International Relations 101 (#24): Understanding War

For unitary actor war to occur, you need a grievance and a source of bargaining failure. Explanations for war that only give one of these are therefore insufficient. That said, political scientists tend to focus on the sources of bargaining failure because they tend to recur more frequently.

[EuroUser]

One of my favourite videos. A cathartic moment when I realized that much of what I was taught at school was wrong or, at least, seriously incomplete. Thank you very much for sharing these thoughts.

[cshzvbi]

Thx for the information. I got a war to start

[MahelyMusic]

Hello Willian, thanks for your very interesting videos.
I have a question for you... Do you think Nationalism is the key factor behind many conflicts?

kee doing videos :D

[orktv]

What puzzles me is that the typical problem you consider is two countries with land that they want to have. But hardly ever see countries giving away land in a negotiation. Why is that and how does this work in practice?

[oweenbarranzuela]

What do you think is the best and more effective way to prevent war? Is it democratic peace theory

[jeffreycliff]

) I think you're jumping the gun a little bit here (though it's still a good point even so) - these are only incomplete *rational* explanations for war. There is another option, and though it's unclear where to put it it's necessary (but not sufficient) - *some* degree of rational behaviour. A unitary actor needs to actually pay attention to costs and benefits in order for bargaining to even happen.

Likewise, you have to be willing to bargain, to treat the person on the other end of the bargain as someone you *can* bargain with.

As a rational explanation of war, you are dead on in splitting into bargaining & greivance problems. But you need this third part and some wars in history can be argued that this third part failed, and *how* they failed shows up in sticky preferences causing indivisible goods, etc.