Readings

I. Introduction: Framing, Testing and Using Theories

II. Hypothesis on the Causes of War

4

Hypotheses on Systemic Power Factors, and Hypotheses on National Misperception

Hypotheses on Systemic Power Factors (i.e., Theories Addressing the Gross Structure of Power) (162 pages)

Waltz, Kenneth N. "Structural Causes and Military Effects." In Theory of International Politics. New York, NY: Longman Press, 1979, pp. 161-176. ISBN: 9780201083491.
Pages 176-193 are also included in your coursenotes, but you can skim them quickly; I include them just to give you the whole chapter for your files.

Gilpin, Robert. "Equilibrium and Decline," (pp. 156-185) and "Hegemonic Change and War" (pp. 186-210). In War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780521273763.
In pages 156-186 Gilpin argues that dominant states are often overtaken by challengers; in pages 186-210 he argues that these power-transitions cause war.

  Mearsheimer, John. "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War." In The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace. Expanded ed. Edited by Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993, pp. 147-155, 165-167, 176-187. ISBN: 9780262620888.
Mearsheimer endorses power-based explanations for war, attacks other explanations. Note: you should skim the rest of the article to get Mearsheimer's whole drift.

Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics." International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425.
A prominent dissent from the realists assigned above.

Hypotheses on National Misperception: Hypotheses from Psychology; and Structural and Societal Theories of Misperception

Hypotheses from psychology (43 pages):

Jervis, Robert. "Hypotheses on Misperception." In International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues. 3rd ed. Edited by Robert J. Art and Robert Jervis. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 472-489. ISBN: 9780673521613.
A classic discussion of the delusions to which states are prone. Is Jervis' list of myopias a good one? Do they arise from the psychological causes he stresses, or from others? How could his hypotheses be tested?

———. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 58-84. ISBN: 9780691100494.
Some argue that using carrots solves conflicts while using sticks provokes them, others say the opposite (warning against appeasement). How can this dispute be resolved? Does Jervis say enough to resolve it? Note: pages 85-113 are also included in your coursenotes but you can skim them quickly; I include them just to give you the whole chapter for your files.

The existing literature on misperception from the psychology paradigm asks if policy makers make the cognitive errors of ordinary people. Do we need work on whether some political systems select elites in ways that over-represent certain psychological disorders--e.g., narcissism, compulsive-obsessive disorder, megalomania, paranoia--that have effects on state perceptions and foreign policy behavior?

Societal theories of misperception: militarism, nationalism, defects in academe and the press (27 pages):

  Van Evera, Stephen. "Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War." In The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace. Expanded ed. Edited by Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993, pp. 204-211. ISBN: 9780262620888. (On militarism and hyper-nationalism.)

Kristof, Nicholas. "A Tojo Battles History, for Grandpa and for Japan," New York Times, April 22, 1999.
A recent illustration of self-whitewashing nationalism.

Morgenthau, Hans J. "The Purpose of Political Science." In A Design for Political Science: Scope, Objectives, and Methods. Edited by James C. Charlesworth. Philadelphia, PA: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1966, pp. 69-74. ISBN: 9780836917895.
A snippet by an eminent IR theorist to raise the question of dysfunction in academe and academic responsibility for national misperception. Note: to keep your files complete I include the whole piece in your coursenotes (pp. 63-79) but you needn't bother with pp. 63-68, 75-79.

Wildavsky, Aaron. "The Self-Evaluating Organization." Public Administration Review (September/October 1972): 509-520.
Can a theory of national misperception be fashioned from the argument made here? Does it shed light on learning theory?

Pearson, David. "The Media and Government Deception." Propaganda Review (Spring 1989): 6-11.
A snippet to raise the question of press dysfunction.

Systemic Theories of Misperception: "The System Makes States Fool Each Other"

Fearon, James. "Rationalist Explanations for War." International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995).
I include the whole article in your coursenotes (pp. 379-414) but please read only pp. 390-401 (on "war due to private information and incentives to misrepresent").

6

Hypotheses on Strategic Interaction; Applications of Theories of War to explain History; Causes of Civil War; Case Study Method

Hypotheses on Strategic Interaction (146 pages)

Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1985, pp. vii-54, 73-87, 109-141. ISBN: 9780465021215.
Would the prescriptions offered here work if applied by foreign policymakers? If not, why not?

