Dispute resolution institutions and strategic militarization

Engagement in a costly and destructive war can be understood as the punishment for entering into a dispute. Institutions that reduce the chance that disputes lead to war make this punishment less severe. This may incentivize hawkish political choices like militarization, and potentially offset the benefits of peace-brokering institutions. We analyze a simple model in which unmediated peace talks are effective at improving the chances of peace for a given distribution of military strength. But, once the effects on militarization are considered the presence of unmediated talks leads to a higher incidence of war. Not all conflict resolution institutions suffer from this drawback. We identify a form of third-party mediation, inspired by the work of Myerson, and show that it can effectively broker peace in disputes once they emerge, and also minimize the level of equilibrium militarization

Dispute Resolution Institutions and Strategic Militarization

A central question in political science is how to best manage information asymmetries and commitment problems when disputes arise between states or nations. We argue that common framings of this problem miss an important feature: the institutions determining how disputes are resolved shape the incentives for nations to enter disputes. Because war can be sometimes understood as the down-side risk from entering a dispute, institutions that reduce the chances of war-fighting may induce perverse incentives to enter into disputes and militarize. We develop a simple crisis model that captures both the militarization decisions and bargaining behavior. We examine how features like direct communication and third-party involvement alter the incentives. Seemingly effective institutions that improve the chance of peace for a given distribution of military strength, can actually lower the chance of peace once one accounts for distortions to militarization decisions. To illustrate the value of this broader perspective we show how a form of intervention by a mediator concerned only with resolving the current crisis, turns out to create optimal militarization and bargaining incentives

Mutual optimism and war

W hy do states fight costly wars when less costly negotiated settlements are possible? Must there not be some mutually agreeable alternative to war that can produce the same result without incurring the social loss? Could not decision makers agree to distribute the disputed territory or assets in a way consistent with their beliefs about the likely outcome of conflict, saving both sides significant death and destruction? In this article, we address one specific rationalist answer to these questions. As Blainey (1988) intimates, the high hopes on the eve of war suggest a sad conclusion: wars only occur when both rivals believe they can achieve more through fighting than through peaceful means. How might this be so? Obviously, when two countries are involved in a war, if one side wins then the other loses. We might then conclude that at least one side, in particular the loser, would prefer some peaceful method of resolving the dispute if she were certain of the outcome. But war is an uncertain process. Given this uncertainty, the leaders of the two countries must each form expectations about the results of a conflict to guide their decision making. The Mark Fey is associate professor of political science, 109E Harkness Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (mark.fey@ rochester.edu). Kristopher W. Ramsay is assistant professor of politics, 033 Corwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]). Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of Rochester, Columbia University, and NYU. We thank Scott Ashworth, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Songying Fang, Tanisha Fazal, Erik Gartzke, Shigeo Hirano, Adam Meirowitz, John Patty, Pablo Pinto, Robert Powell, Quinn Ramsay, Anne Sartori, Curt Signorino, Branislav Slantchev, Allan Stam, Randy Stone, and Robert Walker, as well as other seminar participants. We would also like to thank the editor of the AJPS and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Any remaining errors are our own. Kris Ramsay acknowledges financial support from NSF grant SES-0413381

The risk of domino secessions

The resurgence of nationalist tendencies around the world has brought new attention to the problem of smaller regions seceding from larger states. While research exists regarding the contagious nature of self-determination, ethnic conflict and civil wars, the interrelationships among various secessionist conflicts have not been systematically studied. We show that the circumstances of secession conflicts in different countries are interconnected by the perceptions of elites and that outcomes in one case may, therefore, influence expectations, motivations, strategies and outcomes in others. We also identified several indicators of interconnectivity among secessionist conflicts in the Western Balkans and visualised the strength of the links among them using social network analysis tools (Pajek – Spider). After the outbreak of a secession conflict, several inter-secession effects will be directly transferred to the most interconnected cases, and the greatest domino risk results from the combined impacts of direct and indirect nth-order effects