The concept of international affinity—albeit under different names—captures a central place in international relations research. This study examines how different types of affinity affect the likelihood of conflict between states. The authors discuss different types of affinities...

Ample empirical evidence suggests that there exist structural differences between groups of states in terms of conflict involvement rates. A small group of states accounts for most conflicts and wars in international politics. Another group of states managed to avoid conflict involvement for...

Enduring international rivalries represent a set of relationships between states characterized by repeated conflict. This study explores their strategic evolution. We develop a game-theoretic model in which preferences of actors for any given situation are determined by two factors: satisfaction...

A major problem of system theories of international politics is the tendency to ignore state preferences altogether. Alternatively, system theories tend to impute preferences to states on the basis of assumptions based on tenuous empirical or logical foundations. Such, for example, is the...

This study examines the effect of polarization and interdependence on systemic conflict. It argues that both polarization and interdependence must be conceptualized in terms of different types of relations among states and that different relationships would reflect varied levels of polarization...

Although mediation between disputing states seems to have become a prevalent method of conflict resolution, especially in the post-Cold War era, the fact remains that in only 35% of all militarized disputes since World War II did some form of third-party mediation take place. This suggests that...

This study examines the extent to which network formation processes in international relations parallel models that characterize the formation processes of physical, biological, and social networks. I introduce two influential models from networks sciences: Preferential Attachment (PA) models...