Siverson, Randolph M., and Paul F. Diehl. "Arms Races, the Conflict Spiral, and the Onset of War." In Handbook of War Studies. Edited by Manus I. Midlarsky. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 195-218. ISBN: 9780044970552.
A criticism of the argument that arms races cause war.

Mesquita, Bruce Bueno de. "The Contribution of Expected Utility Theory to the Study of International Conflict." In The Origins and Prevention of Major Wars. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 53-76. ISBN: 9780521379557.
A synopsis of the thought of this prominent rational-choice theorist of war's causes.

Emotions and War: the Role of Vengeance, Contempt, Honor, Contrition, Apology, Insult, Pride

Needed: a more developed literature on this topic. A useful introduction (but not assigned) is
Petersen, Roger D. Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 17-84. ISBN: 9780521007740.

Religion and war

Cox, Harvey. "A Challenge to People of All Faiths." In Restoring Faith: America's Religious Leaders Answer Terror with Hope. Edited by Forrest Church. New York, NY: Walker, 2001, pp. 161-165. ISBN: 9780802776327.
Cox argues that all religious traditions are tainted with violent teachings that can dominate the tradition unless they are managed. "They lie there like dry tinder, and any spark could set them ablaze" (p. 164). Cox urges that we work to identify the factors that tempt people to use their scripture to justify hatred and brutality. Do we need more work on this subject? Do we also need work on how people of good will can redirect the terms of debate within religious movements that have become morally unhinged?

Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. The Age of Sacred Terror. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002, pp. 38-55, 62-68, 91-94, 419-446. ISBN: 9780375508592.
Pages 38-55, 62-68, 91-94 describe the Islamist currents of thinking that spawned Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's violence stems from a stream of Islamist thought going back to ibn Taymiyya, a bellicose Islamic thinker from the 13th century; to Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), the harsh and rigid shaper of modern Saudi Arabian Islam; to Rashid Rida (1866-1935) and Hassan al-Banna (?-1949); and above all to Sayyid Qutb (?-1966), the shaper of modern Islamism. Taymiyya, al-Wahhab and Qutb are covered here. Covered also (pp. 91-94) is the frightening rise of apocalyptic thinking in the Islamic world. What causes the murderous thinking described here?
Pages 419-446 cover the phenomenon of millenarianism--apocalyptic thinking--in other religions--Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. This violent, even genocidal, form of religious thought has appeared widely in the last two decades. Why? How can it be tamed before it is used to justify great horrors?

Mishra, Pankaj. "The Other Face of Fanaticism," New York Times Magazine, February 2, 2003.
The Hindu extremist movement of India is painted here, lest anyone think the Muslim world has a corner on murderous religious fanaticism. Is more work needed on the subject of religion and war? Why is good work on the subject scarce?

Civil War: how Common (very!) What do we know about its Causes and Cures? (Not much!) (69 pages)

Wallensteen, Peter, and Margaret Sollenberg. "Armed Conflict 1989-99." Journal of Peace Research 37, no. 5 (September 2000): 635-649.
Nearly all wars today are civil wars.

Kaufmann, Chaim. "Possible and Impossible Solutions to Civil War." International Security 20, no. 4 (Spring 1996): 136-175.
When are civil conflicts insoluble? What should we do when they are? Kaufmann's solution outrages many.

Kumar, Radha. "The Troubled History of Partition." Foreign Affairs 76, no. 1 (January/February 1997): 22-34.
An answer to Kaufmann.

Walter, Barbara F. "The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement." International Organization 51, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 335-364.
Civil wars are harder to settle than interstate wars, but why? Walter has an answer, and important prescriptions.

  Brown, Michael E., ed. "Introduction." In The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 1-31. ISBN: 9780262522090.
A survey of these and other hypotheses on the causes of ethnic conflict.

The Correlates of War Project: Inferring Theories from large-n Data Sets

Singer, J. David. "Correlates of War." In Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict. 3 vols. Edited by Lester Kurtz. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1999, pp. 1:463-471. ISBN: 9780122270109.
Singer's summary of his Correlates of War project. Singer does not use the case method; rather, he seeks correlations in large-n data sets, hoping that correlation will sometimes signal causation. How fruitful is this approach? When should it be used?

