military capabilities and war outcomes. Drawing on scholarship that conceptualizes revolutions as a unique class of modernizing … more successful war outcomes. …

Theories of civil war usually theorize the choices of civilians and combatants without considering the institutional … context in which they interact. Despite common depictions of war as chaotic and anarchic, order often emerges locally … wartime institutions can contribute to our study of civil war both at the micro and macro levels. …

One dominant explanation for why crises escalate to war is based on misperception. Alternative rational explanations … for why crises escalate to war are examined, including commitment problems, the cost of revealing military advantages, and … a desire for greater future gains. These explanations for war argue that states are likely to prefer a military to a …

or encourage war between those two states? Distortions of both theory and evidence—mixing balances of power with … approximate parity in power capabilities encouraged war between great power disputants between 1816 and 1989. …

, should a war between them continue to a decisive conclusion. The players' divergent beliefs make up one of the fundamental … potential causes of war in the model. Fey and Ramsay argue that Smith and Stam's departure from the standard common priors … rational actors with divergent beliefs might settle their disagreements in the context of war. …

The authors analyze a bargaining model of war that incorporates both commitment problems due to shifting power and … information models, the resolution of uncertainty through fighting can lead to the continuation of war rather than its termination …. Second, wars can be less—not more—likely to end in settlement the longer they last. Third, war aims increase over time as a …