Robert T. Holt

Catastrophe Theory and the Study of War

The methodologies and conceptual frameworks employed by contemporary scholars do not satisfactorily account for the outbreak of international violence. Particularly frustrating to the analyst are the facts: (1) Some wars start and escalate suddenly while others begin and gradually build in intensity; yet in either case assumed causal factors are seen to vary smoothly and continuously through time. (2) The international system may be either at war or at peace at two separate time points even though the causal factors exhibit similar configurations. What is required is a framework that can deal with continuous and discontinuous dependent variables and continuous independent variables. Catastrophe theory provides the necessary classifactory structure in which to construct a systemic-level theory of the occurrence of international violence. Changes in the level of violence in World War I and World War II and the differences between these two conflicts are interpreted in the context of a particular catastrophe model—the butterfly. Catastrophe theory is discussed in light of the problems of description, classification, and empirical generalization in the construction of social science theory.

Crises and Sequences in Collective Theory Development

Since 1954, the Committee on Comparative Politics has provided leadership in the comparative field, and one of its central objectives has been to construct a theory of political development. The books in the series that were published in the 1960s lacked rigorous design, although they did provide data and low-level generalizations which could be used in the theory-building task. This essay focuses primarily on Crises and Sequences in Political Development , which is authored solely by Committee members and reports on the results of their theoretical work thus far. The Committee takes the “intuitive empirical generalization” approach to theory development—in contrast with systematic empirical generalization and the analytic-deductive procedure. It is unlikely, however, that the Committees approach will lead to the formulation of a coherent set of interrelated propositions within which empirical phenomena can be explained. But the Committees work is not atypical of the theoretical literature in political science, which reflects the reward structure of the discipline. The building of powerful theories will be facilitated when emphasis is placed on the development of clearly falsifiable propositions rather than on the development of loose conceptual frameworks.

The Scholar as Artisan

In an age when there are increasing pressures on social scientists to produce knowledge that is directly relevant for dealing with problems confronting societies, it is useful to look at the scholar as an artisan. A producer-consumer relationship can then be identified. In such a relationship the kind of protection that consumers have under modern commercial codes for ordinary products should also protect them when they “purchase” the products of social scientists. While such protection is reasonable, it is not reasonable to have the state enforce the warranties. This might destroy the independent academy. The professoriate collectively must enforce the warranties in a guild-like manner.