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The emotive causes of recurrent international conflicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

William J. Long  and
Peter Brecke
William J. Long
Affiliation:
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0610 USA [email protected]
Peter Brecke
Affiliation:
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0610 USA [email protected]

Abstract

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Many international conflicts are recurrent, and many of these are characterized by periods of violence, including wars, that are hard to describe as planned products of rational decision-making. Analysis of these conflicts according to rational-choice international-relations theory or constructivist approaches has been less revealing than might have been hoped. We consider the possibility that emotive causes could better explain, or at least improve the explanation of, observed patterns. We offer three emotive models of recurrent conflict and we outline a method by which the reliability of emotive explanations derived from these models could be tested prospectively.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 24 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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