Michael D. McGinnis

Social-ecological system framework: initial changes and continuing challenges

The social-ecological system (SES) framework investigated in this special issue enables researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds working on different resource sectors in disparate geographic areas, biophysical conditions, and temporal domains to share a common vocabulary for the construction and testing of alternative theories and models that determine which influences on processes and outcomes are especially critical in specific empirical settings. We summarize changes that have been made to this framework and discuss a few remaining ambiguities in its formulation. Specifically, we offer a tentative rearrangement of the list of relevant attributes of governance systems and discuss other ways to make this framework applicable to policy settings beyond natural resource settings. The SES framework will continue to change as more researchers apply it to additional contexts; the main purpose of this article is to delineate the version that served as the basis for the theoretical innovations and empirical analyses detailed in other contributions to this special issue.

CHANGE AND STABILITY IN SUPERPOWER RIVALRY

We investigate the dynamics of superpower rivalry. Participants in policy debates within each state use information about expected future threats and economic costs to influence other policy actors, and this process of sophisticated reaction links the security policies of these two states into a single rivalry system. Analysis of vector autoregression models of U.S. and Soviet military expenditures and diplomatic hostility and U.S. gross national product supports the hypothesis that these policies approximate the behavior of unitary rational states capable of forming rational expectations of each others future behavior. The dynamic response of this system to a wide range of exogenous shocks (or innovations) reveals the underlying stability of this rivalry system. The military expenditures of both states exhibit a cyclical response to innovations, with a shorter U.S. cycle. This lack of synchronization creates several problems for analysis and for policy change.

A Rational Model of Regional Rivalry

A rational choice model of the arms acquisitions and alignments of regional rivals is developed that incorporates the restraining effects of economic opportunity costs as well as the political opportunity costs of alignment concessions and dependence on foreign sources of arms. Emphasis is placed on the consequences of substitutability between arms and alignment in the production of security and on the connections between rivalries at the regional and global levels. This model imposes only general qualitative restrictions rather than specific equations, and it encompasses a wide range of behavior, including self-reliance, diversification, dependence, nonalignment, alignment reversals, and a generalized arms-alignment race. The broad scope of this model poses several challenges for future formal and empirical research in this area.

Richardson, Rationality, and Restrictive Models of Arms Races

Richardsons simple arms race model inspired an extensive (and still growing) body of research by scholars in many disciplines. Unfortunately, much of this work follows Richardsons lead by paying scant attention to domestic politics and decision-making processes. Despite the use of increasingly sophisticated formal models, empirical measures, and statistical methods, progress has been stymied by continued reliance on rigid models and literal interpretations of statistical tests, especially regarding the relative potency of external and internal factors. A new approach to modeling is required if we are to understand the underlying dynamics of resource allocation that sustain an arms race. The author argues that the substantive complexities of arms rivalries can be implicitly encompassed by simple rational models considerably less restrictive than Richardsons model.

Policy Uncertainty in Two-Level Games: Examples of Correlated Equilibria

Recent research on two-level game models emphasizes the close interaction between the domestic and foreign policies of states, but these states are usually interpreted as unitary rational actors and these two policy arenas are generally kept separate. We develop integrated models of multi-level policy games in which the locus of strategic action remains at the individual (or group) level. Social choice theory identifies fundamental dilemmas associated with assuming that states have consistent preferences, yet empirical observation reveals that domestic political competition results in regularized patterns of behavior at the state and international levels. In our models the expectations of individual Bayesian policy actors converge to a “correlated equilibrium” that defines a probability distribution over domestic and foreign policy outcomes. We compare examples of correlated equilibria in a Chicken game between two unitary rational states, a voting game among three domestic groups, and a two-level game in which each states foreign policy is determined by this voting game. By focusing on the collective consequences of the strategic interactions of Bayesian rational individuals, this synthesis of game, social choice, and Bayesian decision theories highlights fundamental linkages among the regularities observed in domestic politics, foreign policy, and international relations.

The Dimension of Superpower Rivalry

The security policies of the United States and the Soviet Union can be interpreted as manifestations of a single “rivalry system.” If each states security policies are driven by the same underlying factors, then any effort to separate the contributions of internal and external determinants of the arms race is essentially misleading. We use dynamic factor analysis to evaluate whether an unobservable dimension of rivalry explains the dynamics exhibited by the military expenditures and diplomatic hostility of these two states. A one-factor model explains much of the variance of these data series, although some evidence indicates the possible existence of a second factor. More generally, the results of this analysis question the validity of many structural equation models of dyadic interaction.

From self-reliant churches to self-governing communities: comparing the indigenization of Christianity and democracy in sub-Saharan Africa

Christian missionaries, especially from Anglo-American Protestant denominations, have been remarkably successful in their effort to plant ‘self-propagating, self-supporting, self-governing’ churches throughout the world and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Todays international non-governmental organizations and inter-governmental organizations engaged in development, humanitarian assistance, peace-building and human rights resemble ‘secular missionaries’ spreading their gospel of democracy, good governance, peace, justice and sustainable development. This article investigates the extent to which todays secular missionaries might learn from the indigenization of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. I conclude that an essential ingredient in the missionary strategy of evangelization is conspicuously absent in contemporary programmes of development, democratization, or peace-building. In particular, the extensive efforts devoted by Protestant missionaries to the translation of their Biblical message into local languages and symbolic repertoires bear little resemblance to efforts to transplant Western ideals of universal human rights or the institutional templates of democratic governance first developed in the United States and Western Europe.

Perfect Deterrence. By Frank C. Zagare and D. Marc Kilgour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 441p.

For too long, nuclear deterrence theory has been treated as a casualty of the end of the Cold War. During the preceding period of superpower rivalry, debates over the credibility of nuclear deterrence attracted the attention of sophisticated game theorists in diverse disciplines. But with the end of the Cold War, this research tradition virtually ground to a halt. In this important new book, two long-term contributors to this body of research revisit these issues and effectively recast these models as representations of policy dilemmas of long-standing and continuing relevance. For instance, their models of U.S. strategic doctrines of massive retaliation and flexible response prove relevant to any situation in which the parties perceive two levels of conflict to be significantly different, even if neither level involves the use of nuclear weapons.