Evolutionary determinants of war

This paper considers evolutionarily stable decisions about whether to initiate violent conflict rather than accepting a peaceful sharing outcome. Focusing on small sets of players such as countries in a geographically confined area, we use the concept of evolutionary stability in finite populations. We find that players’ evolutionarily stable preferences widen the range of peaceful resource allocations that are rejected in favor of violent conflict, compared to the Nash equilibrium outcomes. Relative advantages in fighting strength are reflected in the equilibrium set of peaceful resource allocations.     

Do Distinct (National) Operational Styles of Conflict Resolution Exist?

This article contains a reply to a previously published paper on the use and abuse of the so-called Dutch approach to counterinsurgency. In addition to commenting on this paper, the article constitutes an argument to initiate more comparative studies in the field of military and strategic studies. Only comparative studies will help to better understand the effectiveness of military force in preventing, containing and solving violent conflicts.     

Country survey XVIII: The two Koreas' defence economy

In this paper we change the structure of the basic conflict model. This makes it possible to found an economic theory of war and peace. Apart from few exceptions there exist no peace equilibria in the related literature of conflict theory. The aim of the paper is to fill this gap, because most parts of the world live in peace. Further we show that negotiations are possible to avoid a war. The main result is that war breaks out only if the distribution of resources and/or the effectiveness of weapons is sufficiently unequal.     

MACROECONOMIC ASPECTS OF INTERNAL CONFLICTS: A CONCEPTUALISATION

This exploratory paper outlines the special macroeconomic features of countries populated by two groups of people engaged in internal conflict yet forming a central government for generating benefits that cannot be privately attained. Each group exerts an influence on the central government in accordance with its relative military strength. The central government collects taxes, exports the country’s natural resources and tourist attractions, attracts external grants and loans, and distributes the net revenues between the rival groups. The paper highlights the implications of the groups’ investment in military strength for the state’s net revenues and their distribution, for the state’s external debt, and for the groups’ ability to maintain and increase their ranks, production capital and per capita income.     

CHOOSING GENOCIDE: ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON THE DISTURBING RATIONALITY OF RACE MURDER

An economic theory of genocide is presented with application to Rwanda‐1994. The theory considers ‘macro’ conditions under which an authority group chooses genocide and ‘micro’ conditions that facilitate the spread of genocide. From the macro perspective, a bargaining model highlights four rational explanations for an authority’s choice of genocide: prevention of loss of power, indivisibility, elimination of a persistent rival, and political bias. From the micro perspective, an evolutionary game model shows how supporters of genocide gain the upper hand in group dynamics over resisters and bystanders. The theory and application suggest that the conditions for genocide are not exceptional.     

THE EFFECT OF OPPORTUNITY COST AND HAWKISHNESS ON PROTESTS IN OCCUPIED REGIONS

This paper examines how the opportunity costs of the leader of a national protest movement and the intrinsic hawkishness or pacifism of the occupier affect the nature of the movement against occupation. The characteristics of the population residing in the occupied region, the nature of punishment that is being meted out to the protestors, and the structure of enforcement costs that lead to these outcomes are discussed in the paper.     

Market reactions to regulations on minerals from the democratic republic of the Congo

Using an event study approach to analyze stock market data from the United States, I investigate how regulations on conflict minerals sourced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were perceived by investors. I find that for a subset of mining companies, stock returns were abnormally high when regulations in the US became more likely. I also find that returns were higher for communications equipment manufacturing companies when strong regulations in the DRC were announced. I argue that these responses were due to the competitive environments faced by each of these company types. These findings relate to debates surrounding the effects of the conflict mineral regulations. While some critics argue that reporting requirements were tantamount to a ban on minerals from the DRC, I find that stock returns for a subset of companies were sensitive to legislation in the DRC after legislation became law in the US, suggesting that market participants did not expect a complete trade ban on regulated mining and trading activities.     

潜载/舰载作战系统的对抗效能分析

首先分析了潜艇与水面舰艇对抗时的相对效能,然后强调了潜艇隐蔽作战方式的重要性．最后,对提高潜载作战系统效能关键技术的发展提出了建议．     

Institutions,information, and commitment: the role of democracy in conflict

This paper explores the hypothesis that both the preexisting quality of democracy in a polity at the onset of conflict and the quality of democracy expected to emerge in the aftermath influence the likelihood of civil war. An empirical investigation of the hypothesis presents a challenge due to concerns of endogeneity and selection: the post-conflict level of democracy is endogenous to the pre-conflict level. Further, for a given time period, either a number of countries have not experienced civil war; or if they did, did not resolve the conflict. We overcome this selection bias by implementing a three-step extension to the Heckman procedure using an unbalanced cross-country panel of 77 countries over the period 1971–2005. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that a standard deviation improvement in the existing level of democracy reduces the probability of civil war by approximately 9 percentage points and a corresponding improvement in expected post-conflict democratization increases the probability of conflict by approximately 48 percentage points.     

The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War

This paper asks whether Bosnian Serb leaders’ choice to carry out a secession war in 1992–1995 was rational from the point of view of their stated goal of ethnic cleansing. We construct two indexes, one of ethnic purity and another of ethnic Serb concentration, and apply them to a counterfactual estimate of the outcome of ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing – what could have been achieved by population exchange based on pre-war territorial Serb power without war – in comparison to the actual outcome of the war. We find that the gross benefits of the chosen strategy of secession and war far exceed anything that could be achieved by the peaceful alternative. A conjectural assessment of perceived costs suggests that also net benefits were maximized by the war strategy. The implication for international deterrence policy is that credible judicial prosecution and punishment is the best way to alter the prospective perpetrators’ calculus.