Fortna, Page. "What We Know from the Numbers: The Quantitative Literature on Civil and Interstate War." (Manuscript: 2003).
A survey of quantitative literature.

Segue to Cases: the Case Study Method. How Should Case Studies Be Performed?

Diamond, Jared. "The Science of History: What We Don't Know, Why We Don't Know It," In Washington Post, February 7, 1999, p. B3.
Can social science really be science? Answer: yes.

George, Alexander L., and Timothy J. McKeown. "Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making." Advances in Information Processing in Organizations 2 (1985): 21-58. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, ISSN: 07479778.
A classic statement on the execution of case studies.

Lijphart, Arend. "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method." APSR 65 (1971): 682-693. Another important how-to-do-it on the case study method.

Van Evera, Stephen. "Case Studies." Chapter 2 in Guide to Methods.
Your instructor's thoughts on the topic.

Bennett, Andrew. "Lost in Translation: Big (n) Misinterpretations of Case Study Research." Paper presented to the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Toronto, March 1997.
Much nonsense is believed about the case method. Some intelligent mythbusting is provided here.

Broad, William J. "Crater Supports Idea on Extinction," New York Times, August 14, 1992.
Here's a "case" that scientists are trying to explain. Are political/historical cases similar? Can political analysis proceed in the same way?

"The C.I.A.'s El Salvador," New York Times, December 17, 1993, p. A39.
Aspin, Les. "Witness to Iran Flight 655," New York Times, November 18, 1988, p. A35.
Social science starts with "facts." But what "facts" can we believe? Moral of these stories: you can't believe everything you read in the archives (or anywhere else).

Leven, David. "In Texas, the Death Penalty Still Fails to Deter," New York Times, Sept. 19, 1993, p. E16.
Leven makes blunders of causal inference. Can you spot them?

Shapiro, Ian. "A Model That Pretends to Explain Everything," and Morris P. Fiorina, "When Stakes are High, Rationality Kicks In," New York Times, February 26, 2000, p. A15.
Should students of war use rational choice methods more often? Two short pieces on the great debate over rational choice.

A syllabus on qualitative methods from the Arizona State University Qualitative Methods Institute (January 2002); and syllabi on the case study method by professors Scott Sagan (Stanford), John Mearsheimer (Chicago), Andrew Bennett (Georgetown), John Odell (USC), Matthew Evangelista (Cornell), Ted Hopf (Michigan). In the past many political science departments defined "methodology" to consist solely of large-n (statistical) methods. While statistics was a required course at most schools, case study methodology often wasn't even taught. This is changing, as these syllabi illustrate. I include them for your general perusal and background. No need to give them a talmudic reading--they are for your reference.

Those curious to see more qualitative methods syllabi can find them on the web at Syllabi. And for more on qualitative methods see Consortium ON Qualitative Research Methods (CQRM).

Syllabi on the causes of war for courses taught by Jack Levy (Rutgers), Christopher Gelpi (Harvard), Stephen Walt (Chicago), Hayward Alker (USC), Louise Hodgden (Texas/Austin), and Dale Copeland U. of Virginia). How the subject is taught elsewhere, by a diverse range of scholars. For your reference. (Handy to have for the day when you have to design your own version of this course.)

7

The Seven Years War and the Korean War

Seven Years

Smoke, Richard. "The Seven Years War." In War: Controlling Escalation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978, pp. 195-236. ISBN: 9780674945951.
A good historical synopsis. What general theories of war causes does his account support?

Higonnet, Patrice. "The Origins of the Seven Years War." Journal of Modern History 40 (1968): 57-90.
A striking revelation on the war's origins that changed historical understanding--200 years after the fact.

Korea

Whiting, Allen S. "The U.S. China War in Korea." In Avoiding War: Problems of Crisis Management. Edited by Alexander L. George. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991, pp. 103-125. ISBN: 9780813312330.
A synoptic account.

Christensen, Thomas J. "Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace." International Security 17, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 122-154.
Recent revelations about what caused, and what might (and might not) have prevented China's entry into the war.

10

The Second World War in Europe

Bell, P. M. H. The Origins of the Second World War in Europe. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Longman, 1986, chapters 4, 6, 8-17 (pages 39-47, 70-88, 111-295 in the first edition; pages 44-53, 77-97, 123-341 in the second edition). ISBN: 9780582491120.
A good mainstream historical synopsis.

