In a widely, but undeservedly overlooked book, Payne (1989) raised two important issues. First, he argued that many cross-national analyses of military burdens and arms races are misleading, because they rely on expenditure-based measures that are not comparable beyond OECD nations. This...

The empirical evidence on democracy and war involvement indicates two quite robust findings. First, democracies do not differ from other regimes in their degree of war involvement. Second, war is extremely rare between democracies. So, the pacifying impact of democracy is restricted to relations...

There are many rebellions, fewer successful rebellions, and extremely few social revolutions. First, the relative frequencies of elite and mass rebellions are investigated. Because a rational choice approach finds it easier to explain elite rebellions and a deprivation approach seems tailored to...