Suzanne Werner

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.

Absolute and limited war: The possibility of foreign‐imposed regime change

This paper examines the relationship between foreign imposed regime change and war participation. The oppertunity and willingness of an opponent to impose a new regime on a war participant affects the likelihood that such a change will occur. Results from a logistic regression model suggest that (1) winning or losing the war, (2) the amount of war costs the participant endures, (3) the power of the participant relative to its opponent, (4) the amount of war costs the opponent endures, (5) the occurrence of a domestic regime change during the war, and (6) the difference between the authority structures of the war participant and its opponent all have a significant and sizable impact on the probability that a war participant endures a foreign imposed regime change. The first three variables measure the opponents opportunity to force a regime change, while the last three measure its willingness. I suggest that these results increase our ability to evaluate the likely consequences of a war, and may have impo...

Sensitivity to Costs of Fighting versus Sensitivity to Losing the Conflict

Nations differ in their tolerance for costs of fighting and in their willingness to make concessions. We use a bargaining model of war to analyze these sensitivities. Incentives created by heightened sensitivity to costs often—but not always—contradict those created by heightened sensitivity to making concessions. The results establish the effects of the two sensitivities on key conflict variables such as the frequency with which nations initiate conflicts, are targeted, engage in long or short wars, or receive favorable or unfavorable settlements. It is often asserted that democratic leaders are more sensitive to costs and conflict outcomes than autocrats. If so, then our model suggests that when the two sensitivities reinforce each other, empirical work will yield robust effects of regime type on conflict variables, but when the two sensitivities counter each other, estimated effects will be more ambiguous unless researchers consider which sensitivity dominates.

The Dynamics of Bargaining and War

Filson and Werner (2002) introduce a formal model of bargaining and war to explore conditions under which states that can negotiate settlements choose to initiate and terminate violence. Filson and Werner (2004) apply the model to obtain testable hypotheses about the impact of regime type on war onset, duration, and outcomes. The model could provide a basis for a formal rational actor model of power transition with economic and political variables. However, additional dynamic structure would have to be added; Filson and Werner (2002, 2004) focus on simple environments. In this paper we begin to consider more complex dynamic environments using computational techniques. In doing so, we explore the conditions under which wars endure. The results clarify how the initial distribution of resources (power) and benefits, beliefs, and regime type affect whether wars begin, how quickly they end, and what deals are made.