Some scholars known as <italic>offensive realists</italic> claim that in the uncertainty of world politics, trust and cooperation between states is extremely unlikely. Others, such as <italic>defensive realists</italic>, claim that rational states are capable of finding ways to counteract the complications created by...

Using a sample of battlefield data from twentieth-century wars, the author of this article tests a number of previously untested hypotheses linking battle events and the decision to end violent conflict. The author explores how factors like the distribution of power, battlefield casualties, and...

Do military alliances foster aggressive behavior in allies to the point of undermining the security goal of the alliance? Like others, we find that alliance commitments may cause moral hazard because allies do not fully internalize the costs of actions that can lead to war. But unlike others, we...

Fluctuations in the price of oil and the contemporaneous political changes in oil-producing countries have raised an important question about the link between oil rents, political institutions, and civil liberties. This article presents a simple model of the relationship between resource income...

Existant studies of confl ict, negotiation and international relations do not take into account that the institutions used to resolve disputes shape the incentives for entering disputes in the first place. Because engagement in a costly and destructive war is the `punishment' for entering a...