The dynamics of hostile and cooperative behavior in the international system

There has been much attention in the literature in International Relations to finding the underlying causes of conflict among nations. The existing research is divided between studying the impact of structural variables (e.g., the nature of alliances, power distribution, etc.) on conflict, and studying the impact of short-term behavioral variables (e.g., escalating tensions or hostility) on conflict. This paper takes into account both slowly changing structural variables and rapidly fluctuating behavioral variables to try to answer the following questions: (1) why do some nations engage in protracted conflict over time (e.g., India and Pakistan, or the Arab nations and Israel)? (2) how severe can we expect any given conflict to be? (3) how often will they occur? (4) how does the structure of the system influence levels and patterns of long-run conflict behavior?This paper develops a mathematical model of the interaction between structural and behavior variables in order to derive formal relationships about what factors influence conflict patterns. The model shows that several inputs to the model are crucial to determining what kind of long-term conflict behavior will ensue. The most important of these factors is the system's tolerance for hostility. Paradoxically, if the system tolerates high levels of hostility, then conflict is transitory, but if the system has a low tolerance for hostility then the system will engage in protracted conflict behavior (recurring severe conflicts).A test of the model is performed using data from the India-Pakistan case, 1948-1978. The empirical analysis shows that the models developed in this paper predict a wider range of outputs compared to past models. The estimated model also generates behavior that corresponds better to the data than past models.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio