John A. Vasquez

Why Do Neighbors Fight? Proximity, Interaction, or Territoriality

Most interstate wars are fought or begin between neighbors. This relationship between contiguity and war has long been known, but ignored within peace research. The major reason for this is that it has been seen as essentially a trivial relationship, reflecting the opportunity for war rather than the real underlying cause of war. Recent work on territory and the issues over which wars are fought has begun to question that interpretation. This article maintains that the clustering of war among neighbors may be theoretically significant. It presents a territorial explanation of the relationship and juxtaposes it with the proximity and interaction explanations. Each of the three explanations is appraised in terms of explicit criteria to see which is the most adequate. Ultimately, however, each explanation must specify a set of tests that would falsify it, and this article does so for the territorial explanation. The article concludes with some implications for peace in the post-Cold War era if the theoretical explanation is correct.

The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz's Balancing Proposition

Several analysts argue that, despite anomalies, the realist paradigm is dominant because it is more fertile than its rivals. While the ability of the realist paradigm to reformulate its theories in light of criticism accounts for its persistence, it is argued that the proliferation of emendations exposes a degenerating tendency in the paradigms research program. This article applies Lakatoss criterion that a series of related theories must produce problemshifts that are progressive rather than degenerating to appraise the adequacy of realist-based theories on the balancing of power advanced by neotraditionalists. This research program is seen as degenerating because of (1) the protean character of its theoretical development, (2) an unwillingness to specify what constitutes the true theory, which if falsified would lead to a rejection of the paradigm, (3) a continual adoption of auxiliary propositions to explain away flaws, and (4) a dearth of strong research findings.

A unified explanation of territorial conflict: Testing the impact of sampling bias, 1919-1992

This article develops a new unified territorial explanation of conflict that accounts for the possibility of certain factors affecting the rise of a militarized dispute, as well as the probability that a dispute will escalate to war. In the past, research linking territorial disputes to a relatively high probability of war outbreak has been criticized for underestimating the potential problem of sampling bias in the militarized interstate dispute (MID) data. This study utilizes newly available data on territorial claims going back to 1919 to determine, using a two-stage estimation procedure, whether the presence of territorial claims in the dispute onset phase affects the relationship between territorial militarized disputes and war in the second stage. It is found that territorial claims increase the probability of a militarized dispute occurring and that territorial MIDs increase the probability of war, even while controlling for the effect of territorial claims on dispute onset. The effect of territory across the two stages is consistent with the new territorial explanation of conflict and war and shows no sampling bias with regard to territory in the MID data.

Distinguishing Rivals That Go to War from Those That Do Not: A Quantitative Comparative Case Study of the Two Paths to War

Many interstate enduring rivalries experience wars, some do not. This analysis presents and tests an explanation of whether, why, and how rivals go to war. It is argued that rivalries between equal states that do not go to war are those in which territorial issues are not at stake. Rivalries in the absence of territorial issues tend to go to war only by being embroiled in an ongoing war by a third party. A series of tests with emphasis on rivalries between major states occurring during 1816–1986 supports the territorial explanation. Two distinct paths to war are empirically identified—one leading to a dyadic war involving a territorial dispute(s) and a second path by which rivals without a territorial dispute join an ongoing war because of contagion factors.

The Steps to War: Toward a Scientific Explanation of Correlates of War Findings

J. David Singer, ed., The Correlates of War, Vol. I, Research Origins and Rationale. New York: Free Press, 1979, 405 pp. J. David Singer and Associates, Explaining War: Selected Papers from the Correlates of War Project. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1979, 328 pp. J. David Singer and Michael D. Wallace, eds., To Augur Well: Early Warning Indicators in World Politics. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1979, 308 pp. J. David Singer, ed., The Correlates of War, Vol. II, Testing Some Realpolitik Models. New York: Free Press, i980, 328 pp. Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1g80. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, i982, 373 pp. J. David Singer and Richard J. Stoll, eds., Quantitative Indicators in World Politics: Timely Assurance and Early Warning. New York: Praeger, i984, 221 pp. J. David Singer, Deterrence, Arms Control, and Disarmament (with a new Epilogue). Lanham, Mass.: University Press of America, i984 (first published i962), 303 PP. Alan Ned Sabrosky, ed., Polarity and War: The Changing Structure of International Conflict. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, i985, 231 pp. Melvin Small and J. David Singer, eds., International War: An Anthology and Study Guide. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, i985, 393 pp.

Uncovering the Dangerous Alliances, 1495–1980

The empirical literature has found that interstate alliances are, with the exception of the nineteenth century after 1815, usually followed by war rather than by peace. This analysis tries to identify theoretically the characteristics of alliances that distinguish those that are followed by war from those that are followed by peace. It is argued that alliances that embody settlements of territorial disputes are most peaceful. Alliances consisting exclusively of major states or of states that have been successful in their last war are predicted to be war prone, while those that have the opposite characteristics are predicted to be followed by peace. An empirical analysis of the data shows that all of the above expectations are confirmed. The analysis concludes by using these characteristics to reexamine the classic Levy, 1981, study.

The Tangibility of Issues and Global Conflict: A Test of Rosenau's Issue Area Typology

While the concept of issue area in foreign policy has received wide theoretical attention, there has been little empirical research on it. This analysis tests five propositions derived from Rosenaus pre-theory in order to assess the role of issues in foreign policy cooperation-conflict. The findings show that the tangibility of issues is a potent variable in analyzing cooperation-conflict when combined with other intervening variables such as the number of actors, the costliness of employed resources, the frequency of contention, persistence, and linkages to other issues. The findings are then used to reformulate Rosenaus analysis into five new propositions which stipulate the conditions under which the tangibility of issues will lead to cooperation-conflict and the kinds of behavior associated with each of Rosenaus four issue areas.

Conceptualizing ConflictSpace: Toward a Geography of Relational Power and Embeddedness in the Analysis of Interstate Conflict

The concept of ConflictSpace facilitates the systematic analysis of interstate conflict data. Building on relational theories of power, we identify the spatiality of conflict as a combination of territorial and network embeddedness. The former is modeled through spatial analysis and the latter by social network analysis. A brief empirical example of the spread of World War I illustrates how the position of states within physical and network spaces explains their roles within a broader geography of territorial settings and network relations.

Assessing the Steps to War

This analysis outlines and tests the steps-to-war explanation of international conflict. At the core of this explanation is the expectation that territorial disputes are a key source of war and that as states that have these disputes make politically relevant alliances, have recurring disputes and build up their military forces against each other, they will experience ever-increasing probabilities of war. The absence of these risk factors is expected to lessen the chances of severe conflict. Utilizing the Militarized Interstate Dispute data of the Correlates of War project, the data analyses provide full support for the steps-to-war explanation during the 1816–1945 era and partial support for the Cold War nuclear 1946–92 span. Among the findings for this latter period is the presence of a curvilinear relationship between the number of prior disputes and the probability of war – after a large number of disputes, states begin to ritualize their behaviour at levels short of war.

Classification of interstate wars

One of the recent lessons suggested by the scientific study of war is that different wars have different causes. Related to this lesson is the belief that war is multicausal and that there are different paths to war. Both these claims imply the need to create a typology of war and set the domain of various explanations of war. This article constructs a scientific typology and classifies all interstate wars from 1816 through 1997. Wars are classified along three dimensions—their size, the issues that give rise to them, and the behavior of states before the war. The classification portrays what are the similarities and dissimilarities in the underlying causes of each type of war. The analysis demonstrates that a clear typology of wars (mutually exclusive and logically exhaustive) can be created and is empirically informative.