front cover of Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks
Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks
Prospect Theory and International Conflict
Barbara Farnham, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1995

This volume is a comprehensive examination of the benefits and potential pitfalls of employing prospect theory---a leading alternative to expected utility as a theory of decision under risk---to understand and explain political behavior. The collection brings together both theoretical and empirical studies, thus grounding the conclusions about prospect theory's potential for enriching political analyses in an assessment of its performance in explaining actual cases.

The theoretical chapters provide an overview of the main hypotheses of prospect theory: people frame risk-taking decisions around a reference point, they tend to accept greater risk to prevent losses than to make gains, and they often perceive the devastation of a loss as greater than the benefit of a gain. The three case studies---Roosevelt's decision-making during the Munich crisis of 1938, Carter's April 1980 decision to rescue the American hostages in Iran, and Soviet behavior toward Syria in 1966-67---generally support these hypotheses. Nevertheless, the authors are frank about potentially difficult conceptual and methodological problems, making explicit reference to alternative explanations, such as the rational actor model, which posits the maximization of expected value.

Contributors to the volume include Jack Levy, Robert Jervis, Barbara Farnham, Rose McDermott, Audrey McInerney, and Eldar Shafir.

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front cover of Crisis Bargaining and the State
Crisis Bargaining and the State
The Domestic Politics of International Conflict
Susan Peterson
University of Michigan Press, 1996
The first book to systematically explore the importance of domestic institutions to crisis bargaining, Crisis Bargaining and the State argues that the influence of a state's bargaining behavior on its opponents foreign policy depends on the nature of the opposing government--its institutional structures and the strategic beliefs of its leaders. The author shows in three detailed case studies--the Crimean War crisis, the Fashoda crisis, and the Berlin crisis--the significance of domestic factors to questions of war and peace.
Peterson offers a comprehensive analysis of the domestic politics of crisis bargaining. She uses differences in state structure to explain variations in foreign policy processes and outcomes. By introducing domestic structure as a crucial intervening variable between the international environment and a state's foreign policy during an acute conflict, Peterson shows how existing cognitive and bureaucratic approaches provide complementary, not competing, explanations of crisis bargaining.
Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict applies recent research in the field of international political economy on the relationship between ideas, institutions, and the international environment to the issue of crisis bargaining. It will appeal to students, scholars, and policymakers interested in crisis bargaining, international security, and international relations.
Susan Peterson is Assistant Professor, Department of Government, The College of William & Mary.
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front cover of Economic Interdependence and International Conflict
Economic Interdependence and International Conflict
New Perspectives on an Enduring Debate
Edward D. Mansfield and Brian M. Pollins, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2003
The claim that open trade promotes peace has sparked heated debate among scholars and policymakers for centuries. Until recently, however, this claim remained untested and largely unexplored. Economic Interdependence and International Conflict clarifies the state of current knowledge about the effects of foreign commerce on political-military relations and identifies the avenues of new research needed to improve our understanding of this relationship. The contributions to this volume offer crucial insights into the political economy of national security, the causes of war, and the politics of global economic relations.
Edward D. Mansfield is Hum Rosen Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Brian M. Pollins is Associate Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and a Research Fellow at the Mershon Center.
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front cover of Good Fences, Bad Neighbors
Good Fences, Bad Neighbors
Border Fixity and International Conflict
Boaz Atzili
University of Chicago Press, 2011

Border fixity—the proscription of foreign conquest and the annexation of homeland territory—has, since World War II, become a powerful norm in world politics. This development has been said to increase stability and peace in international relations. Yet, in a world in which it is unacceptable to challenge international borders by force, sociopolitically weak states remain a significant source of widespread conflict, war, and instability.

In this book, Boaz Atzili argues that the process of state building has long been influenced by external territorial pressures and competition, with the absence of border fixity contributing to the evolution of strong states—and its presence to the survival of weak ones. What results from this norm, he argues, are conditions that make internal conflict and the spillover of interstate war more likely. Using a comparison of historical and contemporary case studies, Atzili sheds light on the relationship between state weakness and conflict. His argument that under some circumstances an international norm that was established to preserve the peace may actually create conditions that are ripe for war is sure to generate debate and shed light on the dynamics of continuing conflict in the twenty-first century.

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front cover of Mixed Emotions
Mixed Emotions
Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict
Andrew A. G. Ross
University of Chicago Press, 2013
In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that emotion plays a central role in global politics. For example, people readily care about acts of terrorism and humanitarian crises because they appeal to our compassion for human suffering. These struggles also command attention where social interactions have the power to produce or intensify the emotional responses of those who participate in them.
           
From passionate protests to poignant speeches, Andrew A. G. Ross analyzes high-emotion events with an eye to how they shape public sentiment and finds that there is no single answer. The politically powerful play to the public’s emotions to advance their political aims, and such appeals to emotion also often serve to sustain existing values and  institutions. But the affective dimension can produce profound change, particularly when a struggle in the present can be shown to line up with emotionally resonant events from the past. Extending his findings to well-studied conflicts, including the War on Terror and the violence in Rwanda and the Balkans, Ross identifies important sites of emotional impact missed by earlier research focused on identities and interests.

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front cover of Standing Your Ground
Standing Your Ground
Territorial Disputes and International Conflict
Paul K. Huth
University of Michigan Press, 1998
Through an examination of 129 territorial disputes between 1950 and 1990, Paul Huth presents a new theoretical approach for analyzing the foreign policy behavior of states, one that integrates insights from traditional realist as well as domestic political approaches to the study of foreign policy. Huth's approach is premised on the belief that powerful explanations of security policy must be built on the recognition that foreign policy leaders are domestic politicians who are very attentive to the domestic implications of foreign policy actions. Hypotheses derived from this new modified realist mode are then empirically tested by a combination of statistical and case study analysis.
". . . a welcome contribution to our understanding of how and why some territorial disputes escalate to war."--American Political Science Review
Paul Huth is Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Research Scientist, Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
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