civil wars).
Asymmetric Information
basics
A should offer pB to B, higher than B’s expected utility from war
pB≥ mB-cB = pB≥ (1-mA)-cB
If such an offer is made and accepted, the payoff (expected utility) for A is:
pA=1-( (1-mA)-cB )=mA+cB
Asymmetric Information
Uncertainty about the costs of war
- Trade-off: (1-m)-cB
offering too much is peace for sure
offering little is more profit
Asymmetric Information
Uncertainty about strength
- B is strong with probability q and so m= ½,
B is weak with probability (1 − q), and so m= 2/3.
c is the same for both and known. - A proposes the low offer if
A’s expected utility from war and A’s expected
payoff if B accepts the lower offer, is higher than A’s expected payoff from the generous offer, which will be accepted for sure
q(1/2-c)+(1-q)(2/3+c)≥1/2+c
-SO for low q enough, war occurs with p q
Asymmetric Information
Solving through communication
- If uncertainty about strength, communication between the players does not typically help.
- A mediator can help
mismatch theory definition
war between two countries should be more likely to happen when there is a higher mismatch between relative military power and relative political-economic power
Incentive to attack developed
- If c comes from a distribution F, probability of war =F(m − p), increasing in mismatch.
- What doesn’t matter: balance of military and political-economic power.
- What matters: whether one player has a particularly high mismatch.
- If players both have higher c, peace could prevails and c may increase with bilateral dependence.
Coase Theorem:
Given that war is costly, there should always be a negotiation outcome that outweighs war
Agency
when at least one of the leaders has a hawkish bias
Multilateral interests: pure distributive game
any two players out of the three are sufficient or decisive for the allocation of the resource.
