Douglas Lemke

The Relevance of Politically Relevant Dyads

Relevant dyads are pairs of contiguous states or pairs of states including at least one major power. They are argued to be the population of dyads at risk of international conflict and are increasingly commonly used as the cases analyzed by conflict researchers. Does reliance on relevant dyads (a nonrandom sample of all dyads) introduce threats to valid inference? The authors argue that relevant dyad usage might introduce related problems of measurement error and selection bias and investigate whether there is evidence of such potential problems existing in actual relevant dyad data sets. Results show evidence for both types of potential problems, but neither problem substantively affects estimates of conflict relationships. Therefore, relevant dyad usage is not especially objectionable due to either of these problems, and retrospective sampling might be an even more profitable course for future research.

Power Parity, Commitment to Change, and War

Starr (1978) argues that the initiation of war requires both opportunity and willingness. Most theories of international conflict, however, consider only one of these conditions. Power transition theory, which focuses on power parity as opportunity and negative evaluations of the status quo as willingness, is an exception. Although the logic of the theory is compelling and empirical support impressive, the theory suffers from a lack of generalizability, and from inadequate conceptualization and operationalization of evaluations of the status quo. We offer preliminary corrections for both of these weaknesses by (1) depicting the international system as a series of hierarchies rather than as a single hierarchy, thus providing some generalizability; and (2) using extraordinary military buildups to evaluate the relative commitment of the challenger and the dominant power to the modification or maintenance of the status quo, respectively. We argue that the probability of wars between contenders in local or international hierarchies increases significantly when power parity is achieved, presenting the potential challenger with the opportunity to successfully challenge the dominant state, and when the challengers extraordinary buildup exceeds that of the dominant power, revealing its willingness and commitment to change. Empirical evaluation of the conflict behavior of major power contenders and of a subset of minor power contenders provides strong support for our reconceptualization of power transition theory.

Regime types and status quo evaluations: Power transition theory and the democratic peace

A tremendous amount of attention is paid to whether or not joint democracy precludes wars within dyads. Although there now seems to be some measure of consensus that democracies rarely or never fight one another, the scholarly debate continues to be heated, lengthy, and occasionally negative. Part of the reason why the democratic peace proposition has met so much opposition might lie in the threat it poses to many established theories of international relations. However, the empirical phenomenon of the democratic peace may be compatible with at least one established theory of international relations: power transition theory. If it can be shown that democracies evaluate the status quo similarly, then power transition theory predicts that wars between them should be exceedingly rare. Further, if non‐democracies comprise the bulk of states dissatisfied with the status quo, then wars between democracies and non‐democracies are to be expected. Regime type is tentatively linked to status quo evaluations in this...

The tyranny of distance: Redefining relevant dyads

Investigation of the causes of war requires analysis of the characteristics and behavior of only those dyads of countries that are potential belligerents. Several scholars have offered rules for delineating such “relevant dyads”. One common element of such rules is contiguity. A second common element is major power status. Any dyad involving either contiguous states or a major power is defined as relevant. Such definitions of relevant dyads are simple and useful. Nevertheless, I contend that some contiguous dyads are not relevant to study of the causes of war, while some non‐contiguous dyads are relevant. For example, Israel and Iraq are neither contiguous, nor major powers. With existing definitions this dyad is not deemed relevant. I offer an operational definition of relevant dyads that delineates which dyads are proximate enough in terms of distance and terrain to be potential war fighters, regardless of major or minor power status. Adapting existing work on the loss‐of‐strength gradient, I argue that...

African Lessons for International Relations Research

Unquestioned assumptions of universal patterns coupled with unwillingness to conceive of political entities existing at different levels of empirical statehood render international relations research poorly equipped to understand Africas international relations. Consequently, Africa is effectively missing from prevailing international relations theorizing and data set construction. After discussing specific ways Africa is omitted from standard international relations research, the author reviews four recent volumes describing Africas international relations for clues about how to close the gap between Africas experiences and prevailing research practice.

Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China

Power transition theory has become, over time, one of the most successful structural theories in world politics. This can be measured by its longevity at 45 years; by its versatility in bridging from classical argument to empirical testing to formal proofs; by its expansion to different topics of analysis; and finally by its translation into policy-relevant prescriptions. Foundational works in the power transition corpus include Organski (1958), Organski and Kugler (1980), Kugler and Lemke (1996), and Tammen et al. (2000). Originally formulated to address questions of war and peace, it has been expanded to incorporate additional questions, such as the stability of nuclear deterrence (Kugler and Zagare, 1990), the impact of alliances on dyadic relations (Kim, 1991), the relationship between arms races and conflict (Werner and Kugler, 1996), and the democratic peace (Lemke and Reed, 1996). Most recently power transition arguments have been extended from the international system to regional subsystems throughout the developing world (Lemke, 2002). In addition to these expansions of power transition’s empirical domain, researchers have also focused on the inner logic of the theory. Formalizations by Kim and Morrow (1992), Abdollahian (1996), Alsharabati (1997), Efird (2001), and Kadera (2001) have probed power transition theory deductively, generating a wealth of additional hypotheses about risk propensity, the timing, speed, and trajectory of overtakings, and about integration as an opposite of war. It is no surprise that in a

Combining Civil and Interstate Wars

Quantitative studies of conflict analyze either civil or interstate war. While there may be observable differences between civil and interstate wars, theories of conflict focus on phenomena—such as information asymmetries, commitment problems, and issue divisibility—that should explain both conflicts within and between states. In analyses of conflict onset, duration, and outcome combining civil and interstate wars, we find most variables have similar effects on both “types” of war. We thus question whether there is any justification for separate study of war types.

Investigating the Preventive Motive for War

The preventive motive for war is a prominent part of many world politics arguments. However, there are no general statistical investigations of either its prevalence or bellicosity. Consequently, no general conclusions about it can be drawn. In this article I operationally define the preventive motive, determine how often it is observed when wars are fought, and estimate its statistical impact on the probability of war. I find the preventive motive is frequently present in both types of dyads, but has no consistent statistical impact on the probability of war.

Power is not Satisfaction

In an otherwise careful and thorough replication and reevaluation of empirical findings reported by Organski and Kugler (1980) and by Houweling and Siccama (1988), de Soysa, Oneal, and Park (1997) suggest that power transition theory suffers from a problematic interconnection between its two principal explanatory variables: relative power and status quo evaluations. We argue that there is no such problematic interconnection within the theory and demonstrate empirically that there is no such interconnection in reality. The article by de Soysa, Oneal, and Park (1997) is not about this problematic interconnection, and our comment is not exactly a critique of their work. We believe their empirical conclusions are correct. Rather, we comment on their misinterpretation of an existing theory. Such commentary is important, we believe, because the theory in question offers one of the more promising explanatory tools available to international relations scholars. We hope that de Soysa, Oneal, and Parks misrepresentation of power transition theory will not discourage researchers from working within the power transition tradition. We begin by quoting de Soysa, Oneal, and Park (1997, 512) at some length:

Toward A General Understanding of Parity and War

Questions about the relationship between power distribution and war have been a major focus of empirical research in international relations for decades. Thus far no consistent relationship has been uncovered at the systemic level. At the dyadic level of analysis, however, many independent studies suggest a relationship between power parity and war. One conceptual framework, power transition theory, is consistent with this evidence. However, power transition theory is unduly limited by an exclusive focus on the power and conflict relations of the very strongest of states. The present effort attempts to generalize power transition theory so that the power and conflict relations of minor powers can be included within its empirical domain. The extension involves the introduction of a Multiple Hierarchy Model. This multiple hierarchy model is discussed conceptually, empirical evaluations are reviewed, and its implications for a general understanding of power and conflict relations are assessed.