Herwig, Holger. "Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany After the Great War." In Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. Edited by Miller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 262-301. ISBN: 9780691022321.
How Germans mis-remembered the origins and aftermath of the First World War.

Wette, Wolfram. "From Kellogg to Hitler (1928-1933). German Public Opinion Concerning the Rejection or Glorification of War." In The German Military in the Age of Total War. Edited by Wilhelm Deist. Dover, NH: Berg, 1985, pp. 71-99. ISBN: 9780907582144.
How Germans came to love war again so soon after the Marne and Verdun. What explains the bizarre developments Wette describes?

Berman, Sheri. The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. ix-x, 176-200. ISBN: 9780674442610.
Why did the Great Depression of the 1930s bring benign Social Democrats to power in Sweden while bringing the vicious and expansionist Nazis to power in Germany? Clearly, the effects of depressions on modern industrial politics are not uniform; instead, a condition variable of some sort must decide these effects. Clearly, that condition variable must have had very different values in the Swedish and German cases. Berman's study tries to identify that condition variable. Does she do so persuasively?

12

The Arab-Israeli War 1967; The 1991 Persian Gulf War; The Peloponnesian War

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War

Stein, Janice Gross. "The Arab-Israeli War of 1967: Inadvertent War Through Miscalculated Escalation." In Avoiding War: Problems of Crisis Management. Edited by Alexander L. George. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991, pp. 126-159. ISBN: 9780813312330.

The Persian Gulf War

Pollack, Kenneth M. The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. New York, NY: Random House, 2002, pp. 11-54. ISBN: 9780375509285.
A good history.

Cigar, Norman. "Iraq's Strategic Mindset and the Gulf War: Blueprint for Defeat." Journal of Strategic Studies 25, no. 1 (March 1992): 1-29.

The Peloponnesian War

Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1954, pp. 35-108, 118-164, 212-223, 400-429, 483-488, 516-538. ISBN: 9780140440393.
A famous history by a great strategist that many later readers, across many centuries, felt evoked their own times and tragedies.

Kagan, Donald. "The Causes of the War." Chapter 19 in The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969, pp. 345-356. ISBN: 9780801405013.
Please focus on pp. 347-349, where Kagan debunks several explanations for the Peloponnesian war, and skim the rest. Kagan evaluates several contending explanations by framing and assessing their predictions. (His inferred predictions are implicit but clear nevertheless.) Does his method work?

13

The Future of War: Using Theory to Predict and Prescribe; The Field Agenda in War Studies

Review again:
Kaysen, Carl. "Is War Obsolete?" In The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace. Expanded ed. Edited by Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993, pp. 81-103. ISBN: 9780262620888. (Assigned above.)
Kaysen says past causes of war are already gone--but if he's right, why does war continue?

 Read the rest of:
Mearsheimer. "Back to the Future." In The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace. Expanded ed. Edited by Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993. ISBN: 026262088X. (Some of which was assigned above.)

Review again:
Jervis, Robert. "Theories of War in an Era of Leading-Power Peace." American Political Science Review 96, no. 1 (March 2002): 1-14. (Assigned above.)
Are Jervis's explanations and forecasts persuasive?

Mearsheimer, John. "Introduction." In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 1st ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2003. ISBN: 9780393323962.

Huntington, Samuel P. "The Coming Clash of Civilizations: Or, the West Against the Rest," New York Times, June 6, 1993, p. E19.
Humankind will again be at its own throat, this time in a confrontation of great civilizations.

Review again:
Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. The Age of Sacred Terror. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002, pp. 38-55, 62-68, 91-94, 419-446. ISBN: 9780375508592.
What can we do to tame the demons they describe? What research could help us answer this question?

Ziegler, David W. "Collective Security." Chapter 11 in War, Peace and IR. 7th ed. New York, NY: Longman, 1997, pp. 179-203. ISBN: 9780673525017.
Many people have offered this answer. Why has it failed?

Van Evera, Stephen. "Memory and the Arab-Israel Conflict: Time for New Narratives." Manuscript, 2003.
Can narratives be manipulated to cause peace, as SVE here suggests? Can the hatreds that fuel terror and war be dampened by such means?

Van Evera, Stephen. "Professional Ethics." Chapter 6 in Guide to Methods.
This topic has nothing in particular to do with the causes of war, but you should form an attitude on the issues raised here.