Interstate Peace Research: War and Cross Border Conflict

Fears of Revolution and International Cooperation: The Concert of Europe and the Transformation of European Politics

By Chad Nelson

Fears of a common domestic ideological threat can cause states to bind together rather than exploit one another. The cooperation among the great powers was not just because they were constrained by the balance of power or satisfied with the territorial order or because the powers were meeting together. Their considerable cooperation was largely due to their preferences rather than those interactions.

Public opinion on trading with the enemy: Trade’s effects on the risk of war

While studies show that the public disapproves of trade with adversaries, political discourse has historically used security rhetoric to both justify and oppose trade with threatening states. Does emphasizing the potential of trade to exacerbate or mitigate security risks sway public opinion? Is public opinion malleable regardless of the level of threat? These questions become increasingly important as security and economic interactions between states become more intertwined. In a 2019 survey experiment, Ukrainian citizens report more optimism about the effects of trade with Russia (engaged in conflict with Ukraine since 2014) when told that trade decreases security risks. They are more pessimistic when presented with information that trade increases the risk of conflict. In contrast, attitudes about trade with a non-threatening trading partner (the European Union) are unaffected. This study demonstrates that the security effects of trade can both improve and worsen attitudes about trade with politically salient adversaries, even in the context of actual conflict.

Sequencing the Steps to War

According to the steps-to-war theory, the probability of war between two states rises as the involved states take four distinct steps—namely, initiate a territorial disagreement, enter a rivalry relationship, secure defensive allies, and initiate an arms race with one another. Our study explores the relationships between these four steps in greater detail. In particular, we ask whether the steps to war might unfold in a predictable (modal) sequence. After demonstrating that the theory contains the elements needed to think about the steps to war as a sequence of events, we theorize a modal steps-to-war sequence and derive a series of predictions about it. We then evaluate these predictions through path analysis (i.e. a structural equation model). The results not only confirm the existence of a modal sequence, but also overwhelmingly support the steps-to-war theory’s predictions, some of which we formalize and investigate for the first time. Most notably, we uncover evidence that territorial disagreements function as an underlying cause of war that drives the entire steps-to-war process. Contests over territory increase the probability of war both directly as well as indirectly, through the additional steps to war they encourage.